Episode 1

Total Restructuring Of A Business

Not everyone can say "I own a town"... However, Mike Malcanas can. This week on In The Bunker Joshua sits down and talks with Mike about his adventure in business and how he is helping other businesses grow today.

Bio: Mike is the owner of a specialty Large Traveling Building insulation contractor focused Solely on the Largest Multi Unit Projects. We work with the Who's who of top apartment developer builders accross eastern US

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Transcript
Joshua Maddux:

Welcome back.

Joshua Maddux:

Every business faces challenges, and we love to share those stories.

Joshua Maddux:

Today.

Joshua Maddux:

We have Mike milkiness in the bunker with us.

Joshua Maddux:

Mike was faced with the challenge of staying in business

Joshua Maddux:

through the great recession.

Joshua Maddux:

So many businesses can relate to having challenges and having dips in business.

Joshua Maddux:

But the great recession definitely stands out.

Joshua Maddux:

Mike has over 35 years of experience in the construction industry.

Joshua Maddux:

And he'll dive into that a little bit.

Joshua Maddux:

There's really so much to dive in here.

Joshua Maddux:

We were talking pre-show there's so much we can go through I'm just

Joshua Maddux:

super excited to dive in and dive into this topic a little further.

Joshua Maddux:

Welcome to the show, Mike.

Mike Malcanas:

Nice

Joshua Maddux:

to be here.

Joshua Maddux:

Let's get to know you a little bit further, what is your background?

Joshua Maddux:

Who are you?

Joshua Maddux:

How'd you get here?

Mike Malcanas:

I've been in mostly construction installation

Mike Malcanas:

construction to be exact.

Mike Malcanas:

So I've done installation, manufacturing, and installation

Mike Malcanas:

contracting for most of my career.

Mike Malcanas:

But recently I have been freed up Get into some real estate.

Mike Malcanas:

So we have done a bunch of single family, housing, rehab and rentals, and which

Mike Malcanas:

then has moved me into more real estate, which is from commercial real estate.

Mike Malcanas:

So I'm doing some redevelopment of an old mill town locally next to my businesses.

Mike Malcanas:

So it's all construction-related and I'm having.

Joshua Maddux:

Awesome.

Joshua Maddux:

Awesome.

Joshua Maddux:

It's always one of those things where, when when business lines

Joshua Maddux:

up with, if something you enjoy.

Mike Malcanas:

I'm not a big bookworm.

Mike Malcanas:

I like to read, but I'm not a big school book worms.

Mike Malcanas:

So I never, I don't make it far in the in college.

Mike Malcanas:

But I don't have, I don't have a fear of getting my hands dirty.

Mike Malcanas:

When it comes to renovating old houses or fixing old buildings and insulating

Mike Malcanas:

buildings I don't mind applying myself.

Mike Malcanas:

And getting in there with my guys to, learn and get things done.

Mike Malcanas:

So maybe where people be afraid of insulation and dirty buildings

Mike Malcanas:

it's an advantage of mine to not be afraid to get in there.

Joshua Maddux:

Yeah, I know.

Joshua Maddux:

That's definitely something for me personally, that sets

Joshua Maddux:

a lot of bosses apart, when a owner of a company or a manager.

Joshua Maddux:

Doesn't have a problem jumping in the trenches and helping out when it's

Joshua Maddux:

needed, not necessarily operating from the trenches at all times, but jumping

Joshua Maddux:

in, a little bit as the business needs and as the team needs, that shows the

Joshua Maddux:

willingness to get your hands dirty and understand the process a little further

Joshua Maddux:

and go through that, which is what.

Mike Malcanas:

I find that as a really great way of building camaraderie with

Mike Malcanas:

the men in the field and, your team, your staff, if you're to pump us to, you'll be

Mike Malcanas:

involved in the nitty gritty or to jump in when, the dirtiest work needs to be done.

Mike Malcanas:

You know what I mean?

Mike Malcanas:

I'm sure everybody like it's bothering them bosses.

Mike Malcanas:

They don't do that.

Mike Malcanas:

You know what I mean?

Mike Malcanas:

But when you are the boss who does that, they're like, wow, this boss

Mike Malcanas:

is a little bit different than.

Mike Malcanas:

When the shit hits the fan and people are happy to know that the boss was

Mike Malcanas:

there with them, cleaning things up with him and, I've always been like that.

Mike Malcanas:

I think that's why I have a lot, a real longevity and a real low turnover with

Joshua Maddux:

my key people.

Joshua Maddux:

Yeah.

Joshua Maddux:

I definitely think that's a huge key factor in that specifically in turnover.

Joshua Maddux:

I think it's also the element of, if you're in the.

Joshua Maddux:

Working on a bid as a business owner.

Joshua Maddux:

And you're working on a bid for a new project and you're

Joshua Maddux:

like, oh, this takes 20 hours.

Joshua Maddux:

And you have no idea what it actually takes.

Joshua Maddux:

You're going to back yourself into a corner.

Joshua Maddux:

But if you're like, yeah, I did that two months ago and it took

Joshua Maddux:

about four days to get this done while that's not 20 hours of work.

Joshua Maddux:

That's, that may be four days with five or six guys.

Joshua Maddux:

That may be a lot more time.

Joshua Maddux:

And we're talking multiples.

Joshua Maddux:

Of air

Mike Malcanas:

there.

Mike Malcanas:

Sometimes it's a disadvantage because you know how terrible the work is.

Mike Malcanas:

And then you put too much money on the job because you don't

Mike Malcanas:

want to, you don't want to do it.

Joshua Maddux:

Yeah.

Joshua Maddux:

That's true as well.

Joshua Maddux:

So I know, I know in your business you guys, during the recession,

Joshua Maddux:

obviously, That rocked your guys's business as, as well as many others.

Joshua Maddux:

What did that look like for you guys?

Mike Malcanas:

Yeah, what happens is, I had a fairly decent sized

Mike Malcanas:

business, five or 6 million.

Mike Malcanas:

But it was all over the place.

Mike Malcanas:

I'd, a real diverse customer base from all different, different

Mike Malcanas:

verticals in the construction.

Mike Malcanas:

But once construction, evaporated or housing starts to evaporated right by 75%.

Mike Malcanas:

You'll you, I giggle every time somebody cries that retail sales are

Mike Malcanas:

down a percent or two or something, or retail sales are flattered.

Mike Malcanas:

It's a retail apocalypse rights, I just laugh, you're like, oh, they're flat.

Mike Malcanas:

And it's an apocalypse, right?

Mike Malcanas:

The.

Mike Malcanas:

I feel when you're 73 quarters of your sales completely evaporate off the planet.

Mike Malcanas:

You just now that's an apocalypse, right?

Mike Malcanas:

We had some real soul searching to do, it was just like, okay.

Mike Malcanas:

You just, you could have lived, you were just like everything that had to go.

Mike Malcanas:

I had to go right here just like in a sinking ship and you're

Mike Malcanas:

just throwing stuff overboard.

Mike Malcanas:

Things got to go.

Mike Malcanas:

It's we're not going to make it.

Mike Malcanas:

If we don't deal with things, don't start to let you know, start going.

Mike Malcanas:

It's funny how, a year or two leave it when things were still going fine.

Mike Malcanas:

I had dreamt of throwing stuff overboard, but just never had the

Mike Malcanas:

nerve to take on such a challenge.

Mike Malcanas:

I would see the, an efficiency.

Mike Malcanas:

The thing we would do redundantly.

Mike Malcanas:

For no reason, just as such, that's what the last lady told me to do.

Mike Malcanas:

And that's how we always did it.

Mike Malcanas:

Then I'd walk into the next office and I'm like, are you doing the

Mike Malcanas:

same thing, the girl in the office next to you, we're doing right.

Mike Malcanas:

And they'd be like, because they're doing the same information,

Mike Malcanas:

the same data entry, right?

Mike Malcanas:

Just crazy stuff like this, I'm just, oh my God.

Mike Malcanas:

It's you just want to.

Mike Malcanas:

That's why I thought I need to just burn this all to the ground.

Mike Malcanas:

I know what to do now.

Mike Malcanas:

I've been in business long enough.

Mike Malcanas:

I said, but what do you do?

Mike Malcanas:

You're like, it's in the middle of the football game, like I can start

Mike Malcanas:

a new draft in the middle of the third quarter of a football game.

Mike Malcanas:

So you just could never make the moves.

Mike Malcanas:

So I got trucks.

Mike Malcanas:

Sorry, my alarm just went off here, got trucks, and deliveries and customers.

Mike Malcanas:

So you just could never make those hard decisions.

Mike Malcanas:

So once the recession came it it did obviously prod me along very quickly to

Mike Malcanas:

have to start making these decisions.

Mike Malcanas:

Then I always knew where the business needed to go.

Mike Malcanas:

But that doesn't, there's only 25 or percent of the, of my actual.

Mike Malcanas:

So I basically had to start jettisoning everything else, everything that

Mike Malcanas:

needed to go other than what I knew, where the business had to go.

Mike Malcanas:

So it was contracting, was installing installation versus manufacturing

Mike Malcanas:

installation, which was the bulk of the business for 20 years.

Mike Malcanas:

I had the.

Mike Malcanas:

Sending guys home and balling crux and all the mothballing warehouse

Mike Malcanas:

space that I didn't need and right.

Mike Malcanas:

Sending people home and rent, it was just portraits.

Mike Malcanas:

But I knew contracting was the way to go.

Mike Malcanas:

It was more margin was a bigger market, bigger, vertical, bigger marketplace.

Mike Malcanas:

I w I was better at it.

Mike Malcanas:

I could.

Mike Malcanas:

I could separate myself from competitors, right?

Mike Malcanas:

So they deal, there was a lot of ways I could differentiate myself.

Mike Malcanas:

I could beat like really large competitors at, at the game,

Mike Malcanas:

even early in the process.

Mike Malcanas:

So I knew that Hey, with some refining, this is, this could be some.

Mike Malcanas:

So that's what we had to do, but, it took me burning the forest, basically lighting

Mike Malcanas:

at a blaze with the help of the recession and then spending the next couple of

Mike Malcanas:

years systematically doing nothing.

Mike Malcanas:

The vest divested myself of every thing, non sales related

Mike Malcanas:

and spent my time in the field.

Mike Malcanas:

No chasing down these customers, right?

Mike Malcanas:

This chasing down this vertical saying, Hey, this is the future.

Mike Malcanas:

I divested myself from everything else.

Mike Malcanas:

And this is, like Columbus burning the boats, right?

Mike Malcanas:

There was no other, there was no going back.

Mike Malcanas:

I basically couldn't call any of the other customers.

Mike Malcanas:

I had mothballed that equipment, those machines I had sent those

Mike Malcanas:

trucks got repoed, had sent them back.

Mike Malcanas:

So there was no way to deliver material anymore.

Mike Malcanas:

So there was only.

Mike Malcanas:

This contracting and these new customers that I had hitched my wagon to.

Mike Malcanas:

And so I had to find more of them and, and sell to them to get my way up

Mike Malcanas:

and get my way through the recession.

Mike Malcanas:

And it wasn't easy because I'm in Pittsburgh and these customers are in

Mike Malcanas:

Boston and Philly and Virginia, which is, fairly irregular for an insulator.

Mike Malcanas:

Chasing customers in different states, but that's just the, that's where they were.

Mike Malcanas:

And that's what I had to go find them.

Mike Malcanas:

had to go get them.

Mike Malcanas:

Yeah.

Joshua Maddux:

I know so many businesses or business owners we'll talk about,

Joshua Maddux:

if I was to start over today, this is what I would do differently.

Joshua Maddux:

And you literally had sadly had that opportunity a little bit, in some sense.

Joshua Maddux:

And I know.

Joshua Maddux:

Business owners, oftentimes we'll look at, and if I was to start over

Joshua Maddux:

today, this is what I would do.

Joshua Maddux:

Or if I was to change things, I would, alleviate this or I

Joshua Maddux:

would get rid of this service.

Joshua Maddux:

And it's hard to make those decisions when you're profitable, when your business is

Joshua Maddux:

bringing in money and you, as the owner are making a decent income and things

Joshua Maddux:

are good and your employees are happy.

Joshua Maddux:

When things flip upside down and your business, you being open

Joshua Maddux:

a day is costing thousands of dollars out of your own pocket.

Joshua Maddux:

You quickly start to figure out where to cut things and how

Joshua Maddux:

to make things more efficient.

Joshua Maddux:

And it sounds like that's a lot of really what happened through, through this.

Mike Malcanas:

Yeah, and I, and and I had a good business, like I said, and

Mike Malcanas:

I made a good living and I was by no means, starving, and I was doing well.

Mike Malcanas:

Yeah, but th the effort and the time spent to generate the amount of money that I

Mike Malcanas:

was making, it was a young man's game.

Mike Malcanas:

So sure.

Mike Malcanas:

If I could stay 25 to 30, that type of energy for the rest of my life, then sure.

Mike Malcanas:

Then I guess it'd be fine.

Mike Malcanas:

They used to while ours today, and you could generate a good living.

Mike Malcanas:

But you know what.

Mike Malcanas:

Although the recession was the most painful thing and, a blow to my ego and

Mike Malcanas:

just a complete, disaster, at first.

Mike Malcanas:

It was the best thing that has ever could possibly have happened to me.

Mike Malcanas:

It was just one big disaster and took all of my lumps, all of the pain that

Mike Malcanas:

I could have had on the businesses and just condense that all into a

Mike Malcanas:

year and a half or whatever that was.

Mike Malcanas:

And just, okay.

Mike Malcanas:

You're just take all your torture and all your pain right now.

Mike Malcanas:

Get rid of every possible thing.

Mike Malcanas:

And then it just.

Mike Malcanas:

Everything was gone.

Mike Malcanas:

All the fat was gone.

Mike Malcanas:

All of the negative energy was gone.

Mike Malcanas:

All the redundancies were gone and then it was just me and those five or

Mike Malcanas:

six key people and the future and the new business venture and the, low,

Mike Malcanas:

efficient, overhead, with the new business model and like the margins on the new

Mike Malcanas:

business, like bust first year in, I was already making right the same margin.

Mike Malcanas:

That I was making it for 20 years and the old business ran that.

Mike Malcanas:

I mean a year in, wow.

Mike Malcanas:

So by, by the third or fourth year it was, I was triple the margins.

Mike Malcanas:

And I couldn't get any, I couldn't get past five and 6 million after 20 years.

Mike Malcanas:

That's right.

Mike Malcanas:

It went just from, it just went 4 million and then 6 million and then 8 million and

Mike Malcanas:

then 12 million and the right, it just went because I was just in the right zone

Mike Malcanas:

and the right business and the right, and this is with me putting in like less

Mike Malcanas:

than like less and less effort right.

Mike Malcanas:

Each year.

Mike Malcanas:

So it's, it's now, and I.

Mike Malcanas:

All right.

Mike Malcanas:

Then if the business still runs, it's the same people that I divested all of my time

Mike Malcanas:

and energy to back during the recession.

Mike Malcanas:

And they're all still there.

Mike Malcanas:

They're all still running and doing all the paperwork.

Mike Malcanas:

I kinda just sit on top and, but all those customers are there that I spent

Mike Malcanas:

those two or three years cultivating and finding they're doing such a great job

Mike Malcanas:

that we're, it's repeat business now.

Mike Malcanas:

Which is one of the reasons we got into that business because we knew.

Mike Malcanas:

If you did good work, you could get this repeat business.

Mike Malcanas:

So it's not a lot of constant new, low margin work.

Mike Malcanas:

It's a lot of big repeat.

Mike Malcanas:

I It's still not guaranteed repeat work, you do a really good

Mike Malcanas:

job, but a really good customer.

Mike Malcanas:

And, you tend to get, we tend to get a lot of repeat.

Mike Malcanas:

And that has afforded me to move into the positions that I am, which is buy

Mike Malcanas:

and remodel a hundred, four closed homes, which we have built out and

Mike Malcanas:

renovated, which I spent three or four years doing that, which was a super fun

Mike Malcanas:

and exciting time, which then gravitated me into buying a town of 50 buildings,

Mike Malcanas:

which I have 50 retail spaces downtown, which I am now actively in the middle.

Mike Malcanas:

You're buying out and building and leasing and building out spaces in the town.

Mike Malcanas:

After that, we, my businesses in now.

Mike Malcanas:

That's cool.

Joshua Maddux:

it's the element of allowing you as a business owner

Joshua Maddux:

to step away from the business.

Joshua Maddux:

There's this element and I've discussed this with other guests,

Joshua Maddux:

but there's this element of if you can't take a 30 day vacation, You

Joshua Maddux:

don't own the business owns you.

Mike Malcanas:

Yes.

Mike Malcanas:

I could never have done that pre recession.

Mike Malcanas:

Now I used to think because my phone rang all the time and I was so actively

Mike Malcanas:

involved in a business, then I thought, okay, then that made me a success because.

Mike Malcanas:

Yeah.

Mike Malcanas:

All right.

Mike Malcanas:

Hey, look at me.

Mike Malcanas:

Look, my phone never stops ringing.

Mike Malcanas:

Everybody is calling me every second.

Mike Malcanas:

It was a, I tell you what the quiet an adjustment.

Mike Malcanas:

After you worked through the recession, I spent a couple of years with,

Mike Malcanas:

I, doing all of the adjustments necessary and then, all the sales,

Mike Malcanas:

generating the business and stuff.

Mike Malcanas:

And then it came a point when.

Mike Malcanas:

No.

Mike Malcanas:

I went back to the office and like nobody needed me over there.

Mike Malcanas:

There was nothing for me to do.

Mike Malcanas:

I was gone for a couple of years.

Mike Malcanas:

Everybody had buckled down, took care of everything.

Mike Malcanas:

And I'm just walked around over there.

Mike Malcanas:

I'm like, nobody was asking for my baby.

Mike Malcanas:

So you.

Mike Malcanas:

You did feel lonely and left out, with a real kind of don't

Mike Malcanas:

you guys need me over here?

Mike Malcanas:

And they're like no, we're fine.

Mike Malcanas:

We've got me, so you want to go back and metal, at first that was my first

Mike Malcanas:

inkling, but I knew it went wrong.

Mike Malcanas:

I'm like, no, look, you're out.

Mike Malcanas:

You're where you've always wanted to be.

Mike Malcanas:

You're disconnected, man.

Mike Malcanas:

It's just get out of the office and don't go back there.

Mike Malcanas:

There's nothing back there, but paperwork and, things that you hate, which is why

Mike Malcanas:

I wouldn't want to spend other time doing other ventures with the single families

Mike Malcanas:

and the other properties because I could, which I never could have done, that just

Mike Malcanas:

disappeared for, they of course call me and, problems or issues or whatever, but

Mike Malcanas:

it's, it's wonderful to be involved in.

Mike Malcanas:

So now with.

Mike Malcanas:

And then I of course, started a brewery in the town that I

Mike Malcanas:

started right before COVID.

Mike Malcanas:

That was like starting an airline right before September 11th.

Mike Malcanas:

You know what I mean?

Mike Malcanas:

2001.

Mike Malcanas:

So that was not really, that was not a really great business idea of

Joshua Maddux:

mine.

Joshua Maddux:

You know what I mean?

Joshua Maddux:

It was a great idea.

Joshua Maddux:

Just the timing which.

Joshua Maddux:

Who could predict?

Mike Malcanas:

It's oh, there's going to be a worldwide pandemic coming.

Mike Malcanas:

That's never happened.

Mike Malcanas:

That's impossible.

Mike Malcanas:

But it's actually been a really great catalyst for the town.

Mike Malcanas:

It's like the showpiece that's when everybody comes down to the town for, it's

Mike Malcanas:

why I rent all the buildings, but it is certainly a challenge to keep it operating

Mike Malcanas:

efficiently under those circumstances.

Mike Malcanas:

But it is actually a necessary evil to showcase.

Mike Malcanas:

The town and, but you know what it can be, and it's fun to own a brewery too, but

Joshua Maddux:

then yeah.

Joshua Maddux:

Yeah.

Joshua Maddux:

That's cool.

Joshua Maddux:

That's cool.

Mike Malcanas:

So it's a lot, like my manufacturing, the fed takes all

Mike Malcanas:

my time and doesn't make as much, it doesn't make any money, but

Mike Malcanas:

I've reverted back to the old ways.

Mike Malcanas:

I'm not.

Mike Malcanas:

Yeah.

Joshua Maddux:

I But at the same point, it's still something that it's.

Joshua Maddux:

Not on the large scale necessarily that, the other manufacturing was

Joshua Maddux:

potentially, and it's also something that

Mike Malcanas:

is a very small hobby.

Joshua Maddux:

Yeah.

Joshua Maddux:

Yeah.

Joshua Maddux:

Which is good.

Joshua Maddux:

It's good stuff.

Joshua Maddux:

So what would be your advice to someone who is recovering from.

Joshua Maddux:

Obviously, everything over the past, two years or so, that's been going

Joshua Maddux:

on with COVID, so many restaurants and service-based businesses and

Joshua Maddux:

contractors have dealt with being closed for periods of time and trying to

Joshua Maddux:

figure out where do they go from here?

Joshua Maddux:

And it's not necessarily a full-on recession per se, but it's,

Joshua Maddux:

some industries have definitely felt more or less the same.

Mike Malcanas:

Yeah.

Mike Malcanas:

I think the supplies pretty much at any time I am in the brewery

Mike Malcanas:

business hospitality business.

Mike Malcanas:

So although I'm not a restaurant tour and I'm still learning and certainly

Mike Malcanas:

in that arena also, But there's just, there's only one way out.

Mike Malcanas:

And then you gotta sell your way out of everything.

Mike Malcanas:

So in the restaurant business, we are, events, it's just, we're just spending our

Mike Malcanas:

time setting up one event after another rank, trying to it's drag queen bingo.

Mike Malcanas:

And then it's wrestling studio wrestling something rather.

Mike Malcanas:

And then, if he's just had, like girls just coming up with any.

Mike Malcanas:

Outdoor dog days.

Mike Malcanas:

You know what I mean?

Mike Malcanas:

On the, this and live music and it just, like corn hole tournament, is there

Mike Malcanas:

anything setting up food, pairings and beer, food and beer pairings, right?

Mike Malcanas:

It's just, Hey, you got to sell your way out of, you gotta bring people in.

Mike Malcanas:

You got to have some kind of event to have people come in and

Mike Malcanas:

free beer, eat food, be together.

Mike Malcanas:

Of course that works at anytime.

Mike Malcanas:

I hear business owners belong to a couple of different business groups,

Mike Malcanas:

tab and entrepreneurs, organization, and yeah, entrepreneurs are always business

Mike Malcanas:

owners are always complaining about the bog down in the weeds, in my office.

Mike Malcanas:

And I can't, it's and so divesting yourself.

Mike Malcanas:

Of all non sales related activity, finding somebody to do that is so much easier than

Mike Malcanas:

finding some mythical unicorn sales guy.

Mike Malcanas:

Who's going to come save the day and sell your way out of the problem.

Mike Malcanas:

There are no, there are no mythical sales unicorns, right?

Mike Malcanas:

Those are you, the business owners, us, the business owners.

Mike Malcanas:

We are those guys.

Mike Malcanas:

There aren't any other, these magical guys.

Mike Malcanas:

So it's like our time can't be spent in there managing spreadsheets,

Mike Malcanas:

looking at daily reports.

Mike Malcanas:

We have to be out there engaged with customers and finding these new

Mike Malcanas:

opportunities meeting with all of these.

Mike Malcanas:

New opportunities and, trying to bring in these new, big accounts and big customers.

Mike Malcanas:

And once I did that, once I stopped, you have nothing else to do.

Mike Malcanas:

There was just no other excuses.

Mike Malcanas:

It's you couldn't go back to the office.

Mike Malcanas:

You had to go.

Mike Malcanas:

I just, every single day, I just drove out of town every Sunday night I left

Mike Malcanas:

town and I just stayed out there and going from one customer, looking for one

Mike Malcanas:

opportunity after another, or, I knew I had last time I did that when I was 20

Mike Malcanas:

or whatever 19, this is a new sales guy.

Mike Malcanas:

But, Hey, it was a shock when you're 40 doing that or a 45, but Hey, as a

Mike Malcanas:

business owner that's the only way.

Mike Malcanas:

And that worked like a charm because it was when you're the business owner

Mike Malcanas:

and you have passion and you have the need to change your business.

Mike Malcanas:

Nobody can sell like you, nobody has that type, but you can exude that type of.

Mike Malcanas:

Passion and commitment for your business.

Mike Malcanas:

And everybody wants to be dealing with the business owner.

Mike Malcanas:

Everybody wants to know the business owner, right?

Mike Malcanas:

People don't want to be fluffed off by some new, salesmen of the day.

Mike Malcanas:

You know what I mean?

Mike Malcanas:

Okay.

Mike Malcanas:

Salesman of the day, whatever.

Mike Malcanas:

But people love to, oh, you're the owner.

Mike Malcanas:

Come on in, let's talk to them.

Mike Malcanas:

See what you can, so it made a huge difference.

Mike Malcanas:

It totally transformed my business.

Mike Malcanas:

Quintupled my, bottom line when tippled my top line.

Mike Malcanas:

And I have value, I sit on top of now, five functioning businesses.

Mike Malcanas:

And I still go to work whenever I want or not.

Mike Malcanas:

And it's completely opposite of it was 10 years ago during the recession.

Mike Malcanas:

And that's all because of.

Mike Malcanas:

Divested.

Mike Malcanas:

The great recession made me divest myself of everything.

Mike Malcanas:

And I just spent my time, focusing my sales on, obviously

Mike Malcanas:

I'm the right vertical.

Mike Malcanas:

So you gotta have the right business vertical to go to, but that

Mike Malcanas:

would be, that'd be my advice for everybody, for any business owner.

Mike Malcanas:

And I see them all of the time, make excuses on why they can't do that.

Mike Malcanas:

I can't do that.

Mike Malcanas:

Nah, I gotta be in the office every day.

Mike Malcanas:

Maybe flipping through these papers.

Mike Malcanas:

And I just hear my friends of mine, like personal business owner, friends

Mike Malcanas:

of mine, making excuses of why they just can't leave the office.

Mike Malcanas:

I gotta be in here.

Mike Malcanas:

Okay.

Mike Malcanas:

Then that's why you're never going to get a lot of sales.

Joshua Maddux:

Yeah.

Joshua Maddux:

I'm you and I connected via tab.

Joshua Maddux:

And one of the think it was either one of the members or our tab

Joshua Maddux:

Group leader was talking about basically having a, not to do list.

Joshua Maddux:

And he goes, you need to have a not-to-do list and you're not to do list should

Joshua Maddux:

be longer than your to-do list, always.

Joshua Maddux:

And it's all the things that you're not supposed to do, that you need to

Joshua Maddux:

hire someone or find someone else in the company to take off your plate

Joshua Maddux:

because you shouldn't be doing that.

Mike Malcanas:

And it's.

Joshua Maddux:

Yeah.

Joshua Maddux:

And it's essentially the same thing of what you're saying.

Joshua Maddux:

It's finding all those elements that you shouldn't be doing, moving

Joshua Maddux:

them off your plate and having someone else take care of them.

Joshua Maddux:

And I know, you think about if it's a task that you do every Friday and it

Joshua Maddux:

takes two hours and you spend one time, training someone or you train them,

Joshua Maddux:

every Friday for a month, and now they take that task and they're gonna do.

Joshua Maddux:

For the life of them being with the business.

Joshua Maddux:

Now you've freed up two hours and then you do that again and again.

Joshua Maddux:

And your schedule instantly, comes to the point where you walk

Joshua Maddux:

in the office and everyone goes, what the heck are you doing here?

Joshua Maddux:

You're not supposed to be here.

Joshua Maddux:

Get out of the office.

Joshua Maddux:

I

Mike Malcanas:

joke with my engineer, but my engineer, business owners,

Mike Malcanas:

and I tell them all the time they're at a disadvantage, right?

Mike Malcanas:

I'm like a high school dropout with no college degree, credentials

Mike Malcanas:

and they're an engineer.

Mike Malcanas:

So they're better at everything that everybody so they can never

Mike Malcanas:

leave the office or delegate anything because they're so much.

Mike Malcanas:

Everything, every piece of paper and making every schedule and, he didn't

Mike Malcanas:

do it, all the estimates and stuff.

Mike Malcanas:

So I'm not burdened with that.

Mike Malcanas:

So I figured that everybody is probably more educated than me

Mike Malcanas:

and probably can do it better.

Mike Malcanas:

So it's very easy for me to delegate pretty much anything.

Mike Malcanas:

All I can do is go out there and sell stuff and convince people to buy things.

Mike Malcanas:

So it's, for me, it's very easy.

Mike Malcanas:

But when I tell other people that we like, oh my God, no, I

Mike Malcanas:

can't, I, I can't delegate that.

Mike Malcanas:

I can't delegate that, but I think it's but yeah, there was one.

Mike Malcanas:

I think it's good advice.

Mike Malcanas:

And most people would benefit from most business owners, whether

Mike Malcanas:

it's seriously benefited from it.

Joshua Maddux:

Yeah.

Joshua Maddux:

Yeah.

Joshua Maddux:

I know.

Joshua Maddux:

It's definitely something for me and my business.

Joshua Maddux:

I tried hiring a salesperson a while ago and it is the most challenging

Joshua Maddux:

thing as a small business, because like you said, you're trying to

Joshua Maddux:

find that unicorn, you're trying to basically find you, you're trying to

Joshua Maddux:

find yourself who is going to work just as much or more than you work for.

Joshua Maddux:

The same amount of money, less or commission.

Joshua Maddux:

And it's not possible because if that person exists, they

Joshua Maddux:

probably have their own business.

Joshua Maddux:

And they're probably doing something similar that you are.

Joshua Maddux:

And so it, like you said, they did, it's finding a unicorn.

Joshua Maddux:

It's going to be almost impossible.

Mike Malcanas:

And you're competing into you and everybody else in the world.

Mike Malcanas:

So hopefully you got a lot of money.

Mike Malcanas:

You got to hang when you do find them, it's going to be you against

Mike Malcanas:

the old field, the begging for the old fighting for this guy.

Mike Malcanas:

And then of course he knows it.

Mike Malcanas:

He knows that he's the one good sales guy and he's got a hundred opportunities.

Mike Malcanas:

It's very difficult to, yeah.

Mike Malcanas:

And that's

Joshua Maddux:

not going to be not going to be cheap.

Joshua Maddux:

Yes.

Joshua Maddux:

Awesome.

Joshua Maddux:

Super good chatting enjoy the conversation.

Joshua Maddux:

And I think there's a lot of really good elements here.

Joshua Maddux:

Know that business owners can digest and process through.

Joshua Maddux:

And I know, both the aspect of getting rid of all the things off your plate

Joshua Maddux:

that you shouldn't be doing, and on the sales side, as well as is really

Joshua Maddux:

good thinking through the aspect of.

Joshua Maddux:

What are things that your business might not be a good

Joshua Maddux:

idea that your business is doing?

Joshua Maddux:

Maybe it's a service that the business is offering.

Joshua Maddux:

You don't necessarily have to go through a recession to eliminate a

Joshua Maddux:

service or change verticals or do that.

Joshua Maddux:

It's obviously a little easier when the businesses not making money to shift

Joshua Maddux:

directions, but if the business could potentially change and be exponentially

Joshua Maddux:

better, That's something to consider.

Mike Malcanas:

We do, oh, we do one thing now.

Mike Malcanas:

And I did, they used to that used to be, we do everything for everybody.

Mike Malcanas:

And I used to think that was actual, the way to go.

Mike Malcanas:

Hey, the more things I can do for people, the more opportunities

Mike Malcanas:

I have, but it was the worst.

Mike Malcanas:

And I still hear people say that it's like the worst possible strategy you can have.

Mike Malcanas:

We pick one vertical.

Mike Malcanas:

I do one thing only.

Mike Malcanas:

We do big wood apartments.

Mike Malcanas:

Only anybody calls me, I put it on my business card.

Mike Malcanas:

We put it on our phone.

Mike Malcanas:

I go, if you're calling for anything other than a big wood apartment,

Mike Malcanas:

don't even leave a message.

Mike Malcanas:

You know what I mean?

Mike Malcanas:

Oh I guess you're not going to come give me a bit on my garage.

Mike Malcanas:

I'm like, okay.

Mike Malcanas:

So I guess I won't leave a message then it's yeah.

Mike Malcanas:

Don't bother because I'm just telling you right now, don't leave it.

Mike Malcanas:

Bother us.

Mike Malcanas:

This is all we do.

Mike Malcanas:

It's we don't do it all.

Mike Malcanas:

We don't do small, big wood studs.

Mike Malcanas:

It's all we do.

Mike Malcanas:

We say it, we put it on our shirts.

Mike Malcanas:

It's on our mind.

Mike Malcanas:

You know what I mean?

Mike Malcanas:

People would just like, how can you be so arrogant that's all you tell people.

Mike Malcanas:

It's look, this was, this is all we do.

Mike Malcanas:

So don't even bother with anything else.

Mike Malcanas:

It's what we're good at.

Mike Malcanas:

It's there's enough customers that do this.

Mike Malcanas:

And the good news is when those customers hear you singing that particular month.

Mike Malcanas:

It's like angels are singing and bells are ringing in their ears.

Mike Malcanas:

They go, oh my God, this guy is exactly what I need.

Mike Malcanas:

I don't want Joe Schmo from Eskimo who does everything for everybody.

Mike Malcanas:

Only this guy who does only big, giant wood apartments

Mike Malcanas:

that has an army of insulators.

Mike Malcanas:

And that'll work seven days a week on my job.

Mike Malcanas:

Cause that's all I do is big giant apartment buildings.

Mike Malcanas:

And I want a big giant apartment building insulator.

Mike Malcanas:

So it's like music to his ears when he hears my shtick.

Mike Malcanas:

Which then very gets them interested really quickly.

Mike Malcanas:

And then the differentiator differentiates me very quickly.

Mike Malcanas:

So if I have a good piece of advice, I would give to any business owner, simplify

Mike Malcanas:

your business down to the smallest shortest, vertical, what's the most

Mike Malcanas:

profitable vertical that has the biggest marketplace you have, and focus on that

Mike Malcanas:

one the most and just makes life so much.

Joshua Maddux:

And it's exactly that it's focused.

Joshua Maddux:

It's, I've heard that as well from people that they're like, oh, you just

Joshua Maddux:

feel, you feel, overconfident, or it feels just that you're coming off.

Joshua Maddux:

And you're just like, oh, we won't work with you.

Joshua Maddux:

The person who has a garage, like we won't work with, it's, you're focused,

Joshua Maddux:

you're laser focused in what you're doing in business to the sentence

Joshua Maddux:

that, Exactly what your customer needs.

Joshua Maddux:

Exactly what your customer, is going to be asking, the questions they're going

Joshua Maddux:

to ask, the elements that they if you had to quote every type of house build

Joshua Maddux:

and every possible state in the U S then.

Joshua Maddux:

The number

Mike Malcanas:

you're missing everything.

Mike Malcanas:

You're constantly doing shit wrong.

Mike Malcanas:

You're constantly, always, oh, she's I missed that.

Mike Malcanas:

Oh, I didn't know about that.

Mike Malcanas:

I didn't do it.

Mike Malcanas:

Whereas now I know everything there's no, I never run into anything new,

Mike Malcanas:

every job we bid, we always, we know the answer before, before, even

Mike Malcanas:

the people you'd ask the question.

Mike Malcanas:

And I

Joshua Maddux:

imagine that you can almost get to the point now with a project.

Joshua Maddux:

Focus like you guys are aware.

Joshua Maddux:

If someone comes to you and says, this is the rough square footage of the building,

Joshua Maddux:

you can probably say, okay, this is a rough window price range based upon

Joshua Maddux:

your just generic square footage, where.

Joshua Maddux:

If it's, oh, it's a five story building.

Joshua Maddux:

Here's the square footage or this many units or whatever that looks like.

Joshua Maddux:

They can give you some very basic details and you can at least probably ballpark

Joshua Maddux:

that enough so they can start to figure out what that's going to look like.

Joshua Maddux:

Obviously you guys probably look at your drawings and all that

Mike Malcanas:

plenty of variables, but yes.

Mike Malcanas:

You can there's no doubt you can.

Mike Malcanas:

The less variables you can have in construction well, in any business, right?

Mike Malcanas:

Rolling there and find a whole bunch of, mystery.

Mike Malcanas:

Oh, I didn't know how to do all that.

Mike Malcanas:

That's going to cost me another 10,000 or whatever rhinestone

Mike Malcanas:

and it makes a huge difference.

Mike Malcanas:

Hey that's I learned that from good to great, that's number three item.

Mike Malcanas:

It's like the hedgehog concept, right?

Mike Malcanas:

It's The hedgehog that he's good at one thing, rolling up on a ball

Mike Malcanas:

and stick around his little spines and fighting against whatever, any

Mike Malcanas:

predator and nobody can beat it.

Mike Malcanas:

He was like, Hey, he just sticks with it.

Mike Malcanas:

He goes, it works, stick with it.

Mike Malcanas:

So we like it.

Mike Malcanas:

This is what we're good at.

Mike Malcanas:

If I'm the business, I'd find one good customer vertical, and I would stick

Mike Malcanas:

with it until it doesn't work anymore.

Mike Malcanas:

Yeah.

Joshua Maddux:

Yeah.

Joshua Maddux:

Super true.

Joshua Maddux:

Super good.

Joshua Maddux:

Good to great.

Joshua Maddux:

That's a good book.

Joshua Maddux:

Definitely.

Joshua Maddux:

If you're an entrepreneur or a business owner and haven't read,

Joshua Maddux:

it would highly recommend it.

Joshua Maddux:

Grab it from Amazon, your local bookstore or local library.

Joshua Maddux:

That's also a good option as well.

Joshua Maddux:

So

Mike Malcanas:

some strategies, my other favorite, I have not read that one.

Mike Malcanas:

That is my second favorite.

Mike Malcanas:

The other one has helped me build my whole contracting business

Mike Malcanas:

model.

Mike Malcanas:

I devised basically from my book because it was just fantastic.

Mike Malcanas:

Got it.

Joshua Maddux:

That's good.

Joshua Maddux:

That's good.

Joshua Maddux:

Awesome.

Joshua Maddux:

It's been super good chatting.

Joshua Maddux:

Appreciate the time.

Joshua Maddux:

What is the number one spot for people to find you online?

Mike Malcanas:

Presently it's Old town overhaul is my latest business venture.

Mike Malcanas:

So that's what we're spending most of my time.

Mike Malcanas:

So you can check us out on Facebook.

Mike Malcanas:

That's where we were posting most of our stuff, so that's old town over home.

Mike Malcanas:

O L D E.

Mike Malcanas:

And so that's old, wouldn't an in town.

Mike Malcanas:

Wouldn't be overhaul.

Mike Malcanas:

Cool.

Mike Malcanas:

And

Joshua Maddux:

I'll grab, make sure to grab the link to that.

Joshua Maddux:

And we'll have that in the show notes as well.

Mike Malcanas:

And then show all the buildings that we're rehabbing

Mike Malcanas:

and they'll projects we're doing.

Mike Malcanas:

And that'll link you to the brewery that we're doing in town and shows

Mike Malcanas:

you and realize that when you try to fix up buildings in the town ended up.

Mike Malcanas:

Fix the whole time.

Mike Malcanas:

So I have to fix the whole structure of the town and elect the right

Mike Malcanas:

councils and make parades and clean the town and fix the buildings.

Mike Malcanas:

But yeah, it's been very fun and challenging at the same time.

Mike Malcanas:

That's

Joshua Maddux:

cool.

Joshua Maddux:

That's cool.

Joshua Maddux:

Awesome.

Joshua Maddux:

Appreciate you having you on the show and your time with us today.

Joshua Maddux:

Thanks

Mike Malcanas:

Josh.

Mike Malcanas:

Nice talking to you.

Joshua Maddux:

Thanks for listening to this episode of, in the bunker.

Joshua Maddux:

As always we can be found on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter

Joshua Maddux:

at, in the bunker podcast.

Joshua Maddux:

Be sure to share this episode and what you're going to apply from it.

Joshua Maddux:

And how that can affect your business, make sure to tag us in that post so

Joshua Maddux:

we can highlight your journey as well.

Joshua Maddux:

But before you go.

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About the Podcast

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In The Bunker
Exploring the biggest challenges in starting and running a business.

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About your host

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Joshua Maddux

Joshua Maddux is an entrepreneur who has helped numerous businesses grow and thrive.