How One Builder Grew From $100K to $5M and Learned Hard Lessons
Growing a construction company sounds exciting from the outside.
More projects, more revenue, and a larger team often appear to be signs of success. But as Jonathan Oakes explains in this episode of the Meridian Pursuit Builder Podcast, growth can expose weaknesses that were previously hidden.
Jonathan is the owner of Bailey Building and Construction, Inc. in Ocala, Florida. During his conversation with Jesse Sampley, he shares lessons learned from growing a third generation construction company, managing people, improving systems, and building a stronger foundation for the future.
Building on a Family Legacy
Jonathan's family has been involved in construction for generations.
His grandfather started the company in the 1950s. Later, ownership passed to his uncle before Jonathan eventually took over the business.
Despite the family connection, Jonathan did not spend his early career working directly for the company. Instead, he worked for other contractors, learned different parts of the industry, and gained experience through remodeling, superintendent work, commercial projects, and service work.
Those experiences helped shape the builder he would eventually become.
Today, Bailey Building and Construction, Inc. focuses primarily on additions, remodeling projects, accessory dwelling units, garages, and custom residential work.
Why Additions Became a Specialty
One area where Jonathan has built a strong reputation is additions.
He explained that his goal is to make an addition look like it was always part of the original home. When the project is complete, he wants homeowners to struggle to identify where the original structure ends and the addition begins.
While additions can be rewarding, they also come with unique challenges.
Existing landscaping, permitting requirements, structural integration, and working around occupied homes often make these projects more complicated than new construction.
Even so, Jonathan enjoys the challenge and has built a business around solving those problems.
The Reality of Construction Company Growth
One of the most valuable parts of the conversation focused on growth.
Jonathan shared that Bailey Building and Construction, Inc. grew from roughly $100,000 in revenue when he first took over to nearly $5 million in annual revenue.
However, growth did not automatically translate into profitability.
In fact, Jonathan openly discussed how the company lost money while growing.
The experience forced him to evaluate every part of the business.
Hiring decisions.
Project management.
Financial controls.
Communication.
Accountability.
Each area required improvement as the company became larger and more complex.
His story serves as a reminder that revenue growth alone does not guarantee business success.
The Hiring Lesson That Changed Everything
One of Jonathan's biggest challenges came from a management hire.
The candidate appeared to be an ideal fit.
The resume was strong.
References checked out.
The experience matched what the company needed.
Yet the results were disappointing.
Projects became delayed, cash flow slowed, and performance issues continued for months.
Looking back, Jonathan admitted that part of the problem was his own leadership approach.
He trusted too much.
He avoided holding people accountable.
He gave too many opportunities instead of addressing problems quickly.
The experience reinforced an important lesson that many builders eventually learn:
Good people still require accountability.
Jonathan referenced advice he received from a local business leader:
"Hire slow and fire fast."
The lesson stuck with him because he realized he had done the opposite.
Why People Are Harder Than Construction
Throughout the conversation, Jonathan repeatedly returned to one theme.
Construction itself is not the hardest part of the business.
Managing people is.
The physical work follows established processes and methods.
The challenge comes from aligning employees, subcontractors, clients, and vendors around common goals.
A single person who is not performing can disrupt schedules, communication, morale, and financial performance.
Jonathan believes successful construction companies depend on finding people who genuinely care about the work and the success of the organization.
That is often much harder than building the project itself.
Managing Subcontractor Relationships
Like many builders, Jonathan relies heavily on trusted subcontractors.
For years, he worked with the same trade partners on nearly every project.
As the company grew, however, capacity became a challenge.
Some subcontractors became overloaded.
Project schedules began competing with each other.
The company recognized the need to diversify relationships and build additional trade partnerships.
The goal was not to replace existing subcontractors.
Instead, it was to create flexibility and reduce risk.
This approach helped relieve pressure on existing trade partners while allowing projects to move forward more efficiently.
Cash Flow Is Critical
Cash flow emerged as another major topic.
Jonathan explained how quickly construction businesses can get into trouble when projects are delayed, payments slow down, or mistakes accumulate.
A few small issues combined with one larger problem can create significant financial pressure.
As the company grew, Jonathan realized that stronger financial systems were necessary.
Rather than treating all incoming revenue the same, funds are now allocated into specific categories and accounts.
Operating expenses.
Subcontractor payments.
Business obligations.
Each category has a purpose.
This structure creates better visibility and reduces the temptation to use funds intended for one purpose to solve another problem.
For builders looking to grow, Jonathan's experience highlights the importance of financial discipline.
Communication Creates Better Client Experiences
Another lesson from the episode centered on communication.
Jonathan believes many project frustrations begin with unclear expectations.
When clients do not understand timelines, processes, or communication practices, confusion often follows.
To address this, he focuses on setting expectations at the beginning of projects.
He explains how communication will work.
He discusses what clients should expect.
He establishes realistic timelines.
This approach helps reduce misunderstandings later.
As Jonathan explained, customers generally appreciate honesty, even when they may not love the answer.
What they dislike most is uncertainty.
Marketing Still Starts With Reputation
When discussing marketing, Jonathan emphasized that word of mouth remains his most valuable lead source.
Referrals continue to drive business growth.
He also highlighted the importance of community involvement, networking groups, and professional organizations.
These relationships help create visibility while building trust over time.
The company is active on social media and works with a marketing partner to share content online.
What has generated the most engagement, however, is not advertising.
It is honest conversation.
Jonathan believes people connect with authenticity, transparency, and real stories.
That approach aligns closely with the values he wants his company to represent.
Final Thoughts
Despite the challenges, Jonathan remains optimistic about the future.
The lessons learned through growth have strengthened both the company and his leadership.
The systems are improving.
Processes are becoming more structured.
Expectations are clearer.
Most importantly, the mistakes of the past are creating a stronger foundation for the future.
For builders navigating growth, Jonathan's story offers a practical reminder that success often comes through difficult lessons, honest reflection, and continuous improvement.
Key Takeaways
- Word of mouth remains one of the strongest sources of quality leads.
- Growth requires strong systems, accountability, and financial structure.
- Hiring decisions can significantly impact project performance and cash flow.
- Clear communication helps manage client expectations.
- Learning to say no to the wrong projects can improve long term results.
Listen to the Full Episode
This conversation with Jonathan Oakes provides an honest look at the realities of growing a construction company. From hiring and cash flow to communication and leadership, the discussion highlights lessons that many builders will recognize from their own experiences.
Why did Jonathan Oakes focus on additions and remodeling projects?
He built much of his experience in that area and enjoys the challenge of making additions blend seamlessly with existing homes.
What was one of the biggest lessons from growing his company?
Growth requires strong systems, accountability, and financial structure.
Why does Jonathan emphasize hiring carefully?
A poor hiring decision created project delays and cash flow challenges that impacted the business.
What does "hire slow and fire fast" mean?
It means taking time to make the right hiring decision and addressing performance issues quickly when they occur.
What marketing strategy has worked best for his company?
Word of mouth referrals remain the strongest source of new business.
How does Jonathan approach client communication?
He focuses on setting expectations early and communicating clearly throughout the project.
Full Podcast Transcript
Jesse Sampley (00:18.969)
It's real conversations with, with real builders and designers and architects and people that are really doing it. And the point of this is to, you know, either help the younger people out there to help people that are maybe just siloed, you know, in their own area to think, you know, Hey, what are, am I, am I alone? Am I the only person that's got issues or there are other people out there that are experiencing some similar things, you know, is
Am I just in a soft market over here in Texas or are people in Florida experiencing the same thing? it's really just to have more of a conversation with people that are out there doing it and let them know that, hey, there's a lot of common ground here, no pun intended.
Jonathan (01:03.821)
Yeah.
Jonathan (01:08.349)
And there is
I mean, and at least for me there is. mean, and I've talked to other builders, you know, we have the Marion County Building Association here and that's a good organization that, every builder that is around should be a member of. Even if they may not fully agree with some things that has happened or did happen in that association, you can't change anything unless you actually do something about it, you know, just sitting off
Jesse Sampley (01:13.083)
Mm-hmm.
Jonathan (01:40.5)
to decide complaining about whatever isn't going to change or make our future better. It's not going to better our community. It's not going to better our industry. And that's all I'm about. I'm just trying to do the best I can. I'm not perfect. I make mistakes every freaking day. know, where are those mistakes? Try to ...
Jesse Sampley (01:46.193)
Yeah.
Jonathan (02:04.31)
Make it right in the best way I can, you know, and record that, show other people like, Hey, it's okay. You know, yeah, you shouldn't do these things, you know, but if you accidentally fall or make a mistake or whatever, you fill in the gap, just own it.
Jesse Sampley (02:06.363)
Yeah.
Jesse Sampley (02:23.847)
Exactly. just own it and then come to the table with a solution too. I think that's an important part is owning it is half of it, but then, I'm going to make this right. And sometimes it means I'm cutting a check to the client and I'm giving the money back. That was a guy I talked to just earlier today. He said that he was like, some of these mistakes that I've learned, these were not just humility.
Jonathan (02:30.232)
Yeah. Yeah.
Jesse Sampley (02:54.435)
mistakes, you these were things that actually affected my pocketbook, you know, and I was, just had to own it and say, Hey, I made a wrong hire someone that was working on my behalf. They messed up. And, I had to give the money back to the, to the customer and I didn't make, you know, any, or, as much, you know, profit as I was had planned to make, which, know, then trickles down and it creates other problems. you know, just, just to have the, that vulnerable
Jonathan (02:58.732)
Yeah.
Jesse Sampley (03:20.965)
conversations, you know, and hear that this was a guy that was, he builds, you know, four or five, $6 million homes up in Minnesota. And, know, just to hear that it's like, man, if that guy's going through stuff, you know, I think I'm good. You know, we're, there's a lot of common ground here, but if you would take, take me, give me a little context about, know, who, who you are and what kind of company you have, where you're building.
Jonathan (03:38.646)
Yeah.
Jesse Sampley (03:49.479)
Just so the people listening have context about where you're building at.
Jonathan (03:55.405)
Yeah, so my name is Jonathan Oakes. I'm third generation. My grandfather started this company in the 50s. His name was JB Bailey, James Burns Bailey. He took it forever. It was like 30 something years, 40 years, and then gave it to my uncle in the early 90s, I think.
And my uncle took it from there. they didn't have the ambitions or drives to grow or do a bunch of different projects. just stick with, they worked on one and that's the one they worked on. They may have had two or three going, but not like what we're doing right now. And then I honestly never worked with my family at all. I would work with my grandfather on the weekends and stuff, but I'll never.
I don't know why, but just never worked with my uncle, never worked with my grandfather. Even whenever I was in high school and started working for other contractors, I never even asked them. It was so weird. And looking back, I'm like, I can't believe I never worked with them. And I used to say it to them all the time, but in 2018, I, you know, after...
Jesse Sampley (05:02.074)
Yeah
Jonathan (05:11.854)
Years of, you know, I had my own business in high school and, um, but I was just working for another guy. was actually my ex-girlfriend's brother. He was a contractor and I was doing all kinds of stuff for him. And this was in the 2005, six, seven range. So right there at the end of the boom, um, when construction down here was going bananas, um, they were building spec houses. Uh, they were a real estate broker and a construction company. So they would buy houses and flip them.
Jesse Sampley (05:30.214)
Yeah.
Jonathan (05:41.455)
I got in doing stuff with him doing that and then then they started doing spec houses and I just started doing a little bit by little bit by little bit the next thing you know I was you know doing all the tile work all their trim all their paint and then once we got big enough where we were doing a lot of houses he pulled me away and we subbed everything out and I was doing all the superintendent work then the economy crashed I went work for
window and door company, worked for a commercial glass company, worked for a hospital, clean floors, which I actually learned how to do stripping and waxing on commercial VCT floors doing that. So I learned a little bit in my industry by, you know, being a housekeeper for a little while. But from there, I got an opportunity to work for a local builder, Fabian. may have, you'd be a good one to interview too for you.
Jesse Sampley (06:22.065)
No, what?
Jesse Sampley (06:36.066)
Okay.
Jonathan (06:36.946)
Fabian construction, his dad, guy that owns it now is Eric Fabian, but his dad, Jeff Fabian started it I think in the eighties, late seventies, early eighties. And they're to me in the construction industry, they're like one of the premier builders around here. They gave me something to kind of strive to go after, that you can come from nothing.
Jesse Sampley (06:59.239)
What kind of homes do they build?
Jonathan (07:04.842)
Everything they do is custom. mean, there for a little while they were doing specs. You know, they got into, they were partnered with another guy named Chap Dinkins and that was Fabian Dinkins construction. But Dinkins was the commercial side. Fabian was the residential, but they do some pretty nice houses.
Jesse Sampley (07:23.343)
Okay, all different styles, just all completely custom.
Jonathan (07:27.718)
Yep, yep. They've done, I don't know how many, I know they did one development, it's called the Magnolias. And they had some lots that was theirs, it was their models that they put out, but there was also, they just opened up for anybody to come in and build.
Jesse Sampley (07:47.291)
Yeah.
Jonathan (07:50.607)
But got an opportunity to work for them, worked for them for a couple of years. And the guy that I was working underneath there, his name is Mark Bowden. Me and him left after a few years of being there in economy, kind of started to slow down a little bit. And it was just me and him left. And he bought in and got that portion of the company. was called Service Solutions, Fabian Dinkins Service Solutions. And then I left with him and me and him worked together from 2000.
13, I think, to 2018, so about five or six years. And I did everything for him. The only thing I didn't do was pay people. I sold jobs, collected the money, estimated them, did change orders for the clients, ordered materials, superintended the whole projects, did a lot of the work too. Anything. mean, if it was...
Jesse Sampley (08:46.8)
Yeah.
Jonathan (08:48.174)
If it needed to be done, I figured it out and got it done. And then in 2018, me and him just kind of, in 2017, me and him just kind of had a kind of fallen out, but I wasn't getting what I wanted and he wanted to do something different. So we parted ways and I started my own thing. And now it's been eight years now. So that was called Southern Home Services.
Jesse Sampley (09:14.191)
Wow.
Jonathan (09:17.991)
and
Jesse Sampley (09:18.137)
Okay. So give me a quick snapshot of Bailey Home, custom homes today. How many homes are you building? What area?
Jonathan (09:26.732)
So we are a complete custom builder. We don't do really any spec houses. A lot of our work is actually additions and remodels. We don't really build a lot of new homes. Trying to get into that market a lot more.
Jesse Sampley (09:43.142)
Is that kind of just market based? know, like right now, Florida's in bit of a softer market. Do you think that just kind of ebb and flows with, you know, where people are sitting on their money, you know, interest rate? I've heard this from people in Texas, were the builders and they said, you know, once money's a little bit cheaper, it seems that they, you know, there's a stronger custom home market. And when you're in little bit of a soft market, then, you know, more people are doing their renovations and things like that.
Jonathan (10:11.5)
I mean, for us, it's hard for me to say just because we don't have, haven't really been known to be a custom builder. you know, my grandfather and my uncle, both, they were more of an addition remodel type company. And that's what they did for years. that's what I did for years. you know, and I, I came from that background. but I have found the value in being able to build, you know,
With just the autonomy of the lifestyle of being able to build a new home, is night and day difference. When you're working in someone's house, man, you've got to be hands-on all the time, unless they move out. Those are the projects that really we're taking on now is I really don't want to do just a kitchen remodel or a bathroom remodel anymore just because one, we have too much overhead and we can't sustain it.
Jesse Sampley (10:43.643)
Mm-hmm.
Jesse Sampley (10:56.431)
Yeah.
Jesse Sampley (11:09.093)
Mm-hmm.
Jonathan (11:09.622)
We just price ourselves out. There's people that can do it cheaper than we can. And I'm honest with every client. I'm like, if you really want me to do it, I'll do it. But you're going to pay 30 to 40 % higher than what you would if you went with this guy. And they understand. So most of them find somebody else.
Jesse Sampley (11:24.739)
Yeah, so you've got your set of criteria for what makes sense for you guys on a project size.
Jonathan (11:29.998)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we, we build ADUs, you know, accessory dwelling units. we do garages, pool houses, um, you know, mother-in-law suites, um, know, additions. And I kind of, my claim to fame is additions. You know, we, um, are very good at it. I make them look like they're part of the house and that's the whole goal is, know, you know, I want you to, whenever I'm done, you look at it and be like, where's the addition? You know, um,
Jesse Sampley (11:57.882)
Wow. That could be challenging. I would think that would be challenging maybe with materials or, you know, just, just having a perfect match. Are there any, any main challenges there that you're having to work through just to make sure that it's fitting in real seamlessly?
Jonathan (11:59.915)
I enjoy it.
Jonathan (12:14.346)
The only thing we ever run into is, and it's not something we run into, it's just unavoidable, is the thickness of one door jamb. Your entrance from the existing to the addition is you're going to have a wider jamb, especially on a block house. Now we've done some recently where we have literally taken out the entire end of the home and there's nothing left and we're spanning from one front to the back and there's nothing there.
and we can do whatever, those are cool. usually it takes a little more expense and people really got to want to do it. Doing an addition, it's cost effective, but there is a good percentage of it that is just waste. When I say waste, it takes a lot longer for us to do those. It's a lot more hands on. They're usually destroying some type of vegetation or landscaping.
Jesse Sampley (12:51.131)
Yeah.
Jonathan (13:11.33)
You know, our cost isn't cheap because we're a lot more hands on. So our supervisory fees are a lot higher. There's things we have to do for permitting that you would have to do for building a new house. So it's, it's just, it's a lot, it's expensive. But I enjoy it. I love them, man. It's a lot of fun. I mean, they're, they're challenging. And even though the larger, the better like.
We've got one that we're doing that's attached to a log cabin, which I was gonna say we could do the podcast there But it's a 30 sorry
Jesse Sampley (13:46.164)
Well, once I was just going to say once we move in there, can do a round two. You maybe do like a home tour or something like that. Yeah.
Jonathan (13:58.019)
Yeah, sure. Yeah, I've even got my own podcast. I'll have you on. Yep, yep. Just started it. Faith and Foundations. That's a.
Jesse Sampley (14:02.033)
Do really? I did not know that. That's awesome. What's it called?
Faith of Foundations, I love it. I'll make sure to tag it in the description in here.
Jonathan (14:13.986)
Yeah, cool.
Jesse Sampley (14:15.493)
Yeah. What do you talk about on the podcast?
Jonathan (14:20.226)
I'm just trying to bring awareness one to Christianity. That's, know, Christ is the center of my life and the reason why I do what I do every day. Without him, I wouldn't be the man I am and I wouldn't be the husband I am, wouldn't be the father I am and wouldn't be the business owner that I am. So that's first and foremost.
Jesse Sampley (14:39.601)
Well message... that message is never old. So that's... you've got plenty to talk about there.
Jonathan (14:46.102)
Yep. And so my, whole goal of it is to bring awareness to our community of other, you know, business owners in our industry, you know, whether it be a contractor, mortgage broker, an architect, an insurance agent, anybody that has their hands in any type of construction work or, you know, real estate ish and, know, our, just the way that we're developing around here.
There's a lot of things that are going on. There's a lot of people moving here. There's a lot of problems. There's a lot of people complaining. So, you know, what's the problems? What's the solutions? know, what? Where do we go? How do we handle this and being a good steward with what God's blessing us with? Because all these people come into our community is just astronomical. I mean, I don't I haven't looked at the data recently, but the last one I heard it was like 200 people a week. Like that's a lot.
Jesse Sampley (15:26.118)
Yeah.
Jesse Sampley (15:45.288)
Yeah, Ocala just keeps making its way on these list of best places to move in 2026. just, my own mother, she sent me an article. I'm like, yeah, I know. Well, that's, that's not exactly the reason why we're moving. But yeah, I mean, that's just when you, when you do look at the area, it's just a wonderful place. And it's, you know, Florida is so overcrowded in some of these areas. You know, my wife being from Tampa, her family in St. Pete area, you know, there's
Jonathan (15:52.504)
Yeah.
Jesse Sampley (16:14.535)
There's just so, there's very few places now, I feel like in Florida that, you know, you've got this, this still small town vibe, but you are, you're large enough to be able to facilitate, um, you know, you know, have enough to do and all that, you know, Cali kind of it's, it's a perfect city and it, unfortunately, like whether you like it or not, unless the governor just puts a stop to it and puts that $50,000 tax that he's been, uh,
that guy's been talking about like more people are going to move. Everybody wants to live in Florida. And like you said, like, okay, how are we going to work through this?
Jonathan (16:54.458)
Yeah. And I haven't really seen, mean, people have conversations, you know, like there's conversations to get brought up in all these meetings and stuff, but they're, I want to have honest conversations, you know, and, know, how do we work through these things, you know, or
Jesse Sampley (17:08.678)
And.
Jonathan (17:12.878)
You know, what's your problem? What are the things that you want to work on? know, and so I'm just my plan is is to bring on anybody that is any kind of influential person in our community, you know, even if it's somebody that you don't even really know about, know, but you know, whether it be a You know the mayor or you know anybody that's in Anyone I would like to have a conversation with
Jesse Sampley (17:38.088)
Yeah, man, I love that. I love that, man. Good for you. yeah. Well, why don't you, you know, a lot of people, you know, they're kind of going, following the theme a little bit with, you know, issues and kind of solving those. You everything's solvable. But you know, a of the people we've been talking to here lately is, you know, it's the lead flow.
Jonathan (17:42.926)
Yeah, I'm excited about it.
Jesse Sampley (18:04.069)
You know, it's, how am I getting, you know, good people that are, that we want to work with and letting them understand, you know, depending on the market, you know, if they're choosing, you know, an addition or an, an ADU, depending on the project, you know, there's so many different people that they're choosing from is like, how am I, how am I standing out and how am, how am I able to, you know, just win more work or just have a good flow of people that are coming in?
I wanted to see, know, over the eight years, what have you guys seen work well as far as a good flow of people coming in and generating a good referral, you know, from the people that you're doing work with? What are you seeing that's working right now?
Jonathan (18:51.16)
I mean, the try and true method will always be word of mouth. know, doing what you say you're gonna do and following through. And that person telling their neighbor, their friend or whoever, you know, that is the best kind of advertising and marketing that you could ever do. Putting yourself out in front of other people, being honest, being genuine.
getting involved in local networking groups like BNI. BNI is not for everybody, but it's worked for us. And it definitely not even has it worked for me or I've actually gotten business out of it. I mean, not a lot. mean, to me, wouldn't say, well, I guess it is a lot. I I've sold a little over $500,000 in the past eight months out of out of three.
Jesse Sampley (19:27.685)
Hmm.
Jesse Sampley (19:43.112)
And not to mention the referrals, you know, cause that's like a compounding effect and you can't fake that. You have to do a good job. You have to work through those issues. You have to find a solution to the very end so that, even if, even if, you know, they weren't happy, you did right by them. Um, know, which, which is goes a long way and you you, you just, this goes back to kind of the golden rule of, I mean, just try to do right by people, you know, and then.
Jonathan (19:55.255)
Yep.
Jonathan (20:11.042)
Yeah.
Jesse Sampley (20:11.887)
And then if you see something that you can improve, improve your process on the next time to say, okay, well maybe I'll interview people before I take on a project or maybe I'll do some vetting to just make sure that the work I am taking on is, we jive together.
Jonathan (20:29.912)
Yeah, that's I mean, that's super important, too. And that, you know, the more.
The honest that you are, the more you're just transparent. And learning to say no like that is probably the biggest thing that I've learned over the past six months is you don't need to do everything. You don't have to be the one that takes care of every single person that calls your office. There are people that just call your office that just want to take advantage of you. And you need to learn to read those people and say, no, I can't work for you, or that job's too small for me, or that job's too big for me.
Jesse Sampley (21:03.782)
Mm-hmm.
Jonathan (21:03.88)
There's guys that take on projects that they're just not financially ready for and they can really get you into a pickle. If you don't have all your proper contracts and documentation, if you're not set up and legit, you shouldn't be doing large projects at all. It's tough, man. This industry is probably the hardest thing I've ever, this is the hardest thing I've ever done is to grow this business.
to go from being the guy that does everything to the guy that only just communicates it. Man, it's so hard. It is so hard.
Jesse Sampley (21:38.213)
Yeah.
That you have to have a lot of, of your, you know, SOPs, your standard operating procedures. You have to get it out of your head because it's one thing to just know how to do it. But then there's no way to grow that, you know, that ceiling is so, so short. unless you have some way of passing along to other people and then having keeping a way to keep those people accountable to say, Hey, here's a snapshot. Here's the thing we're going to look at. So if you're in a project management, you know, role.
Jonathan (21:53.516)
Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah, but.
Jesse Sampley (22:11.355)
you know, this is what we're looking at to make sure that, you know, you're actually doing the things that we need you to do to be able to see success on the other end. That's not a, it just takes work. You know, it takes a lot of experience too, to know what to look out for and all that.
Jonathan (22:18.989)
Yeah.
Jonathan (22:27.02)
Yeah, I mean, you got to hold people accountable, you know, and that, you know, that kind of goes back to the same thing of getting work. Because if you're honest, you're transparent, you're showing people what you're doing. know, they're going to see these things. They're going to. It's OK to tell somebody, man, I really lost whatever last month, you know, and I had to let go of Billy because he just wasn't doing a good job. You know, it's OK to fire people. I've.
Jesse Sampley (22:51.995)
Mm-hmm.
Jonathan (22:56.692)
I take so much responsibility for other people. It's a bad trait of mine where I want everybody to do so good and I'll just let them get away with things because I know that they'll do better and they never do.
Jesse Sampley (23:11.719)
Yeah.
Poor Billy. Billy, if you're listening, we're talking about you.
Jonathan (23:17.646)
I've never hired a Billy, but I did hire a guy last year that his resume was great. Everything that you would think that you would look for in a resume. I did all the right stuff. I called this prior employer, talked to him, came on, knew everything that we wanted to do, how we do business, knew how to do Gantt charts, knew how to do project management.
talked about, you know, conventional framing and just his knowledge base was like there, like huge. And I was like, this is the guy. And I'm like, this guy's going to take us, he's going to help us get to the next level. This is going to be the guy that I can actually not have to hold his hand and I can go do other things. And he ended up being the worst employee that I've ever had. Like just horrible, just horrible.
Jesse Sampley (24:08.017)
Really? How did you measure that?
Jonathan (24:13.132)
What do you mean measure it like him being really bad?
Jesse Sampley (24:14.681)
Like what, what, yeah, was attitude. Was it, know, Hey, he prompt just what we laid out for him in the role. just wasn't doing those things at all.
Jonathan (24:23.384)
Well, that's the hard part about it is that he had an amazing attitude. was amazing and is an amazing person. Christian man. Just, you know, really good dude. And that's what made it hard is I could see how good he really was. And I just let him get away with way too much stuff. And it just went on for months and months and months until they got to the one point where our cashflow went to nothing because all of his jobs were delayed.
Jesse Sampley (24:42.726)
Mm.
Jonathan (24:51.722)
And I didn't collect anything really the month of November. like, can't like, it's tough for me to do that. I don't have extra sitting around, you know, we've, we've spent so much growing this thing and some mistakes that my guys made all the little nest egg I had, I've spent on fixing and making sure that everything's right. And like, if I don't collect money, it's It's bad for me. You know, it makes it really hard on me.
Jesse Sampley (25:15.089)
Yeah.
Jonathan (25:20.43)
But if everybody does what they say they're gonna do and everybody pays on time, it rolls nice and smooth. But he did me good, He did me real good. But I let him go and-
Jesse Sampley (25:29.273)
Man. Man. Man, I hate to hear that, what advice would you give someone on the other side, you know, who's like, hey, I've already been through this. What would you look for before you even made that hire?
Jonathan (25:48.082)
Really, you're, because when you're hiring somebody, you're just going by like this. Like if you were to tell me, know, Hey, I can do this. I can do this. I can do this. You give me your resume and it's all legit. I call and ask and it's all legit. You really can't look any deeper than that. I mean, we have our core values and our critical actions and our mission statement. I don't know this off the top of my head, so don't ask me.
Jesse Sampley (26:13.383)
We'll add them to the notes, it's okay.
Jonathan (26:16.334)
But other than that, you've got to just work with them and just see what they can do. I was too trusting. that's been a big problem of mine over the years, just being too trustworthy and not holding people accountable. And that's really all that you need to do, not hiring somebody and saying, here you go, go get it done.
because that's who I am. My old boss, whenever I worked for him, he paid me a salary, but I would work like 70 hours a week. I grinded for him. I wanted him to be successful because I knew that if he was successful, I would be successful. That mentality is not there in a lot of people. Being able to read that sooner than later and knowing that that person is only there for themselves and only there for a paycheck isn't somebody that you want on a small business.
Jesse Sampley (26:55.003)
Mm-hmm.
Jonathan (27:15.094)
You need people that think like business owners, that don't want to own the business. And that's really hard to find, but you do find them. And it's just a turnover rate that you got to, you have to understand and you have to be okay and comfortable with. I learned something from the general manager. think the general manager, the guy who runs Habitat for Humanity here locally. I can't remember the guy's name. If you please listen, I'm Okay.
Jesse Sampley (27:15.174)
No.
Jesse Sampley (27:19.216)
Yeah.
Jesse Sampley (27:40.859)
It's okay, I'll add it to the description.
Jonathan (27:44.911)
I forget the guy's name, but he's really nice guy. And one thing that I learned from him was hire slow and fire fast. And that was my problem is that I thought I hired slow, but I didn't. I would only interview like the first guy that would look good. I'm like, I'm going to take this guy because I'm afraid that he would go work somewhere else. I don't know. And then I would hire or fire really slow.
Jesse Sampley (27:53.447)
Mm-hmm.
Jonathan (28:14.614)
let you make a lot of mistakes.
Jesse Sampley (28:14.971)
What's hard when you see the potential and it's like, man, I know you're just, you know, we can get there. that's probably that entrepreneur visionary side of you is just like, man, I can see it for you. You just gotta, you know, put in the extra 20 % to actually get there. You know, what, what, what, let's, let's try to figure this out. And then, you know, some people, they just, it's just not a good fit, you know, which is fine. Not everyone's is a good fit.
Jonathan (28:32.664)
Yeah.
Jonathan (28:42.304)
No, they're not. know, I think that the craziest thing about a construction company, it's not really the construction that's the difficult part. It's the people, you know, the sticks and the bricks are very easy to put together. You know, it's just getting a group of people that are on the same page, that are same, that are like minded and that care more about other people than they do themselves. That's the only really way, in my opinion, that you can have a successful
Jesse Sampley (29:06.939)
Mm-hmm.
Jonathan (29:12.022)
construction company.
Jesse Sampley (29:13.371)
That trickles down to the subs too, as far as what type of people that just work well together. Because the client sees that on their side, projects get done on time, all of it just kind of works in tandem when everyone, there's a good rhythm in place. You guys have a...
Jonathan (29:31.03)
Yeah, when you got one person, they throw it all out of whack.
Jesse Sampley (29:34.628)
Yeah. Yeah. And, you risk the really good people that you have leaving and saying, Hey, if you're not going to fix the problem, then like, I've got to go somewhere else. You know? So it's really, that's, I think that's why they say, you know, fire fast is because you don't want to spoil what you, the good that you have, you know, one, one app, bad apple ruins the whole batch as they say. Yeah.
Jonathan (29:44.259)
Mm-hmm.
Jonathan (29:57.027)
That's the truth. I've lived it. That saying isn't just a saying.
Jesse Sampley (30:03.739)
Maybe you said it. Talking about on a subs, the subs that you guys have, you feel like you've got a good team that you're working with or is there a lot of turnover? How are you managing that?
Jonathan (30:21.312)
No, not a lot of turnover. We typically use the same subs on every job. We just recently started bidding out and giving a few others some opportunities just because we're trying to stay competitive and stay sharp. For the longest time I never did, I would estimate a job and I would just use the same subs on everything no matter what their price was.
You know, and I always estimated high enough to where I never had any complications or anything. But recently, man, it's been, it's been brutal. I don't know. I really don't know if it was because of my superintendents just not having their stuff together and not having the jobs in order or just, you know, the subcontractors just send in whatever they want to. So we've been
Jesse Sampley (30:59.77)
Hmm.
Jonathan (31:18.562)
You know, I've got a project manager that that's all he does now. He makes sure we're within budget and that, you know, subs know what they're they're doing. They have their work, you know, already laid out for them without just sending them blindly. Try to get a quote from them. Not all of them will. The majority, the majority do, but not all of them do.
There's some that we don't need it from, know, like drywall guys and stuff. We pretty much know what they're going to charge. But when it comes to like a plumber, the electrician, know, roofers, can, we're pretty good on that one. But to sum it up, yeah, we use the same guys, but we've just started branching out, trying to get at least, at least two of every trade because one thing we learned last year was that we got so much work.
that our subs couldn't handle it. So not only couldn't they handle it with the workload, but they couldn't handle it with the pace of pay. You know, we, if we got behind on anything that they were like strapped, you know, because all their money was coming from us. So if we got, you know, where a sub or a customer wasn't paying us or, you we just, you know, we're behind.
Jesse Sampley (32:19.611)
Mm-hmm.
Jonathan (32:44.578)
because of a job being delayed and whatever, and we couldn't pay, it really hurt some of our subs. So we started to diversify a little bit to use a few others. One, to take the burden off of them, and two, just so we didn't get pinched because there was some weeks that job set waiting on one of our subs because he was on another one. And it's like, which one do you want me to go to? I can only go to so many.
Jesse Sampley (33:10.4)
Mm-hmm.
Jonathan (33:14.134)
So we're trying to larger scale companies, companies that have multiple employees instead of owner operator. The owner operator companies are the ones that really.
Not that we hurt them, but I'm sure that we've definitely put a financial burden on them at times. So we're still using those guys, but very selectively and just trying to be intentional with who we're hiring and what we're But for the most part, we use the same ones.
Jesse Sampley (33:46.222)
Yeah. I mean, it's a good testament when you can keep the good ones too. You know, just that you guys are taking care of those guys and that they like working with you. there's an understanding that, you know, hey, yes, we always want things to go, you know, perfect and the client pays on time, but it's just, it's not always the case. So having some grace in there and working with us, you know, just shows when you're able to keep those people that...
You got a good culture and there's a lot of trust that's been built over the years.
Jonathan (34:19.47)
Yeah, because if a contractor, you know, goes 60, 90 days overdue on stuff, like you're like, you know, what's going on? And I've been, I've been there. I've been on both sides of the coin now, you know, I've been the guy that is owed, you know, the tens of thousands of dollars and I'm 60, 90, 120 days out and I'm trusting, you know, and then I've also been the guy that I'm 60, 90 days. I haven't had one over 90.
Jesse Sampley (34:25.605)
Yeah.
Jonathan (34:47.054)
Well, over 120, but you know, I've had some late bills and there's I'm here. I'm sorry. I really am, but I just can't do it right now. And it's not like I'm not going to not pay you. You know, I just, I get in a spot and you know, that's like our biggest, um, our biggest goal now is to get, to lean this company up and get to a spot to where no matter what.
Jesse Sampley (34:56.899)
Yeah. Let's... Yeah.
Jonathan (35:17.336)
You know, we're never going to be delayed on payment anymore. And that's what my goal is to work on because that's where I was and the growth took that away from me. And I want to get back to that, you know, so we're trying to to build everything back to where we've got that nest egg. We've got those lines of credit in place. You know, we utilize them in the proper way, not, you know, trying to fix mistakes. We use them for payables only, not for anything else.
Jesse Sampley (35:30.085)
Mm-hmm.
Jonathan (35:47.406)
That's where we're trying to get back to so that we can keep these subs that are good, happy.
Jesse Sampley (35:58.372)
What are some of the strategies for that? Are you looking at doing any spec building or anything like that? Or is it just more projects?
Jonathan (36:08.226)
The only way that I'll do specs is if it's through investors and they're willing to fund it. can't, I don't have the extra at all right now to be funded anything or I mean, I could do a bank loans and stuff, but I don't, want to stay away from that. main focus is, is, is custom building and you know, staying away from
getting any kind of financial pressure or pinches like that is really just having a structure is very, very, very, very, very crucial. Not only with just what you do day to day, but how you manage your finances, where that money comes, cycling it through all the proper procedures.
Jesse Sampley (36:54.823)
Thank
Jonathan (37:07.362)
The beginning of the year last year, I wasn't even on my own payroll. I didn't even, I didn't have that structure. If I just needed, if I needed a little bit of money, I would just take it out of the business and go do what I needed to do. I had a budget personally and I didn't just go do whatever I wanted to do, obviously, and I didn't misallocate any funds or anything, but I wasn't structured in that way. Now we are. We...
Jesse Sampley (37:31.045)
Mm-hmm.
Jonathan (37:33.423)
If we collect the check, a percentage goes over here and other percentage goes there and the percentage goes there and it all goes to their own buckets. And that way we're not using operating money for subcontractors. We're not using subcontractor money to go buy a trailer, you know, whatever. mean, it's just being structured, being disciplined and allocating the money properly. And whenever you don't have the money for your operating, well, I guess you better go get it.
Jesse Sampley (37:49.197)
Yeah. Yeah.
Jonathan (38:01.582)
Because you're not taking it from this account. You're not taking it from that account.
Jesse Sampley (38:01.677)
Yeah. There was a, there was a builder I was talking to in Kentucky and he said, man, early on, you know, he said, it seemed like I had so much money in my account. And, know, once the projects started or a couple projects started, he said, and then what I, you know, the, what I had to learn kind of the hard way is that that's not your money at all. I mean, you look at what's in the bank account.
It's not yours. That's the plumber, that's the electrician, that's the foundation. That's a contingency for something being over budget. And once you start stacking on more and more projects, it gets really, really crucial. So having those buckets and having it allocated so that you know, okay, the money's already been spoken for so that you don't get into a pinch and you don't do something extremely crucial was the advice that he gave.
Jonathan (38:55.138)
Yeah, I I knew that, you know, and when I started doing this, I had all of that. But what's really critical is like I may have had it and I may have known it in my brain and all of that. And like I knew what was going on. But the minute that someone else stepped in, I didn't have any of that stuff in place. We were literally creating it as we were going. And man, I mean, just all it takes is a little mistake.
Jesse Sampley (39:16.113)
Yeah.
Jonathan (39:20.588)
to happen this day, a little mistake to happen two weeks from now, another little mistake to happen a month from now, and then one big mistake and then a few more little ones. Next thing you know, you can be upside down 100, 200 grand like that very easily. It does not take long to I mean, you're doing 30, 40 projects at a time. It is so simple to be upside down and be hundreds of thousands of dollars in the red. And you're like, what do I do? You know, I mean, it's very, very simple.
Jesse Sampley (39:31.386)
Yeah.
Jesse Sampley (39:46.596)
Yeah.
Jonathan (39:50.199)
So having everything in place, if you're thinking about growing, you're thinking about scaling, you're thinking about bringing somebody on, you better be disciplined with your own stuff, the way that it needs to be disciplined for other people to do it. And they need to know exactly how to do it, when to do it and why they're doing it every single day. And there shouldn't be no question on that. And if they don't do it, you have something in place to tell that person you didn't do this. Why didn't you do that? And how are you going to circumvent this in the future?
and holding them accountable, not just being like me, trustworthy, you know, being trustworthy and trusting your people, but also having checks and balances across the board. So they have a clear picture of their day, what they're doing, how they're doing it. And if they don't do it, what's going to happen, you know, because that's even the most critical thing.
Jesse Sampley (40:29.041)
Mm-hmm.
Jesse Sampley (40:36.827)
Are there any, are there any softwares you're using to help with some of this on a track?
Jonathan (40:43.502)
Yeah, we use Buildertrend. I mean, we use Buildertrend and QuickBooks. And that's been a slow process too, because I was just using QuickBooks and I used that for all of our accounting, but when it came to job costing and knowing how much money we actually made on a job, I was literally just doing it on a spreadsheet and just writing it down on myself. And I literally would do it by, because it was only me at the time, would...
Jesse Sampley (40:46.341)
OK.
Jesse Sampley (40:49.893)
Yeah.
Jesse Sampley (41:01.329)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Jonathan (41:10.67)
just write down, you know, these are all my bills. This is what the money I collected and this is how much I got left over. It was real simple, not hard math.
Jesse Sampley (41:16.294)
Yep.
Jesse Sampley (41:20.389)
What about client communication? using builder trend for, that, just keeping people updated on project updates or order changes, things like that.
Jonathan (41:30.094)
Yep. Yeah. If, uh, I mean, we're getting really good with it now. Um, and still learning. There's still a lot of, uh, that system is really robust. Um, and it, it's constantly growing, you know, they're a grown company too. So it's cool to grow with them and change with them and they're growing and changing fast, add new things, new services all the time. It's like weekly things are popping up. Um, so it's good to have that. Um, you know, me as the
Jesse Sampley (41:41.468)
Yeah.
Jonathan (42:00.847)
who I am, I'm kind of stuck in my ways. I love the software and I definitely have to force myself to use it the way that I'm telling my guys to. But I still find myself guilty, know, texting customers, you know, directly or calling them directly, which is fine. But, you know, following that up with a message through Builder Trend or putting that in a daily log, all those things are super critical.
Communication and expectation are two really big things. If you give the wrong expectation, that customer is going to be wanting that to happen. And if you don't deliver on it, then you look like you're a liar or you're just not doing what you're supposed to do. And communicating whenever an issue happens or, you know, hey, this sub will be here on this date. All those things, just getting that to the customer is very important.
So if a customer is just sitting around stirring, doesn't know what's going on, they can cause a world of mess in your life.
Jesse Sampley (43:05.255)
you
Jesse Sampley (43:09.563)
You sound like you speak from experience.
Jonathan (43:09.846)
But yeah, we use it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, some customers are just, they're very needy and that's okay. But you know, if you set the expectation up, like we're starting a garage build this week. I just met with a client today and it's the first time we're on the job, put permit box up, put the sign in the yard, you know, we're getting ready to start.
Jesse Sampley (43:18.491)
Yeah.
Jonathan (43:36.111)
And before we even really did anything, I looked at him, I said, all right, I want you all to understand something like I know that you have a house here and I know we're building a garage and I know that I'm on your property, but you need to understand that I'm not going to tell you every day what's going on. I'm not going to tell you if I stopped by your house and I don't need to talk to you for something. I'm just going to stop by, check the job and I'm leaving because I've got 15 more to go look at. You know, like I've got a lot going on. So setting that expectation up front and not telling them.
yeah, I'm talk to you every day and I'll, you know, come sit on your front porch with you. You know, you'll we'll have conversation like you just got to tell customers and be honest with them. Even if they doesn't full, they don't fully like what they're hearing. They appreciate the honesty and then they know what to expect.
Jesse Sampley (44:08.209)
Yeah.
Jesse Sampley (44:22.821)
Yeah. And you've set the ground rules. This is how it's going to operate. And then it's, you know, we've set the expectations and if you have other expectations, then, you know, we'll work through those, but those, your expectations are not real. My, what I'm saying is real. If you've got a problem with.
Jonathan (44:24.844)
Yeah.
Jonathan (44:37.196)
Yeah. Yeah. And I'm bad about it, man. I mean, I have been bad about it my entire life. You know, because in my mind, I'm like, there's, you know, I'm the one doing the work. So I know that I can get this, this, this and this done, but I'm not the one doing it anymore. So I have to reel it back a little bit like, yeah, we'll be done in three days. No, we won't be. We're really going to be done in like seven days. So I'm learning that to.
Jesse Sampley (44:49.712)
Yeah.
Jesse Sampley (44:55.644)
Yeah.
Jesse Sampley (45:04.049)
Well tell me what are you doing on a marketing side that you're seeing that's working? Are you guys doing any paid ads or website stuff? What are you doing right now?
Jonathan (45:14.054)
No paid ads. We are doing a lot on Facebook. So I hired a marketing company called Media Minds, a really good friend of mine, Andreas Abad. We do Bible study together and stuff, he is over top of all of our marketing. Well, at least media, know, Facebook, social media stuff, Facebook, Google, our website, everything he does. So.
The thing that I've seen work for me, at least engagement wise and getting some information back on is this, conversations. We're trying to build our brand and having a conversation like this and putting it out publicly for people to see, or like they've done where they've asked me questions I've sat down and they've asked me,
Jesse Sampley (45:53.585)
Mm-hmm.
Jonathan (46:12.094)
a series of questions and then my answers, they just put them out on the internet as a story or a reel or something like that on Facebook. And we've gotten a lot of engagement with that because I'm just speaking the truth. You know, I'm just being 100 % honest and completely transparent. And I think that has been really good for us. You know, I've done billboards that I sold one house. I had it for two years, sold it for one house.
Jesse Sampley (46:25.254)
Yeah.
Jesse Sampley (46:41.775)
It's a hard thing to measure, you know, the traditional, unless you have a really big budget, then, you yes, you know, anything that you do is probably going to have some sort of effect. But, you know, you also want to, and even a return on investment is a little bit tricky on a, on an organic side when you're doing social media. Like, yeah, I can see like how many people sent me a DM and how many people sent me a message that turned into a job. There's also, you know, just a good foundation, which is
Jonathan (46:41.815)
Jonathan (46:55.158)
you
Jesse Sampley (47:09.147)
You know, I've got to be able to be found first. If someone's searching for what I have to offer, how are people finding me? Is it on Google? Is it on Facebook? Is it on Instagram? You know, where are my people at? And that's going to be a little bit different depending on what market you're in. And then there is after people find me, you know, they're finding a lot of other people that do that, you know, do the exact same thing as me. How am I attracting the person that I really want to work for, that I want to work with, you know? And so then.
Jonathan (47:23.245)
Yep.
Jesse Sampley (47:38.03)
All of this kind of dials into, you know, what am I putting out there that brings me what I really want? And then that's a little bit, it creates a good strategy for, I'm going to put out there what I want to get back. If I want more custom builds, I'm going to talk about custom builds. I'm going to show more custom builds. I'm going to, you know, all of this, I'm not going to show bathroom remodels because, you know, even at this stage in, in my business, this is what I'm doing more of.
Yeah, well don't talk about that because you guess what? You're just going to get more of those. know, see you really have to, I feel like it's common sense, but with, with marketing, feel like there's so much confusion out there that people think there's, you know, maybe a big hacks or things that you can do. I always encourage people, Hey, get real, get back to real common sense of, know, who am I trying to talk with? You know, and, maybe take away the veil of the virtual veil.
Jonathan (48:12.099)
Yeah.
Jonathan (48:30.498)
Yeah.
Jesse Sampley (48:37.145)
And say, Hey, if this was in person and I'm doing like a parade of homes or something, and I'm talking with someone, you know, what, what am I going to talk about? You know, what is my persona? What is my, the messaging that I'm putting out there? All you're doing on a digital side is just translating that and distributing it different places. But at the end of the day, I'm trying to get more conversations started, trying to get more people to send messages, trying to get more people to call me and then.
At the end of the day, I'm trying to get some sort of a measure of, out of all of our efforts, you know, this landed us X amount of jobs. And then those people told, you know, 10 people that told 10 people that told, you know, in it, just trying to create that snowball of, of, people constantly either thinking about you or talking about you. Yeah.
Jonathan (49:30.796)
Yeah, and that's, you you've got to put yourself out there. You know, I wanted to, you know, not be out there. You know, I wanted to, you know, I just didn't want to do it. But I really see the value in, you know, going to CEP events and just talking to people, you know, going to the MCBI events and just talking to people, going to be an eye saying, you know, this is what I'm going after. This is what I want.
But you gotta understand that it doesn't just happen overnight. As much as we see this instant gratification in our world this day, you know, I had a lot of success in my first few years in business and made a lot of money that, you know, I didn't save any of it. But, you know, I did really well for myself and I got a little bit of ego and
Jesse Sampley (50:22.554)
you
Jonathan (50:29.74)
Yeah, it's not good. Humble yourself, always sharpen your skills, always sharpen your craft. You can always be better. There's always a way to be better.
Jesse Sampley (50:41.019)
That kind of transitions to another question I had and this is something I always ask people is, how do you, as you, I think even in proverbs it says, iron sharpens iron. What is your other iron? What are people you're looking at looking to that either you're getting inspiration from, you're getting knowledge from, people that kind of feed you to help you grow?
Jonathan (51:03.602)
so really the only, the only thing that I do that, you know, iron sharpens iron is, is my brothers around me. I've got a men's group that I host, that we meet every single Thursday at six o'clock in the morning. and man, that's.
That group of guys, they're just, they're so important every day. You know, it's like I said earlier, you know, building a house, doing an addition, doing a remodel, that stuff's easy. That's, you know, the sticks and the bricks is just simple. But overcoming this thing and getting other people to be, you know, community-wanted to be like one another, that is, it is so difficult to do.
Jesse Sampley (51:32.102)
Yeah.
Jonathan (51:58.403)
You know, I study my Bible. I try to do that as much as I can. I try to work on myself as much as possible mentally, physically, spiritually, spiritually more than anything. And, you know, Christ has changed me. Christ is Christ being in my life and me having a relationship with him has changed me tenfold.
Otherwise, I would just be a bumble and drunk or something. I would do being a nice guy, a good guy, not that I didn't have a purpose to live with my family or my wife or my children as much as I love them and as a blessing as my wife is to me. Because without her, she's the one that slaps me on the back of the head or she's like the...
the good and the bad on your shoulder. She's the one that's like, don't do this things or don't hire that person. You should fire that man. All those things, she's always been there for me. So having her has been really good. And then having my kids to hold me accountable whenever I'm falling short. And then to hold my group of men that are around me, they're always there.
Jesse Sampley (52:58.791)
Yeah.
Jonathan (53:25.422)
If you're honest, I'm honest with them and they are honest back. There's a group of us, it's about 20 of us now and not everybody I'm close to, but there's a few that I am. And we're just honest with one another and that helps a lot. A lot.
Jesse Sampley (53:30.161)
Yeah.
Jesse Sampley (53:43.484)
Man, I love that. And it's, you have to have a true north, you know, have relationship with Christ, to have a a power that you're accountable to, you know, that's in the entrepreneur journey, you know, there's, there's, it's such a roller coaster, you know, there's really high highs, there are lows, there's, I'm about to be bankrupt. There's a, you know, I can tackle anything that comes my way. I mean, it's just insane. You know, I've been, I've never worked for anyone and it's been, you know,
What going on 14 years now and I've never known anything different. My people, my family were all entrepreneurs. So, you know, I, I just thought you had to do this. I was like, I don't get a job. I don't, I don't really know how you would do that. Um, but it's not easy at all. And when you have, know, your family and you have these other people that you can check in with, you know, that's, that's a lot, but there there's a lot to say, like, I'm putting my trust in not material things, not the, you know, I'm putting my trust in something that's bigger than me.
to bring work my way for people to kind of, know, just to, he's got me, you know, and I think that's, it's a real comfort.
Jonathan (54:53.166)
That doesn't mean that you can't just do whatever you want to do. It doesn't mean that he's just going to drop, you know, a pile of cash in your lap. Like none of that is promised, you know. He does promise to be there for you. And he does say that he will answer your prayers. That doesn't mean that you say, Lord, make me rich, that he says, OK, here you go. Here's a bunch of money. No, he will open these doors for you. And you may have this work, this work, this work. You've got to do the work.
Jesse Sampley (54:55.751)
Yeah, I...
Jesse Sampley (55:05.723)
Yeah.
Jesse Sampley (55:17.625)
Yeah, but you got to be consistent. You got to do it. Yeah. Don't, don't sit on the couch and wait for it to happen. But there's also some common sense in that, which is, if I want to meet, if I want more work, I probably need to meet more people. you know, it's almost kind of like sales psychology of saying, Hey, what's your conversion? You know, how many conversations do you have to have in order for, to get so many people to decide on something? You you just have to.
Jonathan (55:24.664)
So.
Jonathan (55:32.887)
Yeah.
Jesse Sampley (55:47.397)
You have to put yourself out there. You have to be seen by more people. And then you have to do a good job and let that organic flow happen.
Jonathan (55:57.549)
Yep, yeah, BNI, the BNI members are the whole mantra is givers gain, which I mean, that goes hand in hand with Christianity. You know, I mean, you should be selfless. You know, you should want to do for others. And if you do that in anything in your life, construction, real estate, being a doctor, bagging groceries.
Jesse Sampley (56:03.526)
Yeah.
Jesse Sampley (56:07.552)
yeah.
Jonathan (56:21.678)
You know, whatever. If you live that life, you will be successful in anything that you do.
Jesse Sampley (56:28.249)
Yeah. Well, man, so good as we wrap up here, what what's the future look like for you? Fast forward, you know, five, 10 years down the road.
Jonathan (56:38.306)
Well, hopefully very bright. I've learned a lot over the past, you know, I've been running Bailey now for a over three years.
Jesse Sampley (56:40.731)
Yeah
Jonathan (56:47.95)
And we've taken it from doing about 100 grand whenever I first took it to we did almost 5 million last year. We were not profitable at all last year. We lost a lot of money, but all of that is going to take us to, you know, we have a new understanding with how we do business, with how we handle our customers, with how we set expectations, with how we hire, with how we fire, with everything across the board. We are a better
a better company and I'm a better man and a better business owner because of the things that I've gone through. And as it has and still sucks, it's not easy. But I do see a very promising future, you know, as we change, you know, our our focus on the work that we're taking. I'm super excited to see what the Lord brings our way.
You know, he's definitely opening some doors for us, and I'm just trying to be a good steward with everything that he gives us. But I see a very bright future in this man. know, I hope he blesses us with us all. But if he doesn't, you know, this is all his anyway. So take it down and I'll do whatever you call me to do, God. But I feel like he is, you know, blessing us. And I'm super pumped for what's for what's coming up. We've got a lot of cool projects.
The little ones right now, I say little, lot of looking back retrospect, I'm doing exactly what I thought I would be doing. I'm hitting goals and I'm pumped about the stuff that I've got. But the old me would be looking like, what are you talking about, man? Like you're building houses, you're doing additions. Like you're doing it. And it's cool. It's kind of surreal, honestly.
Jesse Sampley (58:22.321)
Yeah.
Jesse Sampley (58:37.603)
Yeah.
Jonathan (58:39.372)
I'm trying to, I'm super humble with this, man. Like I know that it all could fall and go away tomorrow. And I'm fine with that if that's what God wants out of me. But I don't feel like I'm done. I feel like, you know, he's using me and the season of my life. And I feel like this business is my pulpit and I'm going to create disciples and spread this message while, you know, building people's dreams.
Jesse Sampley (59:05.127)
Amazing, amazing. Well, Jonathan, thanks so much. I'm looking forward to following along and we'll have to do a check in here in the next couple years or so or just see how things are going.
Jonathan (59:16.13)
Yeah, man, for sure. I'll invite you on my podcast.
Jesse Sampley (59:19.566)
Yeah. Well, Jonathan, I'm going to stop recording.
