The Olympic Caliber Contractor: Becoming the Best of the Best

What does it take to be an Olympic-level contractor, consistently setting the gold standard in construction?

Join Wade Carpenter and Stephen Brown as they explore the key traits and practices that separate the good from the truly great. Discover how you can push your team to win every time.

Topics we cover on this episode include: 

• 00:39 – Contractor of the Year
• 01:12 – Thinking Outside the Box
• 02:33 – Discipline and Consistency
• 03:27 – Investing in Employees
• 04:35 – Autopilot Performance
• 05:23 – Breeding Success
• 06:31 – Strategic Planning
• 07:34 – Training for Success
• 08:30 – Innovation and Improvement
• 09:25 – Reputation and Relationships
• 10:12 – Ethics and Community
• 10:51 – Financial Acumen
• 11:56 – Resilience and Perseverance
• 12:43 – Performance Speaks Volumes

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Wade Carpenter, CPA, CGMA | CarpenterCPAs.com
Stephen Brown, Bonding Expert | SuretyAnswers.com

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TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Wade Carpenter: As the Olympic Games come to a close, I am reminded we see the best athletes in the world once every four years. They have worked and sacrificed to compete on an Olympic level.

Do you have what it takes to be best in class in construction? Are you confident that your team is hitting gold every single time?

Or are there areas where you could be pushing a little harder or aiming a little higher? Today, we’re going to explore what it means to be an Olympic caliber contractor. Those that consistently rise to the top and set the standard in the industry.

This is the Contractor Success Forum. I’m Wade Carpenter with Carpenter Company CPAs.

With me is my co host Stephen Brown with , McDaniel Whitley Bonding Insurance.

Stephen, in your experience, what are the key traits of a great contractor?

[00:00:39] Stephen Brown: Well, there’s good contractors, there’s great contractors, there’s Olympic caliber contractors, Wade, the best of the best. The best of the best. That’s what I’m talking about. The best of the best. Will you go see these competitors in the Olympics? It’s coming to a close, and part of me is glad and part of me is in a funk about it. I’ve enjoyed every bit of it.

But you think about the difference between gold and silver medal is two one hundredths of a second. You think about the insane amount of performance it takes to be a gold medal Olympian in your sport. That’s what I want our listeners to think about as far as being the very best in what they do.

The whole idea came, to me, Wade, from seeing a really great video from the 2024 Equipment World Contractor of the Year Award. That award winner is Bob Dietz and Sons, they’re in upper state New York and they look to be mainly a dirt contractor excavation. But what made them win 2024 Contractor of the Year was everything you needed to know to think out of the box to be successful.

These two brothers took a chance to get things started off on the very best foot. They developed their vision, and Wade, they literally said they spent six months interviewing young candidates for employment before they found one perfect one that bought into their vision of what they wanted to accomplish. And once they hired that person, then the rest started coming.

But what they did was they communicated a vision for the company and their whole logic, Wade, was if someone is convinced that they can make a go of it here, that they’ll be valued, that they can enjoy their work here, that they can be challenged, and that they can make a comfortable living, in our employee, then the work’s going to come naturally. The work will be done.

Once they’re given everything they need and they put it this way to, to win every time. Whatever it takes to win, they provide for them. They make sure, for example, new equipment operators have the very best technical GPS and technology.

They say that way, even an inexperienced equipment operator can have a win early on, without years and years of training. The more each of their employees leave with the win, the happier they are. The better the company’s performing and the better the reputation of the company.

So there are a whole lot of things that they did that were really impressive. And I guess you could call it thinking out of the box. But I think it separates them from the very best of the best. I think their thinking may be done by hundreds of contractors everywhere, but their goal is to push and push to be the very best excavating contractor they can be. The very best.

And one of their obsessions is their equipment. It looks like it’s brand spanking new. They make sure the paint is shiny. It looks beautiful. The employees are proud of their equipment. They’re excited to get into it every day. Wade, they have a guy that just goes and does nothing but detail the cabs.

And they said, you ought to see the morale of the employees when this guy shows up. They are proud and excited to be in that equipment. And they’re showing people they’re working for that we care about how we do our work. All of a sudden that equipment rolls up on a job site and the owner is saying, oh yeah. Oh yeah, they’re good. They know their stuff.

So it sounds silly, right? Detailing a piece of dirt equipment every day, but they do it with their trucks and their equipment and everything. And it’s all red, and it’s got their logo emblazoned on it. It’s pretty, pretty impressive sight, I think. That’s a couple of things they did.

They also realized they had to adapt a four day work week to keep some of the best and brightest from leaving. They didn’t like it. They didn’t want to do it, and it wasn’t convenient for them. But they did it, and they found a way to make it work, and now they said they have about seven employees that take advantage of that.

They don’t push it, but it’s there. So that’s thinking out of the box, right?

[00:04:35] Wade Carpenter: I know when you brought this title up, I didn’t picture this, but then you started telling me some of the story before we talked about it. And, I think back to all these things like the Olympic athletes and all the discipline that they have and consistency and doing what they do.

And it sounds like these people definitely have that discipline to make it right and go to the nth degree. Because I don’t know of any, Dirt contractor that’s got really shiny equipment, except maybe the first day they go out on a job.

[00:05:01] Stephen Brown: Yeah, that’s right. But, have you met any that care about it being gleaming and shiny when it shows up on the job site? I have a contractor like that. All their equipment is red, just like Deet’s and Sons. It’s Fire Engine Red. I just, it’s a coincidence what I was thinking about that, but, it’s immaculate when it leaves the yard every day. It just is.

But we were talking about when these athletes get prepared for whatever they’re competing and doing. It’s time. Go. It’s time to compete. They’re training the background. Everything they do has to put them on autopilot. I, I noticed, some of them had won gold medals and they were up all night with an upset stomach, they having the flu and stuff.

No telling what goes on in your head with the competition out there. But at that kind of level, other people probably don’t get into your head that much when you’re that level of competition, but who knows? There’s all these elements, but when they show up to start that competition, just like when a contractor starts that job, they’re on autopilot. They’re so good at what they do, they’re on autopilot.

[00:06:02] Wade Carpenter: Again, that goes all back to, just like an Olympic athlete. They’ve been training for years and years, and they only get that to that level by consistent practice and developing that technical expertise in doing that. And I don’t, I think it’s probably not all about having shiny equipment. There’s a lot more to it. So was there any other things that they talked about?

[00:06:23] Stephen Brown: You know, I have to just sing the Dietz and Sons praises. I would love to be their bonding and insurance agent because everything they’re doing, they want to do the right way. Wow, what a dream contractor to have. But, nevertheless, they do other things like they have a Zoom meeting with every single employee.

And they talk about the exciting things that are coming up. They talk about the stuff they’re working on now. They go back over some procedures, some policies, for some folks to remember. And they send them off fired up and ready to go. So it’s not just the supervisors that the boss is having the meeting with.

It’s the field employees. It’s the clerical employees. It’s everyone. And it builds a sense of community and pride in the company, i s what I get out of it. And, they are also breeding that whole ethos of giving every employee, no matter what they do, everything they need to win. That’s an investment.

That’s why they were so picky about hiring that first employee. So they’re getting better employees because they expect better and they give more. Does that make sense?

[00:07:23] Wade Carpenter: Absolutely. And, some of my thoughts about, I jotted some notes down, but just thinking about what makes a great contractor. The teamwork and leadership, exactly what you’re saying, is key. And, there’s a lot of people that run construction. Sometimes they’re just one man band and they sub everything out or whatever, and they never grow beyond themselves.

And the ones that do, the ones that are really, that I see the best in class, they do work on that teamwork and in the leadership and having great employees that have pride in their work. And. It ultimately transfers down to the bottom line.

[00:07:57] Stephen Brown: Yeah. It seems to me another great example. We’ve talked in the past about succession planning for contractors is two brothers. They’re probably as different as night and day. But they agree on the course of where they want the company to go. And they may have fought like cats and dogs to get to it, but they’ve agreed on something that appears to be working for them that they’re proud of.

Another thing that they do is they embrace social media. To the nth degree, as best as they can. And the reason is their comment was, we’re up in upstate New York. Nobody knows us. We may have a project in the middle of nowhere. Nobody knows and sees what we’re doing. Not only how do we promote ourselves, but how do we find mentors?

How do we pick other people’s brains to learn how to be Olympic caliber contractors? That’s what we have always promoted on the Contractor Success Forum, I think.

[00:08:41] Wade Carpenter: Yeah, just thinking about exactly what you’re saying, one thing I had jotted down was strategic planning and execution, having that plan to get your company where you need it to go. It sounds like these people had definitely mapped that out and they’re putting it out for their employees to know that.

Because, unfortunately, I think I see we both see probably contractors when they first get started and they get in this cycle of just running all day long and putting out fires and bidding work and paperwork, and all that stuff comes at the, it’s done at 11 o’clock at night.

[00:09:12] Stephen Brown: Yeah, it’ll drag you down. That’s like all the training that goes on behind the scenes before the big race. All the glory after you won a medal. All those headaches, everything you do, a part of the training that go into the actual competition of winning a gold medal, being an Olympic caliber contractor, that’s the story of training and effort. You don’t want to have to do that forever, do you? You want to be ready when the big competition comes to win.

You want to set yourself up to win. You want to set up everyone that works for you.

I’m sure this fella that cleans out the cabs for him, knowing them, he’s set up to win. They’ve probably studied the most efficient, perfect way to clean a cab and the best equipment to do it. To make it, detail, shiny, sparkling new again. That’s an obsession. To detail that other people see. That they’re impressed by.

You can say, I haven’t got time for that crap. I, I’m too busy. Yeah, it sounds good. Yeah. But you don’t have time not to, if you want to be the best. I guess you could be fine not even going to the Olympics and being pretty good at what you’re doing, that’s fine.

But it seems to me, Wade, that an Olympic caliber contract mindset, it’s just healthy to have.

[00:10:22] Wade Carpenter: Right.

[00:10:23] Stephen Brown: Whether you’re doing it or not, you may think of one thing out of the box that really makes your life and the life of your employees better. Isn’t that a wonderful thing?

[00:10:31] Wade Carpenter: Yeah, one of the things I had written down was like innovation, continuous improvement, and pushing boundaries. These sounds like these guys were doing some things they, probably isn’t the most efficient thing, spending extra time to have it clean, but maybe it is, I don’t know. But they basically have learned and they grew together to basically build this company.

And I think it all translates into another thing I was talking about, like the reputation, the client relationships, those kinds of things. So that’s what I see some of the best contractors out there are not happy with the way that they did it, 10, 20 years ago. Not still chasing paper. We were looking at technology and how can we do this a little better?

How can we, be more efficient? How can we improve on the process?

[00:11:10] Stephen Brown: Yeah, I mean there’s no telling what Bob Dietz and Sons Contracting is gonna look like five years, ten years, fifteen years from now. That’s exciting part of why we’re in business. Wade, you do it in your accounting business. You’re a real inspiration. You are constantly pushing to be the very best at construction accounting.

I’ll say that. And if I had to toot, my partners and fellow employees at McDaniel Whitley, we’re different. We have to be different. We’re obsessed with it. And we have to be, and that’s not going to change. And it just, we’re constantly pushing everything we can to do, to be just a little bit better than our competitors.

Because we enjoy it and we want to be that way. So it’s like the end of Olympic race when somebody wins the gold and somebody doesn’t, they all hug each other afterwards. It’s building camaraderie between the nations is a good thing. And every contractor, like Dietz and Sons that are pushing other contractors to do better and be better just makes our industry better.

[00:12:08] Wade Carpenter: Yeah, just also goes back to the next one that I had on my list. The ones that have the ethics and integrity and, all about community and trying to build something together. So that’s what, again, a lot of these people that are the, what I see as the best and the best are, they’re out there going out in the community and, doing stuff that probably isn’t making them money, but enhances their reputation, but they are good stand up people and people you want to be around.

[00:12:35] Stephen Brown: Yeah, absolutely. These are great examples and those are good points, Wade. And again, as always, all those things tie into your ability to keep and maintain profit, and to get surety bonding. So there we go again, preaching to the choir about all the traits and things that make your business successful.

That’s what we’re about here on the Contractor Success Forum. And I, I don’t know if you had anything else, but I’m going to try to get you the link to their award video.

[00:13:00] Wade Carpenter: Yeah, if it’s publicly available, we can probably put a link in the show notes.

[00:13:03] Stephen Brown: Yeah I imagine it is, and I’ll provide it to you. And did you have anything else on this?

[00:13:08] Wade Carpenter: Like I said, you just, you kept leaning into all these things that I had, and I felt like we couldn’t really get away from this episode without saying, they’ve got some kind of financial acumen. They may not be the best and smartest and all that stuff when they get started, but they take the time to learn the financial side of it, or at least have somebody around them that can advise them.

So they are the ones that are looking at profitability and they’re looking at more of a long term success, you know, not just, can I get cash flow in the door? And, I know a lot of contractors get in that cycle where we just have to chase this cash, but building profitability and long term success means not necessarily taking all the money out, you know, leaving some capital in to actually grow and move into your business.

And I guess the only last thing I really had was, again, all these tie together, but, they have resilience, persevere, and, all I call these Olympic athletes, they, I’m sure they’ve sprained ankles and blisters and all kind of other things over the years, bruises, but they keep coming back for more and those that whether they competed or not, the fact that they got there, that’s a huge achievement.

[00:14:14] Stephen Brown: It is. And, one other thing that I noticed about the Olympics. There’s some gold medal winners that you like, and some you don’t like. I tend to like the one whose actions speak louder than them drawing attention themselves. Their performance speaks for itself. Some of them are really out there juking it up hyping, themselves and their brand. And I guess that can help you compete, getting the crowd behind you. Maybe that’s something I don’t understand. But in contracting your performance Talks. You want people talking about you, right?

Behind the scenes?

[00:14:46] Wade Carpenter: For the right reason.

[00:14:47] Stephen Brown: For the right reasons, yes. Okay that’s all I had to say on it. else?

[00:14:52] Wade Carpenter: No, I think this is, pretty much hit most of my points here and, I think it was a good topic. And if you got a link to that, maybe we can stick it in the show notes here.

For all of our listeners, if you got any thoughts or feedback on today’s discussion, we’re always happy to hear your questions or your thoughts on topics you’d like us to talk about, drop them in the comments.

Thank you for listening to Contractor Success Forum. For more information, go to Contractorsuccessforum. com or the Carpenter CPA’s YouTube channel, or the newly formed the ProfitFirstConstruction. com. If you enjoyed the episode, please share and subscribe and follow us every week, and we will look forward to seeing you in the next show.