People talk about business decisions as if they happen inside a conference room. Which market should I enter? Which partner should I choose? How much should I invest? When should I hire? When should I sell? Which opportunities deserve my attention, and which should I walk away from? Those decisions matter. But the more life
I met with a customer today about a consumer-facing product line I’m testing, and it reminded me that pricing something right is only half the job. Sometimes a customer is completely comfortable with the price. What they’re not comfortable with yet is the risk. The people I sat down with today are exactly who I
School started again for two of my daughters, Penelope (11) and Farrah (7) on Monday, which means our house is settling back into the familiar rhythm of homework, studying, sports, early mornings, and trying to fit everything else into the spaces between them. Kat and I have been helping Penelope get back into that rhythm.
One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned as a general contractor is that customers don’t distinguish between your employees, your subcontractors, your suppliers, or your vendors. To them, they’re all your company. That lesson came into sharp focus recently when I got a call from one of our customers. A neighboring tenant in the shopping
Yesterday I spent part of my afternoon picking up trash on one of our job sites. Not because I’m the cheapest person to do it. Not because it’s the highest and best use of my time. Simply because it needed to be done. Our carpentry crew was busy knocking out finish work. The project was
People often talk about integrity as if it’s simply a moral virtue. It is. But I think it’s something else, too — a competitive advantage. The longer I’m in business, the more convinced I become that trust is one of the most valuable assets a company can possess. Trust speeds everything up. When your clients
One of the hardest lessons I’ve learned in business has nothing to do with sales, marketing, or construction. It has everything to do with people. Businesses are built one relationship at a time — with clients, employees, subcontractors, vendors, and business partners. Every one of those relationships either makes the company stronger or slowly weakens
I took Spanish in high school. I took a little more in college. Then I did what most people do… I forgot most of it. For years, that wasn’t much of a problem. Outside of a few trips to Spain and Mexico, I rarely needed it. Now I own a construction company. Suddenly, I need
I just spent weeks filling one position at CLB Builds — 63 candidates for a single role. That probably sounds excessive to some people. It’s not, at least not to me, because I wasn’t just hiring for a job. I was hiring for who this company becomes. Here’s something I’ve learned the hard way: every
You can manage a crew without leading it. Hand out assignments, track progress, fix what falls behind, and the work moves. Management is real, and it is necessary. But it is not the same thing as leadership, and confusing the two is one of the most common mistakes I see. Management is about tasks. Leadership
