Contractor Startup Tips, Marketing and an Email Newsletter for Construction with Andrew Hansen (SitePartners) | EP59

Andrew is the Founder and CEO of SitePartners, where he drives the vision and strategic direction of the firm, impacting all areas of the business from creative to strategy. He understands the industrial market and how to drive results. His unique perspective from working on-site in the natural resources and construction sectors and as an account executive at a leading marketing agency has helped grow SitePartners into a full-service agency that works with leading Construction brands. Before founding SitePartners, Andrew was a five-year employee at Ledcor.

SitePartners is a specialized marketing agency and consultancy built for the industrial sector. They are a team of strategists, creatives, designers, writers, and analysts, dedicated to solving problems for their clients and are unique in their relentless goal of being the partner of choice for the blue collar. Their specialization allows them to work, think and hire differently to provide unmatched marketing services for their partners. Further, SitePartners understands that the industrial sector is undergoing massive change. The way people sell, win projects, respond to RFPs, use technology, recruit talent, and engage with stakeholders is changing rapidly, and they aim to solve these problems. They have built a team of industry leaders who have spent their careers building and shaping industrial brands throughout North America. Behind cameras, computers, and boardrooms, their group has touched hundreds of constructed companies. Today they have one of the most experienced and talented teams in the entire industry, who understand how to market and position industrial brands for success. As the disruption in this sector continues to grow, they intend to remain at the front of change and disruption.

SiteNews is the modern voice of Canadian Construction. They are the pulse of what’s happening in the industry—reporting, informing & inspiring in real-time via a weekly newsletter and website packed with content.

**This episode was recorded in late October, delayed to coincide with the launch of SiteNews. Subscribe and enjoy!**



EPISODE LINKS:

Andrew Hansen LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-hansen-/

SitePartners Website: https://sitepartners.ca/

SitePartners LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sitepartners-ca/

SitePartners Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sitepartners.ca/?hl=en

SiteNews Website: https://readsitenews.com/

SiteNews LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/site-news/

SiteNews Twitter: https://twitter.com/ReadSiteNews

PODCAST INFO:
the Site Visit Website: https://www.sitemaxsystems.com/podcast
the Site Visit on Buzzsprout: https://thesitevisit.buzzsprout.com/269424
the Site Visit on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-site-visit/id1456494446
the Site Visit on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5cp4qJE5ExZmO3EwldN1HH

FOLLOW ALONG:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/thesitevisit
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesitevisit

Transcript

Introduction

SPEAKER_06 0:00

We're joined by a special guest today who's gonna be uh more of a guest host moving forward. We've got Andrew Hansen, one of the original three amigos.

SPEAKER_05 0:13

It's like a ghost that comes back and is actually a real person. Yeah. But he's been busy, he's been building that company.

SPEAKER_06 0:20

He has been building site partners like crazy. Um, we've been going crazy with all things site max, all things brand marketing coming up today. We've got Andrew Hansen from Site Partners.

SPEAKER_05 0:33

Cool. I look forward to it. Me too. Welcome to the Site Visit Podcast. Leadership and perspective from construction with your hosts, James Faulkner and Christian Hammond.

SPEAKER_02 0:47

This is the Ultra has been so long now. We celebrate these values every single day. Let's get down to it.

SPEAKER_06 1:36

Andrew Hansen. We're back. We're back back. Got the band back together. Here we go.

SPEAKER_05 1:43

It feels good. Here he is. There he is. God, you're like a legend. You know that you roll into Yale town just like an old ghost. I mean, there's chemistry here. There's chemistry.

SPEAKER_03 1:55

I uh reverse parked on the one way in Yale Town. Yep. With my F-150. And I was like, it feels like it was just yesterday we were doing these in person.

SPEAKER_06 2:03

A little deja vu.

SPEAKER_03 2:04

Deja vu. Are you getting the electric one? I've thought about it, but from what I've heard, it's the charging stations. If you like go to the north, or like we do a lot of video shoots there, like Prince George or FAR. Like it's a bit of a headache if the charging stations aren't there to get the distance. So as a secondary vehicle, maybe, but I think until the charge. But there was just an announcement of the feds or province putting a bunch of money into charging stations. So there you go.

SPEAKER_05 2:27

But you're like big CEO now. You don't even go to those in Norway. Do you still go to locations?

SPEAKER_03 2:31

All the time. See? You still go to locations? I still do. And I get called out all the time, like, so uh why are you here? I'm like, well, I just want to be here. We were there on site last week for a big shoot with Finney and a big civil contractor on some of the highway rebuild stuff. And it's like, how often do you get to go to those type of projects and see what's going on? You were in the Yukon. I was in the Yukon a couple weeks ago. Beautiful place to be. Wow. Yeah. Oh, and great food scene, actually. Is there like flies there? Uh, I think there is, not when we were there.

SPEAKER_05 3:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 3:00

Yeah. But honestly, like I'm gonna, this is not a Yukon travel Yukon commercial, but going to Whitehorse. If you've ever been, people listening that have been to White Horse, you know what I'm talking about. My expectations are pretty low. We go there, beautiful weather, so that's also a big, a big factor. I think in the winter it's like four months of darkness or five months, but we go there light, beautiful. It's like a combination of like Canmore, Banff, Kelowna, like Rolling Hills, beautiful colors, kind of that fall season. Food scene's really good in Whitehorse, like you know, pretty fun town. So it's cool. Buffalo burgers. We had we had bison.

SPEAKER_05 3:35

We had bison.

SPEAKER_03 3:36

Yeah, bison burgers.

SPEAKER_05 3:37

It was good.

SPEAKER_03 3:37

Nice, that's cool.

SPEAKER_05 3:38

So it's yeah, it's beautiful though. Like I've seen it, I've seen the uh the tourism uh commercials. They look amazing.

SPEAKER_03 3:44

Yeah, we put a little reel out that we did with Finney. Uh they sponsored a race, a big really 24-7 relay race. And we filmed this truck, bringing this heavy equipment all through Yukon. It was really pretty cool. You see the different trains, the different things. So that's a big ass brand for you to be doing work for. Oh, yeah. That's fun. They're an awesome group. They're they're they're great if they're listening. Thank you, Finney.

SPEAKER_05 4:08

Like when you yeah, yeah, thank you. Let's hope they are.

SPEAKER_03 4:11

Thank you. I'll send it to them.

SPEAKER_05 4:12

Yeah, let's cheers to Finney here. There you go, Finney. Cheers. Cheers. And that's MakersMark 46, Makers Mark 46. We're cheers in Mr. or Mrs. Finney.

SitePartners origin story and current state of the industry

SPEAKER_06 4:20

There's there's lots to celebrate here. I mean, getting everybody back together. This is the original site visit trio. Obviously, the last two years, we just, you know, we're talking here as we're getting together that there's just nothing like being together in person, seeing each other's faces, clinking some glasses and enjoying a beverage together. So um it just feels so nice. And I think that um, yeah, that there's gonna be a lot of good times, good old times of the site visit, getting back together here and uh recording some great podcasts, getting some great guests on, and uh just having a good time talking construction, talking contracting businesses, talking uh all things that come along with uh with that.

SPEAKER_05 5:03

I love it. We want to focus on you and site partners because you have you've built this amazing thing. We've been kind of part of it, I guess. Yeah. Um people mix us up all the time. The names. You used to be called something else, like construction partners before, and then you're like, hey, Site Max, that's a good name. Yeah, and then you're like, let's just jump onto that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there's some other ones out there. Um but yeah, so was this so before this, you were like doing some stuff with Ledcore. Was this starting an agency always the plan? Like, were you when you're in there, you're like, God, if I can only have my own thing?

SPEAKER_03 5:41

It's a I get asked that a lot, and the answer is no, never the plan. I think uh probably similar to Christian, we've talked about this. Like um at a university, I went to work with Leadcore, and I thought I'd be there forever. Like, I think um amazing organization, amazing people, amazing brand, still do a lot of work with them, but that wasn't the plan. I thought I'd be a big company kind of employee for a while. Didn't kind of want to be an entrepreneur, didn't plan to be an entrepreneur, didn't have that on on the plan. But you kind of just stumble into stuff. I think one thing we'll probably talk about later is just the passion for the industry and the creativity that can be found there. And it kind of just stumbled in. So I think to your question, no, it wasn't it wasn't the plan, but I think looking back now, it's it it made sense and it the pieces kind of fit together.

SPEAKER_05 6:30

Well, in terms of greenfield, and we talk about that in in you know our industry, Christian, I you hear you and I hear about greenfield and markets and stuff like that. There's tremendous amount of greenfield at that time for creativity and construction because it was pretty linear before. Um so but you're kind of like an overachiever. I mean, that you were like back then lead core of 15, now you just had your 19th birthday. So you're like you're like really hauling ass, right?

SPEAKER_04 6:54

Yeah, yeah. I can drink now at 19, so thank you. That's why we're having this bourbon.

SPEAKER_06 6:59

Super jacked bronze skin in the middle of Albert uh October.

SPEAKER_05 7:03

Yeah, what's with the brown skin?

SPEAKER_03 7:04

Well, it's been nice out. Actually, this is no, no, this is a fun fact. So I've probably said Acapulco. I mean, uh is that where it was? In the last hundred days, BC has had less rain than Vegas. Yeah, I I heard about that earlier in the week. And there's a drought, and we do a lot of work with wildfire and we hear kind of the reports, and there's still active fire starts weekly. And like I said, I was filming last week in kind of merit area, and it was 25, 26, and it just like even driving down here today, 24. Um, I'm wearing a short sleeve shirt. It's warm and it's it's October. Like we're gonna blink, and it's gonna be Christmas, yeah. Like that.

SPEAKER_06 7:40

So 24 degrees, four degrees. You're always gonna be wearing a short sleeve shirt, Andrew. That's true.

SPEAKER_05 7:46

Okay, sweaty stockings.

SPEAKER_06 7:48

But it does, but it does feel like a bit like summer right now. Yeah, in Vancouver, up in British Columbia.

SPEAKER_03 7:55

So and we'll probably talk about the last two years and and we'll dive into the whole industry, how it's responded to COVID and whatnot. But it people always ask, like to your question, James, like, you know, our growth and a lot of you know, you guys have had similar growth. And we didn't ask, but go ahead. Yeah, there you go. The analogy to Christian's point, like the weather's good, and there's this feeling in this industry. We feel it in our company, we feel it with our clients. Everyone's just head down working. Yeah, work, work, work, work, work, work. And now it's let's go before the rain comes. Let's go, go, go. Last two years, it's let's just win this job because we don't know if we're entering a recession. We don't know if COVID's gonna, you know, materially impact our business. And everyone has been sprinting when it's been a marathon. And we use that analogy a lot is it's been sprinting. I know because I ran a half marathon, it pretty much destroyed me. So I can speak to that. But that's the pace people have been running right now. It's like we don't know now, it's interest rates. Interest rates are going up, now it's inflation. And so there's always these levels, like there's a cliff around the corner. And as business owners and business leaders, you're like trying to insulate from risk. Yeah. And so you take on jobs, you take on that. You know, for me, it's like Friday night, you know, 5 30, and I'm like, I should probably get that proposal out. And I just do it, and then it's like eight o'clock on a Friday. And it's like, you've been doing that for three years, but you just have this feeling that around the corner, you're gonna get that phone call. It's like, yeah, we we've paused this job. And I think all contractors and people in this industry, and you guys probably share that too, feel at the same time.

SPEAKER_05 9:19

Well, I went through when I had my ad agency, I went through the 2008, 2000, actually it got to us in 2009. And I had I had like three big brands, um talking of mega brands, say keep our deposit because you did the initial work, uh, we'll let you know when we can start going, but we can't pay the next bill. And that's just that was just commonplace. That was what was going on. Yeah. So yeah, hopefully that doesn't happen now.

SPEAKER_03 9:49

Yeah, and you hear stories. I mean, from what I hear, like, you know, there's people that are much more attuned to the industry than than than than probably the three of us, like people that really study it, but like you keep hearing announcements like new project, bunch of stuff. Quitland just got announced from towers, like major projects, and and a lot of time the supply-demand conversation in Vancouver proper and Alberta, and like, you know, new people coming to live and build a career in Canada. So there's that supply-demand thing where there's still optimism of people like, hey, let's build this. By the time we top out two years, there'll be demand. But and then you talk about major infrastructure projects. We're doing a lot of research on the amount of infrastructure projects across Canada right now. And if they all like staffed up, like, do we even have the people for that? So there's still that optimism in the industry, but residential might is feeling it right now, and we're not.

SPEAKER_06 10:34

But okay, back to the conversation about agency marketing, starting agencies and stuff like that. Um, does marketing run in the family? Because you you gotta there's other family members that are really entrenched in marketing and personal brands and all that kind of stuff. Did this was this you and then he copied you?

SPEAKER_03 10:54

Yeah, uh, you're probably referring to my little brother. No, um, like I said, I didn't grow up in a family of entrepreneurs or or or even in business, really. Um, so I'd say, I don't know, it's probably just a bit of luck. You know, Joel does you know similar work in in the branding space, but no, I think there was no grand plan, there's no scheming. It's kind of you follow your passion and you follow what you enjoy to do, and sometimes success follows, sometimes you know it it doesn't follow. But I think for for me and the Path for Sight Partners, I mean you guys were a part of that, like James you said, like you guys were a part of that journey for sure. First couple of years of our business, like you know, I say this to James all the time. You guys legitimized a lot of what we did. You know, we were early on in our days, um, still feels like we're early on in our days, but the work we did with you guys was was where definitely the our business started to shape and and to create some form, and you guys gave us the opportunity to do some really good work, uh, still do. And it's I'd say that those are the early years where it's like, okay, there's something here, we're doing something special. There's there's opportunity to bring creativity to a space. Um, and that's I think that was a big part of even where we are today.

SPEAKER_06 12:02

Totally. Uh the only reason I brought in the pro thing is because we actually met by chance uh through the meeting of two Joels in a rainy parking lot in Gastown when they were talking about what do you do? What do you do? And oh, my brother does um uh has a marketing agent for construction. Oh, I know these guys who need a marketing agency for construction, and that's how it kind of came to us then reaching out to you. We talked about that before, haven't we? Who was Joel number two? Yeah, Joel was uh contractor Joel. Remember, um showed up Joel Thur Kettle. Don't know if he'd ever listened.

SPEAKER_03 12:37

Don't know if he'd ever listened to this. Oh my god, yeah, that's the test. We give shout outs to people if they don't hit us up.

SPEAKER_05 12:44

Thurkettle.

unknown 12:45

I met him, right?

SPEAKER_06 12:46

Yeah, yeah, you met him. Yeah, we chatted with him for for for a little while, super good guy. But the meeting of two Joels led to the meeting of Site Max and Site Partners. Yeah, you were just getting going, like literally like launching with some of your first stuff, and then your bro was like, Hey, uh, you should connect with my brother. Um, I think you guys could really figure something out, and man, hit it off, hit it off right away. So here we are. So here we are. When did you start? Kate, starting site partners.

SPEAKER_03 13:11

This was 2018. 2018. 2018. Um yes, we're in our fifth year now, and which to my earlier comments about COVID and like the last two, three years really felt fast. Yep. Um, even now, like I'm not sure if you guys still call yourselves a startup. We call ourselves like when do you stop calling yourself a startup? Is there a rule? I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 13:32

Uh I don't know. I I would I would say that there's a time element and there's also a profitability element, probably when you're breaking even.

SPEAKER_03 13:41

Yeah, I mean, we still feel like you know, if my team's listening to this, like, you know, we're a growing organization. I think most people listening to this podcast have companies, you know, if you're not growing, you're stagnant. And I think when you're growing, you sometimes you break things, systems, processes, how you do things, how what you used to do, how you do it now. So that element feels like a startup where you know, I sometimes do things a certain way, which works. But when you scale to the size that we are, sometimes there's systems and processes and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_05 14:09

So how many people you got working for right now?

Construction marketing in these times, guerilla tactics and building a story

SPEAKER_03 14:10

We're knocking on the door for 30 right now. Yeah, that's it's uh yeah, it's big. We have an amazing team, I think. Um maybe going through Thanksgiving, you're more reflective on what you're thankful for. But um definitely like the quality of staff and the team we have at our team within Site Partners is phenomenal. Like it's it's it's been that's been the best looking back. Like you know, you you've been in the agency business, highs are high, lows are low. I think almost all businesses, highs are high, lows are low, especially construction supporting. But looking back, like the team we have and the talent that we have, um now the best projects we put out I don't have anything to do with sometimes. Um which is a good feeling and kind of a weird feeling too. But so the start we still feel like a startup because we're growing and we're building new products and and things like that. And I think what most agencies always stay that way because as an agency, you're supposed to bring ideas to clients, you're supposed to bring innovation, you're supposed to bring different creative solutions. Hey, here's how so-and-so is doing it in the US. Here, like here's a new model. Like you should be always breaking, I think, a little bit to bring that that because that's what you're getting hired to do. Like you're bringing outside perspective, outside you know, production capabilities, outside innovation. Otherwise, why would you get hired if you're just there to fill a seat? Do they fill a seat? So I think maybe that's I don't know if you can speak to that, but I think most creative firms kind of always feel that little bit of like you know, push and pull.

SPEAKER_05 15:32

Yeah, I mean, there was get into the weeds just for a moment. Here's uh I had a um I would have a new employee based on I had that uh like a a revenue ratio of I think it was like three times uh having X amount of margin, I would be able to hire the next person. So I kind of had like a number-based thing. And I'd have to have a little I'd have to invest a little bit.

SPEAKER_07 16:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 16:03

So stretch a little bit for that person, just kept doing that. Um the cool thing about creativity in construction is that you're somewhat uh inoculated from you know, messaging, you have to sort of sidestep, you don't have to be too careful because that's just not in the conversation, not like consumer product stuff. Yeah. I find that stuff has been super throttled down. The creativity is really stunted. Like I watch F1 all the time and I watch the commercials, and I'm like, these suck.

unknown 16:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 16:32

Like the commercials are bad. And the cool thing about being in construction is that you get to do stuff that's about connecting with people, taking people through an identity journey where it's like, you know, if you use this company, you're gonna get these results. Yeah. And as a company, you'll grow, etc. Um, you get a real opportunity to do some really great things. I've noticed like what Christian and I were uh really aware of in a very at the very beginning is your eye for being able to tell a story through video. And I think that was really like that that um piece of footage you put uh for build X, which is amazing.

SPEAKER_04 17:17

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 17:18

So just for for the listeners here, we had how many people from uh caliber showed up in those yellow t-shirts?

SPEAKER_06 17:26

Oh yeah. There's a good dozen and a half or more. Oh, over 20. Over twenty? A couple dozen. I looked at that video like a while ago. A couple dozen. Yeah, there was an army.

SPEAKER_03 17:34

It was enough where people were noticing, and like what's going on. Oh no, they were noticing because they were telling me. No, SiteMax probably had like 15 in yellow. We had five in yellow, caliber had 20. Yeah, so we got in trouble for that. Yeah, yeah. So it was the good marketing.

SPEAKER_05 17:46

It was, it was like a gorilla move. Yeah. Um, so yeah, the um obviously because trade shows they want to control every dollar of every brand exposure there is from lanyards to you know signs on the escalators to whatever. And then, you know, people roll in with their yellow t-shirts and basically take over the visual message of what's going on in a very overt fashion. And all the other vendors are like, no one's looking at us. It's like, yeah, well. And they said, Well, you can't pay to have all these people in here. They go, No, they're our customers. No, we did not pay.

SPEAKER_03 18:27

That was I still, yeah, that video was and the video you did, like it was bumps so good. Yeah, it it's it set the tone. Um I remember that that project. And we had the podcast on the floor. I think we did like five or six episodes, maybe. Yeah, that was fun.

SPEAKER_06 18:41

That was that was the following year. That was okay.

SPEAKER_03 18:43

Yeah. First year we did the we got invited back. So we didn't do that back. We didn't do that much damage. Yeah. And then the thing that member that like one of the caliber guys, there was like a some someone had a booth where it was like a bell and you hit a ding, and it was like a bunch of these yellows. Boom. Yeah. But you make a good point on the creativity for construction. Um, one line I say to a lot of our clients and prospective clients is your comment on the consumer goods, like marketing for consumer goods. And a lot of people laugh at us in the early days for site partners. Like, why would you do a marketing company for construction? Because they don't know it. They just they drive past it. And, you know, we've talked about this a lot in the podcast, like the stigma of you drive past construction site, you don't do that, Tommy, because you don't want to be like so-and-so. It's like, well, so and so on the shovel's making$120,000 a year and own three homes. Yeah. You know, your kids got 40 grand in debt. Yeah. But uh, but I always say to our clients, like, you guys have done the hard work, which is build a good business, build a good brand, you know, take a lot of risk and buying equipment and take on jobs. Like, there's real risk in this business. All we do is, you know, capture that story, and it just happens to be cool. No matter what, when you shoot it at you know, piece of equipment that's moving dirt, doing earthworks, doing bulk excavation, like no matter how you shoot it, it's cool. And for us, like, bring creativity in that, you know, do some cool animation, motion graphics, whatnot. But like I see to our clients, like, you guys done the hard work, we just get to capture it, and it just so happens to be really special because it is like building roads, bridges, like we're all here. I drove roads to get here, went to the bathroom before this. Like, all that is powered by our industry.

SPEAKER_05 20:14

So it's are you the Jerry Buckhammer of uh construction videos? I think you are. I mean, we chip away. Oh god, look at that. We chip away. That's pretty humble. We chip away.

SPEAKER_06 20:25

I could watch slow motion videos of aggregate moving down a conveyor belt and buckets dropping dirt in the back of trailers for hours with um some like crunchy guitar. Yeah, some crunchy guitar. But it's it is cool stuff. No, no, no. I'm not yeah, you guys get it. I'm not actually, I'm not, I'm not uh making fun at all. Like there is something, there is something epic about construction and telling stories about the people behind these construction companies, they're oh man, there's so much grit. And I don't know if there's like again, I could be totally speaking out like this is yeah, probably way off, but like you have you you probably have with the sheer amount of contractors, subs, all that kind of stuff that spin out of other companies because they just they they don't they they learn these skills and they don't want to do anything else, they're passionate about it and they go and start their own businesses. I wonder what the rate of like entrepreneurship and like starting businesses and contracting companies versus other industries, because you know, you can contract yourself in a marketing agency, just for example, or something else, and you can do one-off gig stuff, but like a lot of people and and even now as we come into what could be difficult times, coming out of two years of you know, some uncertainty, there's a lot of people still looking to start new, start afresh. It's like, when do you when are you not a startup anymore? Well, I feel like there's periods of time where you have that spirit again. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_03 21:58

And so on the startup. Piece too, like you probably know it more than than us. Like construction, they always talk about like, and you guys are technology for construction. People always like, why don't they modernize construction? Why don't they? It's tough. Like you look at a company like Leadcore or PCL or LS Dawn, like, sure, they have repeatable tasks. But every time you build a new project, new piece of dirt, yeah, new type of project, new different hazards, new like there's so many variables. And so to your point, like it's always changing. And uh that's the beauty of it. But that's why, like, to your point, like people start up firms and whatnot too.

SPEAKER_05 22:29

Like they they do start up. And and I think that, you know, uh, like we see often from our customers that we have, and we got them all over the world now, which is crazy to see when we see the map of all of our job sites that are everywhere, it's like, oh shit, I can't believe that's happening. But uh that's cool. Uh there are certain subtrades that we have of customers that you can see, like they they can't take enough work. I mean, that there's just they get called and called and called, they only have so many people. Yeah. So if some one of uh somebody who's worked at one of those subtraits decides to go and start their own thing because they're probably one of the A players in that company, unfortunately, you know, the uh that company would have someone leave. But they if you showed up and you had a good presentation and you went to site partners and you helped and they helped you with the brand and they got it started properly and they represented themselves well and showed all the product projects that they have space, essentially a resume, um, they can get business like day one.

Resiliency in Construction with employees, clients and partners

SPEAKER_03 23:33

Yeah, because it's relationship. Yep. And your point is is correct. We ask a lot of questions when we potentially start working with clients is in the last 12, 24 months, like the good companies in the space, they have the work. They don't have the people. Or we say to some of our partners, like winning work, it's one thing to win work on price. So if you're low bid, I mean public tenders, different, kind of different story there, but sometimes winning projects on value, not price. And how do you do that? And that's you know, James, you know this, like brand and goodwill and the value proposition and value engineering and schedule and communicating that story across, like de-risking a project. So that's that's a big piece. And and it's I I think back to your question about you know site partners, and I'm very appreciative and thankful of this. And there's a bit of luck there too, is looking back over the last you know, since March 2020, when we all got that phone call and we all went to the grocery store and loaded up on food and shut down and uh toilet paper, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 24:31

If we yeah, I was like golfing in Palm Springs and people are texting me, bro, TP, TP, yeah, and the force industry took off.

SPEAKER_03 24:39

But if we would have chosen a different industry to specialize in, we would have like if we would have said, hey, for whatever reason we want to specialize in tourism, no matter how good we were at our job, yeah, we would have been in a lot of trouble. But we chose an industry that was very resilient. Yeah, and you're starting to hear these stories come out of contractors that they're professionals at managing risk from safety to complexity of sites, and like they were built for it. And yeah, you look at our industry and like they just took off, and like we worked a lot of the same clients, like organizations like Wales, like they 50 years of building excellence and they were ready for this moment. And sure they didn't know what they didn't know, but they had built up, you know, safety programs, communication. So I think we chose an industry because of our passion, but who would have thought that that would have been deemed an essential service that would have just taken off that industrial kind of vacancy went to zero percent almost in Vancouver, and the amount of projects that got announced and awarded and you know, da-da-da-da. But we chose an industry that took off. And if we would have chosen something else, like no matter how good we were, we would have been toast. So I say like very thankful for that fact. And then now moving forward, like it's only gonna continue. I mean, to get busy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 25:48

So well, we talk about the resiliency of construction companies and the people behind them. Obviously, it adapted quite quickly to the changing um economy and the changing environments that were uh around COVID. There you go. That a boy. Can you get that on the mic?

unknown 26:04

Pop.

SPEAKER_06 26:06

Oh, very nice.

SPEAKER_03 26:13

This is what you can't get in love with.

SPEAKER_06 26:15

Oh, this is good. You guys keep going. You guys keep working. No, no, no, no. It's all good. It's okay. I'm taking Andrew for dinner after this.

SPEAKER_05 26:22

He's all good.

SPEAKER_06 26:24

But no, we talk about that, and like all companies had to adapt. And uh, you know, whether it was safety procedures, whatever it is, okay. We all know that. We've talked about that many times. But you and your business, okay?

SPEAKER_04 26:35

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 26:36

What changed? You know, there was obviously challenges starting up in 2018, yeah, and things that you learned pretty quick and experience you brought in, and then boom, you get hit with another just total changing environment. What was uh like what were some of the biggest learnings that you had in terms of adapting? Because you're with people on their job sites, rubbing shoulders, filming, but we saw also like the film industry was quite resilient through the last two years, and they figured it out because they can't stop and they're together with people. They have to figure it out.

SPEAKER_03 27:06

Good question. I mean, definitely for a couple months, all of us were nervous and scared. Yeah. You know, we got on calls with our clients, you know, March, what's going on? How do we help? How do we communicate to our staff? Like when COVID hit, I remember being, you know, in a call with Wales and just being like, how do we message this? How do we we don't know what we don't know, but how do we open that line of communication to partners, to clients, to trades? How do we keep projects building? How do we build contingency plans where if all of a sudden the province says you are not an essential service, what do we do? So we did kind of that process, but similar to my earlier comments, like very fortunate where we were, you know, construction was deemed an essential service, and then it took off a lot of our work because what's the big driver in construction marketing and sales is communications and relationships, golf trips, golf tournaments, dinners, handshakes, networking events, you take that all away, right? So a lot of times in the early years, it was I'd go to someone like yourself that owns a construction company and say, Hey, you know, you need a website, you need video, how do you tell your story? They say, Listen, Andrew, I love what you guys are doing, but my business is all word of mouth, you know, shaking a hand. And that was true. It still is today. We don't say it's, you know, we can't replace that. But when you have a pandemic that eliminates physical contact or events or getting mass groups together, which was how the industry did business development and closed sales, we filled the void sometimes where we said, hey, you know, company X, you have a phenomenal product, service, story, but you're jumping on Zoom calls every day. How do we build a corporate video and a brand touch point and different tools so that when you jump onto that Zoom call with a develop, you know, developer client or whoever that looks like, they've already engaged your video, they've gone to your website, they've read your articles, they've seen your thought leadership. And they're like, yeah, this is a company I want to work with. So your point of momentum, and how do we we kind of filled that gap and pivoted with a lot of our clients that weren't investing in digital, that weren't investing in their user experience, client experience, employee experience. And we just kind of got to work. And so another combination of luck that people that may, we'd talked with a year ago, picked up the phone and said, Hey, yeah, that that website or that video uh or that career is like I'm interested now. And then also they got busy and they had projects and pipelines. So very fortunate that the industry stayed resilient, that a lot of our clients like everyone talks about relationships. I remember getting on a couple calls with clients, and I was nervous because we were a lot smaller back then and I didn't know what was going on, just like everybody, and some really good clients that just got on a call, on a video call, and similar to what you'd said in 08, said, Hey, we're here with you. Like you guys have been a good partner of ours, we're gonna keep working together. And just like the the first class that you got from some of and like some of the partners we've worked with for four or five years now, since day one, still a partner of ours, and that's a relationship, and it's super cool. Like, we talk about this in the podcast, and every time we get construction guys on, they're like, it's all about like you guys probably have a site max where clients have like pulled you aside and said, Hey, I wanted this module built, but like you'll get there. But like Christian James, like, we're not going anywhere, you are guys, like, and then you say, Yep, let's do it.

SPEAKER_06 30:11

And I think we felt that so well, construction is is all relationship, like you said, they're people are fiercely loyal in construction, right? And it works, it's a double-edged sword. Because if you don't take care of somebody, I mean, obviously, there's room for a little um extension of some lenience or grace from time to time, I guess is but yeah, when it comes to actually performing well and you take care of somebody, they're gonna be there through thick and thin.

SPEAKER_03 30:43

And your second point of how do we adapt internally? So I talked kind of clients, but very similar to you guys, probably. Um, we went hybrid. We went remote for everyone did for a whole year. And we were kind of smaller, we probably grew from 13, 14 employees to 25, 26, like over the pandemic. And we went remote and our productivity soared. Um you know, our we have really talented people, like I think similar to a shared value to what you guys have, is you can get an A player and instead of two C players, right? But we got really talented people that put their heads down and got to work, and our productivity did really well. I think we can have a whole podcast on remote work for versus office. And I think a big piece we saw is like, you know, we had that shared experience in person building relationships, and when that moved to remote, easy to transition. New employees that got hired fully remote, that's a different dynamic as well. But moving remote allowed us to service clients all across Canada and the US. Right as an agency, like a lot of, and this is still the case, and if all of our clients are listening, we love everyone equally, but we could service clients in Toronto, in Alberta. Um, we opened an Alberta office, but we could service clients all across Canada because everyone's like, Yep, let's just jump on a Zoom call. Sure, we got to send our video crew down there and do production, but websites, brand, design, communication strategies, et cetera, all done virtual. And so that was a big piece where now we could service clients, you know, across Canada. And I think for the most part, that trend has stayed where a client would reach out to us from Toronto and say, Hey, we want to work with you guys. And we don't have an office in Toronto yet, and that's not a much of an issue. It's starting to come back a little bit now where people want that local touch point because there's so much value in face-to-face in the work that we do. And yeah, like I said, it's a whole podcast of us talking about we should do that podcast, I think, actually, on remote work versus in person, just from our perspectives. Because I think a lot of people are wrestling with that right now. But to your question of just how did we respond? I think to my earlier comment, like we've got a phenomenal team that produces amazing work and are really committed. And that's always the most humbling thing when you know I've always been someone that that works hard, probably to the fault. Like anyone that's really busy, it's kind of like you're not a very good delegator, I'm not a great delegator. So when I'm busy, it's like, well, I'm not really doing my job, but but when you have people that work hard with you alongside you, it's pretty special. And we had some team members still that that work hard. And they're long days, like you get it. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 33:04

So when you look at the um the customers and or you call them partners, is what your clients are called? Okay, that's cool. Um, so with your partners, um did you notice the ones that are playing the long game in respect to the relationship with you? Because I thought I think that a lot of people through what went through over the past couple of years was we're playing the short game. Um, government is saying this, screw you, I don't know where things are going, blah, blah, blah. At SiteMact, we played the long game. We're like, look, we're not having these conversations that change weekly with our staff because at some point we're gonna have to look at each other in the eye.

unknown 33:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 33:49

And it's gonna have to be like it was pre-the- all this stuff. Yeah. So, but with your with your partners, did you get a sense of who are the ones that were gonna be like that and who are the ones you're like, there's no way they're gonna be solid.

Ideal customer profile and what’s right for every contractor size

SPEAKER_03 34:07

Um definitely. I think you know, to your earlier comment of like looking someone in the eye, like I remember you and I had calls of like, hey, what are you doing with your staff this week? And we would talk and be like, How are you handling this? And we would share ideas, and I think we shared that similar. It's like it's all gonna come around. So I think just that just sparked in me some of the phone calls that we had because we didn't know, like you're getting different perspectives, and everyone had different kind of thoughts on what to do. But to your question of short and long-term thinking, I think we may be a little bit biased in the sense that if someone's gonna invest 15, 20, 50, 100, north of$100,000 into marketing, they're generally a progressive organization that values brand and goodwill and long-term spending long-term spend. So I think we definitely felt that on a couple, but our core partners, you know, a lot of them you know, are already long-term thinking and they're they've hired us because they they think in long-term thinking. They've kind of pushed through the startup phase, they've got a good brand and they're saying, hey, let's let's move our business forward. So I would say they were they were tested a little bit in those first like months where a lot of them were, and just really good conversations. I think you get a lot from reaction. So this is what you know, I'm I'm learning in this area where if I'm stressed, I don't want to show it on my face. You know, I want to take you know, perspective and then communicate to my team. And I think you see these executives, especially in construction, they've they've built a career, they've been in those conversations where they're getting sued, they're you know, projects getting leaned, like you know, maybe a supply chain issue, and they've been through the ringer. And the way for a lot of our clients that communicated to me and our team, like they could just tell like this is just another challenge that they were built for. And I don't know if you guys felt this too, but they were just like they were great to work with and to continue to be great to work with.

SPEAKER_06 35:49

Have you in the past uh, you know, four or five years that you've been doing site partners, have you really dialed in who your ideal customer is? We like because we this is like the classic software as a service, you know, tech company thing, you got to figure out your ICP, you really got to nail that ideal customer down because you got to have focus and you got to be able to build something on that's gonna last and be sustainable. Have you found that you've really refined that? Do you find that like offering different services to different people that ask for it? Like, do you get put pushed and pulled in those areas, or have you really honed in, uh, especially over the last couple of years here, who that person is? It's a good question.

SPEAKER_03 36:28

I'd say we have. I think, you know, similar to you guys, you kind of know the product that you guys offer and when that fits with an organization, similar to us. Like we've had, you know, small contractors come to us and say, Hey, I'd love to work with site partners. And I'd love to say, yeah, but I say, like, let's look at your business. Do you need two pickup trucks? That's probably a bigger, better value proposition than a new website or a new video, and having those tough conversations. So I'd say ideal profile is an organization that is just is growing, has the kind of solid fundamentals, they've figured out their product, they've got, you know, a core service that works and is looking to grow. So I think, yes, but there's kind of startups like to James's point, like you may have someone that's been a very experienced executive that wants to launch a business and they have the relationships where, you know, on paper they would not fit our inbox, you know, years of experience, revenue, et cetera, but is a phenomenal partner because we can work really closely and move really fast. So I think, you know, it's those conversations of asking ourselves. I think that's the one thing we've learned about over the last couple of years and still learning is what are we actually really good at? And where do we bring commercial value to that client? Right. Because um, similar to you guys, is like that's a check that's getting handed over to you where that could go other places and knowing that you're bringing value, and we strive to do that, and we're not perfect, you know, we make mistakes still every day, but can we, you know, this client that's coming to us for being honest with ourselves, are we going to bring value to this organization? And if not, communicate that to the client. And if we are, double down on it and be confident in it and then deliver. Yeah. So I kind of avoided your answer if everyone's.

SPEAKER_06 38:05

No, but that's but you said something that was interesting about the contractor with two trucks.

SPEAKER_04 38:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 38:10

And we kind of we had we'd kind of written down a little bit of step beforehand, but even just like this is almost like tips and tricks for for contractors. And you you've identified who your your you know, your customers, you said some of the the valve, the value size of contracts, right?

SPEAKER_07 38:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 38:24

Obviously, you got a guy that's just an upstart, you know, maybe civil company, lots of guys get a machine, they're operators, great operators, and they go and they start hustling, right? But I I have people come to me, I have friends that they're like, they're machine operators for like the big names that you know, and then they go and start their thing. They're like, oh man, who do you know? I'm like, oh, Andrew Hanson. I'm like, oh, dude, yeah, is he gonna what's he gonna be able to do for them? What is your like recommendation? Like, obviously, you're fitting a certain size, but like for people that are getting going, smaller contractors, what's the best bang for their buck to just building their brand initially?

SPEAKER_03 38:58

Yeah, I mean, it it totally changes on the individual. I think positioning like brand James and I share this a lot on the brand side, but the minute you're a generalist, it's very difficult to charge a premium. And I think I'm kind of avoiding your question of what they should invest in. But I think the conversation that I would have with some of those people starting out would be take a notepad, take a pencil, you know, sit down for a weekend, define what you're really good at, look at the niche that you want to operate in and build a business plan around what you're gonna be excellent at. If you're just gonna do landscaping or excavation and be one of 30, very difficult. It can be a really good business once you get to scale, but like that opportunity to take that time to define, you know, looking at that individual's history, maybe their experience, projects, profiles they've been on, define that niche, define that position. A lot of the work that we do with clients is like on the brand fundamentals and talking about strategy and marketing. We get very deep in consulting in regards to market size, industry players, you know, market growth opportunities, so that it defines the brand and where they want to lie in that marketplace. And so it's your question of if you're a startup, you know, the relationships are what is gonna drive you because they're probably coming from an organization that that has an existing relationship or a sector. Great gear, great people. They're gonna recruit, you know, five to ten really tight-knit people from their organizations in the past or network. But defining that niche, defining that story, taking on the right projects. Obviously, you're gonna take on, like, you know, for us, we took on every project we could get to find, but like defining the projects that you're gonna take and what you're gonna say no to is pretty important, I think. So not a marketing question, but I think just defining like your niche, and there's so much work out there right now, but it's how do you win a work, how do you run a project on value, not price?

SPEAKER_05 40:42

I think that's that focus is is the bang for the buck.

SPEAKER_06 40:45

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 40:46

So doing that, doing that work, which is it's almost like a um when uh when a person looks in the mirror and says, Who am I? It is defining who you are. What's your outfit? What's your if you're if you have to go and interact with a bunch of people, what's your point of difference? Why are people gonna want to talk to you?

SPEAKER_03 41:05

Yeah, 100%. Like it's like a yeah, it's like an individual. Because people are gonna make that opinion regardless, whether you want them to or not.

SPEAKER_05 41:11

Well, yeah, you're either controlling it or not.

Brand and Culture

SPEAKER_03 41:13

100%. And I we've seen from clients that are very successful in this industry, and and it's like Mac's a good example, like you guys have defined your story. You know who you fit and you know who you don't fit. If someone's like gonna go one direction and they want this full stack, then you guys say go for that direction. But if this is our box, is where we're gonna play in. I I say that to clients all the time. Um, and then you can have a lot of fun once you've nailed that and you've got alignment. Um, you can really race. You know, for example, let's say you're a civil contractor to your point, yeah, a lot of them, that just dominates remote projects that just knows how to take on remote projects that are could be federal, provincial, could be, you know, very complicated projects, but they know how to mob demobe. They know how to move crews, they know how to have the right gear, they maybe have their own fleet that they can kind of get creative on own forces. Yeah, but they just dominate remote work and they can build a profile of, you know, working in complex environments. They're gonna get have a higher chance of winning some of those projects over time. And they're gonna recruit the right people that love remote projects. Maybe they have, maybe they don't have a family, maybe they have a family that is very comfortable with them going in and out LOA, but they dominate that space, build a brand, and they just they just do really well. And it's very difficult for an industry player that's you know a civil or an earthwork client in the Fraser Valley to all of a sudden take a remote project because they gotta like culturally have to go to their team and say, All right, guys, we just got a project in uh Fort St. John. Let's let's get after it. They're like, Fort St. John, where's that? Versus someone else that is built for that and they've got their trailers, they're they've got their site works, they're they're ready to go. So anyway, that's that's kind of my thought on positioning and to your point on on brand. Very important in some of the work that can be done, especially in industry BC, Alberta, Western Canada, all over Canada, where there is work and you can choose what you want to do.

SPEAKER_05 43:06

Um so, in terms of the the brand, obviously throughout the past couple of years, we've we've been defining culture of companies. And one thing that we have recognized at SiteMax is that people are always asking about culture and what culture means, and people hear about it all the time. They read articles, they're talking about that. It's kind of like a buzzword. And it's almost as it's this um undefined thing people are expecting people who run a business to deliver on on their staff and on their all of their um stakeholders. But what the big uh revelation is mentally is that the culture is the net behavior. Of everyone in the organization. That defines the culture. Sure, you can you can steer it. It's kind of like the brand, right? You can steer it, but the reality is that how everyone interacts with each other, you know, i.e., hey, you were vaccinated, you weren't, I don't like you, you don't like me. You have a a culture there of getting at each other for no no real reason. So there's an adversarial culture to to something. So now, like, what would you say for um or advice be to companies in terms of how they steer that culture to make sure let's let I'll give you an example. The remote work, for instance. When you're gonna send a remote crew somewhere, uh, there has to be a uh this is how we do things when we get there. This is our culture. It's basically a drop-in. Um a banner is unfurled, yeah, and we're here. This is how we do things. Ta-da. Uh, we're gonna drop in on a town. We might go to the local restaurant. We're not gonna be jerks thinking we're big city people, whatever it is. There is a uh mode of operation that defines culture.

SPEAKER_03 45:24

Yeah, I thought you know, I would say it's tough, first of all. Culture, I mean, for all of us at this table, culture is tough to get right. And it never really dawned on me, you know, read all the business books. Yeah, everyone reads the same ones. The culture, I'm gonna nail it when I run a company. It's like, these suckers, you know, I'm working at so-and-so company. It's like these guys, they don't know how to do culture. When I start a company, I am just gonna nail culture. And then you realize like there's this significant amount of activities and tasks you have to get done every day. And it just sometimes it slides. So I would say, I'm still figuring it out, I'm still learning. I think a lot of people are. I think anyone that's like, I've nailed culture, it's like, well, I don't know if you have. Like it's an ever-evolving thing, like brand. It is, it's a discovery. So it's something I'm working on and and I'm and I'm trying to get better at, and our team is trying to get better. But I'd say it just comes down to very closely to brand. I think you said that too, is how you portray yourself as an organization is gonna attract a certain type of person that's gonna want to work there. If you're in our like back to that remote conversation, if you're a company that is remote, it's like challenging, hard work, it's like you're gonna push, push, push, but they're gonna be compensated well. They're gonna ride the best equipment, they're gonna, et cetera, et cetera. That's gonna attract a certain individual into that company that's ready to rip, that's ready to do that type of job versus organization that's on the coast that maybe, you know, it's you're done at 5 p.m., shovels down, you're just done. That's a great fit for somebody else, but that person that's itching to just push it and just work on, you know, very complex, challenging projects, they want to work there and they're gonna be unhappy at that. They're gonna be like, why are you guys like, what do you mean an hour coffee break? Let's go, let's get after it. I think culture is is the work you do in the in the brand. And so I would say, I don't know if you threw a question at me, but I think from a culture perspective, it's the people you bring on.

SPEAKER_05 47:05

It's yeah, well, it's the net result of everybody.

SPEAKER_03 47:07

Yeah, exactly. It's when you're not in that room, how are those people portraying? And and whether you like it or not, there is a culture. I think, you know, I look at my short falls as a leader, and there's many. If my team's listening to this podcast, I'm not the best communicator, I delegate, I'm not the best delegator. Sometimes I and so my negative aspects as a leader of an organization, and we have many leaders with Insight Partners, not just myself. I'll see that you know scaled what I do wrong. Sometimes it's now an accepted norm because it's like, oh, Andrew didn't do that, so it's like whatever. And that there's many things. So if everyone's listening, don't don't do what I do. But people do watch, and there's like what you said, it's the people of the company that represent that culture. So it's it's evolving, it's it's similar to the earlier point of like taking that time and and we all know what to do. It's you know, acting it out is is another thing.

SPEAKER_05 47:57

I did this um uh this culture piece for a massive insurance company, Canadian. I'm not gonna name them a name, but probably one of the biggest ones. And we got to the end of it, and they and I said, So like boiled down, like what is the essence of working here? Yeah, they're like it's sink or swim. That's the truth. If you if you're weak, you don't make it here. And I was like, wow, okay, cool. So that's basically what it is. Yeah, but at least they knew that.

SPEAKER_03 48:30

Yeah. Right? So it's it's a good, it's a good point. Like when we hire people at Site Partners, you know, what we do is no secret. We see it on our website, we see it on our material, we're a specialized marketing and communications firm for the industrial sector. No matter how you cut it, you're not coming in and you're working on Starbucks. That's not happening. Yeah, yeah. And so we are very defined in what we do, and that attracts a certain individual.

SPEAKER_05 48:51

Do you have a no vente policy?

SPEAKER_03 48:54

No comment. Uh, I do love my Starbucks, just for the record. You can look at my rewards plan. I'm I'm into the Starbucks. But when we hire people, we say this is what we do. You know, you're not gonna come in and all of a sudden two months in, we're gonna change and go after tourism. Yeah. Um, and we our best hires, and if people are from our team are listening, they'll probably remember these moments when I've had these conversations with them. Is I try and scare people away. When they come in for interviews, I'm like, here's who we are, here's what we do, here's the challenges we face. And I try and scare people away so that when they do come back, there they there's no surprise. They come in day one, they're like, wow, this is like really chaotic. Yeah. And uh, our vice president of operations, Justin, who hopefully he will listen. I remember when we hired him, it was a couple years, and and John or creative director is a couple of years where we recruited him over time. And we just I tried to scare him away. I said, Hey, this is what we do. This is our challenge, these are our real challenges. Yeah, like are you ready to build this? Are you ready to kind of and they they did and they took it on and and they sometimes referenced that conversation when we do reviews or when we're talking about kind of growth initiatives, and they're both, you know, big parts of our businesses, among many other people. But I remember like to your point of culture, is like, no secrets, like here's our challenges, like here's my faults. And then when you eliminate that surprise, you know, people are ready to build with you. I think a lot of organizations would be like, Yeah, you know, we've got we've got great culture. We've we're you know, we treat our people really well. And then they come there and it's like it's not the case. The the LinkedIn ad that says we're people first and we're this and we're that, and then they walk into an organization, it's like, whoa, this is not it. That that shock is what you know, that whiplash throws people away versus like, hey, here's what we do. And I think you know, your question of culture, we are trying to get better, and we're trying to, and I hope you know, even being on this podcast as I vocalize that there's vulnerability to it. It's like my team could listen to, like, yeah, this Andrew guy always talks about culture, but like, I don't know, he's pushing our team pretty hard. And and we push our team hard. But your question of who's figured culture out, um, and I can say this from an outsider perspective looking in, and I'm and Christian probably knows who I'm gonna reference is there's one you know, one group that we all know pretty well, and that does it really well is caliber, caliber projects. Yeah, yeah. Like Justin and his team. Um so Jeremy is like Jerry is it Jeremy?

SPEAKER_05 51:14

Just Justin, no, Jeremy and Jerry. Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, Jerry. Jerry Bull. Jerry Paul, yeah. Jerry showed up. God, I think I can't I can't believe Jerry.

SPEAKER_03 51:25

Sorry. Show this is how he knows it's he knows it's not edited.

SPEAKER_05 51:30

I've been dealing with the Jer Jeremy all week. So he's a bit like he kind of looks like a Jeremy. Yeah, but he he's the one actually hit the uh the thing in the video. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So that guy is like a but we we can superpower guy in that in there. He is here's the thing is right now the thing. He needs a cape, I think.

SPEAKER_03 51:46

The three of us could probably say caliber's cultures, cultural values. Own it, crush it, love it. Yeah. I don't even know them. Yeah, and it's and so I say like they're and they've exploded growth. Like you go through Langley on 200 Street, the amount of tower cranes in the air on like Langley, they're building it. So and they're an example of culture working for them. They figured it out, and I'm sure like if Justin sat here, he would say to us, like, hey, here's the 10 things I'm falling short on, because we all are. He would he would acknowledge that, and growth has been probably hard on them too. Of like, they're now, you know, Justin don't hate me, but they're probably a 50 to 100 million dollar construction company.

SPEAKER_05 52:24

Do you know why I think it is? I think because their staff photo looks like a nickelback reunion tour. That's true. They probably listen to Nickelback. Just Justin has that uh hey, hey, he's the lead singer. What's his name? Uh Chad Kirk. Justin has this thing. Every time I sit down, I'm like the right man.

SPEAKER_03 52:44

I'm like, it's like a Friday night on camera.

SPEAKER_05 52:46

I can't help it. I love it.

SPEAKER_03 52:48

Uh are you going to the Nickelback concert? Yeah, bro. Are you going? I'll be in the front row. Yeah. Anyway. We're giving them, we're giving them props. We got to bring them down a notch or two. So no, the big culture, also Nickelback. I did hear it in the wash.

SPEAKER_05 53:01

It's a speakers. When I walked in, I was like, oh yeah. Is that Nickelback?

More reminiscing

SPEAKER_06 53:05

No, they're they're really great. I mean, even as I've been working to get more people um scheduled for upcoming episodes and stuff like that, I always share the caliber episode. They nailed it. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's like they're they're embodying all these things that we're talking about. And I love that we you know, just we're here having this conversation again. And it's just it feels so good, honestly. Like it's just it's awesome. But like the question that started this, yeah, it's it's it's the whiskey.

SPEAKER_07 53:31

It's not finished.

SPEAKER_06 53:32

It's um it all started with Andrew, knowing your customer, right? And like, would you work with the small guys? And you're like, no, no, with an asterisk. With an asterisk, yeah. Because then I think and I go, listen to all this, the richness of the conversation we're having right now. You offered enough marketing advice to any start starting um uh contracting business to say, hey, know why you're doing what you're doing, know what you're best in the world at. These are you know, yeah, good principles to go by. And those are great nuggets. I'm sitting here like being reinforced with these things, going, like, man, the content of just conversation around these things is enough advice for these guys to get going to the point where they are hauling and they can then engage in video content and more engagement and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_03 54:21

And I think like echo your points, like being here doing this podcast again, it's a blast. Like, sure, is it a bit of a you know, grind to get from Surrey to Vancouver? It's worth it. But I think to your point, like we tried to get somebody else, but Andrew wasn't good enough delegated. I'm here, I'm here. Um, a couple of my staff are like, You going to Yale Town at four o'clock? I'm like, yeah, it's the Sidebacks, guys. We're back. No, but to your point of that conversation, like, hey, business is tough, right? Like, it's personal, you know, it weighs on your family, it weighs on the work you do. Mental health is a big thing. Like, it's been a tough couple years, and I'm lying if I'm saying, like, we're like every day you wake up and you go to work, and the highs are high, the lows are low. So it's tough. So I think conversations like this, even people listening on a pickup truck driving home, maybe it was a rough day. Maybe they got the shit kicked out of them. Maybe they got like some owner just called them and said, da-da-da-da. It's like, and they actually executed against that. And it's just some like he maybe they're just eating shit for that day. No right or wrong or reason. And they listen to this, it's like, yeah, everyone's going through it. No one's yep, no one's hitting home runs. People are ups or downs. Um, and I think these conversations are great because it's interesting to just share, like, we've all had ups and downs the last couple of years. Um, we're still in it, we're still building businesses and having fun doing it most of the time. And to your point, like doing a podcast like this, even for the three of us, if nobody listens to this podcast, just the three of us, which is a there's a probability sometimes.

SPEAKER_06 56:01

There were still crowds of people downloading, and we weren't putting out anything for like so maybe there are, but even if it was just the three of us and we're having a couple glasses of whiskey, we're talking, like we'll grab dinner tonight, and it's a I enjoy this is the one of the highlights of my week.

SPEAKER_03 56:16

Totally. Like we're just talking and we're having a good time, and and we don't get the opportunity because we're in the business, we're doing tasks, we're executing, we're we're paying bills, we're chasing money, we're doing all these things. And for us just to chat about what we're doing and for the three of us, like where we've come from over the last couple of years, from like the first podcast episode to now.

SPEAKER_06 56:38

Hey, yeah, and look, we got the uh we got the that was some of the PR work you did for us initially. We got this uh here's take a picture of it here.

SPEAKER_03 56:44

If um people are listening, we got I'm holding it in my hands. Uh it's this paper's not dead, but we've got a yellow Vancouver Sun article of the three of us.

SPEAKER_06 56:55

Here, hold it, hold it up, put the mic down just a teeny bit.

SPEAKER_03 56:58

There you go. The three of us um shout out to Danica for some of the press press release. But the podcast digs and entails behind construction. We got some Vanguard Vancouver Sun articles. Um, so that's cool. We all look we all look pretty good in this photo. We kind of're younger. We're younger. I'd say James and I look. Oh, we got an alarm.

SPEAKER_05 57:16

I'm wearing the same shirts.

SPEAKER_03 57:20

I was gonna bring it up. I was like, I think James is making the I've patched the shirt. Yeah, it's so deadly. There you go. So James, this let me see this photo. This is uh what is this 2019?

SPEAKER_06 57:31

Yeah, I think it's three three years ago.

SPEAKER_03 57:33

So James looking good.

SPEAKER_06 57:35

So why don't you tell much different?

SPEAKER_03 57:36

I tell I think I look younger now. Honestly, I you've done pretty well. Like, I don't have you been working out or even in your skipping stuff still? Because the skipping like a mad. You had a birthday recently and you had a photo, and I was like, man, James is looking really good. You saw that? I saw that. It was you it made me go back, it made me go back, it made me go back to working out.

SPEAKER_05 57:58

Uh James, sorry, I cut you off quite.

SPEAKER_03 58:00

No, why don't you tell us?

SPEAKER_05 58:02

You didn't like that photo. Thanks a lot. You just looked at me like, uh, was that Facebook?

The launch of SiteNews, an email newsletter for Construction

SPEAKER_03 58:06

I'm on Facebook like once every couple days, and then I just I just try and minimize it. Yeah, you look at it. I'm giving it to you now. Okay.

SPEAKER_06 58:13

Tell us uh tell us what you're up to right now. Tell us what's what's exciting.

SPEAKER_05 58:18

Christian, back to business.

SPEAKER_06 58:20

I like it. This is gotta get to the truck before they lock me out of the park gate. Oh, I like it.

SPEAKER_05 58:24

He's like, hey, we got an agenda.

SPEAKER_03 58:26

Lock him out. I'm you guys are going for dinner. I'm I'm driving you home. I'm driving home. So what's getting me excited? I think no truck's still locked in the park gate. Um, honestly, like to our comments earlier, like it's personal running a business, like ups, highs are high, lows are low. But I do have to pinch myself daily when I go to our office or dial in remotely and see our team. Like the talent we have with Insight Partners is phenomenal. Like what we're able to pull off is just amazing. And it's our team. It's not me, it's it's it's our team and the and and what we can pull off. But what gets me excited is the work. Like we get to do some fun stuff, we get to capture stories of highway rebuilds to you know, TV campaigns, to billboards. Like I'm not getting emotional, I'm just burping, but uh we have the what gets me excited is uh is just telling the stories of the industry. Like we get to my comment earlier is like people work so hard building the business, yeah, and we just get to come along and tell that story and showcase it. And that's just the top of it. But we get that fortunate ability to do that, and it's a blessing, it's an opportunity to tell that story, and we get excited, they get excited. So I get so fired up. Whenever time we get a new video get released, you good? We're good. You're losing a you're losing your mic. Um, every time we say up every time, yeah, every time we get a video released, I watch it 10 to 20 times, and I get so excited because it's just that last 10% of telling that company's story, and it gets out there and there's a motion behind it, and I love it. So I'm excited about that. I'm excited about kind of our own brand and what we're working on and and kind of back to our mission as an organization. Like we want to elevate the industrial sector, number one. Like all three of us here at this table, like we know the talent that's in this industry. So we look at that question every day. We say, How do we elevate this sector? That impacts the clients that we bring on. So we look at a client, we say, you know, over the last couple of years, it's been the first time where clients would come to us, say, we want to work with you, and we say, you know, A, you're not ready for us, or B, maybe it's not a fit. And that's been a unique perspective where we're fortunate we've got phenomenal partners that keep us busy. And so we can look and say, Who do we want to work with? Because as an agency, James knows this, our our team, who they work with makes an impact on their day-to-day work. And so if we have bad clients, not that we have any right now, just for the record. Your staff are like, why are we doing this? Yeah, why are we doing this? And then as an industry, like, and when our clients are successful, that's our best form of new business. Because someone says, Look, oh, Wales is killing it. It's like, well, you know, not that we're driving that success, they're doing that, we're a part of it. So, what am I excited about is number one, doing more great work, doing more commercials. We've got about five or six big projects getting released for the next couple weeks that I've never seen us do before. And I'm so stoked when it gets released, and you guys will see it. Um, there'll be some stuff on TV, there'll be some billboards. Nice, there'll be some cool stuff. And then back to my question of elevating the industrial sector. So the worst thing and you got your question? No, no, that's that's Christian. That's my he's getting to I'm getting to this is the crescendo. He's getting to the rapid fire pretty quick. So I see my notes here. I mean, you and I can do a podcast for an hour and we can go. Oh, you guys can keep going. It's but um, yeah. So we want to elevate the sector. And the worst thing for us is, and we get this asked a lot by clients. It's like, hey, I do a great video. Where does it go? Where's it gonna go? Sometimes it goes on you know, social media and their website, but we feel there's phenomenal stories in the industry, Canadian construction specifically. There's um phenomenal talent in the industry, commercial, industrial, residential, infrastructure. And so we want to be able to build a platform and a kind of a medium that celebrates those stories. So someone like the young talent, maybe they're working a tech job. We're in Vancouver right now with some layoffs going off right, going on right now for non-profitable companies, just for the record.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:19

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:19

And there's maybe talented people within that space that may look at, they have never looked at construction as an industry to start their career, but they really should because great money, great occupation. And so where are they gonna go to learn those stories to change that perception they had in the industry of you know, Tommy with a shovel? Let's change that. So, two points is we want to change elevate that sector. We want to also celebrate our clients' work. And so I'm also excited for it. We're gonna be launching this is like this is this is the uh here we go. You're getting on the site visit podcast a week early. We are gonna be launching drum roll site news. So site news, similar to site partners, um, back to my comments earlier, is like there's a phenomenal kind of stories and and news in this industry. And let's be honest, we all have iPhones here, we're used to consuming information at a high level. Great UX, great UI, very fast, quick. The construction industry, you know, we talk about paper here. There's magazines, there's articles, they're used to so we want to create a media brand that's gonna bring the stories of construction, specifically Canadian construction, to the fingertips, to the iPhones, to the earbuds uh of the industry. And so Site News is basically gonna be the Canadian construction spotlight for media. So that's gonna be right away, gonna be an email newsletter. You know, a couple times a week, we're gonna talk about the best stories in construction. We're gonna talk about lessons learned, projects announced, people moving. And then you guys have both seen the link, but it's a live website, readsite news.com, where we've got all the industry stories weekly. So we've got a very talented team we've hired that's gonna lead that kind of division, site news. And we just wanna number one is we're not you're not gonna go on that site and you're gonna see 40 banner ads and like click through a bunch of stuff because you're just gonna get premium stories from the industry, projects announced, lessons learned, recruitment solutions for growing organizations. And we've been working on it for the last six months, and this is the first announcements for it. So it's gonna be live probably the last week of October. And check out the website. The focus right now is gonna be just telling those stories because we know firsthand how hard people work and the talent that it takes to build a building, and we want to celebrate that. And so you're gonna see an email newsletter, a website, maybe some podcasts, products, maybe some events, probably with you guys. And we're pretty pumped about it. And it's a long journey. Like we're not expecting to make money off of it right away. I mean, long term, we we we got to pay our bills, but our goal number one is phenomenal stories within the industry. Let's build something up, let's build a good content engine, tell these stories. And then we feel if you do that well, it the rest will take care of itself. So you asked me for what I'm excited about. Site news, and then and then we've got some other divisions and and products we're launching as well, too.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:25

But well, cheers, cheers the success with that, man. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:28

Yeah, nice.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:29

We look forward to helping you in anyway.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:30

Good luck, buddy. That we can. There you go. So um got a talented team, and and and honestly, like here, we know the amount of work that goes into a podcast like this. Like, we've all worked on it between like social to recording to like somebody edits.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:44

We're keeping it going, that's the work. Yeah, we don't do a ton of editing here. It's easy to make do the first few episodes. As we can tell from the yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:51

We've done a first few, but but I tell you, like people there's stories people need to know. And so Pretty excited about it. We're losing. Is everybody okay? Everyone's yeah, okay. Um, we gotta record these on video because James is dying. He's lay like laying over his chair.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:09

Oh, yeah, huge announcement for us. No. Uh we're gonna be recording. We're gonna be doing video for this in a few episodes.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:16

I think we never did video because it was so hard to convince a guest to come on. It'd be like, I know hey, uh, it's uh 6 30 in the morning, come do a podcast, and there'll be video. It's like, oh, we lose them. If we just say we almost did in our scripts, we said there's no video, they're like, Yeah, I'll be there. Yeah.

Rapid Fire (Guest ends after)

SPEAKER_06 1:06:32

So Andrew, we always end, and you guys can keep going. My truck is T minus five minutes from getting locked in the parkade, but we always end an episode, and now you're on the you're on the rapid fire end of this one here. We've we've narrowed it down to three questions here. Andrew, you've seen them. We're gonna rip through these, but we want to know a little bit more about you, let the audience know a little bit about you. Um here we go. Andrew Hanson, what is something that you believe in or do that other people would think is insane?

SPEAKER_03 1:07:10

Wow, beating the hot seat is different, I tell you. Oh, yeah. You didn't give me much prep. I just looked at them before this. I would say sentiment yesterday. So I may upset some people with this answer, um, but I think probably a lot of people listening would agree with it. I think we're entering in an era where hard work is kind of frowned upon. People say, you know, working long hours is wrong and have work-life balance. But I think, and it's not for everybody, but I truly think hard work does equal results. And sometimes that means 12, 15 hours a day is 17, seven days a week, sorry, not 17. Um that is insane. But yeah, but I truly, and I think a lot of people listening that have built businesses have worked really, really hard. And I think right now, whether it's media, whether it's other people talking, they always say, Hey, yeah, don't work hard. It's frowned upon. But I think working hard is is a really strong trait. There's balance to that. But I think if you want to build something very special and deliver excellence and win, let's not talk about like winning is working hard. And I think to your question of what's something you believe that others don't, right now, a lot of people don't believe in working hard. They like they like taking a free paycheck, they like not working. Like you will, if you work hard, you will find success. Like any excuse that you have, put your head down, go to work, it'll figure itself out.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:28

Okay. Next.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:31

Andrew, if you were not doing site partners right now and launching things like site news, what would you be doing?

SPEAKER_05 1:08:38

I'd probably still besides like powerlifting.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:41

I don't power lift for the record, but um, I would probably be working at a construction company. I'd probably still be at leadcore, go back to leadcore. Um, they run a phenomenal company. Um, I'm not getting paid to say this, but I think you can build great careers within great organizations and be challenged. And so I'd probably do that.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:02

Oh, I love it. That's good. He's got a passion for it. And lastly, Andrew, what is your most memorable story from the job site or past project?

SPEAKER_03 1:09:12

I was a health and safety manager for a couple of years. And so I won't share many of those stories because there's many of just incidents, but I will share because you guys are here. Um, because you guys are here, I'll share the beef jerky story. So a couple years ago, James, I mean Christian, you probably remember this too. We certainly were working on a couple campaigns, and this is where I give you guys credit in regards to marketing. Um, where we said, hey, we know our our target client for Site Max. We know it. We've we've we've done a couple sessions. Let's go get them, let's go do some guerrilla marketing, let's go, let's go reach them where they are. And we kind of got excited, and I think you you ran with it too. We we came up with some branded beef jerky, and I'll give you credit. Like it was, it looked phenomenal. It was like, what do tradespeople want that's not like, hey, we're not gonna use it is beef jerky, which is totally true. You nailed it. I think it was your idea. Not laden with sugar. Yeah, it was good beef jerky, the quality stuff. We got these boxes like stacked in the SiteMax office, and we're like, let's go! And we got a couple of your staff and our video team, and we just hit the streets. We got in a truck, Christian's branded SiteMax truck, and we just went to job sites. And this is a couple years ago, and not what we'd probably do today, but we just got into trucks and we just drove around and we like, what are we gonna do? Let's film it, it'll be awesome. Let's let's let's show all these other brands like Pro Core and others that are maybe in the US and not you know in touch with the local audience. Let's let's double down. And so we got this truck loaded up with beef jerky, the back of the truck's just loaded up. And Christian, myself, our video team, we just start hitting projects, and like we're just like, hey, have you heard of SiteMax built for the job site? And we just threw this beef jerky at them, and they were fired up, and people were just like, whoa, awesome! They just opened the bag and they're like, and there's a QR code, a bunch of other stuff, and it actually worked pretty well. We'd visit these job sites and they were just like, man, SiteMax knew our audience, like beef jerky number one. Everyone's hungry at a job site. And then we just first of all, like, not much prep went into it. And then we go to one or two job sites, and it was like, man, this is working great. Like, this is like this is a home run. We're gonna like get a phenomenal. And then we went to this one job site. I won't say where it was, but we're hitting like three for three, and we go to this fourth job site, and out of nowhere, we go to this uh, I don't know if it was Carpenter or Superintendent or form, whatever it was, and we're like, hey, we're from Site Max. Here's some beef jerky. Like, beef jerky. Uh we had turkey jerky, dude. He's like, I'm a vegan. We're like, oh, uh, that's great, which is great for the record. And he was just really worked up about the how we could go around throwing beef jerky throughout the streets of Vancouver and represent the brand. And I was taken back, and I was we we listened to him and we accommodated and you know, we we respected him, but it was it was something that stopped. We were like, four for four, everyone's fired up, and then all of a sudden it was a vegan, and it was like, which is totally awesome, but it was just this memory of like uh oh, this is what could have happened, and so from there we kind of dialed it back. But that was my site story of a great campaign that was awesome. I think it's still carried on, and then showing the diversity of the industry in regarding to not everyone loves beef jerky.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:29

So there's my there's my site. Not everyone does. Well, this has been awesome, thank you, Christian. This has been sweet, and uh so yeah, we we can't wait to do this again. This has been amazing. Back from the old time and the old Yale Town studio, the original one. And uh I'm looking at the mixing board now, just all the stuff that's coming in. It's like it feels so good. We're back anyway. You're the man. Wish you the best of luck with site partners. Uh, you're gonna crush it as you have already. And uh all the best to you, man.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:03

Right on. Well, thanks for having me. It's it's been fun sitting in the seat. It gives me a new perspective when we invite guests in that like it's the real deal. But it was awesome to be back in person. I think you can't we will do that podcast on in-person and and whatnot, but being in person, there's something to it. It's it's a lot of fun. So, this is the stuff you should be doing.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:23

Same thing as T. Yeah. I think you know that. There we go.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:28

All right, thanks for having me. All right.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:32

Well, that does it for another episode of the site. Thank you for listening. Be sure to stay connected with us by following our social account on Instagram and YouTube. SiteMax.com. We built industry and site protests and everything we need to know about this type of podcast, and site the job site and the construction management tool of choice for thousands of contractors in North America and beyond. Site next is also the engine that powers this podcast. All right, let's get back to building.