Why Most Construction Business Owners Never Scale

0:00A lot of guys don't get past the job site phase and that's why they don't grow because they don't take the steps that allow them to grow. So once we get his position established, he's rolling. That frees up more time for me. I'm coming and doing stuff like this. I'm marketing, I'm talking to people I'm doing this. I'm actually being the face of the company and I'm growing it versus being stuck in the trenches all day. If you don't have the right mindset, then you're not gonna go anywhere. Adam Kiger is a gritty, determined, and resilient entrepreneur, father and founder of Good Old Boys Construction. Drawing from his journey through addiction, adversity, and business success, he shows how hard work, sacrifice, and choosing the next right step can help rebuild a life, create new opportunities and inspire others never to give up on themselves. If you can get the right people and you have the right systems and you can understand how to build a business, the sky is the limit. How do you level up to more gigs? Like was there marketing or just word of mouth? I haven't implemented marketing until...

1:00It spans the globe, like a super high school. Internet Elvis? Ready? I am. Today, Apple is going to reinvent the bomb. It's not over until I win. The Living Your Legacy podcast for those who live to leave a legacy. Oh, the sensational door open. Chicago is the way you say it is. The box is not on the planet. You can live your dream. Hey, welcome back everyone to another episode of Living Your Legacy podcast. I'm your host again, Jason Langen, and thanks for joining us here down in the Sunny Miami Beach Studios in our podcast room, where we get the opportunity to talk to some of the best entrepreneurs from around the country, the disruptors and experts from all kinds of different fields in industry, including today we got here for our show Blue Kyler America. And yeah, why don't you introduce yourself?

2:00What's your name, Erie from? And what do you do? Yeah, my name is Adam Keiger. I am from Central Ohio and I own Good Old Boys Construction. We do all residential construction, new build houses, additions, bathrooms, kitchens, basements, et cetera. Work for mostly homeowners and investors. Nice, nice. How'd you go from kind of into the construction business, like were you like a handy guy and then you made the leap? Well, honestly, so I mean, I worked in construction a little bit. I honestly wasn't even building when I decided to start my own business. I was running heavy equipment. I had built in the past, but for about three years, I was actually running heavy equipment. And I just wanted more. I needed more from my life. And I decided I was going to start the construction company and then that was pretty much it. Nice. When you started the construction company, you took that leap of faith and started bent on yourself, right? What'd you have set up? Do you have anything set up? Did you have already some contracts set up or do you have some money put away that you could invest in yourself? Or you just was like, man, screw this.

3:01I'm just going all in. Yeah, I was pretty much like, man, screw this. I'm going all in. I had one job. One job set up, some guy had asked me if I wanted to build a deck. And my ideal plan was, I was like, all right, I'm going to keep working. I'm going to build this deck on the weekends. Take a couple of weekends, build the deck, and stick my normal job. And the first weekend I went out and started building the deck. I was like, no, I'm not going back to work. I was like, I'm just going to do this. So I only had one job lined up. I had the one job that was the plan to just do on the weekends until whatever. And then that didn't last more than the fall. Dex could be a complicated project, though. If you don't do it right, they could mess up everything. So everything, that's where, when someone's building a deck, it's like the Dream Deck. It's like the backyard. It's almost like the intro to the whole man cave. So how the deck turned out? It was great.

4:01Yeah, it was fun. And so how long you been doing this for, man? Been out for about four and a half years now. All right, cool. And what kind of gigs you get now? So now we're doing basically everything. So Dex, concrete patios, additions, new build houses, bathroom remodels, kitchen remodels, we're finishing basements, roofing, siding, basically anything and everything, residential construction. Whatever we can do for a homeowner, you know, if somebody reaches out and they're like, hey, we want to build our dream house. We're going to build your dream house. Yeah, somebody reaches out and they're like, hey, you know, I need to move mom and dad in. They're getting older. You know, they need help. We need to do an addition. We're going to do an addition. We've done a couple of mother and law suite, like addition type deals. Okay. You know, we've done master bedroom suite additions where the owners just, they want a bigger and better space for themselves while the remainder of the house can be for, you know, the other individuals that live there. So, you know, we do a lot of cool stuff. Yeah. So that mother and law addition was there like, kind of handicap stuff that you have to build in?

5:04Yeah. So we actually did. We did a full, I want to say it was like 40 foot long, a concrete wheelchair ramp, mobility ramp. Yeah. So the addition was, it was actually, there was no entrance from the other house. Okay. So it was a stand, kind of a standalone addition with no entryway into the existing house, but we tied into the existing house. So it was fully functional. It had bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, living room. It's, you know, heating and cooling the whole nine yards. And then it had a covered front porch, covered concrete front porch. And then we had like the 40 foot, it was actually an L-shaped mobility ramp. So it came off the porch, went down and around. It was really nice, but it had a block foundation. Yeah. Yeah. There's all kinds of special techniques you gotta do for handicapped accessibility, right? Like doors, a little bit wider, back room, maybe some handles that you can suck, like the suction cup handles and stuff. The grab bars. Yeah, yeah. So you're him, right?

6:04You're the guy, right? Someone says I got a guy, right? Yeah. Right on. And then you said good old boys, right? There's a story behind that. I'm sure. Yeah. I mean, I've always, you know, I've always just been a good old boy. You know, kind of just doing my own thing. I kind of just rocked with the beat of my own drum, you know? I mean, kind of just do my thing. Never really liked obeying like authority. And, you know, having people tell me what to do, I've always been somebody who I wanna do my thing, how I do it, what I wanna do. And that's how that is, you know. Yeah. And so you never looked back, right? Being your own boss is just the best. No. After jumping in, you got your first gig, right? How do you level up to more gigs? Like was there marketing or just word of mouth? No. I actually never, I haven't implemented marketing until, honestly, like a month ago. Okay. So I've been going for years. No marketing. Four years strong, no marketing. Okay. No taking pictures of the place that's putting on Instagram. No, yes. I do do that. But I'm talking in terms of like paid marketing. Gotcha. So I don't have Instagram,

7:06but I do have a Facebook account. And like a business Facebook separate from my personal. Yeah. And so no, yes. I do mark, I have marketed that way. Yeah. Basically when I complete a job, I just posted. But that's basically like when someone says, yo, I got a guy, check out his Facebook. And then it's the credibility, hey, these are the projects. This is the work that I do. So it's like a portfolio site. Correct. Yeah. Aside from Facebook posts, I have gotten yard signs over like the last two years. So whenever we're working out of property, we'll put a yard sign out. But aside from like Facebook and yard signs, that's been it, man, for about. Also, you got to pay the shirts. Yeah. Some people see the guy, hey, I need a guy, right? This basically a lot of how it works, right? Because everyone always needs someone at some point. It's like, hey, I need this fix. I got a guy, right? Yeah, exactly. It is good old boy, right? And the best thing is, is if you do people right, they're going to tell everybody. Of course. Of course. Of course.

8:07Yeah. So you've been doing it right. It's been four years of doing it right. And doing it right. Yeah. And then like I said, just in the past like two months, I've gotten an official website. I've gotten a hired a marketing guy. You're here? I'm here. Yeah. I'm here. But honestly, man, Facebook and making posts and just taking pictures and word of mouth has taken me from the day I started to, you know, about four years and you got to get on Google too, man. You know, like people Google Maps something. Oh, there's a contractor here, right? And that's what I'm doing. And that's what I'm in the process of right now. Yeah. Yeah. I find so many businesses and stuff on Google Maps. And I'm always like, are you not on Google Maps? You know, like how many times are you on there just scrolling around, right? Maybe I do it a lot more than others, you know, because I always like to just, you know, check areas. And someone says, oh, where are you from? And I'm like, oh, let me see. Where are you from, right? Yeah. So I am working on ramping up my Google presence,

9:08that whole thing. Like I said, doing ads, SEO, AO ads, different things like that. Yeah. But that's all brand new. I mean, that's all within like the past month, you know? Yeah. And so you started solo, dole, dole, right? And then you got a team now, where you hire now contractors? Yeah. I went through a lot of employees, you know, a lot of helpers, like there for a while. Obviously, I was on the job site every day. I was building the project. I would have, you know, different helpers come in and, you know, not work out. And it's tough in the construction industry. It is tough in the construction industry. So you got the good old boys, and then you got the bad old boys, right? A lot of them are trying to be good old boys, right? So you got to kind of lead them out. But yeah, I got to see that. I was on the job site for about three years. And I was just doing everything. I'm like building, building whatever job we're at. I'm doing the work. I'm ordering the material. I'm going to the customer's house as I'm doing the estimates, everything, you know what I mean? And I was just like going crazy.

10:10I'm like, all right, I got something's got to give, you know what I mean? So it's not going to be me. Yeah, it's not going to be me. So I realized, and, you know, I'm in a mentor group with a great, a lot of great business owners and different things like that. And I just realized, like, dude, in order for this to really grow, I need to be able to step off the job site, start getting more people in here. Me start growing the business more so than just, hey, I'm like the highest paying guy on the crew, you know? Yeah. So really like growing the business and getting people in higher and more than one crew, doing more services. Like I said, I start off just building decks, doing more services like, okay, now we're doing bathroom remodels. Yeah. So how many vans you got now? Well, I have a few trucks. I have a couple trailers. Yeah. So yeah. We had a dude here that started just like you, right? Now he's got 175 trucks, dude. Do you know? You know, vans, trucks, whatever. Actually, he's got a whole, like the next, the ultimate level up is he's got a whole like,

11:12auto mechanic crew that just repairs his stuff. And so yeah, he doesn't have to go out and it's like, oh, he's like, you're, you're, you're, you're awesome. Uh, and then, and then the leveling up was like, he kept on getting bigger like you, right? He was just a nobody from nowhere. That was, that was like his, his line. I was just a nobody from nowhere, right? And then when he got bigger, he was like, you know, people started asking, oh, do you do this? Like the HVAC and he's like, no, and then he would like get an HVAC guy. And then he would like have an HVAC team, right? And then it would be like the plumbing team. And then it was, it just grew and grew. And then okay, fire and safety team. And then he's just like this massive construction company. Now, right? But that's how it starts, man. And that's how it works. If you can get the right people and you have the right systems and you can understand how to build a business, the sky is the limit. Yeah. Yeah. It's the people that kind of get stuck and like in kind of where I was at, you know, where they're like the high,

12:13basically the highest paid member of the crew. But they're also the owner and they're just always on the job site. They're all just kind of stuck in it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was there for a while. It's hard to, you know, let go of the reins. It is. It really is, you know, because you're like, it's got to do that, you got to do it right, right? Yeah. It's almost like, you know, the chef when, when they're teaching their recipe, right? And it's like when they leave, are they going to stick to that recipe? Because honestly, like there, there was a fajita joint just across the street, right? And like, you know, that was our local joint, right? And then one time, it only took one time, like the fajitas were off, right? And we were like, yeah, I'm not going back there. Yeah, what did the cook get fired? He left or something, you know, like, what's up with this? And we didn't go back for like, I don't know, it's like three, four months, right? But we went back. And then we had him, we're like, we're like, he's back, baby. You know, but yeah, I mean, it's, it's hard to let go because you don't know what they're doing, right? And you have a guy that's kind of, you trust that's in charge of the crew. Well, yeah, and that's what I was getting ready to say.

13:14So it's like, I have a crew leader on each crew now. Yep. And then I, another step of stepping away that I have also made recently, because see in the past like six months is where like a lot of change and also a lot of growth has been taking place. So I also just recently hired a project manager. Nice. And so I have a crew leader on each crew and then I have the project manager. And honestly, when I hired the project manager, I didn't have the position established. I didn't know what it was going to be. Like I had no clue. I was just like, all right, I got to have like someone else to help me, you know what I mean? Oh, yeah. So like I had no established position. I had no like really as silly as it sounds. I had like no like set in stone like criteria. Yeah, you know what I mean? I just knew I'm like, dude, like I got a lot going on. I need some help more so than like a crew leader. Yeah. And now this is the coaching kind of getting you all the different steps of how to level up and.

14:14Yeah, yeah. And it's like, and so I hired my project manager and for like the first like three or four weeks he was with me. He was basically just like riding around in my truck with me. And I was getting upset on the inside because I'm like, dude, I'm just like paying this guy to like ride around in my truck. But really it was my fault, you know what I mean? And you got to realize that sometimes you're the bottleneck and you're business, you know what I mean? And so I'm like, I wasn't giving him, and he's great guy. Like I wasn't giving him any responsibility. I was having him ride in my truck with me all day. And then I'm ticked off because like he's riding around in my truck with me all day, you know what I mean? So I'm like, I'm like, dude, I gotta, so it's like hard because like I hired a role that I didn't have, you know what I mean? So it's like, I'm trying to like adjust. Well, it was a training period. Yeah, yeah. So you gotta take that those wheels off and just let him go. Exactly, exactly. And now that has happened and he's doing awesome. And you know, he's like I said, he's a great guy. But I was in the midst of a struggle of like,

15:16not having this position developed, not having like key criteria, also like not fully being able to let loose on the reins. And then inside I'm like, well, man, you know, this guy really ain't doing that much. You know, it's like, well, I wonder why, you know what I mean? So, you know, over the past few months, we've been establishing his position. And it's going great, you know what I mean? So that's what it's all about. You gotta be willing to like give up a little bit of control, understand that hey, you get the right people in there that actually respect you, respect your company. Like they're good people, you know, because you have to have your own position mapped out too. Exactly. Okay. If I put him in this position, what position am I going to fulfill it? Right, right. Yeah, we were born in different hats. And that's where you elevate because, you know, before just hypothetically, I'm going to the job site, you know, five times a week. And I'm doing this and I'm doing this and I'm doing that.

16:16So it's like then when I'm like, okay, I need to delegate these tasks to my project manager, well, what am I going to do? Well, then that leaves me and that starts slowly pushing me into the more of the owner position instead of like owner, operator, laborer, you know, sales guy, the whole nine yards. Yeah. So, and that's how you're able, that is how you're able to grow. Because like I said, a lot of guys don't get past the job site phase. And that's why they don't grow. Because they don't take the steps that allow them to grow. So once, you know, we get his position established, he's rolling, that frees up more time for me. You know, I'm coming and doing stuff like this. I'm marketing, I'm talking to people I'm doing this. I'm actually being the face of the company and I'm growing it versus like being stuck in the trenches all day. And you can, you can, you can feel the growth because you got the marketing. You got, you're coming here, you're stepping out of what you used to do. You know, you're trying to branch out. Yeah. Awesome, man, that's awesome. So what do you, I ask everyone,

17:18what are you most excited about? You know, are there projects, you're working with the mentors right now, the coaches? What's the plan with them and what you got going next? So with them, it's just, it's like a mentor group. We have a call every week. And then we have a couple in person meetups a year. So I'm not like directly like working with them, per se on a day to day basis. But they are definitely in my life. And it's a group of all different entrepreneurs, you know, successful people, people doing things. I actually just met up with a guy last night and we had dinner here in Florida. And because he lives in Florida. So I got a hold of him. I was like, hey, man, I'm going to be down there, you know, like let's, let's talk. So it's not like I'm working with these people directly every day, but it's more like, okay, we get together once a week, we talk, we have a call, they're available. Hey, look, I, you know, I need somebody that can help me with taxes. Oh, yeah, we got the guy, you know, this is the tax guy, you know what I mean?

18:18It's relationship capital is, you know, really what it is. So it's not so much as like that being a part of my business and in my business, but it's more like they are there, they're helping their, you know, people to talk to, people to learn from. And it's all about what you apply. So it's like I can, I can be a part of this group and I can gain nothing because I apply nothing. Just going out with them for drinks, whatever. Exactly. And I think that's one of the big things that that guy that grew to 175 trucks every year, he had like his mentor, right? They look at open up his books, look at his books and tell them, you know, like how it is, right? Where he's lacking, where he can grow. But he kept them accountable, right? And this dude would check in like every month with them and like say, hey, this is what we did here. This is what we did there. And then like his mentor now is like 85 years old and now it's like the only, he's like super retired. But he continues to do that for him because I like this great relationship, you know? But if it's not for that accountability,

19:19it's very easy to fall into the trap of just, you know, a bunch of guys, hey, how's your business, great, you know? But it's about, yeah, that accountability so that you keep on making sure that someone's pushing you to make those jumps. And everything in life is so much about like applying things, you know, and your mindset. And that's like my biggest thing is mindset. If you don't have the right mindset, then you're not gonna go anywhere. Yeah. And it's like, you know, I could have came down here last night like hit the beach and whatever when did, whatever and this and that. But I'm like, hey, I'm gonna get ahold of this guy, we're gonna go to dinner, we're gonna talk. Like I'm very focused and I have a point to everything I'm doing, you know what I mean? So, but it's all about application. You know, it's like I could be a part of this group and learn nothing and go nowhere and have zero benefit from it. Because I choose like, yeah, the information's there and the people are there. But if I don't utilize it, then it's pointless, you know? So I think that's the biggest thing that like people need to understand is like,

20:19you can talk about stuff all day long, you can hear stuff all day long. I mean, but if you don't, you know, apply it, then what's the point? Yeah, absolutely. Well, it seems like you're on the right path and got the right mindset, dude. Definitely proud of you for the last four years and loving it up. Yeah, I appreciate it. Yeah, you got a long road ahead to get to those 135 trucks, but you're on the path, bro. You know, like he said, I was a no one from nowhere. From nowhere, right? Yeah. But so how do people find you, man? Well, I recently got a website to goodoboysconstruction.net. I am on Facebook, not on Instagram yet. Might make one in the future. But mostly just my Facebook page, goodoboysconstruction.net. I'm in the process of also building kind of like my personal brand as well. You know, Adam Kiger, different things like that. But yeah. Perfect, man, perfect. Well, Santa, I've been a pleasure to have you on the show. And yeah, I'm about to do your episode too. So we're gonna hop on in there in the other studio

21:19and we'll get started on that. All right. All right. But thank you guys for joining us here again. And yeah, we can't wait to see you next time. Cheers, everyone.