A Few Hours Per Week, a Few States Away

I think it's been almost two and a half weeks since I was last out there. I am going out there on Tuesday. And when I'm out there, primarily what I'm doing is trying to make sure I'm out in the field, talking with the site superintendents, making sure things are going well, addressing anything that's not spending time with my foreman.

What I'm learning is that what I was going out there and doing was, you know, some of what the old owner was doing, driving around and finding out what we'd be doing next. And I'm finding that that's a little disruptive because I'm having him do that and then I'm coming in and taking that away from him. Yeah. For the time I'm out there and then giving it back.

But it's certainly taking less and less of my time. And so I think, to answer your question, when I'm not there, maybe 10 hours a week, maybe a little bit more sometimes, but typically that's on things where we're trying to get into a new neighborhood and working on proposals and bids.

And then when I'm out there just spending time in the field and I might be doing a little bit more and Just checking that we have enough supplies and everything else. But a lot of that is going down significantly. One of the other things I was doing was measuring everything until I handed that off.

So that's been a very recent change. We're probably only three, four weeks into that. But that's helped immensely.

Where now with the guy who's measuring it for me, I mean, he's doing a better job than I am. He's actually documenting it. Half the time I'd get out there, start talking to somebody and realize that I left and forgot to look at one of the lots and had to drive back out there.

And so it's taken that time down quite a bit. You didn't know anything about this world or concrete even before you got into this? Very little. I had worked with a few companies who did residential development, but that was very much on the out of the weeds working on the business.

Theoretical, more numbers focused, but no, no, no concrete or construction. Hands on experience before this. And how have you found the learning curve of the business itself, of the service you sell to be?

Definitely early on, it was a steep learning curve. I've gotten comfortable going in and not doing the fake it till you make it thing and actually saying, I don't know. And so as things would come up, I actually, it helped.

Early on I was driving around with the seller, getting to meet all the site superintendents. But as things come up, I've gotten comfortable saying, you know, I don't know, let me look into that and find out and get back to you and either reach out to the seller, talk to my foreman, two guys who have been in the business 30 plus years, and finding the answer and coming back and addressing it.

But our business, very much like other businesses, is customer service focused. If you don't know the answer, I found it being very receptive me saying, I don't know, but if I get back to him in a couple hours or a day, that's gone quite a long way. So it's been very receptive to me not being the most experienced guy out there and, you know, not holding myself to that standard.