Lessons from the Trenches: A Journey from the Construction Site to Consulting Excellence

Narrator: [: 00:00:00

Welcome, welcome,

e Ask Brian radio show on KHS: 1220

And that's what we try to do. We've been doing that for, actually in January, it'll be eight years. That's a long, it's a long time. And the name of the show is called Ask Brian. B R I [00:01:00] E N, and we have our resident expert, Tracy, are you there?

Traci: I am here, yes, and happy birthday to you, I'm very thrilled that it's your special day, at least within 24 hours of your special day anyway, so.

Peter Bronstein: Well, me and Olivia here, John, what can I say?

Traci: I know! She always comes up on our show. I mean, she only knew how much she was loved and adored. And didn't you just say you recently just watched the movie Grease again? Maybe, maybe that's why.

Peter Bronstein: Yeah. Yeah, it was on.

Traci: Maybe.

Peter Bronstein: There was no movies that I wanted to watch.

Traci: Celebrating all of the birthdays today. But we also are celebrating our E's because we have extraordinary E's, um, and speaking of extraordinary, I always like to kick it off with our first day with our engineer Jen. Yay, Jen.

Peter Bronstein: Thank you. I don't have to do this like last week?

Traci: We had to pivot last week with some technical issues.

s fun. It was fun. Bye. Bye. [: 00:02:00

All of that being said, no true entrepreneur and startup is actually probably working 40. They're probably working way more than 40 hours. So we're thinking you're probably going to knock this out in three years. But all of that to be said, it's all about the experts [00:03:00] because they are providing such good education to shortcut all of our learning curves in ways because they've already been through it, done it, and they're helping us to prevent us from having to make the same mistakes.

And I love what you said, Peter, when we kicked off, that it's like, if you leave listening to this show with one tip or one nugget that moves you forward, our job is done here. So, We are very focused on the experts, very focused on the education, and we try to show up for the empathy, but I can't speak for Peter on that.

I can only speak for myself again on that.

Peter Bronstein: I never heard of that.

Traci: Exactly. That's another E, exactly, right? You know, I'm always showing up pretty enthusiastic, but when I asked our guest today how he was feeling, he was more enthusiastic than most anybody I think that I've talked to today. But how are you feeling, Peter?

is Farley and Kim Sanderson, [: 00:04:00

Traci: And that actually isn't just because it was your birthday and you got cake. That's literally how you show up every week. And that's why our eardrums are always compromised.

Peter Bronstein: Because I'm so excited to be having a new person to interview. I'm so excited to learn something new. I'm so excited for being around the engineer and the co host.

I mean, why wouldn't I be excited? I got it all.

Traci: I couldn't agree more. And that's what makes us, in honor of Olivia Newton John and Grace, so electrifying. So, with that note, take it away, Peter.

Peter Bronstein: Thank you very much. Alright, so we have our guest. Has our guest left and said, Why am I here? I don't know who got me into this, but this is going to be hell to pay.

Or, you're still there. I'm still here, but are you ex excited as I am? ? I am

com: absolutely ecstatic and [: 00:05:00

Peter Bronstein: Woo hoo. All right, so first of all, people don't know who you are. So first we'd kind of like to have a brief summary of. Who you are and, uh, where you came from and how you got to where you are.

So first, give us a little background. You started a new company recently. We, I know a little bit about it before we get there. Let's get the little background of where you came from and how you got there.

Jesse Hernandez, Jr. of DepthBuilder.com: Yeah, you got it. So everybody knows me as Jesse, but my name is Jesus. That's the name my mama gave me.

gan my working career. In the: 1900

Then I went to work for a national brand as their director of environmental health and safety. I was invited over there to help them with a cultural transformation. And shortly, that was about a nine or ten month stint. And I heard the calling to launch my consulting business about just over two years ago.

And so I got to learn along the way, starting off as an apprentice plumber, journeying in different middle management roles, et cetera, and then working as a change leader for general contractors and owners, et cetera. I got to learn that we have a communication thing and it doesn't matter what level of the organization you're in or what your education is or how much backlog you're managing.

han we are different. And so [: 00:07:00

Peter Bronstein: Oh, that's no small peanut for that nutshell. Anyway. So how do you go from being in the construction and then branding? I guess I got a little bit there and the environmental and the safety stuff.

How do you go from there to become a consultant? Because to me, it sounds like even though it's the same field and you have that background and you have all that knowledge, I mean, it's a whole brand new business. I mean, now you got to go out and get customers, find people to tell people, Hey, listen, you know, I have a lot of background.

I can help you out and provide you stuff. How do you go make that transition? So that's a really great question. First, I'm a

Jesse Hernandez, Jr. of DepthBuilder.com: little

Peter Bronstein: nutty, right?

Jesse Hernandez, Jr. of DepthBuilder.com: Um,

Peter Bronstein: I, we know about the nutshell already, but yeah,

Jesse Hernandez, Jr. of DepthBuilder.com: right, right. Exactly. And so I found out that there was a segment of the work that I was doing that brought me like enormous fulfillment.

nd I was working with people [: 00:08:00

All the time and working these jobs, the company's not, they didn't need me to do that for them. So it wasn't going to be a good business decision for them. So I just decided I'm going to have to figure that out. Now, an interesting thing in this, I share this because I think it's a valid, it was a hugely valuable insight for me.

When I was talking to friends about launching my business, they were like, well, what are you going to do? And so I was trying to describe it, right? Like I'm going to do coaching and consulting and help people with problem solving, fact based problem solving, blah, blah, blah. And then what's the biggest hurdle?

nd one friend, she said, but [: 00:09:00

And so I said, okay, I saved up 18 months worth of cash to cover my life expenses, my living expenses. And I gave myself 18 months to figure out how to start a business. And, um, so far I'm not dancing for money yet. So I think things are going pretty good.

Peter Bronstein: Well, the club is very happy anyway, dancing for money.

Now, how did you get your first customer?

iends that I had worked with [: 00:10:00

And, you know, we're talking about it. I'm like, man, I don't know anybody that does that sort of thing. They needed a facilitator. And one of the guys says, dummy, we want you to be the facilitator. Oh, okay, sure. So that's how I landed my very first paid gig shortly thereafter. I'd say within 60 days, another friend of mine who lives in Dallas.

She had referred somebody, a decision maker with a big organization to me because they were looking to do some organizational transformation. But what they wanted to do was they wanted to work with their VP, department heads, etc. And the field out on the job site. And so what they wanted was one person or one source for that effort.

oth over the course of a few [: 00:11:00

And so I work with him on a we'll say contract basis. So that's the closest I have to Having an employee.

Peter Bronstein: Okay, and how many clients you currently have?

Jesse Hernandez, Jr. of DepthBuilder.com: Oh, right now I've got five active clients and I've got a few prospects that were working through what service or how I can best serve them. The fortunate thing is the active clients I have are making long term investments in what it is they're working to accomplish.

So that creates a situation where I'm not. Constantly chasing, uh, work.

Peter Bronstein: How do you measure success?

ilder.com: Ooh, two, there's [: 00:12:00

That for me is a success signal because I know i've impacted that person in such a way That they're going to begin operating differently the second is Kind of a long tail and requires a lot a lot of discipline for me is actually seeing the business impact of the efforts my clients have embarked upon because That's usually it's one of the lagging indicators.

tement. So that's not really [: 00:13:00

And so. That's the other feather in my hat.

Peter Bronstein: What's a typical time period, you know, so let's say I start working with you before I can see some tangible results.

Jesse Hernandez, Jr. of DepthBuilder.com: Oh my goodness. So by tangible, I'm going to assume you're talking about like financial results.

Peter Bronstein: Probably. Yeah. Yeah. If that was the goal when they came to you.

Jesse Hernandez, Jr. of DepthBuilder.com: Yeah. Yeah. So that's a difficult question to answer because there's a lot of variation in the type of Work that I do, but I'll give one simple, basic example, and then I'll give another kind of bigger, the sexier one that people really love. One of the examples I have is the team was asking for, to learn a particular system that we use, it's a collaborative planning system that we use in construction.

ying elements of the system. [: 00:14:00

And in those cases, we can see the production improvement. Within two days of studying it, deploying some countermeasures or improvement ideas to it, and then measuring the impact of that, that can happen in two days. What's not sexy about that is those improvements are usually micro improvements that are only improving a process by we'll say anywhere from 10 to 60 minutes, but the compounding gains of those of a 10 minute improvement on an activity that happens four times an hour.

mation. They think of phases [: 00:15:00

I mean i've had it happen within eight months The next phase of that is like, okay. Now, how do we adjust or calibrate the mindset? Of the executives and the decision makers so that they understand how they're contributing to the current performance and what they need to do to Achieve the outcome that they're seeking and that i've never been able to see that happen in less Than a year and I credit that mostly to the enormous amount of workload Our executive decision makers, I mean, hell, everybody has on their plate.

So trying to change and learn is difficult when you're stressed to the gills with mountains and mountains of work.

working so hard to keep your [: 00:16:00

All right. So I've always just been like that.

Traci: I would love to jump in, you've kind of really shared some specifics about your entrepreneurial journey, but I know that everybody's pathway to running a successful and profitable business absolutely has some hurdles and some challenges. So share with us a couple that you've experienced and then more importantly, once you experienced them, how did you overcome them?

Jesse Hernandez, Jr. of DepthBuilder.com: Yes, thank you. So one of them I anticipated and I thought I had like measures in place to deal with it and then I did it. And so that one was like overloading myself to the point where I would be underserving my client or missing the target in terms of the quality of experience I wanted to deliver.

And you're coming up as [: 00:17:00

I had to draft all the proposals. I had to do the business development produced. I had to learn how to put proposals together, learn how to do invoices, like all of the back of house stuff that I never ever had to do. And I was getting a lot of work. I was getting a lot of gigs and I found myself back into working in crisis and stress mode.

days up to two years, [: 00:18:00

So I got to the point where I was at my limit and kind of just not doing anything to the quality that I wanted to do it. And I said, I need a different system. So what I did, and it's worked out extremely well, is I drafted out a tiered pricing system. And so, basically, first tier pricing was if I had zero to Let's just say 40 hours of contact time committed to client if anywhere in the month It was between 0 and 40.

nt about the work submit the [: 00:19:00

And if this number fits your budget, being the lower number, I can start that work, but I won't be able to start it until let's say December. And so it accomplished a couple things for me. One, I didn't have to tell him no. And two, it created, set the situation up for creating backlog. Does that make sense?

Traci: Yes. I think it's great that you're talking about how you integrated your pricing structures. It's one of the things that I think entrepreneurs really, they don't have a lot of access to information. Around how people price their services and how they especially in a in a service based business So, can you talk a little bit more in detail about how you came up with the prices in this particular strategy?

And even to the degree of like how you're factoring in your margins and things like that

unt of credit you give me so [: 00:20:00

I have a book about that, but as I was on the path, chewing on the idea about starting my consulting business, several people asked me how I was going to do pricing and how I was going to charge. And I'm like, I remember the first number I threw out there was I'm going to base my pricing at 187 an hour.

I was a, you know, I came up [: 00:21:00

And so that number for me really, really made me uncomfortable because I didn't, the way I thought about money at the time was very, very different. Finally, I had one of my coaches. Who said Jesse given the and he'd known me for years that given the experience and the knowledge that you have and the way that you can connect with people, if you charge less than 400, like if you create your pricing on a factor of less than 400 an hour.

You are underserving everybody else that can deliver it at the level that you can deliver. And you're going to be broke and you're going to be working like a madman. And I said, that's crazy, ridiculous money. That's a lot of money. Again, from my background and my perspective, that's huge amounts of money.

per hour as I could [: 00:22:00

And so I wanted to have that backup number. I submitted the proposal and they said, okay, when do we start? And I said, Oh my goodness. This is a miracle.

Traci: Okay, so what I'm going to, and I'm going to pick up where we left off on this particular conversation around pricing, because I think it's so important to highlight the one thing that you said that you didn't say exactly, which is you were successful in being able to close that price point at an extremely higher level than you were accustomed to.

you were confident when you [: 00:23:00

Did you stay at that rate or did you raise it?

Jesse Hernandez, Jr. of DepthBuilder.com: Oh, I love it. So absolutely not. I was not Confident. I was leaving sleep over the call because I was expecting them to tell me to pound sand. And so when she said, okay, like let's, let's send the date, let's get started. I said, oh my goodness, what just happened?

their budget for coffee and [: 00:24:00

And the numbers were They're big big numbers, but the company was like, yes. Yes, that works You know, what are we going to get and how's it going to work and sure like let's let's go So I wasn't charging the human being that I was interacting with I was Charging the company and the company spends more than that on coffee.

Now, what helped me really lock in my confidence was the kind of the tiered system I was referring to earlier. I got to a point where I chose to submit some proposals at the tier two price. Expecting people to say no, and then we would postpone the start until I could get them back tier one price. And they didn't bat an eye.

un? And that happened enough [: 00:25:00

Traci: it since we're kind of having this great very insightful conversation around pricing which most people just aren't really willing to Think through or talk about I'm curious if you, how do you approach, if you have an existing client and they're up for renewal, how do you tackle raising rates for an existing client or do you just bring new clients in at a higher rate and grandfather your existing clients?

How do you handle that?

s what it was a reference to [: 00:26:00

So when I raised my base rate for all the existing clients that I had at the time, I wasn't like anything that we had already penned and dealed. Like locked in, I wasn't changing those prices, right? Even though it was carrying over into the new year, but I had to give them a heads up that my rates would be going up in the new year.

And so what I did was silly. I sent an email and I tied it. I titled it black Friday pricing opportunity. And in the email, I said, I love you. Y'all are awesome. Love working with y'all. Been amazing. I want to give you a heads up and the opportunity to lock in any work that you're anticipating with me for next year at this year's rates.

the year. Will be priced at [: 00:27:00

And it was, and I've got to add this, the relationships I have with my clients because of the connection, the amount of time that I get to spend with them, like before, like pre and post. Service I think is what enables me to have those types of conversation So if you it's like if I didn't have those regular contact points with them It would i'm sure it would have been a much different experience

Peter Bronstein: Tracy you had some more questions you wanted to ask

Traci: Well first I want to be sure that people have an opportunity to connect with you after the show What is the best way for people to get in touch with you?

e search jesse depth builder [: 00:28:00

Traci: I love that. Well, if you are listening to this episode and want to go back and re listen to this content for any reason, we know that's not the way live radio works, that's why we repurposed this content into a podcast that you can grab at any time, wherever you listen to your favorite podcast.

And of course, you want to search for the Ask Brian Podcast, that's A S K B B r i e n The podcast and you'll be able to get all of these notes on pricing and entrepreneurial challenges and building and scaling business and We thank you for being a great expert today, and i'm going to turn it back over to you peter

Peter Bronstein: Well, thank you very much, Trace.

d of it and what it's about. [: 00:29:00

Jesse Hernandez, Jr. of DepthBuilder.com: Yes, I got you. Uh, so one book, the one I wrote solo is titled becoming the promise you're intended to be. That book is specifically for anybody who is struggling with self-destructive behavior or addiction.

It is my story because I am living proof that if you don't have to stay there. The second book is titled Lean In Love, uh, five This Love Letters, and that's about, it's kind of a, a tactical book. How to apply a lean tool to our relationships. Almost systematizes relationship building. Professional and personal and romantic even, but I am not a case study for that.

Peter Bronstein: Wow, that was interesting. And how, how can people get these books? Amazon. They're both

Jesse Hernandez, Jr. of DepthBuilder.com: available on Amazon. You know, you can search it.

Peter Bronstein: And do you have any current books that you're working on?

actually an unfair question. [: 00:30:00

And so there is a book in my head, but it currently doesn't have a purpose, nor does it have an audience. And so I'm hoping it stays that way so I don't have to write it. But when I, when the proper signal starts chirping, I may go ahead and put myself into that misery one last time.

Peter Bronstein: Okay. What was the biggest challenge you had in your new business?

Jesse Hernandez, Jr. of DepthBuilder.com: The biggest challenge that I had in my new business was getting past the fact that I didn't have the credentials. I didn't have the experience. I didn't have the clout. To start a business. It was all in my head. That was my biggest challenge.

Peter Bronstein: You said you have a podcast, right? What is the name of the podcast?

podcast is the learnings and [: 00:31:00

Peter Bronstein: And that's available on all the major podcast companies or is limited somewhere or what?

Jesse Hernandez, Jr. of DepthBuilder.com: Yeah, yeah, no, it's available on all the stuff. I've also got a YouTube channel. If you want to see my smiling face and more importantly. The beautiful enlightening faces of my guests because I get to interview folks every week or so

Peter Bronstein: So the shoe is on the other foot.

Yeah i'm asking And you get to ask your own questions wow now it's not the biggest challenge and you only have 50 seconds left What's the biggest regret in starting this new business?

Jesse Hernandez, Jr. of DepthBuilder.com: Oh, my goodness. The biggest regret is not calling and telling everyone I've ever met that I have started a business because every time somebody I know finds out, they're like, man, I didn't know, and I have somebody I can refer to, and that's just two and a half years later.

limited just to the plumbing [: 00:32:00

Jesse Hernandez, Jr. of DepthBuilder.com: Yep. No, it's open to everybody. I just been banging my head against the wall in the construction industry for about 30 years now. So all the great stories I have are only construction related.

Peter Bronstein: All right. Well, thank you very much for being our guest. And I don't know if I should call you Jesse or how your mom pronounces it is Zeus or Jesus. Thank you very much for being on our show. And you're listening to the Ask Brian radio show on KTHS FM over and out.

us every Thursday on KTHS AM: 1220

That's ask BRIE n.com.