When employees depart
Business is heart-break. It happens when you invest in an employee and it doesn’t work out even though it should and it costs time and money and opportunity. It also happens on the other end when you meet and mentor and see them successfully leave the nest for the next thing.
I’m experiencing that now, with my long-time right hand woman Amanda departing after 8 years and a hundred plus homes. She’s my project manager, sounding board, assistant, supporter, crutch and cheerleader. She saw me hit it big, and fall right back to earth.
We are a small company and it came out of the blue so not only do I have the need to process the personal loss, I have to get busy and in 2 weeks forge a new path in a way I had never really considered. I sort of thought, as my friend Bryan said at the bank, that she was part of the succession plan. So much for best laid plans.
So I now think, wake early, first in the office last to leave old skool work hours - turning on the skills energy and brains that have powered me thus far, and as I hit the gas this time and navigate the curves, I reflect and notice my skills aren’t what they used to be - my skills are on a whole new level of expertise, and while setbacks and disappointments are sure to lurk in all the shadows of all our bright rays of success, the experience I now have as part of my professional fabric is like teflon - or that of the newest jeans out there - durable, flexible and ready for a whole host of life eventualities.
My experience with Amanda, who I fished right out of college reminds me of the singer/songwriter Albert Hammond (as many of you know whose son we built a compound for), he sings in what I believe to be his most famous song - It never rains in southern California - he writes , and makes me remember how Amanda ‘found me’ in 2014 -
- Out of work, I'm out of my head
- Out of self respect, I'm out of bread
- I'm underloved, I'm underfed
- I wanna go home
- Will you tell the folks back home I nearly made it?
- Please don't tell 'em how you found me
- Don't tell 'em how you found me
- Gimme a break, give me a break
I feel she was my first big break, after 12 years in business. I feel blessed and cursed for the exact same reason - having such a wonderful person cross my path.
Busy day last Monday wrapping up a big project in The Fields, our anchor project at the Crest.
Of course it snowed big time when we had everyone and their mom scheduled for their punch list day. No where to hide on that big mountainside.
Now Hiring -
Design/build firm Catskill Farms seeks individual to for start to finish, client-facing project concierge. This interior design meets project manager positions touches all facets of the build process.
This mix of project management and design allows a talented individual to be fully immersed in the full life cycle of home design and construction.
You will deal with clients, vendors, subcontractors, municipalities, and a host of out-sourced design and operation resources.
Leave no itch unscratched while putting your stamp on homes across the Hudson Valley.
This is the first time this dynamic position has been available in 10 years.
Offices in Wurtsboro NY.
Feel free to text Chuck, the founder and owner, at 917-838-5342.
Las Vegas - 2023 Builders Source Show
13 years after my last trip to Vegas, I’m sittin’ up front on a plane, currently about directly over Chicago, heading back to Sin City. The building industry expo starts tonight, and my building supply company who I have spent untold millions with over 2 decades, offered me on of 10 spots for their Hudson Valley/Westchester allocation. The last time I was here, with James Karpowicz, my project manager at the time, was in 2009, and was for the same conference/expo. Though, at that time the country and perhaps the world, was in a real estate collapse, and Las Vegas was close to the epicenter. Airports empty, taxi drivers cheap, lap dances cheaper (not that I would know). This round I go as an industry veteran and I look forward to seeing what it means to me and Catskill Farms this time around. A few of Builder’s Source (my supply company) executives will be here and it will be good to catch up since few company’s have such a unique journey as mine and some of the guys at Builder’s Source have seen it from the inside out, which not too many people can say - which gives us a lot to talk about.
You often hear about corporate good will trips bestowed on valued clients, but I haven’t seen much of that even though I’ve literally put tens of millions of dollars in people’s pockets. Must be one of those things like finding a good lawyer quick that just doesn’t happen in real life. Or maybe it used to happen like in Mad Men days and just doesn’t anymore. Not mentioning any names ERIC G———n. Just kidding.
I often talk about how my business journey has been one without peer support just because Sullivan County NY didn’t really have anyone doing something like I was doing, and that was true when we expanded into Ulster, and then Dutchess as well, though it came closer the more east I explored opportunities. No real builder’s association, chambers of commerces (at the time), and I probably could have no doubt could have benefited from a few more sounding boards as I wandered the path of a small businessperson.
Vegas no doubt will be fun, but only to a degree - my efforts of debauchery these days start and end with maybe a few extra drinks and some pre-midnight revelry. Leave it to the Builders- legendary early risers - to have the grand buffet breakfast from the hours of 6-8am.
Coach K of Duke fame is one of the speakers, and Jim Gaffigan is one of the entertainers. Should be a good show, for one of the most vital and fundamental and foundational industries in the country. When the building industry sneezes, the whole country catches a cold. Especially interesting time to be here because of the place the economy is - just getting off a 2 year pandemic fueled sugar high, now a return to a new normal, and in some parts of the country a real retrenchment of the industry due to interest rates. One thing for sure is there will be dozens of companies that represent each layer of the economy right now - some prosperous, some in pain, some in retreat, some in advance.
Law and Order
I’m not sure about other people’s businesses, but I find a lot of my day to day is spent in low grade frustration, as I marry what I hope for versus what is actually accomplished. Those not necessarily always aligned goals pull and push, and it’s when I really think we have reached a new level of self-sufficiency, that I find my widest gap in what I hoped for versus what actually occurred, so it really wasn’t the reality that changed, it was my expectations, which I had mistakenly re-pinned without telling anyone and really without much evidence supporting the higher bar.
This past year I got sued for the first time - well, I didn’t get sued, my business did - so I was forced to quickly establish a defense team. You see on TV when someone needs a lawyer for whatever reason, they find one, and a lot of times they find a really sharp one who seems not to have any other clients. That’s not my experience - especially with civil work. I think transactional, estate, etc… work it’s true. I think with criminal it’s true - but civil not so much. Because with civil litigation, it’s just so damn messy in the best of cases, that to do a good job you need to immerse yourself in the facts and nuances of the case, create a narrative, and sell that narrative, over the course of a long time line of court established schedules. Also, it’s a testament to our good work that I don’t have a go-to civil suit attorney - don’t really need it.
One thing I learned from it - elementary, my dear, in retrospect - is that the lawsuit court and delivery dates are malleable, extensions given with little hesitation, and no real penalty for dragging the thing out in perpetuity. 12 months after this suit was filed, the filers had not sat for one deposition, had not really responded to our questions and were just really not prosecuting the case, just letting it hang out there, an orphaned narrative that was somewhat defamatory. Christ, following the newspapers, I saw that Steve Bannon was arrested, bailed, tried and convicted and I wasn’t close to my first day in court. My attorney, who I found by reading up on the causes of actions I was being accused of - reading up on it, and coming across an article penned by an attorney so I gave him a call, and he turned out to be quite the professional, at quite the professional prices.
The point here isn’t this suit above- which for all intent and purposes was settled for $0 out of my pocket, EXCLUDING legal fees - but rather the ability and inclination to use the courtroom to settle disputes.
Before you have the money to blow on a lawsuit, when you are defamed, stolen from, cheated, whathaveyou, you can rant and rave in your blog, you post social media, you can leave bad reviews, but you don’t dare use that carefully crafted and constructed cash flow to throw good money after bad. You never have the time or the money to seek vengeful retribution - no matter the schemes and scenarios you dream up in your head. Anyone who has ever had much to do with the law, knows that $20k goes fast, and $50k isn’t that far behind, so the dispute really has to have some significance to really matter in reality - the reality being a hard and fast cost/benefit analysis, which is pretty easy to do when you don’t have much dinero to be wasting.
But, after you get a few dollars in the bank, and you get the right attorney, you are left in the unenviable position of actually being able to chase down some of these do-badders, and seek your revenge. So now that the cost/benefit calculation has changed, and benefit can include ‘principle’, ‘anger’, ‘what’s right’, it leaves the door open to chase a lot of offenses, without a lot guardrails.
I remember the same experience a bit with the one assistant I hired - my first real assistant, who was good at her job. It allowed me to do all sorts of things that came to my mind, and that proved dangerous since there was value in not being able to snap my fingers and act on a whim or grievance - there was real value to not being able to chase after each gripe or wrong.
In the same vein, It’s hard to overstate how abused you can feel as a small businessperson, how somedays it feels as if you are a unmoving target to lots of other people’s spears and arrows, with an empty arsenal to fight back other than to stay focused on building the business, and avoiding distraction. That can be done and achieved, but it’s not always an easy path, so not having a good attorney or not having a good assistant just keeps you from chasing distraction.\
I’ve literally transacted $200,000,000 of small contracts over the last 20 years, and it’s a badge of honor at the lack of disputes that have progressed past mean emails, but it also feels good to be able to use the legal system as another tool, a tool really only the rich can afford to use except in the most necessary situations. That after 20 years, I don’t have to let every single offense go un-responded to. That’s no way for a street fighter to live a life. With nearly 300 homes sold, the lack of litigation we have experienced is a testament to our entire approach of problem resolution - which boils down to ‘be careful who you work with’, ‘be fair’, ‘take care of the gray areas as the cost of doing business’ and ‘stick to your core competencies’, and ‘don’t be a push over’ and ‘stand your ground’ when appropriate.
Happy Holidays and here’s to 2023.
