Transcript:
Well, happy Friday, everybody, and welcome back to episode 19 of the Service Legends Podcast. I have a real treat for you guys today. I’ve been wanting to get this guy on the podcast since we we started it a couple of weeks ago. Corey Hansen, Welcome to the podcast, man.
What’s up, Ryan? How you doing?
Good, good, good, good. A little bit different structure than some more floors, but you’re you’re used to the podcast world.
So podcast, it’s not the live video part. Yeah.
So we’re going to have some engagement today. We’ve got a couple people tune, tune in live there as you guys are onboarding here to the podcast. If you could please type in a comment, hashtag live if you’re here live today. Also, if you’re catching the replay, if you could type in comments, hashtag replay, that would be awesome. And you know. We’re going to be doing in-person podcast soon, by the way. So it’s going be really fun. We have all the mics, everything set up, so that’ll be really fun to do that. If those if, if you guys don’t know Corey, a lot of you probably do, especially in this group and different groups out there, epoxy guides, polishing experts, all all those different groups, everyone most likely knows Corey He’s the man, he’s the myth, he’s the legend. But if you don’t know Corey, he is the CEO and founder of Easy Concrete Supply, and their target market is really decorative concrete installers and just companies like Cardinal that want to buy product and sundries and you name it. And really they’re just a one stop shop for all of your decorative concrete supplies and your needs. They’re from equipment, you name it. They’re located in Lima, Ohio, and Corey was an installer of a decorative concrete overlay company for six years, and he grew that company to four crews and 2.5 million in sales extremely quick.
So that is just awesome. I love that experience. I think in our industry there’s a lot of distributors out there, you name it, right? But I love finding people that have the experience and I think you’re able to build the company a lot better when you have that kind of in the trenches experience. But we decided that he wanted to start helping other companies and help them grow and offer better products and services than that that were available at the time. So he started easy concrete supply. Now I now he owns five brands and products in the coating industry, in the concrete industry, and there’s currently eight easy concrete supply locations in the country. It’s just incredible. He owns commercial properties, farmland, and him and his wife right now are are building a wedding venue. So extremely family oriented, business oriented. There’s a lot of ethics involved. You are really active in your boy’s life playing sports and things like that, which I see all over social media, which is so cool to see. Man. I think that’s what everyone wants when we start our own businesses, right, is to have more freedom, more impact, more profit so we can spend time with our family and things like that. So super excited to have you on the podcast, man.
Yeah, I’m excited to be on here. I don’t know about more freedom though. Like I would just somehow make it work, you know? Yeah, I, I flew back from Vegas one one night just to go to my son’s basketball game.
I love that. I was watching the clock. I was watching a podcast with. Have you heard of Patrick Davidson?
Yeah, I think so.
He’s. He owns a company called like Value Tainment or whatever. Anyways. He has a podcast and I was watching one with Kobe’s, one of Kobe’s last podcast, and Kobe said he never missed much way less than all the other guys. And he would be in, you know, on the East Coast and he’d fly home, go to his daughter’s birthday, and then fly back to Game five and the championship or things like that. And that’s what it takes. As a high level entrepreneur, we’re so busy and but we have to make that time. And I love that you mentioned that. Let’s take a step back real quick. Before the easy days, I know we kind of had a bio, but before the easy days, if you could just walk us through like how you first got maybe into your first business out of the last thing and kind of leading up to easy.
Okay. So I was actually running our family business. It was a pool and spa store, and we had tons of customers that had in-ground pools and patios and porches. And I went to a show in Orlando that had all different kinds of booths and stuff and walked by. And there was this decorative concrete booth. And that kind of stuck with me for a while and I was talking to my dad. I’m like, Hey, we should add this. Our customers would would love to offer this or love to buy it or whatever. And we had a pretty big showroom. I was going to do the showroom, the walkway up to it, know my dad’s like, That’s a dumb idea. Nobody’s going to nobody’s going to buy that, right? So still, I was like, Man, I think it’s a good idea. Nobody’s doing that around here. And so I just did it on my own, started my own company called Re Deck of Northwest Ohio and within me. And it was like a few months, honestly. I’m like, Hey, Dad, I can’t be the manager of the company anymore. The decorative things just blowing up. I’m making good money. I can’t do both. And within. I would say a year and a half, I wasn’t able to keep up with anything, Bookkeeping, nothing. Right. I was paying my bills when they would call and want money. I was so busy just getting money and putting it in, Right. So I was talking to my wife at that time. She was. You know, she worked at the hospital and. You know, she was not, I don’t think, real happy working there, but good money. I’m like, well, we have to have some type of bookkeeper assistant, something to keep the business running when I’m out selling stuff, installing stuff. So we made that big leap where she quit her job and we joined forces right then. Her parents were kind of like, you know, What are you doing? You’re leaving a good job. You’ve had for ten years at a hospital. Oh, that. Right now they don’t care. You know, you’re cool with.
The risk, I imagine.
Right? Right. But, man. My whole thing, even in the hot tub business was marketing, right? So I would advertise, advertise, advertise year round when I had the install company. Back then it was newspaper know, Sun newspaper, full color, and that would book me for a week or two. So I ran it every Sunday. Then there was what was that called? It was like something like a flyer that came in the mail, the town money saver. And it had like, coupons for carpet cleaning pizza. Then you open it up re dec get your garage done. So we grew that pretty fast. And, you know, I did almost what every installer does. I made some. Huh? You know, a lot of different things I did wrong. And then I learned from. But one thing.
You weren’t, so you weren’t perfect.
No, not at all. No, I learned from Switch them. You know, quick. One thing I did pretty, pretty quick was I paid for a company to answer my phone. They answered my phone. Answered my phone. They also scheduled. You know all of my appointments. Right. So at the beginning, I was answering my phone, doing estimates, going to the job, writing the address, wrong, driving to the wrong lake. You know, I’m like, this is not good. I was driving home one time and writing down an address and I drove off the side of the road, you know, yanked it back on. I’m like, I’ve got to do something different. That’s when I found that company that would answer the phone. 24 seven. Right. So you could call any time and a person would answer the phone. That changed everything for us. I was able to focus on doing the estimates, selling the jobs, running the cruise, and just open up my phone in the morning and go where they already had me scheduled. So that was huge. Yeah. But you know grew that for. Few years. It just kept getting bigger and bigger. We moved from our home office. I built a built but a 7000 square foot building in Lima and had all the crews there, all the equipment. And just scaled it right. We would we would be booked two, three months out, add another crew to three months, add another crew. You know, I had crews that only did flake floors, had crews that only did metallics. We did a lot of overlays, stamp overlays.
That’s actually how I started. That’s a lot of people don’t do that anymore. I offer that here easy but. We did a lot of that, really. And I still have customers today that come in and buy acrylic sealer to reseal that stuff. So it still looks good. And that was what, ten? Ten, 12 years ago. Right. But so I started doing really good and growing that business. And my supplier said, Hey, why don’t you start selling some of our products to other guys and and replicate it? I’m like, Oh, yeah, I could do that because I was kind of getting bored pretty much. You know, you can, but at that time, I wasn’t even going out to the job. I wasn’t installing anything. I was just selling, you know, showing up and selling. So I started doing that a little bit, and the next thing you know, I was selling more than their six paid employees that were there. Right. And then just some other things happened and I decided, hey, I could probably do this on my own. You know, I think I can do it a little bit better, offer better pricing, better service. And I knew that I could not install and be a distributor at the same time. To me, I thought that was not a good way to start the business. So. Instead of advertising my business for sale. I called the biggest competitor that I had and offered it to them. Then two weeks later they bought it.
It’s funny how things happen when you ask for it, right?
Yeah. Yeah. And that honestly, that’s how. That’s how I grew the company, man. It’s just full ask. Walk in a door and say, Hey, this is what we do. When customers tell me on the phone, Man, we’re struggling. I can’t get any business. I just don’t understand that. Even if I didn’t market anything, I could still get business. It just. Go and attack. Attack the phones. Go door to door, man. It’s. Just selling. Yeah. But after that. It doesn’t seem like it’s been that long, really, but it has been, you know.
How long ago was it? Do you know what year it was when you when you started that that that service company or the intel company?
I think it was 11. Wow. My wife’s in here still. When was it? 1121, 2011.
Wow. That’s incredible, man. I graduated college high school in 2011.
So what was happening then, man? What was happening back then, if you remember, was that housing market crash.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember seeing it with my parents and stuff like that. I mean, obviously I was freaking out as a kid. I remember seeing it and seeing just being like, Wow, what the heck is this? You know.
It was it was nuts. I was I decided to start buying houses at that time, too. So I was like, All right, I got cruise, right? So I’m going to buy four houses and we’re going to make those Cruz Go fix them up in the dead of winter if we don’t have any more. So I was buying houses and then get them ready to rent. But it was it was nuts back then. You could buy a house 25 grand. A three bedroom home with a garage. Nuts.
Incredible.
Special to So. It’s not the nicest.
That’s pretty incredible. 2011. I mean, I got into the coding business about five years ago, roughly. And I remember at that point, it was just starting to take off. And what’s interesting is you were you were in the game well before any of the hype really started. Right. Like this big influx. And the industry’s really starting to grow, especially on the residential level, because I think a lot of the products were heavy commercial and really coming in to the residential market and you were really at the forefront of that. When did you sell the business to your competitor? Was it a couple of years down the road or it was.
17. Oh, wow. I think was 17.
That’s incredible. Okay. So from 2011 to 2017, when you were and you were in the trenches.
Yeah. We were killing.
It’s amazing. So six years, really. And so from. So when did you start? About 2017. 2018. There or.
Yeah, 2017? Yep. 2017? Yeah. As soon as I told, I instantly turned on the website, started making the phone calls started and it was just me at the beginning. And then it was just me and another guy. And then I’m like, I got to get this thing turned up. About a 10,000 square foot building. Started doing training, started just. Work in it. Yeah. And it just. Man, it’s been. I’m a little tired, to be honest with you right now.
Maybe you’re at that bored stage when you were when you were kind of got to that pinnacle, if you will.
I’m there. I’m bored.
So now it’s going to be What’s next there? Maybe we’ll get into.
That with you right now.
But this is this is really, really cool. I think this is cool because have you ever seen that iceberg kind of like picture or it’s like the iceberg is on top and it’s like hard work. A lot of people will see maybe the success of easy or like the impact that you guys are making, serving all of these companies and installers and all these good things you guys are doing. And a lot of times people are like, Oh, you know, they grew up rich or they’re so smart, what have you, right? But I mean, guys, this started literally well over ten years ago before this was even a thought. You know, I.
Still listen to this. I still don’t even have a bank loan. Wow. I never got one. Wow. I reinvested the money that I made. In the business. When I was an installer, I started out with a shitty truck. I bought it off of Craigslist, leaked oil. I was driving around a minivan, you know, like I had a I had a customer I pulled up to do a quote. We get all done. He’s like, I like you, man. I really do, but. Man, You got to do something about that minivan. What’s wrong with it? I throw all my stuff in there to pick up my kids. You know, he’s like. Because for me, when you pulled up in that minivan, you know, I was just like, I don’t know if I’m going to like this guy. And I said, I get it. But man, I’m born on a budget right now, you know?
So it’s a utility vehicle. I show up to work. I pick up my.
Kids after that. So I’m like, you know, he is he was right. You know, at that point, I did have money built up. So went out and at least the F 150. Right. Just plain Jane White F 150 put my own logo on the side of it, you know. But when I, when we were done and I sold the company, I had five brand new F two fifties five and everything brand new, but I didn’t have. I didn’t have that at the beginning. You know, a lot of these guys will go and they’re like, Oh, I’ve got to go get a brand new van, 60,000. I’m going to go buy 30,000. Levine I’m going to do all this in mass. Don’t do that. Start making money. Start spending your money on marketing advertising, like the stuff that’s going to make you money. Truck just costs you money. Fuel and insurance and then your guys are just going to beat the crap out of it anyways.
So true, man. This is amazing, man. I mean, if you guys didn’t miss that for for the people in the nosebleeds here. I mean, reinvest your profits. Don’t take your profits away. I know my one of my mentors, Tommy Melo, he always talks about when I first met him, he had a I pulled up I think I had a BMW five series at the time. It was a new one, you know, And this was like almost two years ago. And I pulled up and, you know, I had a really nice watch on. I was like, This is Tommy, right? And he takes me around town, shows me all of his businesses, this and that, and old truck, I mean, just like an old truck. I’m like, is this really his? Like, I mean, I’m talking it was like a05, like Titan. And I asked him, I’m like, do like, is this your truck? Like, I was like, because we’re driving around and, you know, we’re going to drive around or something nice, you know? And he goes, No, I pride myself on driving an old truck like, you know, and and it sort of changed my mentality of our profits in the business, especially early on, are not to just suck them out of the business, right. It’s to pour them right back into the business. And I love that you mentioned that because I imagine if you were sucking those profits out, you shoot easy. Probably would have never would have been here because you would have got lost in the sauce back in 2012 or 2012.
There’s lots of in this whole time, right. From selling products for another company and starting my own company, I’ve I’ve helped people succeed. Early and then they just blow it all away. Like when I say cocaine and hookers, like I mean that or big dodge come and trucks and Harleys and next thing you know, they don’t have money to buy product. And then, you know, it’s you’ve got to reinvest in yourself and your company, you know? Yeah, I had other I had other streams of income as well to help to help those things. But even with when I started easy, I didn’t take a big salary or anything for years and I still drive an F 150.
Yeah, I love that man. Huge, huge lesson for all of us. So easy. How many employees do you guys have over there now? Over at E-Z.
I think right now we have 19. Wow. When I started. When I started easy, I wanted it to be, you know, I’m just thinking to myself, like Sherwin Williams, right? Like, they’re huge. They’re the go to for epoxy. For a lot of guys. I’m like, I’m going to be the Sherwin-Williams of decorative concrete, right? Yeah. So when I when I first started, I wanted to look as big as like, I knew I’m coming into this thing with other competitors. So I’m like, I’m going to be the biggest one. You know, as soon as I walk out and, you know, and make ourselves known. Right. So within just a few months, I was I called one of my really good customers. I said, Hey, you need to open an easy concrete supply in New York. And he’s like, Oh. Okay, let’s do it. So you sound.
As crazy as you, then.
Yeah. Yeah. In this New York accent, he’s like, Yeah, let’s do it, you know? All right. So that was our first one, you know, And. And. Slow. But after I think after just a few months, I got another one in Knoxville, Tennessee, another good customer. And then a few months into that, it burnt to the ground.
Oh, really? Like.
Like physically. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. He actually he was still an installer and he pulled his trailer into the building, left for the weekend. And they had they had a bunch of, like, a trash bag full of xylene racks and whatnot. Yep. Oh, man. Combusted. And just. Oh, gosh, I got a call like a Sunday morning at, like, five in the morning. He’s like, Dude, it just burned to the ground. I’m like, What? So.
So that was like the first couple of years, I imagine. I mean, that’s a big deal to a new business man. I mean.
The first year I was just coming out like crazy, but that was a step back there. And he never reopened, actually. Then he insurance took care of everything and. But there was another funny story of that, right? So a lot of the product was still OC, but it had fire damage. Well, a hazmat team had to come get it and throw it in the dumpster. A week later, it was on Craigslist for sale. Pure pop, pure epoxy for sale, like light fire damage. So those people took it out of the dumpster and were selling. Wow. Yeah, that’s hilarious. But I mean, we just started you know, we’ve had a couple locations that that failed. And then you just got to be honest with the people and be like, it’s not going to work. It’s it’s not the brand. It’s you. Right? You’re not reinvesting in your business. You’re not working it. But then we got locations. Now everybody’s growing. It’s nuts.
That’s incredible. When you when you decide to add value first in business and you know, I’m preaching to the choir for you here. But, you know, when you add this value to the business first and you think about client success and things like that first, it makes the business a little bit easier. You know, in some ways a lot of it easier. But it definitely shows. I mean, companies don’t grow, you know, for shits and giggles. You know, it doesn’t happen by luck very often. You know, I think sometimes here and there it can just the right timing or whatever it is. But success is not by luck, you know, And that’s what’s really cool about what you guys are doing is providing that value. Let’s talk about easy a little bit here. So 19 employees, let’s talk about like all of the services for those that maybe aren’t customers or might not know about you guys as well as I do, what do you guys offer? And just talk a little bit more about about kind of the.
Well, easy concrete. You know, we we we try to make everything easy to purchase, right? So I remember when I had to make orders for my material, I would call in, you know, they wouldn’t answer the phone. Then they’d call me back. And then it was just nightmare, you know? And then they would ship, maybe. 2 to 3 days after that, and you’d get it three days after that. Nobody in our industry has time for that, you know? I mean, I learned to order by the pallet. You know, I’d had a pallet, a clear pallet of grey pallet, a tan, and but a lot of guys don’t do that, right? They usually order by the job or a couple of jobs at a time. So, you know, I wanted my guys, my sales guys to be able to answer the phone. 24 seven And if the orders put in by 2:00, it ships out that day. Now, a lot of other companies say that’s not possible. I do it. You know, we’ll have 26 to 35 pallets go out every day. And it’s just it’s streamlined. Honestly, if you go back there, everything from entering the order to how they’re wrapping everything. They don’t go wrap the one order and then sit it all orders are sitting and then they wrap them all at the end of the day, because a lot of customers will add on. Right. So if you add the add on, then you’ve got to go cut the wrap open, put it in there, re weigh it. Which I want them to add on, right? Yeah. So it’s it’s taken a long time to get where we’re at, but. We’re streamlined. Really good. I mean, we’ve been. We’ve been doubling our business every year. But back to you. We offer equipment, Wolf. Pack equipment. That’s that’s my brand. I came up with the name. I’ve branded pretty much everything, Wolf pack equipment with the vacuums, the grinders, the swing buffers, the the tooling. Then we have the elastic system, which is an exterior, flexible flex system or court system.
If you could touch on that, too. I think I see that a lot. Like, Hey, what should I use on the pool deck or the driveway and all these different things? Could you dive into that? Is it just talk about that, that system a little bit because I think a lot of people could benefit from it there.
So it’s it’s a different product. It’s a single component like. It’s in the Polly Polly area family and you apply that product at 200 square foot a gallon and it’s called the base. Right? And then we have the binder. So the base goes on first. You can actually accelerate that up to three times and it will dry within 3 hours. Depends on temperature, but you can make it a one day system. If you have lower square footage is like 1500 square feet and under. So after that base. Is almost cured. It’s it’s always going to be tacky and sticky. So then you apply the binder at 200 square foot a gallon, broadcast your flakes or your quarts into that. You can accelerate that as well up to three times. And then topcoat with our pure epoxy SX 85 or the gladiator 90. Both those products. It’s just the Polish spark topcoat, right? Yeah. That system is super flexible or we’re at we’ve got freeze and thaw here. Yeah. And I had it on my patio and I’ve, I’ve seen in the winter where it was, it would stretch almost a half an inch to an inch and then in the spring and go right back down. Wow. And it looks just like a flake for. But you can get creative with it. Borders and diamonds and different things, but driveways, porches, patios, pool decks. So it’s great for. Yeah. Really good for your system.
Cool. Yeah, I see that. Throwing out a lot. Like like in the different forms, different Facebook groups. There’s different groups out there. Well, I think you you own one of the groups, right? One of the groups out there.
Of a few. So you remember all of them.
So you see that going on for the last big topic of discussion? What else? What else you guys got going on over there in terms of products and equipment.
So we have the line, which is your cement overlays, stains, acid stains, acetone stains, water based stains, stamp overlays, sealers, all that good stuff. Another one is Gladiator, which is a newer line for us. It’s been about a year. They say we sell Epoxies urethane Polish, Spartacus. Those are a lot of our brands. Then we also have the canine tooling, which is in that wolf pack line, which we sell tooling for Levinas and then our wolf pack line, five inch, seven inch cup wheels and some other stuff like that. Polishing stuff, man, I got so much different items. It’s hard for me to. You know, remember everything. Hey, what was the price on that? I have no idea anymore. I used to be able to rattle that off.
And you guys are like a massive supply house. Which is incredible. What do you guys think? You guys sell more of? Is it the epoxy, the Polish products? Like, what’s the biggest the biggest hit for you guys or the most popular, I should say?
Oh, we sell a ton of pure epoxy. Oh, yeah. P 100 is the number one seller. That is what we sell. The most of.
That is that. Is that 100% solids, epoxy or clear?
Yep.
Aspartic.
That’s. Man. We’re still selling 100 players. The number one seller. Number two is the piece 85. The poly aspartic by pure epoxy. Yeah. And then number three, I look at these numbers all the time. Number three is gladiator poly 90. And then Wolf pack equipment. Wow. Incredible, man. Wolf pack equipment is is growing like I don’t I saw a post the other day a guy had on the forum. He’s like, I’m looking for a new grinder. It’s either going to be a LaVena, a Sace or a wolf pack. And I’m like, how am I even in that realm, you know? I just floored. Even if he doesn’t buy one for me. Thanks, dude. I don’t remember your name, but you know, and one thing with that, the Wolf Pack equipment. Like when I was an installer, I had four pro pains. Right? And I just remember buying that thing. Jeez, I cost more than know sports car, you know, like a used sports car. And then you let your guys go out there and then they they run it till the the grinding discs fall off because they forgot to check the tooling, you know. So the Wolfpack, I wanted to offer equipment that was affordable. It’s really what I mean. That’s why I started it.
Yeah, I like that. I like that. You know, I think I think I think competition is so good. Well, capitalism, right? I mean, how do you competitions? It makes us all better, you know? It makes us so much better. Who do you. So who’s easy’s, like, ideal customer? Like, is it is it the installer that’s working for somebody that’s trying to get their own thing? Is it is it companies that are doing 5 million? Like who’s your guys is really ideal market their or ideal customer, I should say.
You know, we service everyone. Really? Like you got the guy that. You know, that just said, I’m done being a cop. And it comes to our training flies in from. Kansas, whatever. And we teach him everything he needs to know. And he gets one of the sales reps phone numbers and that guy will sit there and walk them through every job that he goes to. You know, we. I kind of specialized in that when I first got started, because what I would do is just replicate how I ran my install company. And I really enjoy doing that. You know, like I had one of my customers. He actually sold me TV advertisement when I had the hot tub company and he’s like, I’m quitting my job and I want to do what you did on my garage floor. Wow. And I’m like, Och, well, I came to training and he’s he’s still buys from me today like that. He has two crews and he doesn’t even install anymore. He just drives around and sells jobs. Wow. And he was just a sales guy, right? Yeah. So we start I mean, we can offer really good support to those type of people. And then like an hour ago, I had a guy that just. You know, but. A set of totes of epoxy because he set a tone of epoxy that’s 750 gallons per time. Right. And that guy just does huge warehouse force. So it. It could be anybody, you know. But 50, 50% of our our business is the guys going out and do garage doors.
That’s perfect, man, because the industry, the residential space, it’s it’s just growing so quick. I really believe that over the next 5 to 10 years. It could be sooner, but maybe like the next five or ten years, this industry will be as big as like HVAC and plumbing, things like this. I know it’s a lot smaller right now, but we don’t have a lot of resources in terms of proper training like and I know we have those things in place, right? But like when you go to different HVAC, I mean they have coaching programs, galore, associations, events all throughout the year. Right now we have world of concrete which nothing against them. What I’m saying is there’s nothing specific to residential concrete coding companies that’s an association proper standard like standardization of of of policies and of those types of things. Whereas you go into HVAC, plumbing, things like this, you know, they’ve got so many resources, you know, and so companies like what you’re doing at Service Legend and we’re we’re trying to professionalize this industry and really like what you’re doing with that what’s what’s next for easy like what are you guys working on that you can share a little bit of what’s next? Is it just it’s just growing more companies talk about that a little bit.
I think what we’re going to do, like right now, what I’m trying to do is. Do what I do better. So we’ve had all this growth. And now I’m just going to perfect what we do. We’re going to make it even easier. You know, like today, I spent 2 hours on our website and it’s trash. You know, I’m upset with it. And it seems like every every time I get a website finished, it’s old. Do you feel like that?
You know what it can be. But you’ve got to you’ve got to be updating this thing. It’s an animal. A digital marketing is just it’s a.
Runaway freight train like. It’s very aggravating. So I just want to make it to where?
Are you back there building the site? What are you doing back there?
It’s me. I don’t even know any of that stuff. I’m not a tech savvy guy. Like, if I can’t figure it out on my cell phone. No, I got people I. Pay to do that, but obviously we’re not doing it. Very good. And if you’re listening, sorry I said that, but nothing happens fast enough for me. That’s the other thing. Yeah, I’m very impatient. Right. So if somebody said, oh, it’s going to be 2 to 3 weeks or 2 to 3 months for you to get that, I’m going to find it somewhere else or build it myself type thing. Um. But, you know, we’re going to just get better at what we do. We’re building our sales team. We’ve done really good with that and just get better customer awareness and being able to help. Like working with you, teaming up with you and offering service legends to our customers and. Just helping them grow helps me grow, right? Yeah. So we’re going to focus on that. I would like to open up another corporate location somewhere in the West, just so I can supply customers and and supply Texas better. Easy. Concrete supply taxes. They’re buying what? We’re shipping truckloads of stuff there all the time. And shipping is it’s expensive. It’s like five 6000 semi. So if I had a warehouse over there and warehouse here, because honestly, we’re out of room here and kind of landlocked, you know, so. I had another 50,000 square foot warehouse somewhere. That would help out a lot. Yeah.
That’s incredible. I think I saw you selling an office. Is that the original office that you guys were in when you first started?
Yeah. So my real estate company owns all of our real estate, and then easy concrete rents from them, but so I still have that building there. I split it into two. And, you know, one of the guys that we’re renting it. That’d be man, they had to hook up to. They they were buying Scratch and Dent. Like washers, dryers, refrigerators and stoves from Home Depot, Lowe’s and Menards for 150 bucks a pop. Semi would come in, unload it, and then they would just go online, figure out what lo sell it for and take $100 off because it had a dent in it and they smoked their profits. Wow. I mean, like I walked in there one day, it smelled like weed.
Wow.
And they were driving new cars and just I mean, it’s probably a lot of work to move around appliances like that. But I’m pretty sure I could have made that happen. Like. I told my wife, I was like, Hey, I think I can get the information from them and I can start buying them.
Just take it right over.
Well, my wife is was like, No, gosh, no, stop.
Like the idea of Corey. No more ideas. Corey Probably. Hey, also, for those of you that are listening here, if you have any questions too for Cory, drop them in the comments. And if you’re on replay, still drop them in the comments. Cory’s in the group. I’m sure. I’m sure he’s more than happy to come back in, answer some some questions and comments and engage in that in that way. If you have a specific question, just an FYI, if you if you want to learn more about easy concrete supply, what they offer, whether it’s pricing, whatever it may be, you can go to their website. Corey, If you could give us the website URL and maybe the best way to contact you guys as well.
Easy concrete supply dot com. That perfect just about anything or just Google easy concrete and or everywhere.
Yeah. Yeah. I love that, man. If you could talk real quick as well to like, the industry as a whole, like, what do you think some of the biggest challenges are right now in in this decorative concrete industry? Because concrete coatings, flake floors, they’re really underneath decorative concrete, right? I mean, you’ve got your cement and all these different things, but what do you think one of the biggest challenges are or is for for our industry right now?
Well. Before I answer that one thing a guy asked me the other day, he’s like, you know. Do you think your growth in the past two years is from all the COVID money or you see everybody spending money and all this and now it’s going to start decreasing? And I said, you know how many houses were built with junk concrete? Man. People were slapping concrete up. It’s everywhere. It’s failing everywhere. I talk to guys that buy equipment to grind the basement floors because they did such a bad job that they can put tile down concrete, spitting, poppin. Like we’re just going to grow. The industry is just going to grow more and more and more. You know, most people don’t go install a garage floor on a new home. It’s usually a year or two old or older. So we’re we’re going to be busy. You know, there’s going to be enough money for everybody out there. Yeah, that’s just one thing I wanted to say, because.
It’s a great point, man, because everyone I mean, it’s so easy to get fearful and especially if you watch.
The news every day that there’s no one. I’m not one of those guys. Work harder, sell more.
Being be innovative. Mark Cuban talks about find industries that you can disrupt, find, find opportunities. And quite frankly, this is an opportunity if you if you can kind of change your perspective on what’s possible. You know.
It’s a mindset, right? That’s what I think.
Yeah. Yeah. I’m with you, man, on that.
Yeah. It’s like, no, I’m not going to take that for an answer. Recession No challenges for the industry. That was the question, right?
Yeah, because a big one for me here. Oh, I can’t get the leads or, you know, I can’t find good people or, oh, recession or you name it, right? I mean, there’s all like, like I like to try to identify like what, what, what the real challenges are like the real challenges. Because an example is, is people say, you know, I can’t find good people. And I say, well, there’s good people out there. They just don’t want to work for you, you know? And so it’s like, but so that’s not really a big challenge, like a real challenge. Oh, I can’t find good people because there’s plenty.
Of.
People out there know. But I was just curious, like what you think is some real challenges that that that’s facing that people need to be aware of.
Well, unfortunately, there is. We still have supply. Supply chain issues. I think that is an actual real problem that even me, the the guy that says I can figure out anything. I still have that problem sometimes. Because a lot of the chemicals out there are not made in the US. Whatever you guys think, they. You know, they’re not. Not. Not all of them. Some of them the US will not allow them to make. So they’re stuck on a boat or some something, right? I think that’s going to be a challenge still. We’re fully stocked. But at any time, something could happen, you know. Other challenges. I think it’s going to be a great. A great end of the year and next year and. I’m excited. Like, you know, I don’t know what to say on. I don’t. I don’t really can’t think of any. Yeah, that was good. But. But you can find employees. You just got to find the right ones. You got to advertise and market yourself to be the right boss somebody wants to work for. Hmm.
Yeah, it’s like it’s a lot like finding a wife. Or if you’re a woman, you’re finding a husband. It’s like, you know, you’re not really going to find a good wife, a great wife, an amazing wife if you’re not really a good I mean, like it’s tough to find good things when you’re not prepared. And so, like, if if you want to find a good wife, I say, hey, why don’t you be good first, you know, and be a good version of yourself.
And I’m sure work on yourself. Work on yourself. Work on your business. Yeah. Dress for success. Right.
Now. I love that man. And we have a of concrete coming up in January. And I posted all my stories yesterday. I saw that you you liked that. Chuck and I had a conversation yesterday and we were talking about this a little bit, but I’m super excited about this. We’re going to have the sales and Marketing Ninja Masterclass. I’m calling it Ninja Masterclass because Chuck’s an absolute ninja and I like to think I’ve got ninja attributes that I can share. And so we’re stoked on this man because it costs thousands to go see Chuck, cost thousands to come see me, come speak somewhere and to get to see us talk about these these, these, these sales and marketing secrets for $99 while you’re already at the event. I mean, come on. I mean, it’s a no brainer, man.
Oh, yeah. I was going to have my marketing guy. Go do it.
You know Caleb. Caleb and Caleb. Man, I love Caleb. If he’s. If he’s listening. Caleb, you’re the man.
I’m listening. I want to have. I want to have some more flaws. Podcast at the concrete in your boot.
I’m telling you, man. And call it rapid fire sessions and grab someone, say, Hey, here’s the agenda. 15 minutes, and then such good content, man. Such good content.
Yeah, it’s all concrete, man. It it is. It will wear you out. Like last year. We, you know, we all showed up. We had a company build the booth and put the equipment in there and all the brochures. We show up at 7:00. None of that was done. No way. The equipment was still in the crates. Yeah the Freeman guys that work at the they were all like mad at me yelling at me. Show’s going to be open in 2 hours and you have all this everywhere. And I was just like, Oh my gosh, I don’t have the tools. It was a nightmare.
Well, we’re going to make it a lot better, hopefully, because you guys can come see Eazy’s Booth and things like that. And then also we have this this sales and marketing Ninja Master class, and we’re going to do a presentation and afterwards there’s a, there’s a little like bar nightclub on top of that hotel that everyone can come to. And that information is going to be coming out really, really soon. So make sure you guys tune in for that. Any final thoughts, man? Like any final thoughts or just advice for anyone that. Because the reality is, is you’re an industry leader and you’re someone that a lot of people look up to. And you know, your company is providing a lot of value for the industry. And so just as an industry leader, any advice, any just any final thoughts here on the podcast?
Great. I’d like to help. Just to help people. Right. Like, really focus on your business. Numbers, Right. The actual numbers. A lot of guys don’t know what their true cost is and what. You know, it costs to even have their employees installing the floor. Look at your real cost and then figure out, are you making money? Or you’re not making money. You know, marketing don’t stop marketing just because winter’s coming as soon as you stop marketing it. You just. You go back six months. Yeah. You know, even if you just slow it down. Just a little. Just keep marketing and. Reinvest in your company. Don’t. Don’t spend all that money. That’s. I’ve seen it so much. It’s just makes me sick. You know, let aside a certain amount and just put it right in your savings where you can’t even touch it. And hustle. It’s not easy, you know. It’s not easy. Just keep pushing. It’s really about all that got.
I love that man. Listen, guys, you’ve heard it here. I think the biggest takeaway for me is the reinvesting. And because there’s so many people get into the industry. And so as you guys get in and you see the eases or you see the teasers, you see what what Jeff Geer is doing with acquisitions and you see companies doing two, three, four or 5 million and you’re starting out. Don’t get lost in that sauce, man. Don’t don’t think you have to live that now because just like easy back in 2011 starting you know and then you see easy Now or you look at Jeff Geer oh my gosh, there’s 105 crews or whatever it is that started same way. We all started back with zero crews and just that hustle. And you can’t get there unless you’re really focused on serving your team, your employees. And what’s funny about what you said about the financial side, too, is when I first hired because, you know, I have coaches for everything, man. I really believe in coaching and mentorship and just really looking up to the guys that are where you’re you’re trying to go. So I hired a home service coach. The first thing that he wanted to go over was, Let me see your pal. And so anything else? We’re going to talk about leadership, processes, systems, you name it. But it all started with where you at on your financials. And, you know, if you guys can focus on that, too. And it’s uncomfortable to get in that uncomfortable space and get used to it, man.
I would I would ask guys, hey, send me your last three estimates. I just did that actually, like two days ago. I said, Send me your last three estimates. Why? I said, I want to see what you’re doing, why you’re not closing. Yeah. You know, And I look at I’m like, wait, just too much detail on there. You know, the first thing I saw was the warranty was like that that long. And I’m like, that is just negative to me. That’s all I could see was a negative warranty. You know, I’m like, take that off. They’re just put, you know, limited warranty, ask for details and then have a warranty sheet. Yeah. 50% of people ain’t going to ask, they’re not going to ask for the warranty sheet anyways. Right.
Yep.
One other thing that people don’t do right in my opinion is answer your phone. Right. I got one.
Circled right here from you, but I got I put answer my phone. Do not miss any calls.
Yes, that is the other day. I needed gutters for the wedding venue. Right. I called four people. The fourth guy answered the phone and said, Hey, man, I do this on the side, but I will call you or text you within 5 minutes. I’m at work. Wow. That. Hey, he answered the phone. Right? Text me within 5 minutes. Came to my house the next day. I went with him. So those other three people, they had businesses that websites that they didn’t answer the phone. Wow. That doesn’t make sense to me.
That’s incredible, man. We did a webinar with Joe’s office. So like, even if you guys cannot afford a full time office manager yet or schedule or whatever it is, there’s companies like Jill’s office. If you guys missed my webinar last Friday with them, know it’s recorded, just go down in the group, you’ll see it and it’s so mission critical I think they did a study and they and these these this company is talking with so many people it’s incredible. But they said that I think it’s like 29% of people answered their phone. Out of all the people they called, I’m like, what, 29%? Like, what is this like?
Well, I can tell you this, that my sales team are required to make 50 calls a day per person. Nobody answers the phone, you know, and I know that there were calls or calling to sell them stuff, but. I still answer my phone.
Amen. Well, thank you so much, man, for your time. And I know plenty of people are going to get massive value out of this. Again, if you guys catch this on the replay type in hashtag replay type in some comments in there and myself and Corey will come back through answer those those those questions. If you guys want to learn more about easy their products, their pricing, you name it their trains coming up visit easy concrete dot com. You’ll get all that information there. And Corey again thank you so much, man. Appreciate it.
Thanks Ryan have a good one for.
