Navigating Florida's Construction Licensing Maze - Anthony Gizze

Jesse Sampley (00:00.174)

Welcome back to the Meridian Pursuit Builders Podcast. I'm your host Jesse Sampley, and this is where we sit down with home builders, developers, real estate professionals, and industry leaders who are out there doing the work. You'll hear real conversations about markets, design, mistakes, and lessons learned, and how builders can position themselves in a way that brings more customers to the table. Let's dive in.

Jesse Sampley (00:33.174)

Anthony, thank you so much for jumping on here. Why don't you tell me a little bit about your background, how you got into construction? Have you always done this? Just give me the kind of your origin story. Yeah, thank you for having me. So my name is Anthony Gizzi. I'm 34. I'm a GC and roofing contractor here in Florida. I'm also a licensed realtor. I've been doing this pretty much my whole life, working with my father.

His father was a plumber in the Brooklyn Union Gas Company. My father was a contractor up in New York. He moved down here and, you know, kept doing it. He never got his license down here. So I always grew up like working with him while he was working with other contractors as a subcontractor and also getting other customers. And I always considered getting my contractor's license. So long story short, I decide I'm going to go for.

my business degree instead and I'm not doing construction. I'm out of this. getting that. I'm not doing construction. This is way too hard and annoying and hot and sweaty. You know, you get help or pay. Help or pay is not exciting pay. You know what I mean? So that's all you qualify for when you start. So, you know, so I get, go get my bachelor's degree in business finance while I'm doing that. I ended up getting a job with a buddy from church. I had opened a cleaning company at the time and

He, started cleaning some mansions for him on Palm Beach Island. And you know, after, you know, five or six of them that we cleaned top to bottom, we do construction cleans. He's like, Hey, why don't you, we got an opening. Why don't you come down here and work with us? no, I said, all right, I just let me think about it. So I ended up saying, let's do it. Ended up bringing about five or six employees down there. We worked. I was still getting my bachelor's. I grabbed my bachelor. I'm studying for my bachelor's.

And after maybe a year working there, said, I said, why don't I consider getting my contractor's license again? Cause my dad brought it up again. And this is probably a, you know, eight year gap. Cause he was talking about getting it when I was 17, preparing to get it at 18. I said, no, I don't want to do it. So now I'm like 27, about to finish up my bachelor's degree, working in construction as a foreman on Palm beach Island, real beautiful place to work, you know, 40 different.

Jesse Sampley (02:54.434)

guys on the job site every day, subcontractors all over. It was a real pleasant place to work. I said, me work, let me see what it takes to get a contractor's license. I started buying the books, I started studying, and right in 2019 is when I took my first of the three tests for my CBC license. Took the business to finance test. I passed. This is easy. Wow, I'm gonna get the other two parts of the test done.

Uh, after I get that test taken and I pass that, I end up going, start bumping heads with the boss at the job, end up quitting. say, Hey, you know what? I'm going to do my own thing. I just passed this. I'm going to book the other two tests. I'll be done in no time. I'll be, I'll be working on Palm Beach, I'm doing my own jobs. Well, right after I quit COVID hit. So COVID hits shuts down all the calls, uh, all the test centers. I have to go to.

random test centers in South Carolina to take the test. I failed it by two points. I had to go to another place. Boom, boom, boom. Anyways, we get it like the middle of, I get the license middle of what, 2020? And then just booked out after that, you know, since it's just been booked out. And then I went and got my roof license in 2022. Cause they told me I couldn't do on additions. said I can't do the roof.

You don't even need a roof license in other states and like it's so obnoxious how it is here in Florida, but it is what it is, you know, but I mean, how can the GC not do the roof? You know what I mean? It's still going to get inspected exactly the same. It doesn't make sense. You know, New Jersey, you don't even get roof inspections. I just found out at the roof conference. So, you know, the whole system here in Florida is a little wild, but I'm into it now. I'm with the DBPR. I'm with the licensing. I have multiple licenses. I'm also going to be

getting multiple licenses over the coming years. I'm going to get my HVAC license, plumbing license, get all the licenses, and then I can do things in-house quick and efficiently. You know what I mean? Yeah, I have often heard that Florida is pretty strict when it comes to its licensing. And I'm from Kentucky, and Kentucky is the polar opposite. You don't even have to have a general contractor's license to build a home. So very different here in Florida. So I, kind of like you, I'd...

Jesse Sampley (05:19.862)

I grew up on, on the subcontractor pay as as a teenager making 10 bucks an hour. And when it was time to graduate, I was like, I do not want to do this. It's anything other than construction. But as, as time went on, I ended up renovating a house and, ended up building a couple more houses with the help of my dad. And it was, I don't know, it kind of draws you back in, whether you like it or not. So you still do real estate or you just doing remodeling? What's the

What's kind of your business look like today? Well, you know, I thought I was going to be able to do both. That's not realistic. That's its own whole other thing. But what I'm going to do is when I start building probably middle to end of 2026, I'm to build my first spec home and start with that. I'll just do in-house like save that extra percentage. And it's just an extra, you know, three, four percent being able to sell the house and advertise the home.

for sale myself, you know? So everything in-house is my vision. know, AC plumbing, everything, and then my guys on site just doing everything to code, you know what I mean? Hey, put these straps on the duct work like this. All of it is pretty easy. Nobody is designing and manufacturing the AC machine, you know what mean? Nobody's doing that. You buy it, you plug it in, you duct tape some stuff. I mean, it's...

They're a little crazy, like I like Kentucky's way of doing it, you know what I mean? you know, the licensing is cool for accountability, but realistically I don't think it is accountability. I don't think their purpose of what the licensing is for is achieved because, listen to this, if I just read an article on Facebook, someone gave 8,000 for a fence to get a fence done, the guy...

didn't do it supposedly from her comment. She said she sued him. The judge put a judgment. He hasn't responded. And the judge basically told her it is what it is. If he's not responding, we can't get his bank information. There's nothing we could do. Even if there's a judgment on him, on the business, he can just go open up another business the next day. There's no accountability. And there's other industries that have accountability, such as the financial industry.

Jesse Sampley (07:42.178)

which is a big industry on giving money and stuff, they have something called FINRA. I know this from being in school for my finance degree. So FINRA, if you are a money manager or stockbroker or something and you want to tell somebody, hey, give me 10 million, I'll invest it for you, blah, blah, blah, blah. you are a stockbroker or whatever. Okay, let me look that up. You go right onto the website. It has everybody's credentials, everybody's...

work history since they've had their license. It's very orderly. this guy's worked at Berkshire Hathaway for this many years. this guy worked here. It's very, if you play games in that industry, it's going on your record. In Florida, there's no record. There's absolutely no enforcement of unlicensed activity. It's an absolute joke for the amount of licensing hoops to jump through to see what the,

Penalties are and enforcement of unlicensed activity absolute joke absolute fake Joke, there is no enforcement. There's a there's like three guys in all of South Florida that manage all unlicensed activity not just construction matters unlicensed barbers and hair stylists unlicensed lawyers unlicensed real estate agents So they're too busy, you know, it is really crazy here. And that's why I'm trying to get these licenses as well

to go all the way up to the Senate, ask for a hearing, lay out all my credentials real quick, they give you about five minutes, and then go over all of this boring, dry stuff that has to be discussed, you know what I mean? I've spent hundreds of hours studying this licensing and all of it, and it would be good if there was proper enforcement and they put restrictions on purchasing material.

Why are unlicensed guys able to go and buy the material? If the licensing is so important, you know what I mean? Why, if it's so important, why is there no enforcement is my question. You know, this reminds me a story I just heard. It was a couple months ago, but a lady had hired a general contractor to come in and completely redo her kitchen. She paid the guy all upfront, which mistake number uno, but paid him all upfront. The guy disappeared.

Jesse Sampley (10:05.388)

Now she's tried to sue the guy. She's gotten absolutely nowhere. What, what's your advice for homeowners and people that are looking for a good GC? Like how do they, how do they know what to look for? Well, I mean, I think it's more on the, for them, I don't know. It's really luck of the draw. mean, you, you could get a guy that just gets money crunched and just, it happens by mistake. could be a malicious thing where the guy's collected money intentionally planning to never do the job.

I think there's a lot of different situations that come up, especially with the lack of oversight on the money moving around in the industry. For instance, in real estate, if we're going to do a home transaction, what happens? Escrow. The money goes in escrow, this, that, that, there's rules, there's regulations, how does the money move around? When it comes to...

Right now I can go to a customer. I just I'm doing a little hundred and twenty thousand dollar addition right now in interior edition I Told him hey, I need 58 grand up front. This is the next payment schedule boom boom boom I made those numbers up whatever I see fit It's appropriate, but that money should be going into escrow by law Every single time when it's over 25 grand or something like that. You know what I mean? It has to be because

It's too sketchy. You cannot pay me at the end as well because it can work the other way. The client can just not pay at the end if the balance is too big. And then what? The money. I don't have it anymore. You go to sue them. OK, you can put a lien on the property. But when it comes to the lien law, it's so strict in Florida. If you don't do everything with the lien properly, they can overturn the lien. It's called a

curing the lien or something like that. You have to, perfecting the lien. I think it's called perfecting the lien. You got to be on point from when you initially sign. You need a notice to owner going out. You need every single thing done. And it's just, it's very complicated for the average guy. know, it sounds good. you can put a lien. That lien's going to get thrown out with a good lawyer. he didn't spell my, he put extra T in my name. Thrown out.

Jesse Sampley (12:27.232)

Yeah, it's nasty. lot of, a lot of updates need to happen. Do you do a lot of educating to your, to your customers of, know, that first initial meeting that you have with them of just, you know, what to watch out for and what you guys do differently? What's some of that conversation look like just so that people are comfortable working with you? Well, to be honest, the same way I talk to you is the same way I talk to them. I don't do the fake salesman voice. I don't come in there and be a different person.

I keep it real, Anthony Gizzy's Anthony Gizzy. This is my name on my business. I'm not going anywhere. I tell them, this is the deposit I need. If you don't feel comfortable with that, then go call somebody else. mean, unfortunately, because by the time we get to the money, don't rush, I don't deal. I take my time, make sure it's a good fit for both of us. Like I don't want a super annoying needy client that's going to be, you know, hounding us, getting crazy.

But also I want them to feel good too. Hey, this is my business. This is my family, my father, my friends that work here. You know, all good subs I know for a while. it's, I just keep it real with the people. I, the salesman is me. You know what I mean? The person who collects the money is me. The person they're working with the guys is me. you know, so at the end of the day, they're dealing with me. give them job dedication. I'm involved the whole way. When you email, you're emailing me. You know what I mean? It's, I know I can't do that for too big.

There's going to come a point where it can't be like that potentially, but for right now, for the next couple of years, absolutely no problem. And again, I'm not really trying to scale a service business. I'm just trying to get to the point where I'm building new spec homes with my team, all my in-house licensing, and that's where I'll thrive, you know? But the service business is not, it's just too broken. I'm explaining to you with the, for instance, if you get sued by a client in Florida,

your business, you cannot represent yourself in court. Even if you're a hundred percent owner of the business, a customer can sue you, immediately you are forced to spend just to start 7,500 just to get the lawyer to talk to you. So now you're already in that situation by force. You cannot represent yourself because that's unlicensed practice of law.

Jesse Sampley (14:46.35)

So you have to get a lawyer and realistically to go fight a case in Florida to get your money that customer owes you or to defend yourself 40, 50 grand.

That's, that's ridiculous the other way too. So it's a real broken industry and I don't see even calling in the senators and the people, the house representatives in Florida. It's how like the process to even get before the Senate is crazy to get five minutes with them. Then you got to present in five minutes, real clear and articulate. If they want to further ask questions about your topic, they give you another 30 minutes in their office at a scheduled time.

And you got to like, it's like a four or five year thing to even get any changes made. So I'll be out of the service industry most likely by then. And it'll be strictly building custom homes that I design, family homes that you want to pass down to your family, not cookie cutter, you know, 400,000 other homes. going to be building seven to a million other homes, real nice stuff. And that's probably going to be the end of the year next year. Wow.

That's a pretty ambitious goal. That's and to have all of that kind of have all of that licensing in-house, you know, you're able to then probably keep the integrity of the project a whole lot more intact. 100%. 100 % everything under my control. And you got to think about a build when you're going to build in Florida because of the licensing that you have to get licensed AC guy, licensed electrician, licensed plumber.

License pool guy like you know what I mean everyone you have to have all different licenses before Accounted for who's gonna do it before you even get a permit issued So it's by having all that each one of them guys has got to make at least what 20 %? Now I'm taking all those 20 % and keeping it in-house I can deliver an extremely better project by putting that money back into the project and now my product for 750

Jesse Sampley (16:51.342)

is way better than the other guys for $750, and maybe we both make the same, but my product is way better. You know what I mean? So I'm probably going to make more, but it doesn't matter. I'm happy to have a better product at the end of the day. My name on it, Gizzy's model, whatever. What type of home will you start out with? Will it be spec or will you try to find a custom home builder client? No, it's going to be spec, 100%.

I won't do custom home. I don't think I would do a full custom home build with a client. It's just too annoying. it's not, know, unless they really want to pay, it's not worth it. I love additions because it's simple. The square footage price, bing bang, boom. And there's not too much this project I'm doing right now. We've been working on since February. Every detail is accounted for to the doorknob. No surprises. know, what, what all are you doing? You said this is a, this is a interior.

But what all does that cover? So it was a vaulted, a vaulted ceiling when you walk in with a staircase to the right. They're having a baby next month. So they wanted to add another bedroom. I came in, I put a post, column, put a new footer. I already have the deck up there. People are walking around. We got the walls up. The bedroom is up there, closet up there. And downstairs underneath where we put a floor, we have a little den.

So, and we're going to case out the staircase with some custom white oak, real nice new treads, new hardwood up floor. Yeah. How long have you been posting to Instagram? And is that a, your main social media channel that you're using? I've been posted on there since what? 2020. And, uh, yeah, I mean, I don't really, I don't know how many people call me and say, I called you from Instagram, but most of the time somebody gave my number, you know, I've lived here on the treasure coast for

You know, long time, 25 years. It's like, you know, I know everybody. It's big projects. did start to post on YouTube and I did get a client off of there by just posting raw content of the job sites. People really like to see and hear the drills and the stuff. mean, yeah. I should do some more long form on the job site, but I haven't yet. It takes time to do all of that. You know, there's a, you're also trying to do the work. You're trying to manage everyone that's there and then.

Jesse Sampley (19:10.658)

When you throw content creation to the mix, it's, you know, sometimes it takes a lesser priority. Cause after you shoot the content, then you're having to edit the content. You're having to write the captions. You're having to schedule the content. It's, it's very time consuming, but just on a, in fact, I was talking to another construction company out in Arizona, just a couple hours ago, and they were saying that, you know, a lot of their, a lot of their referrals were coming word of mouth, but they were getting word of mouth referrals from.

from people that had just consumed their content on Instagram, not even past customers of theirs. So they're saying, you know, what, what a great testament to all of this effort that we're pouring into social media because, you know, we're literally getting people that are following us and they'll are referring those guys to other people, to their friends and their family and saying, man, I've been following these guys for a long time. It looks like they're doing really great work. They're just consuming Instagram videos and that's it. And they're referring, you know,

$200,000 projects to these people based on Instagram reels. And I don't think that's really clicked with a lot of people just yet. 100%. Absolutely. mean, people want to see what you do. Anybody can post some still pictures. But, you know, people want to see you on the job site. They want to see you. But a lot of people are uncomfortable getting on camera. I mean, good thing me and you are good looking and we feel comfortable. But some people...

Some people don't like how they look or they don't feel comfortable. I got a couple of buddies. They just open their roof in business. I'm helping them with some stuff and they don't want to get on camera yet. And I'm just like, guys, you got a license, you're doing a legitimate thing. You're helping people get on camera. You don't need to say nothing crazy. Just get on there and say, roof repair, roof replacement, give us a call. We're happy to hear from you. That's it. That's it.

share some knowledge that you've collected along the way. Be authentic, be real. You don't, it doesn't have to be anything crazy. I've, I've even, you know, I've written little teleprompter scripts for myself, just to, if you're trying to get something out, you know, sometimes you get a little self-conscious and, know, when you're looking at yourself recording the video, I just, there's all kinds of teleprompter apps that, you know, feed you the lines that way you can think it all through. You can write it all out, but you'll find that the more that you do it, then the more comfortable that you get on.

Jesse Sampley (21:35.118)

camera, it's not as much of a shock when you're staring at yourself and trying to think of what to say. But a lot of times too, people just want to see what you're doing. It doesn't even have to be so much talking head as much as it is, here, I'm just going to narrate a little bit about what you're seeing. And here's the details that we're looking at. And so much of this is common sense, but people overthink it a lot. And then once you start overthinking something, then it gets so big. And then once it's too big, then you just, you never do it.

And, you know, perfection is the enemy of done and just get it done, get it out there. And, know, you'll, you'll start seeing that consistency is what really wins, you know, cause then the algorithms start picking up on that stuff and they're saying, Hey, this is an active business. And they're actually pouring stuff into our platform, like Instagram, they're posting stuff, they're talking about things that people are interested in. So then they start showing that to more and more people. And that's what.

The algorithms want that's what Facebook, YouTube, Instagram. They just want people to be on their platform for longer. So if you give people good content that they can watch for longer, they're going to show that video to more people. Very true. Are you doing or have you ever done any other type of marketing? Done a little bit of Instagram, like boosting the stuff. And I spent some on Google. I did Angie for a little bit. And like, I really didn't like, you know, if they said, Hey,

We want $200 per estimate that you go on or something. That could be fair. That could be fair, but that's not what they do. They tell you, you know, we're going to give you leads and then they give you bum leads. And in my experience, I'm not, you know, I'm not saying for everybody, but they just, hustle and you know, I've had people call me on there and say, Hey, I want you to get naked. This and that just outrageous things. And then they charged me under $800 for it. Did you do it?

No, I didn't. Okay, just want to clarify. And I was, it was obviously probably a competitor. I'm not going to, you know what I mean? It was just like, but I pay, I had to pay for that. And after that was the last straw for me. I was like, I was like, you know, I had paid for a couple other ones and this was years ago, but I don't really even need it. I do a little Craigslist posting $5 an ad. Craigslist is good to me. I've done probably 800 grand of business or more just on Craigslist. Really?

Jesse Sampley (24:02.966)

Yeah. Hey, people are ready to go. People on Craigslist are people that want it cheap, but they want it now. They're not, they're not thinking about just window shopping on Craigslist. Craigslist wants it cheap and they want it now. You know, that's what I'm not. What kind of messaging are you putting out there? Are these, are these ads or are these just listings? You put a listing, you put some pictures and I usually put like a general contractor on the treasure coast or something.

and then I do what we do. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. That ad, I haven't really updated it. I haven't updated that in years and it's been a little slow right now. When it comes to the random people with ads, 100 % the market is a little slow with the remodeling right now. For sure. I'm busy, but I know a lot of people are calling and they're looking to, do you have work? Do you need help? And that means that they don't have their own jobs and it's slow for them. So.

You know, I think it's interesting right now to see the tightening and see how a lot of the people that just got into the industry, how they're reacting because they haven't seen this before. They haven't seen when it gets tight. I've seen it because I've been in this business a long time. I've seen with my father and stuff, but a lot of the younger guys that maybe didn't come up like us, like in the business, might not have seen this type of like shift, which will shift back and start getting juicy again, but

A lot of them are like, I don't want to do this business no more. I'm not going to do construction anymore. I talked to a buddy today and he was telling me that. He's like, yeah, I'm sick of construction. think, well, what did he tell me he was going to go do? my goodness. He had me laughing. He's been doing this a while, flooring and painting. And he told me, he said, he's sick of the volatility of work. And what did he tell me he was going to do? my.

Not construction, something like being a chef or something. And I was like, I was like, stop, man. Stop. You know, you got to commit to this industry and just say, Hey, this is what I'm going to do for the next 30 years. There's going to be ups and downs. That's on me really, if there's downs, but it's going to take time, but you just got to commit. can't say I'm going to switch careers because it gets tight, you know, and you didn't plan ahead and you know, mingle enough and get enough people passing your number around.

Jesse Sampley (26:23.948)

You know, you're going to give up on the thing you spent, you know, 20 grand on tools and now you're going to switch to chef? No. For sure. I mean, the volatility is always going to be there. You it's, you saw that in the housing crisis, then you saw it during COVID and now you're seeing a little bit of this now. Like that's going to be part of it. But like you said, if you're going to go ahead and pour all of this effort and all of this learning into this.

Don't just give all that stuff up and then do something a hundred percent different. Lean into it, meet more people, get more referrals, know, try new things, you know, go after it. but that takes a unique person, you know, to be able to have that amount of tenacity. But it's not for everyone. know what I, you know what I think it is? Like think that over the past four years, five years since 2020, I think it's been too easy to win.

And I think that guys were all just winning by accident. And now that it's like a little more competitive. Now they're like, well, I don't like to read and I haven't been reading or getting any more skills over the years. I just been getting lucky and now it's a different time. Now they're getting, and that's why I've been pushing this learning because I said, Hey guys, like you need to know a lot more stuff than you know. I have a bachelor's degree in business finance. I still barely know what I'm doing. You know what I mean? Like.

You need to be studied and reading, you know, like I do a lot of reading, you know, I got a lot of books I like to read. You got to stay off the phone though. If you're going to read, you got to stay off the phone and the distractions and stuff because a lot of these guys didn't do any studying. They're a little handy. I said, guys, that ain't enough no more. You know, if you look at the Chinese market with all the bigger population, it is so competitive over there.

You got to be on point on everything. Marketing, accounting, with your taxes. You got to be on point with customer service. You slip up with one little thing over there, you're out of business. You know what I mean? It's very competitive and there's some other markets like that too. But it's been too easy to win here and you know, it's unfortunate. I think that people are going to have to wake up and say, oh, I need to commit. And again, know, hiring the illegals as your main workforce.

Jesse Sampley (28:38.698)

unfortunately is not a business model and I see a lot of guys hurting right now from that. Their whole crew was undocumented guys. I love them. You my wife is from Brazil. I love my church is a Brazilian church. If your whole staff is guys that are on edge, I mean, they can't even get serious about learning the skills and invest in the tools because they don't know if they're going to get sent back. And the whole thing is just, know, again, no accountability, no.

Oversight of this industry they play games with the licensing, but there is no oversight of the industry. There's no sting operations There's a couple if you go on YouTube and look them up in Tampa Where they'll say, can you come and do a remodel for us? The guy comes over and they the guy quotes him on all stuff that he's not licensed for and he's not a GC So they do do a little sting operations, but not enough that people have fear, you know, and I'm not the type that

I would like to see them get rid of the permitting, the licensing rules and everything. I would love that, but that's not going to happen. So unfortunately they need to be forced to enforce. I believe that if we sued the local municipalities potentially for negligence, for not going after unlicensed activity, I think that could force their hand in Florida if it even worked.

Yeah. So one of the things with the non-enforcement is there's the DBPR who gives licenses for certified licenses throughout the state. Then there's local building departments. Those are separate entities and they have separate goals and stuff like the mayor's office usually runs the building department type of thing. So they don't even coordinate with the DBPR.

to catch guys working. They do zero online enforcement of guys advertising without a license. Are we taking things seriously for the guys that go and get their license if we're not going to enforce the unlicensed activity? It's a very false system that they have set up down here, unfortunately, with that. This sounds like a good opportunity, though, to educate people on this. And it positions you in a way to where

Jesse Sampley (31:05.406)

You are the expert and you become more of a guide. So even, mean, on a referral side of just like, Hey, go with Anthony because Anthony's, mean, he knows all of this stuff. He's obviously legit. He's collecting all of these licenses, like whatever he says, like he is just to what little bit you and I have talked. Like you have instantly already set your, your, authority and saying like, I am the authority in this space.

I'm reading, I'm collecting all this knowledge. I know it works. I know it doesn't work. I've seen all spectrums of it. And it leaves such a great opportunity to then communicate with a customer to say, hey, even if you go with me, if you don't go with me, it doesn't really matter. I just want to pass on my knowledge to you. And I would say that more times than not, they're going to say, hey, Anthony, why don't you just handle this for me? you know all the things to look for, just do it for me.

I've got the budget, I've got the project, and what a good opportunity for that to be your content that you then share on social media. I didn't want to know what books are you reading right now? Right now I have, this is the plumbing code. this is, yeah, mean- Is that the fiction version or is that nonfiction?

Hey, I'm going to tell you, it is serious to study for these licenses. Today I announced to some of my guys, January 12th, we're going to be starting our contractor license study group in West Palm. And I'm going to invite whoever wants to get their license. They come, I show them exactly how to look through these books and get their license. know, so I am trying to give back to the guys. I had zero help getting my license. You know what I mean? It was, my parents helped me a lot.

You know, but outside of my parents, like, you know, was single at the time. I was studying. I failed a bunch of times, but I would love to help guys. And the thing is, I'm probably going to need these guys that I help get their license in the future. You know, they live in a different city. If I get a project that I need a sub in that city, bing bang boom. So I'm happy to help. And I love meeting these guys. mean, these guys, I probably got about 50 DMs since I started advertising to help get

Jesse Sampley (33:24.962)

guys their license. This morning I posted about January 12th being the first study group. I already had a guy, never met him before. He's already offered me his shop to have the event. No way. Yeah, he called me this morning. He said, hey, I want to get my license. I'm paying a qualifier right now to use his license. He's paying three grand a month to have a license with the guy. He said, hey, I would love for you to do it in the shop. I said, no problem.

later this week I'll probably go meet with him, check out the shop, make sure it's good. We'll probably have five to ten guys there. Hey, nobody's helping these guys get their license. And girls, there's a lot of girls getting licenses too, you know? But at the end of the day, after we get all, after we do the helping with the getting the licenses, we have to turn to going after the guys that don't have licenses, because they're hurting people. They're hurting people.

the

It sounds like you and I are going to create an online school where you can share your knowledge. We'll build the platform. You can build out an entire course, but I think there's a, I think there's another business here that it's probably going to happen naturally. So you're going to be building spec homes, but you're going to be doing a lot of teaching. That's going to be so beautiful. Spec homes. mean, I enjoy that. want to build extremely modern flat roof, all usable space. don't really, I don't want 1700 square foot.

roof You have a limited lot here in Florida most the time a point to five lot Why can't I have the extra 1700 square feet of usable space at my roof? It's not like flat roofs are not Figured out already, you know, you put the I have a roof license you put the roof drains and this and that It's not you know, every house I build pretty much spec house will probably be flat roof and usable while

Jesse Sampley (35:48.255)

Yeah. Green roof or walkable space and usable space. 100%. I don't know the model of like the pitched roof. That makes sense if you don't want snow building up. So they do it like that up North. don't need that here. God. Cast the vision. What is your, what does your company look like in the next 10 years? What are you doing? What kind of projects are you working on? In the next 10 years, if the licensing situation stays the same here in Florida, I expect to be

you know, helping hundreds of guys to get their license, both qualifying them and where I give them a license and work with them side by side. And they pay me monthly for that to have a license. That's why I'm going to get all the licenses. And then I could, if the guy is an electrician, but he doesn't have his license, I can partner with them like that. And then they pay me monthly. I plan to get a bunch of those guys lined up and partnered with, and then also with the spec home building. I mean, that's it. Nothing crazy.

You know, hopefully it goes good. Well, you already have, will have a competitive advantage because you're going to be able to build your spec home for so much cheaper just by holding all of those licenses. Like you said, you're, you're saving a percentage on all of those different subs that, that you would have been using. The money, when you, when you break that down, it is so juicy and beautiful, but it takes time. You know what I mean? You got to get the credit, right? You got to get the, everything in line and it takes months and years.

Just to start, first of all, I got to buy the lot. I'm going have to buy the lot at the beginning of the year. And then I'm going to have to, after I get the lot, I'm going to have to pay for the engineer. Probably 20, 30 grand for the architect and engineer to draw this up. You know, I'm going to give them a good starting base, but things are very expensive, you know? Now building the home, that's nothing. That's the easy part. Hey guys, that's the easy part. Put the planning in, choosing the lot, you know?

But in 10 years, mean, 10 years, I got a pretty good outlook. I plan to have all the licenses getting monthly income from my guys that I'm qualifying. And then with the spec homes, maybe two, three a year where I'm making, you know, I don't need to, I don't need to get crazy and build a hundred a year or something. You know, I'm not going to get crazy like that, but my wife is a hairstylist. She has a beauty salon. So she's why built through the beauty salon. You know, maybe we build her a second one or something.

Jesse Sampley (38:14.734)

Crazy, 10 years goes quick. It does. What about you? What are you doing in 10 years? We're trying to help a hundred home builders just become number one in their market. So that is our goal, right? I feel like the home builder world and the construction world is so underserved. I think that a lot of people follow the money. they go towards, you know, the home service side, they go towards the plumbers and they go through, go to roofers, electricians and people like that. I would like to develop.

some sort of a property. I've built a few homes, like I said earlier, with the help of my dad, but I would like to develop some sort of a neighborhood, a township or something like that. So some of this is twofold. I'm, I'm gleaning information from people while also trying to help them with, know, building websites, building funnels, building kind of their, business, getting them to a good place for them to scale. But I think in the next 10 years, yeah, Jesse Sample will be doing some, development projects also.

Yeah, you should come on January 12th if you're in Florida Come on over and meet some of the guys Maybe get some more guys to come on the thing But a lot of these guys are working for guys right now They don't want their boss to know that they're gonna try to get their own license. It's like The boss ain't gonna be like good job. Go get your thing. Go get your license like you know what I mean? It's like fight club for the for construction guys. Don't mention don't say that you put over the Yeah, and you know what?

I had these plumbers a few months ago doing a grease trap and they were the workers and these guys were talking about why they don't have their license. I heard every excuse in the book. the books are way too expensive. Who should be paying $200, $500. That, no one passes that test. It's only 25 % pass rate for the plumbing license. This, that, don't know how to read.

Just craziness, you know what I mean? And realistically, it's like, all right, so you're capping your pay. You're doing that to yourself. You know what I mean? Over something that's not that difficult to get this license. Plumbing, you gotta have a license, you know what I mean? We can't let guys just plumbing. If you wanna do drywall, whatever. Flooring, that's fine, but these guys gotta take it serious and they gotta, I love seeing what you're doing. I watched a couple of your videos on YouTube, some of your things.

Jesse Sampley (40:35.928)

People gotta get used to speaking. You have nothing to hide. You shouldn't have nothing to hide in this business. If you can't just come talk the same on camera that you talk in person, you know what I mean? I get you're a little shy, but it's like, hey, at the end of the day, we're two human beings, me and Jesse talking, and that's it. mean, talk what you gotta say, you know? Ask me whatever you wanna ask, and that's it. Yeah, 100%. Well, who are some people in your world that you follow, people that you admire?

people that give you inspiration. me right now, Alex Formozzi, he is so accurate and articulate the way he breaks down the mindset of a business owner and what it takes and just everything. Alex Formozzi is spitting the most right now, just absolute gold nuggets. I love it. I haven't read his book yet, but I've watched a lot of his stuff and it's also Myron Golden, I think. he's good. He's good.

You know, it's a certain mindset. It's a mindset. man, such a, such a rich conversation here. Well, as we wrap up, how, how can people learn more about, you know, the, you're doing? And, and I think it sounds like you need a, you need a whole new platform just to, to educate people. But I think that you need to, you need to do this on, on YouTube, but that's, it's, this is the conversation I didn't expect that we were going to have today, but it is a really important one. Get me going, Jesse.

Don't get, hey, do not get me going on the construction industry. It's, you know, if people want to get in touch with me, they could follow me online, Anthony Gizzi. I have started to make some positive videos on YouTube. I made a bunch last year just pissed about, I'm not mad about it anymore because now I'm not mad about it anymore. It is what it is, you know, but I was real upset after I got all these licenses and then,

homeowner removed me as the contractor and then hired an unlicensed guy and he went and did it for half the price. And I called the building department and I explained what took place and they just said he has a homeowner permit he can have whoever he wants to do it. Even though I can show you with the statutes that that is fraudulent and not allowed.

Jesse Sampley (43:00.952)

they're not gonna get into that. And that's the thing, even when you go all the way to the building official in charge of the building department, you still, if he says that's too bad, that's the end of the line, pretty much. You know what I mean? So it's unfortunate, it is a weird topic, but once you said you're into the construction industry, I saw some of the older guys in the videos with you, I said, these guys don't even know about the nonsense going on here in Florida.

with the licensing and the permitting nonsense. Some states, no permits, no license, no license needed, up to 30 grand in North Carolina. If the project's not 30 grand, you don't need it. Texas, no roof license needed. Florida, you know what I mean? The GC can't even do a roof, or you can't even move a plumbing from one, like a basic thing. The GC can't do it. No one, everyone has to do their own thing, so.

It's an interesting thing. It's a very dry topic. I appreciate you listening. But, you know, I could get on here and say, yeah, call Gizli Construction. Call Gizli Construction. We do the best blah, blah, blah. Hey, anybody can put your walls up. Anybody can build your stuff. You know, it's all about who you're dealing with. I'm not a service industry guy. I can't stand being in the service industry to be in this. I love to build though. So I, this is the only way to do it, you know, unless you have a lot of money to.

build your own projects. think a lot of people appreciate your candor and your honesty and just your insight into what's already a problem that needs to be addressed. So I'm excited to see where this goes. I'd like to see it go where we set up a bounty hunting reward for unlicensed contractors. If the state won't do it, if they don't have demand power, maybe you make a reward of two grand.

for people that catch. This is not about undocumented immigrants. This is about Americans that just disregard the licensing law. You know what I mean? And it's like, it's not fair to a guy that's spending for a showroom and trying to pay a secretary, trying to stay in business competing against the next guy that grabs a Milwaukee drill and says he's a contractor on Facebook.

Jesse Sampley (45:18.894)

No, I appreciate you thinking about me, Absolutely, man. Well, I'm excited to check back in here in a little while and we can do another episode and we can see what's changed. Excellent. Hey, the only thing that's going to change may be another license. You know, I got the whiteboards up here to make sure I stay focused. I got to buy a few more HVAC books.

All right, that's a wrap for this conversation. If you know someone who should be on this podcast, send us an email at info at meridianpursuit.com and nominate them. We're always looking for great stories to share. And if you got something out of this episode, please leave us a quick review on the show. And if you're watching on YouTube, tap like and subscribe so we can share this with more people. I'm Jesse Sampley. Thanks for listening and I'll see you on the next one.