How to Bootstrap and Build Through Challenging Cycles with Ryan Steward, Founder & President of RJS Construction | EP91

In this episode, James and Christian are joined by Ryan Steward, Founder and President of RJS Construction. Ryan shares his journey into the construction industry, inspired by his childhood experiences building epic tree forts and his passion for Lego. He discusses the founding of his company and the challenges he faced, highlighting the importance of planning and hiring the right people. The episode explores common contracting mistakes, the construction industry's unique appeal, and the significance of values and work-life balance. Ryan also provides insights into managing projects, marketing through social media, and the evolving professionalism of the construction field. The discussion touches on the challenges faced by the industry, such as delays caused by red tape as well as record immigration and its impact on the housing crisis. Overall, this episode offers valuable insights into starting and growing a general contracting firm, bootstrapping with minimal finances, managing projects and teams, and navigating economic challenges which face anyone building a construction business. The one is a must-listen for anyone interested in starting a contracting company, entrepreneurship, and work-life balance.

Ryan Steward is the Founder and President of RJS Construction. With over 20 years of construction experience and a passion for building that stretches back much further, he has managed residential and commercial projects, large and small. Starting his company in 2011 with a tool belt and a commitment to quality work, Ryan has diligently built it up into the multi-million-dollar business it is today.

RJS Construction is a leading full-service construction company founded in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, Canada, in 2011. Their portfolio includes many commercial renovation and industrial construction projects, handling everything from new builds and additions to institutional seismic upgrades. Their team’s diverse experience and skills make them a formidable force, and their process keeps their clients informed and projects on track. Whether they’re building custom offices, renovating a retail showroom or undertaking a major commercial construction project, their success is driven by a commitment to a set of key beliefs: BE HONEST,  BE RESPECTFUL and BE ACCOUNTABLE.


EPISODE LINKS:
Ryan Steward LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-steward-40602689/
RJS Construction Website: https://rjs-construction.ca/
RJS Construction LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/rjs-constructions/
RJS Construction Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rjs_construction/?hl=en

PODCAST INFO:
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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:
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Transcript

James Faulkner: 0:00

Okay, so freshly back from New York. That was a quite the trip. So I went to Manhattan. Stay down there. I've never seen so much construction in one concentrated place. Anywhere I can imagine. Like, yeah, from every street has it there's either something new being built something being renovated, or something being serviced everywhere. So there's vans, trucks. I mean, I was just pitcher pitcher, pitcher pitcher pitcher. SIMEX has a customer customer customer. Like it's it was crazy sweet. Yeah, no, it was. It was really, really cool. But something in the news today is interesting about is tickets hear the story about this submarine that went missing?

Christian Hamm: 0:37

Yeah, I did. Yeah, I literally just thought on the way in. Yeah, yeah.

James Faulkner: 0:42

Yeah. Like the Titanic thing that is basically so I can't I can't quite discern whether or not is is this a tourist thing?

Christian Hamm: 0:49

It is. Okay. So from what I understood is it's like a two man summary tourists submarine. And the article said it was either Pakistan's richest person's son was onboard. Or his or he was the richest. Something like that. But obviously, this is like, he got some dough. You're doing a tourist excursion of the Titanic. With the ocean? Yeah. Yeah. So it's kind of like the Ron Howard have like some deep sea exploration beard. It's non responsive. And then yeah, and then the CEO of the company was like, Yeah, we had our worries that we might not be able to resurface.

James Faulkner: 1:26

Yeah, that's like Richard Branson things, you know, going up in the

Christian Hamm: 1:30

galactic or whatever. Virgin Galactic or Blue Origin does

James Faulkner: 1:33

the Yeah. And then it just doesn't come back. Yeah, it's the same thing. It's yeah. What's that called? Something tourism. What's it called? It's called something. I don't know if it's, I don't know. Uber tourism.

Ryan Steward: 1:45

Yeah, it'd be cool to go to the bottom of the ocean and see the Titanic but I really had those tours.

Christian Hamm: 1:49

Oh, yeah, I know. Yes.

James Faulkner: 1:51

So what So do you hon you guys but like tight spaces? Don't fear of death. Don't do that. Natalie.

Ryan Steward: 1:56

I don't think it bothered me but I've never been in a mini submarine at the bottom of the ocean but

James Faulkner: 2:01

but knowing that you're the gauge on the oxygen is just getting lower and lower and lower because you only have so many reserves in the tank.

Christian Hamm: 2:07

I guess you just pass out.

Ryan Steward: 2:08

Yeah. Well, we just disappeared and then they couldn't

James Faulkner: 2:12

Well, I think it's just gone out of range or whatever this so that they're not getting any, you know, the telematics coming back from it's not responding so they don't know where it is.

Ryan Steward: 2:20

So it's not one that's connected by cable. It's just totally I guess

James Faulkner: 2:23

I get no self sustaining I guess. Or not

Christian Hamm: 2:26

Not anymore. All right. Well, we'll jump into things here that was that has a really interesting story actually just popped up on the new season this morning.

Ryan Steward: 2:36

Know About you go to the bottom ocean and little submarines. There we go.

Christian Hamm: 2:41

Okay. Well, we'll come up. We'll come up top for I don't know what I'm gonna say for nothing. Well, sir, we'll surface some construction. Dave. It's very inventive. Yeah, that was going nowhere. Great. That was good. Sorry that Dave. Hit the Intro Music.

James Faulkner: 2:56

Welcome to the site visit podcast, leadership and perspective from construction with your hosts, James Faulkner and Christian Han.

Jesse Unke: 3:08

Business as usual as it has been for so long now that it goes back to what we were talking about before hitting the reset button

Justin Bontkes: 3:14

and you read all the books you read the E Myth read scaling up your read good degree, you know, I could go on

Sebastian Jacob: 3:20

We've got to a place where we found the secret Serum, we found the secret potion we can get the workers in we know where to get them

Cam Roy: 3:26

One time I was on a jobsite for quite a while and added some extra concrete and I've ordered like a broom finished patio outside of the site trailer

John Reid: 3:35

A guy hit me up on LinkedIn out of the blue and said he was driving from Oklahoma to Dallas to meet with me because he heard the Faber Connect platform on your guys's

Zack Staples: 3:44

Own it, crush it and love it, we celebrate these podcast values every single day.

James Faulkner: 3:52

Let's get down to it.

Christian Hamm: 3:57

All right. Well, we always say this is an ever realized James after I said, I usually say we have a great guest today. And James says, do you say Oh no. The guest said do you say that every episode? Yeah, we're like, Well, do you have to? But I realized go listen to all your favorite podcast. They all say it. But we do in fact, have an awesome guest longtime coming. Ryan Stewart from RJs construction founder and president. Yeah, yeah. No, it's great to have you. Yeah, we have been chatting for this for a little while. Yeah, for a bit. Yeah. And now we're here at different events and different events. Yeah. And that's the thing is we we see everyone around town. This is often how did you guys meet? I mean, local. Which event was Asian you guys first sort of shook hands.

Ryan Steward: 4:42

First time must have been through varca thing. Okay. Or something?

Christian Hamm: 4:46

Maybe the u 40. Golf Tournament. Ryan Lang Yeah, yeah, I think introduce us and then yeah,

James Faulkner: 4:55

yeah, I thought it was the international facial hair. Cultivation fest.

Christian Hamm: 5:00

So, here's my I'm his. He's got. He's got a beautiful bus.

James Faulkner: 5:04

That's pretty Tom Selleck. There.

Christian Hamm: 5:05

It's very nice.

James Faulkner: 5:06

You have a red Ferrari 308 GTs. No. Okay.

Ryan Steward: 5:08

That would be sweet though.

James Faulkner: 5:10

Place in Hawaii. Helicopter friend. No.

Christian Hamm: 5:13

So this isn't the Ryan Stewart. Look, that's not the right.

Ryan Steward: 5:15

No, I've been pretty clean shaven for a long time. I did a beard once. The wife didn't like that. So kind of got rid of that. But I did Movember this year for the first time and never stopped. And then kind of everyone was like, hey, it looks pretty good on you. And especially my wife liked it. And just it's kind of stuck. So, and my dad's had one forever, as long as I can remember.

James Faulkner: 5:40

So legacy, I got it. Yeah. Is he they see the J in your name?

Ryan Steward: 5:44

No, no.

James Faulkner: 5:45

What is the J?

Ryan Steward: 5:46

Jonathan? Jonathan, which I can read. Actually, it was RJ. I don't even know where that came from. So my mom liked the name or some. Oh, man.

Christian Hamm: 5:55

Well, why don't you tell us a little bit about just the background of yourself, even Ryan, and how you got to where you are in the construction industry? And then kind of the, the genesis of the RJs construction story. Sounds good.

Ryan Steward: 6:07

Yeah. I mean, I always liked building anything. Which probably started the construction side of things, right, like working with your hands, seeing something come to fruition and like, the accomplishment of being able to physically see see something you know, back to building forts when I was probably 10 years old and the backyard and build a pretty epic fort with my good high school high school friend in grade eight that was suspended over a creek and didn't have plumbing drawbridge. And did you

James Faulkner: 6:38

have PPE on? He had a hazard assessment?

Ryan Steward: 6:40

Yeah, definitely not.

James Faulkner: 6:41

No, no. Okay.

Ryan Steward: 6:43

Using saws untrained. And yeah,

James Faulkner: 6:46

the don't do this story. Yeah, got it.

Ryan Steward: 6:49

But hey, it was it was a lot of fun. And I think that's kind of where it's, it's it started. And Lego so you guys get the Lego? Yeah, I've always been into Lego. And now that I have my own kids, we build Lego quite a bit. It's become a little bit of I love it.

James Faulkner: 7:02

How old your kids

Ryan Steward: 7:04

10 and 12.

James Faulkner: 7:05

Oh, that's Lego Lego territory. Lego territory. Yeah,

Christian Hamm: 7:08

That's getting an epic Lego build territory. That's expensive, like expensive. Lego complicated. Nice stuff.

Ryan Steward: 7:14

Yeah, they definitely wouldn't have it if I wasn't into it. But yeah, I usually get all the new sets right away. And

James Faulkner: 7:19

what's your favorite one even?

Ryan Steward: 7:21

We just finished the Republic gunship. The Big Star Wars. It was a pretty cool build.

James Faulkner: 7:28

Nice.

Ryan Steward: 7:29

Even though I read the dimensions, it's a little bigger than I thought built.

Christian Hamm: 7:33

That's like as big as the logo here.

Ryan Steward: 7:35

Oh, yeah, for sure. Because the logo and it probably weighs 2025 pounds.

James Faulkner: 7:40

Holy smokes. It's not something you pick up, like 600 bucks.

Ryan Steward: 7:43

I think it's Yeah, close to 500.

James Faulkner: 7:45

Now, I think right? Yeah.

Ryan Steward: 7:47

So we'd like to do the big builds and build the small ones too. So

Christian Hamm: 7:51

that's really cool. Have you built the tree fort with them?

Ryan Steward: 7:55

forts, but not a tree fort? No, no. All right. We still live in the sub. Like I said, yeah, there's not a lot of extra trees to build. Uh,

James Faulkner: 8:04

yeah, I take those down.

Ryan Steward: 8:06

Yeah.

Christian Hamm: 8:07

Keep going, though. We cut you off there. The legacy.

Ryan Steward: 8:09

Yeah. So I think kind of started all there. I wasn't a tech for a long time, like computers and technologies and came pretty predominant in the 90s. And kind of thought I would do something with that and in business, and went to university for that, and I absolutely hated it. And University, hated being in university. So kind of dropped out of university and took a job as an electrician just because it was available with a friend and I finished my apprenticeship. And kind of just went from there and got more into management with electrical. And then I met some general contractors and kind of switched over to them. And I love the general contracting side, because it was more the building like the building stuff that I kind of really loved even as a kid and just kept running with that and got into management with all of that. And eventually just started my own company, which I always wanted to do. I think I started it a little quicker than I wanted. My wife was six months pregnant and we ran it on our pregnant start first house.

Christian Hamm: 9:12

I feel like that's a common thing. I wonder if there's like, I mean, I think we there's always like a crisis in the mind when first kids coming around or whatever. And you're you just assess life, I guess. I think so. But we've had a lot of people say that they're like, Yeah, I was crazy. I know what I was thinking. But yeah, we founded the company when my wife was X amount of months pregnant. It's common, very common, is it? I've seen all that. It is crazy.

Ryan Steward: 9:34

I guess your mind your mind frame switches from kind of being a kid yourself. Okay, now I'm

James Faulkner: 9:38

an adult, kid. Yeah, the providing thing? Yeah.

Ryan Steward: 9:41

Yeah,vmaybe it's subconscious. Yeah, yeah. I thought my wife would be like, What are you talking about? Like we just spent all this money on rent. Oh, and you need to work to get a paycheck. But she's like, No, let's let's go for it.

James Faulkner: 9:55

So what positions Did you were you holding in the GC that you worked? At.

Ryan Steward: 10:00

So I started as a foreman and kind of worked myself up to a superintendent. I did want to stay on longer and get into project management.

James Faulkner: 10:09

I feel mostly mostly in the field then we'll see in the field.

Ryan Steward: 10:12

Yeah, the actual building side of it managing the sites. I mean, we were managing pretty big sites. The ones we're doing like, oh, I can't remember the last. I mean, it was like a three acre site. I can't remember how many units was in there mixed use residential commercial, right. That was the last project I work on with. It was Townline. Construction. Oh, nice for quite a number of years.

James Faulkner: 10:33

How long ago was that?

Ryan Steward: 10:36

What year would that been? 2011? I left them. Oh, you love getting you?

Christian Hamm: 10:41

Did you build anything in Cloverdale and Clayton heights?

Ryan Steward: 10:43

I built the compass apartment buildings. Yeah. Nice. My brother, my brother. It was his first townhouse and compass. Oh, was it? Yeah, that's cool. Yeah,

Christian Hamm: 10:50

right down the street for me. I'm up from it's another downline development.

Ryan Steward: 10:52

It was still pretty rural there when we started that one.

Christian Hamm: 10:55

Yeah, it was it was.

James Faulkner: 10:56

Yeah. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Townline has been a customer of site max for a number of years. Oh, yeah. Oh, cool. Yeah,

Christian Hamm: 11:01

that's good. Good company.

Ryan Steward: 11:02

They're a great company. I learned great stuff. Some great mentors over there for the year. So talk to a bunch of do work with Greg girdle. I worked with Greg Gerke.

James Faulkner: 11:10

Yeah, he's solid. You shadow Greg. Yeah, sure. Hi, Greg.

Christian Hamm: 11:14

Yeah, there you go. Awesome. Okay, cool. So it was 10 years or 12 years ago, then that you founded the company 12 years ago?

Ryan Steward: 11:20

12 years ago?

Christian Hamm: 11:21

Oldest? Yeah. That's, that's crazy. And how many? How many employees now? Do you have? How big is the company just kind of give it

Ryan Steward: 11:29

we have 18 employees now get, and we being a GC there, you know, project managers, project managers and coordinators in the office. And then all of our superintendents in the field. We don't do much self performance. I know some GCS do. But we did that before. And I kind of just sub out as much as I can and then hire temporarily when we need it. Right. Right. A little bit easier to manage. Yeah, sure. In today's labor market,

Christian Hamm: 11:53

Yeah. Oh, for sure. I mean that and that's something that we'll get into I think a little bit later on is early days, though, what what was happening other than having first kid on the way, what was like one of the biggest challenge is just even getting it off the ground. Like you had all the you had great subcontracting experience. So you kind of knew how the trades all come together. In that sense. You had the which I think is probably the most important person on the job as superintendent, right? You had super Foreman experience, which is really good. But then getting the business off the ground? You know, what were some early challenges that stood out to you,

Ryan Steward: 12:26

the biggest one, and I've told a lot of people, this is a kind of decided to leave town line, I gave them a long notice. So it was good for them and good for me to get my ducks in a row. Yeah. But I kind of went to the bank a little too late. And thought, I'm just gonna start a business and go get a business loan and and do all this. And the bank was like, Well, yeah, but you have, you have no experience with this, and you're young, you have no backing for it. And we had already spent quite a bit of money on our renovation that we did on our hosts. And I started with very little spare money to run a general contracting business, which, in general contracting world, you need to spend a whole bunch of money before you get any back. Yeah, that was a big challenge. I think it slowed growth quite a bit in the beginning. And I don't know why I never went to any friends or family and tried to borrow money that I kind of want to do it on my own. Maybe a fear of, you know, something going sideways with that. And then, you know, owing people money and whatnot, I wanted to just kind of do it. So that was the big challenge. Money was pretty tight in the beginning there. And then, as we all know, in GC world there, some slow payments, and then there's the odd no payment.

James Faulkner: 13:41

So question. So if you were to if you were mentoring somebody and they said, Look, I'm going to starting a general contracting firm, what dollar amount? Would you say you need to have this either this amount of cash or this amount of credit to start this? What would the number be?

Ryan Steward: 13:57

I think it depends on what you're starting with. I was starting what you had with residential. I started probably with 15,000 bucks, which didn't go very far, right? I mean, if you could get somewhere in the range of 75 to 100,000 have some capital to be able to purchase things and pay for things and get going. I think unless you're gonna start, you know, guns blazing and you got some big projects under your belt right away. That's probably a pretty safe, safe number. And maybe making a plan ahead of time would be would be a big one. I mean, I had a...

James Faulkner: 14:30

did you start with a project right away? I had a couple small projects. Okay, so So you already have deposits and all that kind of stuff happening drawers.

Ryan Steward: 14:38

I was not very business. Like I knew construction like I wasn't worried about construction at all right? The business knowledge was a little lacking. And I didn't have those proper plans in place when I when I kind of got got rolling like you know, setting up accounts on the fly and kind of as you went so I think setting up a little I'd have a plan ahead of time would definitely be a massive bonus. Because once you're working, especially when you're starting out, it's managing money or just working, you don't have time to get organized.

James Faulkner: 15:08

So yeah,

Christian Hamm: 15:09

it's funny though, like the ambition far outweighs all the other risks, and rewards or anything necessities. Yeah, just getting it going.

Ryan Steward: 15:16

And I don't think make you know, don't make 100% plan because that change doesn't exist. That's what the moneys for, you know, if you're 6070 80% of a plan, you know, get rolling with it because you say the ambition and it's gonna change and you're gonna learn things as you go. And, but a little bit helps.

Christian Hamm: 15:32

Was entrepreneurship in the family or had you done any like small ventures prior?

Ryan Steward: 15:37

Yeah, entrepreneurship. Big time in my family. I, I think most of my family aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers, sisters, everybody, yes. Some sort of their own boss. Yeah, as far back as my, my grandparents. So it was always very much like, something I wanted to do. I think that freedom and doing your own thing was was very important. I talked about it with still to this day. So my good long term friends, and we talked about it back in high school, but running our own businesses. And they all do actually now too. So it was very much very much there.

Christian Hamm: 16:10

It's kind of cool when you see because you get a sense of that from people like James was like serial entrepreneur, like starting all sorts of different things in high school even right. But you hear like you said, your high school buddies and you can you they start saying certain things. And it is interesting, how much of that like does actually play out even if it's not like their 20s or whatever, eventually it does start to play out. You're like, ah, that makes sense that that person is where they are or whatever.

Ryan Steward: 16:38

I did say my first little business venture was in high school, I guess slightly Elementary. I used to mow lawns in the neighborhood

James Faulkner: 16:44

Ya me too. Yeah, for for money. I got paid in jars of coins. I probably did. jars, like you know, like mason jar. I was like, Ah, thanks.

Ryan Steward: 16:52

Here's here's the quarters and the the enrollment

James Faulkner: 16:55

quarters would have been a luxury. Talking Yeah, pennies. nickels. dimes. Do Yeah.

Ryan Steward: 17:02

Yeah, I was mowing lawns. And then I kind of started a little bit, I think more of a business in high school with a friend of mine. He got his license, and my dad was a realtor. And my dad said to me once that oh, there's a there's a lack of the sign installation, guys, right? You put up the for sale sign? Yeah. And they're always busy, and they're too late. And you put a for sale sign on Realtors wanted up like, yeah, the data listings up, right. So we kind of started a little business just working for my dad and realtors he knew and stuff and it actually got pretty busy pretty quickly. A lot of realtors weren't paying us though. So and we were price proper, business savvy people. So we ended up doing all this work. I mean, some were great. Yeah, but some weren't every Are you chasing money in high school? And you're like, Yeah, we kind of let that let that go. Yeah, when the house sells I'll pay you. Yeah, well, that's a lot. A lot of it was like, oh, yeah, I'll pay later. And

James Faulkner: 17:58

yeah, if you'd have just put the sign a little bit more straight. You might have had your money. But

Ryan Steward: 18:02

yeah, I think the icing on the cake that made us kind of shut it down was a few of the realtors. They'd sell the house quickly. And then the sign would come down. Well, like we owned the posts and everything right? Yeah, I wanted to build nice, clean painted ones.

James Faulkner: 18:18

What do you call that? It's a it's a two pieces to theater.

Ryan Steward: 18:22

Two pieces. Yeah, we used to do about a four by fours. And then

James Faulkner: 18:25

what's that called? Gets a carrot carriage or something in a carriage and then yeah, the two hanging things would basically swing underneath.

Ryan Steward: 18:32

Yeah, it was just a signpost as I maybe it hasn't officially

Christian Hamm: 18:34

it does happen. Does it must in the in the in the It does. Yeah.

James Faulkner: 18:39

Cuz they went out of vogue for a while. And then they came back again. Yeah, now you see them now? Yeah,

Christian Hamm: 18:44

yeah. Did they what did they go to like a lawn sign? Or like a little stick in or online or like,

Ryan Steward: 18:51

like the cheap plastic cheap, pushing.

James Faulkner: 18:54

No, no, they were actually the frames that the TPS is a core class would just slide Yes, that's right. Yeah, they were just kind of U shaped things. Yeah, these ones get higher. And they look a little bit more chic. Professional, professional. Yeah. Strong, like the house isn't going to fall down.

Ryan Steward: 19:09

Exactly. Yeah. And I'm a professional Realtor type.

James Faulkner: 19:12

Yeah. Tell us about that. Zach.

Christian Hamm: 19:17

So we talked about the early days, getting things off, obviously, you're learning a lot, you know, and you can look back and I'm sure ultimately, you know, in terms of where you are today, and it's all part of the story. It's all part of the journey and what you learned and shaped the whole the whole thing. Was there an inflection point at all early days or even, you know, well into the business? That was okay, this thing is, you know, beyond my wildest dreams, what I could have imagined it was going to be or get this is starting to feel like this is really going to go somewhere there's momentum here.

Ryan Steward: 19:49

Yeah, I think I think there's two big points. Few years in, you know, as, as most young business owners they do everything right like They were a ton of different hats and had a bunch of employees and I was working a lot, you know, out in the field during the day and work in the office at nighttime. We did have a small office at this point, had one employee in the office, but I was still out of the office most of the time. And I was bidding a job and I was bidding it late. It was like, I went home, I think, because kids were here now both kids and went back to the office late, and I'm bidding the job at like, 10 o'clock at night, and I'm exhausted, and I got this bid out the door really fast. And then I didn't hear about it for months. And then we got the job. And we're doing the job. And I realized I missed some big items on my estimate, because, you know, wasn't paying attention properly on it. And I'm like, it all worked out in the end. You know, I didn't take too much of a shot in the chin, but it was a big wake up call that Okay, I gotta make some changes here. And I gotta stop wearing so many hats and hire some employees, like we're growing like, I can't, I can't do everything.

James Faulkner: 21:04

So how do you deal with that? When you you get to that realization? Oh, okay, I missed something. And you go back to your client, and you say, Kay, we, I need you to help me with something like, do you go hand in hand? Or do you do you? Or do you come at this? Like, Hey, I can't get this done? Or, I mean, admitting the mistake, or how did you handle that?

Ryan Steward: 21:22

I've always been like, if I make a mistake, I'm like, I won't go to a client. Like if I've made a mistake, I need to learn from it and, and fix the problems. The one thing I did go to is a bunch of my trades that I was working with at the time. And they were most of them repeat trades. And I was like, Hey, I messed up. And this is the situation. And so a lot of them worked with me. And that's good. Took a little bit off their bids and whatnot, because we've done you no fixed price for quite a quite a number of years. And so your bid is your is your bid when you put it out? Yeah. So that's kind of the way we mitigated some of the damages. And then there was a few extras and whatnot. And then, I mean, we didn't make any money, we lost a little bit in the end. But at the initial, like when I reviewed it, and we were going to start the job next week, I'm like, oh, man, we're gonna lose a lot of money on this job.

James Faulkner: 22:10

So when you say you, you I mean, obviously, this is once all the everything is paid, you've paid your people, you've paid all your trades, and then the what's left? So you're saying that you wrote a check after that?

Ryan Steward: 22:24

Yeah, so we paid basically, our company had to pay to finish the project,

James Faulkner: 22:30

which, which in any other industry, that is insane. Yeah, think about that. Like, if you ever think I know, but it's just if you were to say to, like a contract, software company, okay, that just builds software for people. And they go, actually, I wrote a check at the end of it. Just they would, it would just never start. I know. So there's so many industries where that would that's just a non starter of that kind of risk. Yeah. Sounds Yeah, it's just so when you realize that you got to write a check for something. I mean, are you and your wife like, oh, like,

Ryan Steward: 23:09

I think at the point I had, you know, it'd been a few years at that point. And I mean, we were overall making money every year. Okay, so it's just on that particular one, it was on that particular job and, and saying, like, you make mistakes along the way, and you'll you'll learn from them, that one was a bigger one, but I looked at it as more I've messed up in making my company where it should be. So that's I took it more as a as a personal failure than, than anything else. And I didn't want to put that on to really anyone else, of course, makes sense. And then you just you learn from any make changes and hired a few people and fast track the company. And then it went much better after that, like you fast forward a year after and it's like, we learned so much. And we got these new people and and now we're going even more and better. So

Christian Hamm: 23:58

well, it's an I don't know if it's unique to construction or contracting businesses. But it is common that people will leave things out of bids. And they'll have to then go and massage it out some way with a sub or, or going back to the owner hat and and like you were saying, but it is nice that you did this the one time, it wasn't necessarily catastrophic, like you'd have to close your doors, but also that you're able to learn enough to think continue to improve tighten up figured out, whereas there's a lot of unfortunately, you know, these mistakes sometimes keep happening and things don't get tightened up. And I mean, I don't know if it's a factor of like, you know, you came into the field and you started a business. Right. And you said you didn't have a lot of business experience. That's common in contracting big time. Yeah. And they don't didn't didn't go here Iranian contracting return. Yeah. Right. And so like to learn that and combine it all together and press forward is like that's, it's it's rare, but it's the ones that are making it that have done those kinds of things.

Ryan Steward: 24:57

Yeah, I think for sure, or I mean, the There's there's many trades or contracts out there that stay small because of that, like they true. You know, they're kind of semi micromanaged by the owner, because the owner lacks the business knowledge. They have the construction knowledge, and they kind of stay at that small size, which is a little bit of a bonus too, because if everyone was just a big contractor, then where's all the smaller contractors to? So many more of the other? The other things?

James Faulkner: 25:23

Yeah, it's kind of like going back to the Lego example. You know, if there's one thing of you know, liking to build Lego, you go by the box, all the pieces are there, those instructions, okay, make it. Okay, so that's the love of building. But then just imagine if you had to source all of those pieces. And there are some pieces that are more special than others is some you can find in any. You could use parts from a different job that you've had, or different Lego set. And you like, all these are similar parts, but this summer, like, never even seen this thing before. It's very unique to the job. So the business of sourcing, and all of the necessary components to have that outcome that's in the plans. That's where it falls off the rails for a lot of people because, yeah, they liked the putting the pieces together, but it's getting the pieces getting the piece at the right time. Yeah. So it's kinda interesting.

Ryan Steward: 26:16

And pieces are one thing, but when it's human capital, yeah, it's even more challenging people

James Faulkner: 26:21

delivering those pieces.

Ryan Steward: 26:22

Yeah.

Christian Hamm: 26:22

So did this lead to your first key higher than other than or hat shedding? At that point in time? Or around?

Ryan Steward: 26:29

Yeah, it was releasing some? Well, it was releasing the field side of it. Right. Okay, we're at a size now where I need to be in the office. Whether, whether at the in the short term, I think it's a detriment to the company or not it it has to happen. And then, you know, there's a very short period, once I've moved into the office full time, where it's like, oh, I'm, I'm not fully busy all day long in the office, because I was wearing so many different hats. But as soon as you can get in the office, more, the company just boom, grew to the next level very, very quickly.

James Faulkner: 27:02

How did you attract this? First, these first few hires? Like, what was the pitch in terms of, you know, spend your time with us, it'll be well worth,

Ryan Steward: 27:12

I think, for, we're very much more structured in our hiring now. But even back then, I think it was, myself just being being real. Like, this is who we are, this is what we do. Honesty has been a massive value of mine for forever. And I think that's attracted a lot of really good people over the years. And being that we're, we want to get bigger, but I'd never want to be like a big gigantic Construction Company, which that appeals to some people and some people it doesn't. Some people like to work for a smaller, tight knit company. And I think that's people we have today in our company

James Faulkner: 27:51

does that ethos, foster a kind of a culture of a very balanced? And you could say work life balance, I suppose. Lifestyle kind of a business, for sure. For you and your staff as well. So they kind of want what Daddy has. Do you know what I mean? Like, like, if there's if they're, if they they just want maybe just a small, little bit smaller version of what you have, because he took all the risk?

Ryan Steward: 28:23

Yep, I think for sure. And I think you've brought up work life balance, and that is a big component to where we are now. And I think, where I've kind of always moved it as a big family guy, I have my young kids at home. And as much as I don't mind working hard, I don't want to spend all my time at the office, either I want to be home because with young kids, there's there's only a short period that they're young kids or adults way longer. And I had the same outlook with my employees, I wanted them to have that. We have another one of our values in the company is family first. And it sounds like, you know, put work aside but no more kind of meant that that proper balance, like not working 6070 hours a week and weekends and, and nights and making sure that everyone is going and doing their important things like if there's a piano recital or a sports thing, take the time off and encourage everyone to take the time off and go and do those things with their kids. Or even if their kids are older or just taking time for yourself as well or your significant other or other family members or friends. But work is endless if you want it to be if you just want to do it.

Christian Hamm: 29:39

Yep.

James Faulkner: 29:40

But I guess there's no there's no outside influence other than your own motivation or your own life goals that is influencing how much work you take on. No and there's no investor saying hey, I want x growth return and there's no industry saying anything. So I think that that's that's the contrast where With a lot of companies and work life balance is some have this completely? Yeah, maybe talking personally? Yeah, no, no, no, but, but, but there is like, almost untenable results people are expecting but if you're the one setting those benchmarks, then then you just go, Okay, well, we're just gonna, we're just gonna build what we want to build everyone's happy work life balance, and yeah, harmony, harmony. Yep.

Christian Hamm: 30:27

Well, we talked about it a fair bit. And a lot with our guests, and even customers, because there's something unique about construction. You said it that, you know, there's always work if you want it, right, not like endless amounts of projects, but there's endless amounts of oh, I'm going to stay up till 10 o'clock tonight, and I'm going to figure out a new process to do this, or I'm going to catch up on those receipts or whatever, whatever it is, right? You can always do that. But there's something unique about construction is that is isn't a attractive, whenever we say like lifestyle, and it's maybe it is the personal thing of coming from like tech, where it's like, you never want to hear the word lifestyle business, but then you look at construction or other, you know, traditional industry things. And there is a life that is attractive that people seek when they go in, you know, you are the entrepreneur, you've built the contracting business, and you see cool examples all over here in Vancouver, we're construction real estate hub for North America, right? But you see people they go and they find good life there, right? And then all the things that you're setting up with values and modeling as a lifestyle. You said you just came back from camping and a whole bunch of people or whatever, right? But people look to that. And they go that is I want to work hard. Because Ryan models working hard. And we'll get into it because you do coaching and professional development. And you talked about value. So there's obviously a drive component. Right, which is important. But there still is that key. There's important there's priorities of life. And I liked what you said about the kids or their adults much longer. Yeah, it's it. That's that's an interesting one. Because I don't know, the parents, or people that are hustling or whatever, realize that as much that you're right, like they're gonna be adults for a very long time. But the key stages of growth, like to be able to foster that mentality and your people and your company is it's pretty special. Thanks. Yeah, yeah. But let's talk about this then. So you have this whole setup. You've gone through these different inflection points, 12 year old business, but there still is, as I said, there's still as a drive, because you're doing coaching, you want to talk about this a little bit, and the professional development and leadership stuff, maybe the business?

Ryan Steward: 32:35

Sure. I mean, I think everyone's, you know, throughout their life, like there'll be like, and maybe at at the time, you didn't realize that, like, oh, that person was a mentor, that person I looked up to and, you know, they were coaching and they didn't even realize they're coaching. I think, you know, with so much more information nowadays, there's how important it is. And I think there's two sides of it. I think there's almost it's almost better in a way, but then in some cases, not. I think people can get too busy where they don't have time to take aside to coach to coach someone or, you know, teach someone something. But then there's the other ones where their cognitive of it, and they're doing a good job of it. So it's almost like to two sides to it. And I think I lost my train of thought No.

Christian Hamm: 33:29

Yeah, no, just coaching in and and being intentional, I guess about that developmental side of your people in the business.

Ryan Steward: 33:38

Yeah. And I think everything's so much different now to everything in a way as part tech, right? Yeah. And, you know, it's, you can be coaching people in so many different things. It could be just personal things it could be coaching in in the actual construction knowledge, it could be in technology, because people in construction usually aren't very good at technology, right. But it's becoming a very big part of it.

Christian Hamm: 34:05

Yeah. yeah.

James Faulkner: 34:06

Can we just for the listeners here, let's just take us through just your company, what you specialize in, and the exact type of projects you really want to do. And you know, how many projects you got under your belt? All that kind of stuff?

Ryan Steward: 34:22

Yeah, sounds good. The projects we do, I mean, we're we started in the residential world. And I didn't overly enjoy the residential world. So single family homes or multifamily single family homes, renovation, renovation, you know, like, everything from full get rentals. We built a custom few custom homes as well. But predominantly renovations we did. And then I was always more attracted to the commercial light industrial world. Yeah. So we, we were doing that type of work and we, I just kept I kept pushing towards that and so then we kind of stopped doing resident chillin we did purely commercial and in our light industrial. And then I did a few institutional projects along the way as well. And those even attracted me institutional gives you an example of so like, schools, public facilities are hard to get those. It takes time and you have to be very consistent it

James Faulkner: 35:22

like I felt like a point system on that. Wasn't there some kind of point system in order to you'd have to don't have done well, you have?

Christian Hamm: 35:27

Yeah, as the thing is, like, all these sickly highrise or something, you have to have done it. Yeah. Right.

Ryan Steward: 35:31

So we started small in that, in that side of it, like, you know, a small little public washroom Reno, like, yeah, it's

James Faulkner: 35:39

a couple stalls, right. Okay. And there's your there's your flag, you can fly

Ryan Steward: 35:42

and you kind of do a couple of those. And then you get bigger, it's the same as start, like, when you start a business in general, like you start here, and you kind of keep going. I mean, we're at the point now on the institutional side, where we're doing multimillion dollar projects for different governance solutions or universities. Yeah. I'd say nowadays, we're doing a little more of that, which I liked. It's, it's a little more structured. So you, you can think of it construction is not a factory, but a little more like a factory versus the the private world can be a little bit more random sometimes. Yeah. I, we just, we just liked it a little better. And so we've, we still do both. But that's a lot what we do now and all management. So we'll take the project, hire all the subs, whatever suppliers you need to work with, and then managed to put the project together.

James Faulkner: 36:29

So on any given time, typically, what's your how many projects you're dealing with at one time like today? Hands on,

Ryan Steward: 36:35

guys, I think we have about 12 on the go right now, right this moment? Which we are pretty pretty busy at this point. That's

James Faulkner: 36:43

a lot for 18 people, isn't it?

Ryan Steward: 36:45

Yeah, some can be managed by, you know, one project can be managed way

James Faulkner: 36:48

to people? Well, fair enough, depending how big it is,

Ryan Steward: 36:50

depending on how big it is. And scheduling to depends on some of the schedules that are

Christian Hamm: 36:54

set for various stages of the projects. And yeah, sizing.

James Faulkner: 36:57

So that's cool. It gives us the context of everyone.

Christian Hamm: 36:59

Yeah. And the makeup then. So because you're seeing institutional, commercial industrial, the mix of your current projects right now. Is it all in one, one particular segment of the market?

Ryan Steward: 37:11

I would say right now. They're all institutional. Okay. exact moment. Yeah, all institutional is, we have a couple of private coming up that are in design build phase right now. So they'll be coming in. But I think it's summer, too, because a couple of other schools and universities and so that side tends to get a little busier with that because kids aren't in school right now. So try to get all the renovations done. While no one's no one's there. So

James Faulkner: 37:35

that's more reliable business, I would imagine in terms of getting paid.

Ryan Steward: 37:39

Getting paid. Oh, for sure. It's, I mean, there's the odd little delay, but it's, I mean, it's just a system, right? It you invoice goes in a certain time, and it goes through their system and spits it out the other end, it's, that is a very nice,

James Faulkner: 37:51

there's no like, oh, still waiting for our last financing check.

Ryan Steward: 37:54

I mean, we've had great private clients, but there can tend to be more delays and little things within the private world. Because it's usually based on could be a person, when institutional is just based on their system. Like, there's no one owner saying, Oh, hang on, I want to have a meeting with this and discuss this or whatever it might be. It's goes in and comes out.

James Faulkner: 38:17

It's interesting in terms of like, you know, the business that you want to have versus the business you're doing today. You know, I was I was at a, I met this structural engineer guy a couple weeks ago. And, you know, he's pretty low key guy super nice. And I was like, okay, so I went out his website, and I looked at all the jobs, he's done all the projects, I'm like, holy smokes, like, this is crazy how good this stuff is. And then there's big sort of key projects that, you know, everyone kind of knows what they are. And then when, when I was talking to him, he's like, No, I just really love doing these beautiful, crazy homes, high, high mega high end homes, he does that and love doing. So it's interesting that, you know, as you were saying that there's these sort of different focuses on the work you have the work that you're doing, and that the work you would love to just be doing. So is there I looked at your website as well. And is there is there a, is it too risky to say that you like doing institutional stuff? No, we really like doing it. But I'm saying if there is there always, is that trough always full enough?

Ryan Steward: 39:39

I would say. Now, it is I mean, we've established ourself a pretty good reputation. And we have master service agreements with several of our clients now where we are one of their contractors. So they you know, they'll create a list of contractors that they want to work with on a regular basis, prefer and those are the ones preferred. Yeah, those are the ones that get invited to the projects.

James Faulkner: 40:01

So you know, being a business developer, brand guy and all that kind of stuff. But when I look at that opportunity, I think of the messaging around, you know, institutional, you know, build, it just shows that you are able to coordinate at that level, and to be able to, because typically, you know, with projects like that, you are the person that stops someone else from getting fired. And people in institutions are very risk adverse. So no one wants to lose their job, because it's usually well paid, and cushy and all that kind of stuff. So if Ryan is a safety lock on their career, then you gotta scream that from your website, because that right, there is a position on already, and you will only get way, way more of it. Yeah. And then the knock on effect of that is, is on the private client side, they go, Well, they do institutions. So yeah, we got one of the best ones. So the knock on is you can choose any other project you want, because of the result of you being viewed the appearance of you being so reliable and, and that you can keep getting this this work that everybody knows is not easy to get.

Ryan Steward: 41:15

It has been a big portion. Like even just like the reputation, and we get a private client, because maybe they've been recommended, but they don't really know us at that point. And but if they see oh, well, they've done worked with University of the Fraser Valley for the last X amount of years. Yeah, obviously, they're doing something right. Because,

Christian Hamm: 41:35

well, there's something there's something about institutional work, it could be the customers, they're usually going to be more well known. Right? Cities, government, whatever it happens to be. Schools, hospitals, but they're also really intricate, difficult projects. Right. And some of them are very, yeah. So to be able to bring those together with excellence, and then to have multiple, it speaks to like a high level of competency. It does.

James Faulkner: 41:57

Yeah, yeah. And that brands got to, like scream that.

Christian Hamm: 41:59

Yeah.

James Faulkner: 42:00

Oh, yeah.

Ryan Steward: 42:00

Probably don't do enough. Brand stuff.

Christian Hamm: 42:02

It's funny, like the conversation because we talked before, and we were just talking about, like construction companies using like, social and marketing and, and you know, your casting, oh, you know, we're really starting to elevate our game in that aspect. Because for so long, you do something really well, based on relationship, right. And it's still that's really, really big and construction, right? Reputation relationship, you get on preferred trades, lists, preferred contractor lists, whatever happens to be, but to market on social still gives you it gives anyone in construction, that ability to be noticed by a new generation of buyer who's maybe hanging out there, even if they are the institutional owner, or if they are the private owner. Right? And he might just be out there being like, I see you looking at RJs is just posting all these pictures of all the schools that they're doing. This is why I look at this is really good, even though it says it on the website. Yeah. Or even though you have that relationship. Yeah. It's just weird in the buyer mind. Right.

Ryan Steward: 42:55

Well, it's I mean, we all grew up in an area where it didn't exist. Yeah. So you know, it doesn't come naturally. Totally for me to think about it. But yeah, there's an entire generation coming up where that's everything. It's the first place they look, it's

Christian Hamm: 43:10

it's and they're getting more influential on the owner side, because they are not as they're not teenagers

Ryan Steward: 43:17

Yeah, we're getting older and older anymore.

James Faulkner: 43:19

and the total I remember that, you know, before the site Max days, I rebranded the Wales McAllen construction, so they were, you know, doing, you know, so basically took all the brand apart, put it back together again. And just after I'd done that, the result of that was pretty, pretty good pretty quickly. There was a company called Turnbull project managers, and they came to me and they said, Well, could you, you know, do what you what you did for Wales McClellan for us. And so the point I'm getting at is, is that, you know, there is that bowl logo with the horns. And that was that strength of like, we're gonna fight for your money, the aggression. And also it's just massive strength. And, and I think it was like strength in strength, integrity, and something else. You know, the regular buzzwords, but the point is, is that what you see out there is the sign that Turnbull sign, I design it, but I'm biased. The sign is cool. It's, it's striking, it's striking. And the whale signs were the same radius corners, all that kind of stuff. So, one thing I will say is that with the with the type of portfolio that you have and the types of projects when you add that very, very strong identity, on top of that, I guarantee you that is jet fuel. It is jet fuel on a flame and it We'll make all the difference. It'll be like a$5,000 investment probably just in terms of, you know, getting it right. But man that would pay off. That's all. That's all I can tell you. And it would be, you'd be like, Oh, ever since we did that, and everyone's just talking about us. And then the social thing is what you're saying, If you dovetail it all together,

Christian Hamm: 45:18

this is, this is more even a general comment just to like contractors in general, right? Like it is just how they've, again, they're there. They're construction experts. Right? And they're really, really good. You said, when you first started, you didn't have to worry about the construction and the things, right. And all the business acumen comes because it runs and you know, it's ingrained in you and or you learn along the way. But this is yeah, it's a just a general statement, because so many need to start getting into that aspect of things from a business development standpoint. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But we can we kind of talked about the development people coaching thing, we'll bring it back around, because a few things we wanted to cover, specifically, with regards to like, talent building in challenging times. And then coaching mentoring thing, but we'll do that. We'll just we'll talk about that one right now. Because you're part of a group. Right. It had been for some time. Yeah, I think, seven, seven years now. Okay. So early days, and this is a PTA Breakthrough Academy. Yeah. So we know a lot of people locally here that they're a part of it, number of our customers. And so but it's, it's an interesting, tight knit community. Like, as soon as you see each other, like an association event, it is just like this brotherhood almost.

Ryan Steward: 46:33

Yeah, for sure. It's a great organization. I've been part of them, since they were, you know, in their infancy years. And it's, it's grown to be a really good networking and networking, because that's wrong word for me. Like, I don't get business through there. But a lot of good knowledge going around other business owners or high level leaders in different organizations and be able to get together with them and talking with them. And then the educational side of, of, of what they provide, you know, help so many of us contractors, because like, we don't have that business knowledge, you know, just even the little simple things. Yeah. In the early days of a lot of companies are even like, these are some companies that have joined, you know, and they've been in business for 30 years. And yep, oh, my gosh, this is so good. All these little problems that we've now solved,

Christian Hamm: 47:23

what stood out in terms of the things that you've learned that the team has been able to latch on to? And just ways that it's impacted your business positively?

Ryan Steward: 47:32

I think the biggest one is the, the podcast I did with them. Oh, yeah, was about taking my own organization to myself, like, I mean, just me, not the company, but me as a leader in the company. And, you know, especially smaller companies, like if I'm not organized, well, the business isn't organized as much as you try to organize the business side, if, if I'm not organized, it's just going to be a mess. And it was about being intentional, first, towards myself in my own organization. And then the company kind of just starts to get organized better after that. One of the big one was block scheduling. Yes, properly scheduling things throughout the week, or month or even year. Because you know, when you run a business, you need to look at the year and and next year, when before it was just kind of, you know, you're shooting from the hip a little bit every day. Yeah. You know, there is no planning for the long term. So I was that was probably the biggest single item. And I mean, there's been been many, but that was

Christian Hamm: 48:37

and that one stuck. And it's become like an ingrained habit and and does it permeate through the organization at all

Ryan Steward: 48:42

through the whole company. Oh, nice. Any new employee? Well, everyone kind of does organizational and block scheduling. And we have meetings to discuss that. But anyone new, it's kind of one of the first thing that they get coached on is being organized properly. Because I've, we've had people come in to visit they, they have construction knowledge, they have this, but they're disorganized. And then things are falling the crap cracks, but just because they're disorganized,

Christian Hamm: 49:09

right? Is that case? So there's something called like a keystone habit. It's like that one thing that you do that then just like sets up all the other ones. Would you say that's, that's the core thing that when you said any new employee jumps in, but that everyone is doing and it maybe sets out a chain reaction of like other great habits or better best practices that are adhered to?

Ryan Steward: 49:28

Absolutely, for sure. And eliminate so much of that, you know, everyone talks about construction is like putting out fires all day. Yeah, it eliminates so much of it. I mean, it's always gonna be degree of it, but if you eliminate half of it just by, you know, looking ahead or, you know, risk management is kind of a lot of what it is right?

Christian Hamm: 49:49

And does it increase engagement like is the staff get behind it? They get fired up you do like review? Does it have like a cadence then of like, review with the team and

Ryan Steward: 49:57

yeah, I mean, we have to Goal Setting reviews as well, which are which are standard. And that becomes a good big part of it. Because everyone, even some of the people that have been working with me for years, when they get really busy, they can kind of start to get off of that. And then through our meetings, our goal setting reviews, you push it back in, and that will really start to get a little chaotic, because you're not doing as much block scheduling and planning for the week ahead or the two weeks ahead. I mean, construction and would lead times and stuff now. And even, you know, labor force, like what you need to hire, you need to look so much further ahead now. Like, we need to order the H vac stuff like so far ahead and whatnot, like you need to be better planned in today's construction world than before. Okay, you order that and you got it next week. Well, now it's

James Faulkner: 50:49

especially if you don't fix pricing, you gotta

Ryan Steward: 50:52

Yes, and you want it might change. Yeah.

Christian Hamm: 50:55

Oh, yeah, exactly volatility in it. I think we talked about maybe a couple episodes ago. We're just talking about construction becoming more and more professional. Right. And especially again, coming out of the field, starting a business. That's the common theme, but so many contractors and builders, right. But just getting more and more professional and when you have organizations like a BTA or you adopt something else, like attraction us or whatever, you know, they may be the crossover. But you just build this level of professionalism in a space that just never really even thought it's like that it's again, it's like the social media things like why don't we need to be able to know how to do that. We're just hammering stuff together here. Yeah. But it really is a massive differentiator, in terms of your own production, profitability. Probably engagement of your staff, and probably future staff.

Ryan Steward: 51:43

Yep. Huge stress elimination by Oh, yeah, getting more professional. I think. I haven't traveled the world a lot. But like you hear from a lot of people that have spent a lot of time a friend of mine worked in Japan for quite a number of years in construction. And he said North America is pretty far behind in their professional construction level. But it is getting a lot better. And it's it's so much so much nicer for everyone. Yeah. Staff, business owners, suppliers, like just everybody in general.

Christian Hamm: 52:16

No totally is the thing we see you because you just you were in Tokyo couple months ago. Yeah. Yeah. You said the same thing when you came back. It's like, they just look

James Faulkner: 52:23

different. Well, what's interesting, though, is the anecdotes I got from people who talked to me about how construction is in Tokyo. It was, yes, very organized, but still hasn't innovated much. Just because you, you have to take risks to innovate. And they don't want to take any, because it has to be dialed. Yeah. And there's like, LED screens on and the hoarding all has to be the same color all white can have anything on it. And there's like a graphics on these things. It's all in Japanese, obviously. But it's like a, a sort of a, you know, vector of this guy with a hard hat on, it's like, stop. Do this next move this way. It's very, it's very weird. I mean, but yeah, we do have a we do have a long a long way to go in terms of being that organized. I mean, you look at most sites, they kind of look like Ratty. I mean, like, some of the bad ones look like a homeless encampment. Honestly, it can look really lucky. The only thing is like, Oh, is that a construction site? Well, there's a porta Potti. There. So yeah, I guess it must be

Christian Hamm: 53:30

Yeah, it says a lot about even the builder like this is as much as a sign on your job site. It is what your what does your site look like? How organized is it? Yeah, and when you exactly? Yeah, this speaks to a lot about what we're going to be capable of and how you treat a customer in the future. Yeah,

Ryan Steward: 53:45

yeah, mess is a pretty big problem. And I think a lot of constructions, there's a lot of materials around right, especially in renovations demo and whatnot. But the big one you hear is schedule. And you know, some things are out of our control, but schedule can get out of hand, pretty bad, where it's you hear from people like oh, they said it would be six months. And you know, a year later, we're just wrapping up type thing.

Christian Hamm: 54:12

Yeah. But if you have more consciousness not to beat this one like crazy, but the blocking the scheduling, if you have more consciousness across a more people that are in charge of that project, you close gaps, and you missed it, Miss risks and all that kind of stuff. You mitigate risks. Yeah, right across the board when you have more people as opposed to, oh, you know, my superintendent, or my project manager is dialed in and my supers got a decent idea of what's happening, but that's it. Yeah. Right. But when you have more people, it's like, yeah, that's where you really get those great efficiencies and innovations.

Ryan Steward: 54:43

Yeah, the entire team because construction, there's, you know, you take RGS one. There's that team, but there's sub trades and suppliers and consultants and even the client. Everybody's part of the same

Christian Hamm: 54:57

total totally.

James Faulkner: 54:58

Yeah.

Christian Hamm: 54:59

All right. The other thing Then we want to say because I think we talked about this even coming into the conversation was so building in challenging times. And when we said that right off the hop, you immediately were talking about just things like population numbers, things like immigration and housing shortages, and labor shortages and all that kind of stuff. Well, we're here in Canada, Canada, just, this isn't gonna sound insane to other places. But for us, I mean, seems like we got here fast, but we just crossed 40 million. It feels like we were at 30. Not too too long ago. 10 is 10 is coming quick like that. 10 did come kind of quickly, and various reasons for that. But in terms of, there's so much packed and loaded, and we can probably just pack this one as a as our final thing here, but challenging times, building in them, whether it's financial issues, whether it's labor issues, or just the influx of people into this business, and being able to get the work done and finish those projects. What are some of the things that you're facing right now as a business in terms of your project load employees, labor subcontractors, etc?

Ryan Steward: 56:09

Hires, many. I think the number one, because it's kind of the start of the project, which is massively I think, causing huge delays. Is the whole red tape side, like, you know, approval of, of drawings and, and getting permits done and whatnot. I mean, you know, we're record inflate. Inflation, right. Yeah, relations, but immigration, you know, the half a million people come here, we'll have people people need homes. Yep. How long does it take to catch up to build houses for those? Well, here is it takes years years to even get projects off the ground being like, Yeah, huge, like, and so as more and more keep coming. And I think it's like, Okay, we're gonna build more. That's, that's fine. It's great for the construction industry. But it's, it's so far behind. Constantly. Yep. And that's, I think the first big challenge is there. And which starts on the government side. But the consultant side is, I mean, that process is much slower as well, which in some ways, we're building better, safer homes and more efficient. But there is a much longer lead time to get all these done, especially for them, because they're having the same human capital shortage as well on their side. You know, how many people retiring and then how many more coming in? Well, they're turning up, but, you know, to create drawing someone that has 40 years experience producing drawings, someone that is brand new is not going to produce drawings to the same speed and quality is someone else with your experience

James Faulkner: 57:48

that I mentioned? Yeah. It should help. For sure.

Christian Hamm: 57:52

It Yeah, it just does seem like there's so many factors that are working against the elements of speed when it comes to just the problem of a shortage, right? That's the single problem of we have a housing or we don't have enough homes to deal with the influx of people. Okay, well, that's the problem. That's the That's the issue. Well, you me, you can either slow that down. That's another conversation altogether, not construction related, necessarily. But if that is the issue, from a construction standpoint, this is stuff that has just been ongoing for years, and years and years, like I haven't been a pm for six, seven years, and permitting and slowdowns. And all that kind of stuff was massive, then and it just just seems like something that I may again, have been in it. But in the last decade has it has it improved? Has it become more efficient? It's just I think it's just slowly trundling back

James Faulkner: 58:46

and more of the same or more, did you what's your perspective around? So with the you can call the housing crisis, or the housing instability or, or lack of people being able to get into it? What are your thoughts around the overall happiness of your sub trades people? Do you think that affects their psyche at all about being happy at their job and all that kind of stuff? Like, well, what's the sort of sentiment there? What are your thoughts? When you see that fly on the wall, you're able to kind of assess what that's like,

Ryan Steward: 59:19

I think, overall, coming out of COVID, and everything everyone's had to do, I think happiness is probably maybe a little lower than it definitely could be. I mean, think of anyone when you're kind of working behind to try to catch up constantly. There's a level of stress there frustration all the time. And, and that's big time in the construction world. I mean, you know, we're working on a project that's already been going for, or sorry, it started the planning and the permits, that's already started for a while. So I get that when owners or clients when they want to get started and get going, and they're pushing everyone super hard. But there's a Complete level of stress there to the people actually doing the work to you have

James Faulkner: 1:00:03

to inoculate those people from that stress to some degree, right? You get the barrier,

Ryan Steward: 1:00:07

you try. Yeah. Which is difficult, it's very difficult. And then you throw in whole supply chain things where maybe it's the electrician needs to do certain work on his site. And then it's another trade that's doing something and they can't get the materials in time to get ready for the electrician. And then so he's delayed, and they were planning to put 10 people on this job for the next month. And now they're shift shuffling their schedule and putting them on another job, and then back and forth, and back and forth. And there's a lot of efficiency there. Lost. But a lot of you said, like, it's it's up here too, right when people get juggled around and. And then when they get there. It's like, go, go, go, you're behind. And it's like, What do you mean by it? I just showed up here. It's the first day.

James Faulkner: 1:00:49

So do you feel like you're? I mean, if you were to imagine the pressure you're under sometimes do you feel like you're the guy holding back the landslide? And your sub trades employees are like, yeah, kind of like this cherry picking off the tree in an orchard? Is that you're like, guys, like, look, when I'm holding back here. I'm trying to, you know, allow you guys to enjoy your fruit. And you're and you're picking your cherries here. But Hello, for sure. But you can't really talk about that, right? Because that's, that's what they sign up for. They're like, I like to I like to you know, I like to have some nice fruit here. And you're like, Yeah, I go,

Ryan Steward: 1:01:23

I think. Yeah, I mean, sometimes I don't want to hear it. But it's real. It's it's there. I don't know what the short term answer for it is. But I think more goes back to the planning and the communication

James Faulkner: 1:01:37

and those values to that, right. Because you push those values through on a jobsite, this is how we're going to conduct this job site. Yeah. And what's interesting, we're gonna say it for the billionth time, this business is showing up at a business to do business. You know, each sub trade has its own culture to because if they're any good at what they're doing, they've already gone through, you know, Pro D stuff. They kind of know what they are as a company. So they have their value show up at a job, and then your values of how we're going to conduct this job. Do you ever see any conflict there? And in terms of how going

Ryan Steward: 1:02:10

for sure, we've, we've, we've talked about lots in our company, but I mean, stakeholders that are working with us over the years, the ones that aren't meeting the values, we typically part part ways, I mean, that's not everyone. Government, you can't get away from that. Maybe you still gotta go to their process, but you know, clients, sub trades suppliers, even consultants, you know, that are, you know, not fitting the value system because

James Faulkner: 1:02:35

they're insultants.

Ryan Steward: 1:02:37

insultants. ya. I mean, everybody wants to work with people that want to work together. Yeah. And have proper values and get things done. I mean, it's less stressful. I mean, the world's stressful enough. We don't need more of it every day to go home with

Christian Hamm: 1:02:52

Yeah, well, that's the thing, right, as is all these challenges, challenging times challenging economics, all these shortages of things, it impacts everybody. And when you're a general, and you've got I was reading last week, day was like, they're saying an average of 100 different contractors, vendors, whatever in a typical project, when you think about that, they deal with all their own internal and external factors. What about a team that could be slowing them down? attitudes, positive or negative? Yeah, things that are going on? And so like, yeah, you are holding back that wave and trying to create an environment everybody comes into that's consistent, and sort of influence all the people that are coming in, not so consistently, to bring it all together. And it's challenging. It's difficult,

James Faulkner: 1:03:31

definitely get on it, because it's not easy.

Ryan Steward: 1:03:33

It's, it's great. And it's, and it's challenging as well, for sure. It's there's a there's a lot of I don't think most people understand how many moving pieces are within a construction project. Yeah,

Christian Hamm: 1:03:45

I think our listeners do. I think so. Yeah, most of them do. For sure. No, no, but generally, the average person driving by looking at that. I'm sure it happens all the time, because I get non construction friends. Like why is that project taking so long? It's like, I don't know where to start. I mean, yeah, birding is usually a good one. But But ya know, this is obviously having done what you've done for 12 years. I mean, you've made it past so many different points. At as, you know, learning from failures, seeing the success but to where you are right now, you've obviously done a really great job of navigating challenges. And it's just the whole system next level, dealing with whatever we're going through in the next couple of years. But is there anything you want to leave our guests with our audience with or anyone even at your company that's going to listen to this? Just anything about the industry yourself? The company?

James Faulkner: 1:04:40

You didn't say nugget like that? Oh, yeah, just

Christian Hamm: 1:04:42

little nugget. Just a little nugget leave our audience with

Ryan Steward: 1:04:47

a big one. I thought about when I was driving here is like something that's been a big I guess part of the success is you brought up AI is I mean, the law Have a lot of speed that technology is moving at and changing constantly. And everyone trying to keep up has a massive stress to itself. And I, I've said it before, like this cell phone here is it's a great tool. But it can be a great stress as well. And I think technology used incorrectly can can be a huge negative. And I've I've tried to like pick technology that works, but don't let it consume you. It's been a been a big one, I think big one in our company as well.

Christian Hamm: 1:05:35

Yeah, well, that makes sense. I mean, it can be overwhelming. Everything. If you're building a business and all these different factors, everything that's going on it can be can be very overwhelming. But there's a few things you can really hone in on to navigate the challenging times and bring it all together.

James Faulkner: 1:05:51

Yeah.

Ryan Steward: 1:05:52

I think like slowed down a little bit. The world is moving faster. It's moving faster, faster, but slower and slower. It's kind of a weird, it's a weird thing. But like slowing down a little bit and having a proper balance in life is so important.

Christian Hamm: 1:06:06

No, that makes a lot of sense. OK Ryan, we always end our conversations with our guests with a little rapid fire around. I know you probably saw the questions. Hopefully you didn't have too much time to think because it's always good off the cuff. But we're gonna rip through a few of them. Is that sound cool? Sure. All right. So Ryan, I know you thought this word was funny but what is something that you do that others might think is insane

Ryan Steward: 1:06:31

I think the amount of hours I work I've because I've got a lot of people is still technically a young company. I work as least hours as possible. And I think that goes to the organizational and that and that intentional block scheduling. And what Jocko willing said like decentralized command, like allowing your all the people you work with to, to do their side and manage their side. There's a huge efficiency lost in micromanaging people and getting them to explain everything and meetings. And there's too many meetings nowadays like to have a meeting to discuss another meeting. Right, right. As I said the word insane was insane. No such thing I think is insane. Jocko would

Christian Hamm: 1:07:21

love that. Yeah, he'd be all over that. I love that decentralized command.

Ryan Steward: 1:07:25

Yeah. And the, like I said, construction i It's very common for people to work a lot of hours. Yeah. And I have just found over the years and learning from seeing other people work in other companies. And it's, it's I think it's a, it can also be a huge detriment, because you're working lots of hours, but how efficient are you being with with your hours? Totally? Because yeah, I don't work a lot hours, which a lot of people find weird as a owner of a general contracting company.

Christian Hamm: 1:07:54

How many hours

Ryan Steward: 1:07:56

30 ish?

Christian Hamm: 1:07:56

Oh, there you go. All right. What would you be doing? If you weren't building RJs? If you weren't building this awesome general contracting company, right, what would you be doing non construction related?

Ryan Steward: 1:08:09

Non construction related? I was thinking long and hard about this one. I mean, the first one I went to I know I looked at the

Christian Hamm: 1:08:16

No, yeah, that's

Ryan Steward: 1:08:18

it, I love the outdoors. So like, I thought I'll be in the outdoors. But I think that's more recreational thing. So it was a question more concern, like, career wise,

James Faulkner: 1:08:29

passion wise, probably. I would say, what what else would you?

Christian Hamm: 1:08:33

Yeah, well, yeah. What would you be doing?

James Faulkner: 1:08:34

Brian could have done this. But he's not doing that. What is that?

Christian Hamm: 1:08:37

It's a weird, it's an interesting question was when we use them from the beginning. And maybe we need to add a little element to it. But it is. It's another piece of the brain. It's something else. That's passion. If you were to build, obviously, if you're an entrepreneurial, it's building a business, but maybe it's something totally different. Right?

Ryan Steward: 1:08:54

Yeah. I think then, like I said, the I love the outdoors. And I've, I've actually, as I get older, I've almost thought of like, teaching and coaching is I enjoy, like giving knowledge that I've learned along the way, even though not everyone listens to everything, but if they can just a little portion of it. And with the outdoors, I kind of have this longtime dream of, you know, maybe having a giant piece of property in the bush somewhere and, you know, teaching kids about, maybe not just nature, but different aspects of how to navigate life and whatnot. Yeah, and of course, outside the academic school, but it's part of a young person's journey to getting older.

Christian Hamm: 1:09:36

Yeah, that's a solid answer.

Ryan Steward: 1:09:38

And it got more and more as I as I get older, for sure.

James Faulkner: 1:09:41

RJS...

Christian Hamm: 1:09:42

now it's on now it's on record. It is someone told you to don't count on that one. That's great. That's a great answer. Okay, last one. What is the most memorable story that you have from the job site?

Ryan Steward: 1:09:56

This one was hard. There's so so many. Some of them are scary moments on construction. You know, it's it's a, it's a dangerous world, the first one that popped in my head, which WorkSafe wouldn't like it, but

Christian Hamm: 1:10:08

we really that's how these stories go

Ryan Steward: 1:10:11

were working for BC Ferries. Early on and getting into the institutional side and project was going great until the last piece that we had to put it was we did all the new sign bridges as you're going out to the to Austin ferry terminal. And we're working with the crane company, maybe we shouldn't mention the name. But they had. They had been out to site. They had size their crane, they've done all their stuff beforehand. And there was a big section that had to come off before you know, the new one go on. And it was all being done at nighttime. And it was supposed to be a single single lift and everything put on the ground and then cut up because the old one was going to be demolished. Yeah. Well, the crane that was there was undersized. unbeknownst to us and couldn't pick this thing up once everything was cut off and disconnected. And long story short, we kind of what's the MacGyvered it got cut it off. And then as it was being lowered to the ground, the chains on the crane broke and the whole thing down to the ground now,

Christian Hamm: 1:11:20

did it did it demolish itself?

Ryan Steward: 1:11:22

No, it's it stayed together. But now at this point. All the ferry staff was starting to show up for the first morning. So he goes blocking traffic lovely trying to cut this thing because we're supposed to be down already. Yeah. Yeah. So it all it all worked out in the end. But that was a pretty memorable moment.

James Faulkner: 1:11:38

Exactly. Imagine seeing the signs 10 Sailing weights what? It's

Ryan Steward: 1:11:44

So with anything like, that's planning right, like anything with crane edge and whatnot, anything that's like high risk like that. We learned from that and taking it to the next step. It's like, asking a lot more questions and ensuring that things are planned properly from the get go.

Christian Hamm: 1:12:00

Oh, yeah. And then one variation, or that's a good story. I'm sure a lot of people's very memorable will be ones that cause major disruption. And so much in construction is related to that. We're gonna do a temporary shutdown here. This is whatever it's like, oh, boy. Disruption for the day, you know? Yeah, it's very, it's

James Faulkner: 1:12:17

cranage carnage.

Ryan Steward: 1:12:18

Yeah.

James Faulkner: 1:12:19

Oh, man. Yeah. Well, Ryan, it was a long time coming. It was great to have you on to share your story with with us and with our audience. And we look forward to continuing to get updates from you as the journey continues at RJs. But really appreciate you coming on today.

Ryan Steward: 1:12:34

Thanks for having me.

Christian Hamm: 1:12:35

Right on.

James Faulkner: 1:12:41

Well, that does it for another episode of theSite Visit. Thank you for listening. Be sure to stay connected with us by following our social accounts on Instagram and YouTube. You can also sign up for a monthly newsletter at sitemaxsystems.com/thesitevisit where you'll get industry insights, pro tips and everything you need to know about the Site Visit podcast and SiteMax, the jobsite and construction management tool of choice for 1000s of contractors in North America and beyond. SiteMax is also the engine that powers this podcast. All right, let's get back to building!