Hardscape Insider Podcast

The key topics discussed include:

• Christian’s background and how he got started in the concrete business 
• The challenges he faced as a young business owner and how he overcame them 
• The importance of effective communication and customer service in the industry 
• How Christian has used marketing and technology to scale his business 
• Lessons he has learned about contracts, pricing, and managing growth 
• Advice for other concrete contractors looking to grow their companies

Brian Basik (00:01):

Okay, welcome to the Hardscape Insider podcast. We’re here all about building success in the hardscape industry. I’m your host Brian, basic owner of the city of law, hardscape marketing. After spending 20 years in corporate America, leading sales organisations and scaling and selling my own home services company and launching a marketing company, I discovered my passion helping hardscape contractors grow and dominate their local markets. Each episode will bring you real life success stories, expert interviews and actionable strategies to help you take your business to the next level. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to scale, we’ve got your insights, ideas, tools to turn your business into a market leader, and we’re going to do that and have some fun along the way. Okay, well, today, I’m so excited. This is my first podcast, and so I’ve got one of my best customers and a good friend of mine, Christian Hernandez, is here today to be on our first podcast. So Christian, thanks for being here. I appreciate it. And so if you could, could you introduce yourself to the folks out there?

Christian Hernandez (00:57):

So my name’s Christian. I’m the owner of Christian Hernandez Concrete. Been in business for going on eight years now. Grew up born and raised in Fort Myers and just trying to create a future.

Brian Basik (01:09):

And so you’re a young guy. I noticed that when we first got together. So a little background on how you and I met, I had a home services company, a power washing company. We were doing a project and we were using big lifts to clean roofs in Fort Myers. And my guys made the mistake of putting a 25,000 pound lift on a residential driveway and we cracked a couple of those. And then I had to search for a concrete contractor that could perform the work of replacing these small driveways. And so somebody gave me your name and I had gotten a couple other folks’ names and I had reached out and getting somebody to call you back was a big deal. And then B, that the ranges of proposals were all over the board. And so when I called and met you, you knew what you were talking about and it was pretty quick decision to say, Hey, I want this guy.

(01:58):

And so I hired Christian to do it. He did a great job. You’re always worried about this. We broke a couple of people’s driveway and so it wasn’t my company that was doing the work, but it was representing my company. And so that meant a lot to me. And so I wanted someone that was going to show up on time and not make a mess and just not upset the customers. And you guys did a great job in doing that. So that’s how we first met way back when. And then lo and behold, I think we were in a B and I group together.

(02:24):

And so that was a great chance to just reconnect with Christian. And then obviously I have a digital marketing company and Christian became one of my first customers way back when. And so he’s been a customer since the beginning. And so one of the things that I realised when I met you was that you seem to have your, you’re a young guy. I mean, this was eight years ago, right? So you’re not that old right now. That was eight years ago. And so you just knew your stuff. And so what I was impressed with is how much you had a CRM system, which was unique for a guy that just started out. You knew your numbers really well, you were a good businessman. And so that was kind of unique. I didn’t see that a lot. And so I was impressed by that. And so you talked about you’ve been in business eight years, so what made you get into concrete? Why concrete? Why this business in industry?

Christian Hernandez (03:12):

So growing up, I can remember seven, probably around seven years old. My father, he was in the business of doing concrete work and he started his own company, grew up around it. I was always the tool boy, helping him out on the summers, trying to earn money for school clothes, things like that. And right around 2015 after the recession hit early oh 7 0 8, it kind of tanked them around 14 fifth, 2014, 2015. And then I seen an opportunity, I wanted to be a doctor, and I seen an opportunity with the company that my father had closed to get that back going not only to help myself but my father and my family. So it was kind of natural for me it because I had grew up around it from, like I said, a young age. So it was just very natural.

Brian Basik (03:59):

And so did you work for your dad at the beginning or did you actually start your company and hire your dad? How did that work?

Christian Hernandez (04:05):

So when I started it, 2016 is when I graduated high school. I went to college for about a year, was getting my licencing during that time 2017. And then, yeah, my father was, at the time he was unemployed. It was kind of a hard time for the family. So I ended up opening the company back up, getting my licence, focusing on sales, trying to find contracts. And my dad had the skill, I had the ability to talk to people and we kind of put the two together. He worked for me, taught me the trade, and here we are eight years later, still chugging along.

Brian Basik (04:41):

And so what was your biggest challenge when you first started? First couple of years,

Christian Hernandez (04:45):

The challenge starting off was a couple smaller challenges. One being young, presenting myself to these customers that obviously want a reputable company. All those things that you had mentioned when you were looking for somebody being young, they see a young guy. It kind of was a little bit harder for them to have trust for me being so young and then also finding employees that would respect me. That’s a big deal. Or good employees at that, not being able to really afford good employees. So it was all, those were a few troubles at the beginning

Brian Basik (05:20):

I would think. Because you were so young and most of the guys working for you could be almost twice your age. And so you had a credibility gap there.

Christian Hernandez (05:28):

Yes, definitely.

Brian Basik (05:29):

But your dad probably helped you kind of bridge the gap there as well. Plus you knew what you were talking about. You grew up in the industry, right? Yeah. That’s cool. As you look at scaling your business, so now eight years later, you’ve doubled almost every year since I’ve known you, since I’ve worked with you. And so you hit not the magic number, but you hit a pretty big number recently for 2024. And so what’s been your success, some things that you can point to that have helped you get to that first million bucks that you wanted to hit, and then what do you think it’s going to take, it’s going to take to get to the next level?

Christian Hernandez (06:04):

So I mean, really one of the most important things, as Brian mentioned earlier, we met through a networking group, well previously to that, but we actually got really fond of each other after that. We joined a networking group. So meeting with all those people that already were seasoned in business, all of them kind of said the same thing. And I had clients too that were very successful, that would give me advice. I always ask people, what’s one piece of advice that you would give a young kid trying to come into this? And everybody said the same thing, answer the phone, respond to the customers, be honest, do good work, and it’ll pay tenfold. So that’s kind of one of the biggest things that I feel like brought success to me is that I always pick up the phone, I always call back, I’m very on top of the communication with the customers, whereas a lot of people fail in that part of the business. They might be good at doing concrete work, but they’re not good at communicating, not good at delivering the service. They’re good at doing the work, but not delivering the service in between. So I really tried to excel in that,

Brian Basik (07:00):

And that’s a big deal because again, when you’re an operator, you can get ingrained in the operations and the sales piece, what people want. You mentioned earlier just calling people back, communicating the bar is pretty low here in Florida. I mean the contractors are just so bad in calling people back and doing that kind of stuff. You can differentiate yourself in just doing the simple things and you do those really well.

Christian Hernandez (07:20):

Yeah, no, definitely. Yeah, the expectations are already really low, like you said. So really, I mean people think that it takes a lot to be successful and it really just takes the bare minimum, just answer the phone and call back.

Brian Basik (07:32):

You actually do a lot more than that. But yeah, it is something that you’re really good at and you can be good at the basics of communicating with the customers. And you do that through your CRM system, allows you to communicate automatically with customers after a job or before a job. Hey, we’re going to be at your place next tomorrow. It’s reminding them so that you have that communication. And even afterwards, you do a great job of getting reviews. You got over 105 star reviews on Google, and so you do a good job after the fact of communicating with them. The best time to get reviews is right when you’re done and they’re happy. And so you do a great job of doing that as well. And so that’s really good. So there’s a lot of concrete people here in this southwest Florida. And so what do you think, besides your business acumen, is there anything else that you’re doing that differentiates you?

Christian Hernandez (08:20):

I mean, really just trying to be true to myself and what my goals are really is I think the only other thing that motivated, staying motivated, keeping that fire lid underneath me. I think that’s really just the big thing for me

Brian Basik (08:34):

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Christian Hernandez (09:12):

So I mean, coming into the business the first year, I think we did like 25 jobs, 25, 28 jobs, something like that. And a lot of that came from a networking group. So going from that to the next year, doing 40 jobs and 60, then 80, then a hundred, then a 40 last year. Definitely marketing played a huge part. Originally when I first started the business, I always felt like I couldn’t afford it. I couldn’t afford to pay for the marketing, I kind of just had to chug along with what I had. And then after meeting Brian and learning a little other people as well, learning a couple little tricks, and it’s all a number game, learning how to actually use the marketing to spending that money to make it work for you definitely helped me out a lot. It took us to the next level. It allowed us to successfully double the revenue every year, and it was happening naturally, but it helped speed up the process a little bit, helped me do the things and achieve the goals that I wanted to do.

Brian Basik (10:12):

We just did your 2025 plan, and so we looked at what’s the goal for 2025, what’s that number? And then based upon your average deal size and your close rate, we figured out how many deals you have to do in 2025 in order to hit that goal. And then when we looked at your close rate, you know what your close rate is, and we figured that out. How many leads do we need to bring in to be able to use that close rate to get to that number, to drive to the 2025 number and all those numbers.

(10:40):

And so that’s going to help both you and I as we go through this. We can look at a monthly basis and say, Hey, you need to have, I think we figured out somewhere around 96 leads in order to hit your number. Well, I mean we’re way above that now and plus your average size of your deals is higher than we anticipated before. So that helps you get to that number with almost less leads and it allows you to do some other things. And what other things does that allow you to do when you have more business than you need? What can you do as a business owner? What are some of the things?

Christian Hernandez (11:12):

So what that’s allowed me to do, so before we were taking every job we could get, there was jobs that we were over kind of killing ourselves to try to get them done. I wasn’t able to be selective with the jobs that I was accepting or providing bids for, so we just had to take what we could get. Every little bone that they threw at me, I had to take it. And then with marketing, that really just allowed me to be able to say, look, these are the type of jobs that I want. This is what my goal is and this is what it’s going to take to get there. And so more selective, it’s allowed me to really fine tune and comb through my profit margins and just really helps you grow at that point because now it opens all the doors for you.

Brian Basik (12:01):

You said something really interesting. You said you realised or you understood from working with other successful business owners that you can’t afford to market. That’s not the issue. The thing is, what is the return on investment that you’re getting? Because anybody, somebody say, I don’t have the money to market. Well, if you’re getting a good return on investment, you got the money to market because you’re going to have the revenue go along with it, right? Yeah,

Christian Hernandez (12:23):

Definitely.

Brian Basik (12:24):

And so that’s what, as you look at your numbers and you say, okay, my ROI on my marketing dollars is going to be this, so it’s going to raise my average deal size and it’s going to bring in this many more leads. And now one of the things that you’ve been able to do, and we’ve talked about this a lot, is changing your margin. You were at the beginning, as you said, you took a lot of jobs just to stay busy. Now that you’ve got the leads that you’ve gotten, now you can be more selective and even being more selective, not only the better jobs with the higher margins, but you can say you’re not the new kid on the block anymore. You’re the guy who’s been around. So there’s value in having that. So you can price yourself based on the value that you deliver, just not on, you’re not bidding on price. You’ve had instances where people have said, Hey, I can find it for less, right?

Christian Hernandez (13:11):

Yeah, definitely. I’ve had people sell me half the price, two thirds of the price. At the end of the day, if they want it done, they know who to call.

Brian Basik (13:18):

And because what you do is when somebody says, Hey, I can get this for half, you say, okay, I mean great, if you could do that, that’s great, but we’re, that’s not where we’re at and here’s why we’re at where we’re at. And then you walk ’em through the whole pit permitting process and all the other things that you have to do and you explain to them what’s involved in doing this. And then if their contractor hasn’t done that, right, they may be trying to come back at the end of the deal to say, Hey, you need to pay more money and it’s going to be a different story. And you see a lot of that, right?

Christian Hernandez (13:45):

Yeah, I see a lot of that. I think really a lot of the problem too is with a lot of business owners, especially newer business owners, is not really understanding what the cost is to successfully mobilise and complete projects. A lot of people, they bid a little less. They think they’re making a grand or two. After you calculate your insurance and licencing and wear and tear and workers’ comp and payroll taxes and you name it, et cetera, et cetera, then you realise that that $2,000 really is only two $300 after you’ve paid all your costs for that specific job. So really understanding overhead was really big for me, understanding that now, that’s what’s made me separate myself a little bit price wise from some of these other companies. And a lot of customers question that price gap. And a lot of times it really just boils down to those people are not quoting the job appropriately, they’re not really making money at the end of the year,

Brian Basik (14:47):

And that will come through in the quality of the work that they do at the timeframe that they do it, or if they even finish it, right? They may get into this and realise, Hey, I’m losing my shirt on this, right? The margin is so paper thin and they’re not really putting everything into the calculations. And so as a result, you see a lot of people walk from a job because, Hey, I’m not making any money, so I really don’t care. And it gives cement guy a bad name, but that’s what happens when you go with the lowest bidder, right? Of course. And I remember when we were having regular conversations, you had talked about, Hey, I get my overhead man. I’m beginning to distribute my overhead appropriately so that I know what I’m making, which is a Keith point of any business, right?

Christian Hernandez (15:28):

Yeah, definitely.

Brian Basik (15:29):

Alright, cool. Well, so tell me some of the lessons that you’ve learned, maybe some of the harder lessons that you’ve learned now in eight years of doing this. What are some of the harder lessons that you’ve learned that if someone else is going through this, you can say, here’s kind of what happened and here’s what I learned and here’s how I do it a little bit different?

Christian Hernandez (15:47):

Yeah. So I’m going to start first, not just with myself, but I had mentioned being around the business from seven years old, watching my parents go through trials and tribulations with the business. I’d say one of the first lessons I learned at an early age, watching my parents listening to all their phone calls, asking questions when they would talk to customers, all those things, my father doing work for people and not getting paid. So one of the big things for my father that kind of was his demise was he did X amount of dollars over 20 grand worth of work for a company and ended up not getting paid. And that was that. And the reason being is because all he had was a text message saying, Hey, do the job. Never did he have a contract? Never did he have anything in writing and things.

(16:41):

So the first thing that I did when I started my company was I went to an attorney, paid for him to write up a contract, basically the way that I came up with to try to save some costs on his end. I went through other concrete companies over the nation, I went through their websites, read their terms and conditions, kind of pulled a little bit from each company points that I liked and then forwarded those all to him. He typed up the contract, so it covers me from front to back, from start to finish and allowed me to be protected. One of my problems, one of my mistakes that I had, even though I did learn that lesson early and have the contract in place, one of the lessons that I had learned on my own was I did work for a guy that I had thought was a friend of mine.

(17:26):

They got engineering. So we give a preliminary quote, they got the engineering after the engineer report, we had to change some of the scope of work to meet the standard of the engineering, the requirements. And I never sent over a change order. So I just did the work, got done, sent ’em the additional for the bill, and they’re like, well, we’re not paying you for that. I guess one of the guys was an attorney too that worked for one of the board, a retired attorney, and he really stuck it to me. And I kind of got burned for a few grand on that project, burn a friendship, kind of had that little lesson there. But basically what I learned off of that whole thing was even though you have a contract in place, you really have to understand your contract, read it, don’t just have one made and send it to all your customers and sign it and never read that right?

(18:12):

Now, fast forward to now, I know my contract front to back. I know everything that I need to do per my agreement that’s going to cover my back and allow me to be successful within my own contract. So having a contract is important, but also understanding the contract is more important. And right now there’s nothing crossing the t’s dot the i’s anything that anytime a customer changes something, stop work, send an email, put everything in writing, have ’em sign whatever they need to sign, making sure you’re doing your change orders, making sure everything is from A to Z is covered and not leaving any room for error is really important. That’s a big lesson that I learned.

Brian Basik (18:55):

Yeah, I remember when I had my home services company, I had had a good contract and then I added disclaimer as well that went in this detail on all the stuff that I wasn’t responsible for. And over the years, a disclaimer got longer as I got burnt on stuff that I didn’t anticipate, like wood doors, right? I mean, I never anticipate that when you pressure wash the outside of a house, I’d be at risk around the stain on the door. And so obviously that got inputted into my disclaimer of things I’m not responsible for. And so you kind of learn, and so you did a lot of that stuff and that’s a good thing because that saves so much money when you do that.

Christian Hernandez (19:31):

Yeah, definitely. And to your point, yeah, you always have to revisit that a contract’s not forever. As you learn, you have to adjust things, you have to make it work for you. That’s been very important as well.

Brian Basik (19:42):

The other thing I’ve learned to the point you just made earlier is that when that disclaimer did grow, obviously we made them sign that disclaimer before we even stepped foot on the property. And the only times that I really got burnt was when I made an exception and they didn’t make them sign it because it was a lawyer. He had some disagreement. And I said, all right, well just move along and it bit me in the butt. And so I learned after those kinds of things, do it a accordance to the contract and all the paperwork so that there’s no confusion about what needs to be done or I told you or I’m not responsible. Here’s what we told you about that. All that kind of stuff.

Christian Hernandez (20:18):

Yeah, I’ve had repeat customers tell me, do I have to sign it again? Yeah, you have to sign it. Again, this is procedure. This is something that I have to do. It’s not because I don’t trust you. It’s not because I don’t know who you are. It’s just something to have it in writing. It’s

Brian Basik (20:31):

Business.

Christian Hernandez (20:32):

So everybody knows what the expectations are and how it’s going to be. The process is going to go

Brian Basik (20:40):

Want even more hardscape, business tips, insider knowledge and networking opportunities. Join our hardscape contractors mastermind on Facebook, connect with hardscape business owners, share your success stories, ask questions, and get exclusive content from our guests. It’s a free resource designed to help you grow, learn and network with other top contractors in the industry. Join today by searching hardscape contractors Mastermind on Facebook or clicking the link in the show notes below. So as you look at your business now, like I said, you just crossed a pretty big milestone and now you’re going to hopefully almost double in the next year. Doubling and scaling comes with its own challenges and not only the sales piece, but you seem to have that down. The operational piece is the thing that can kill you because you can bring in all the business you want. If you can’t do it, that’s the issue. And so how do you scale in a way that you can keep up? Do you get in front of it or how do you get in front of it as you scale?

Christian Hernandez (21:38):

So I mean, what’s really worked for me strategically scaling, being young, just kind of learning as I go as well. What I’ve found that works for me is I will scale a little bit, get acclimated to that plateau, grow a little bit more, get acclimated to that plateau, grow a little, and then I kind of rinse and repeat that cycle. And that’s helped me scale proportionately. One of the things that I had actually my uncle had told me, which is a very successful business owner, my and uncle, what I was told back in the day when I was younger, 17, 18 years old was a lot of people get into it and they want to make a million dollars the first year. They want to grow. They want to be the biggest company right off the bat. And that’s really the demise of a lot of companies is trying to grow too quick. Unless you have all the funds in the world to be able to do that, it’s not feasible when you don’t. So just really growing slowly getting adjusted so that way I can handle the call volumes, handle the engagements with the customers, make sure that I’m staying on top of everything. Like you said, being in front of it, not behind it,

Brian Basik (22:51):

Because you want to get to the point where you’re working on the business, not necessarily in the business. It takes a while to get to that. You’re beginning to get to that point where you’re going to need to hire a sales guy to do what you do. You’re really good at sales, so you’re going to have to train that person to be really good as well, but that will then free you up to then focus on some other things. It could be technology, it could be more people things. And so that small growth in adding people is going to be really important for you. Do you see that the same?

Christian Hernandez (23:22):

Yeah, I definitely do. Knowing what I know now, and if I could go back five years, seven years, eight years and start over again, knowing what I know now, definitely would’ve made the jump a lot sooner. Definitely would’ve started hiring those key players, those key components earlier. But it all boiled down to just really not understanding how to make the money work for me, not knowing how to put things in place and understanding those number of things that we talked about earlier, the closing rate, what the average job is, what the average job profit is, how many more jobs you would need by hiring said person, whether it be in the field or in the office, and knowing how many more leads. That was something that you helped me out a lot. Understanding just knowing that if I hire a guy for $30 an hour and he’s working five days a week and four weeks out the month, and all I need really is maybe four more jobs, five more jobs to be able to afford that employee. And if that guy can free me up in the field, replace me in the field and allow me to focus on sales more, I can probably sell 10 more jobs a month

(24:29):

And be more profitable. So if I would’ve knew that a lot earlier, I would’ve definitely applied that sooner.

Brian Basik (24:36):

But that was a good calculation that we went through and say, because you were kind of, should I hire this person for an office? You were spending a bunch of time on the phone. It was like you got to find somebody to take that burden off you. And so we figured out the math and said, based on the number of new leads you need to close in order to make that happen, you were going to do that in your sleep. And so that would then afford you the ability to do more sales. And so that wasn’t even going to be an issue. And so to go through the math of that is an important thing because it makes you be able to sleep at night. Right?

Christian Hernandez (25:04):

Yeah, no, definitely. I mean, I’m very visual, so I mean, as a lot of people seem to be as well, seeing those numbers broken down really does help.

Brian Basik (25:13):

And

Christian Hernandez (25:14):

It’s happened. I implemented what I learned and made the necessary hires, and now I’m at a point where I’m slowly working my way out the field focusing more on sales, which has been very nice. Being ahead of the curve at helping improve my engagement and customer service allowed me to focus more on that side of things. And then now, like you said, yeah, my next hire might be somebody to run the office so that I can focus on other things.

Brian Basik (25:45):

And so now project Dream a little bit. So you’ve been, at eight years, you hit the big milestone of million dollar revenue. And so as you look five years from now, which isn’t even doubling what you’ve done so far, where do you see yourself in five years?

Christian Hernandez (26:03):

Good question. Yeah, I mean really, I just going to keep chugging along with what I’m doing. Really don’t know where I’m going to be in five years. I could be anywhere and anything could happen. Things could take a turn at any point in time, but I see myself continuing to double each year. Hopefully at that point I’ll be, my goal is not to grow too big. So I’m very happy with the size of the company right now. Just really trying to fine tune some things, put some key components in place to make it a little bit more effective, is really my goal right now is just to make it a machine, make the company a machine, A well oiled machine is really my goal right now. So I mean, in five to 10 years, I think the sky’s the limits, really. The more important question though is as long as the economy stays the way it is, I can see myself being very far ahead of where I’m at right now.

Brian Basik (26:56):

So for contractors, cement contractors that are out there that might be listening to this, as far as advice that you’d give them, they’re already in the business, and so over the next five years, things that you would say, Hey, if you do these three or four things, this would be critical for you because it’s going to be critical for you as well. What would those three or four things be?

Christian Hernandez (27:17):

Number one, like I mentioned, just make sure that you’re answering the phone, communicating with the customers, solving problems. Whenever problems arise, things are going to happen. Nobody’s perfect. Accidents happen, incidents happen. I always tell my customers we shoot for perfection, but sometimes we can fall a little short. So just making sure that when that does happen, that you’re attentive to it. You don’t push it off, you don’t wait, you get it done, just get it out the way, push it, put it behind you, keep moving, focus on the next project. That’s one thing that’s very important. A lot of people fail to do that. As you mentioned, something hits stuff, hits the fan, and they run the opposite direction

(27:56):

Instead of just hitting it head on. That’s very important organisation. That’s something that’s been very beneficial for me from phone call to job completion. Having a clear pathway or direction in which you’re going to move that customer along to be able to make sure that you guarantee satisfaction in the end is very important. And what that kind of looks like, just real quick for me, is a customer calls me immediately once they call me after the phone call concludes, I send ’em a text message, Hey, I need this name, address, email, how you found us. Very big thing to ask as well for ROI purposes. So I send ’em that text, even if I already got all the information, I send that to ’em again. So they send me a text, all their information. Now I have it safe in my phone where it’s not going to get lost.

(28:46):

I’m not going to forget about them. Every week I go through my phone. At the end of the day, I always call back the customers that call me if I didn’t answer them or get back to them already. The day at the end of every week, I go through my messages. So I have a list where every day I go through my phone, I write down the date that I went through it, and then I go back to the previous date. That’s where I start. And that way I don’t miss anything. So making sure that I’m also going to collect all that information, put it where it needs to go. Once it goes from there to my tablet, they’re pretty much locked in. They’re not going to get forgotten about, they’re not going to get lost. They’re in there, they’re secure. And then from there, once I send them the proposal or meet with them, then they get moved to the CRM system. So once they’re in the CRM system, then I utilise tags, things like that to stay organised, to know what’s done and what’s not done. Have things set up, automation set up with the CRM system that I have that’ll allow me to also communicate effectively with them, blah, blah. When something happens, it’s going to trigger this message or this email, whatever it is. It all ran off triggers. So it helps me stay ahead of the curve, communicate with ’em. So that’s very important. Organisation.

(30:02):

And then really just doing what you say you’re going to do and maintaining equality. If you do good work, you’ll always have work.

Brian Basik (30:12):

If

Christian Hernandez (30:12):

You fail to deliver, if you’re inconsistent, consistency, I guess is the word, if you’re inconsistent, then nobody’s going to want to hire you. So I mean, with organisation and consistency and communicating, those three things I think are the most important.

Brian Basik (30:28):

You said a couple of things. Number one is when problems come up, that’s a big deal. And I deal that with customers all the time, that shy away from the problems

(30:36):

And they only get bigger. And so that’s an issue. And so when you get a bad review, that should trigger you to do something. And you do a great job of if someone wrote you a bad review, you’re on top of it right away. Hopefully you knew it was an issue before they wrote the review, but that’s the first time you saw it. You get with them, you address the issue, and then after you address the issue and you make them happy, then you can go back and say, Hey, would you do me a favour and maybe readjust or re-look at your review if you think it’s appropriate. And most of the time, 95% of the time, they’re willing to do that because you’ve made ’em happy, you’ve satisfied them, you’ve turned a negative into a positive, and you do a great job of doing that.

(31:14):

That’s really good. The other thing you mentioned that I just want to touch on is the automation piece. That’s so big because everybody’s kind of limited the number of people they have. If you’re not using automation, if you’re not using a CRM system to keep track of your customers and then putting in place that automation that triggers different processes or communications to happen, and now it’s all on you to do it. That’s crazy. We’ve got computer systems that will do all of that stuff from when you get something approved at the county, once you get that information, a letter can go out and say, Hey, we’re now approved. Your permit’s approved now we’re ready to go, or communications, we’re going to be at your house on this date. That can all be done through the computer, right?

Christian Hernandez (31:57):

Yeah. I mean really the no brainer thing for me, when I first seen a CRM system before my eyes in action, one of the big things for me was hiring that employee at that time. Again, going back to being able to afford things and not a part-time employee. 30 40 grand, 50 grand a year, give or take. It depends who and where. But the CRM system was like four or $5,000 a year. So paying five grand a year and having a system that’s going to help me achieve what I need to achieve versus having another person that I’d have to train, I’d have to teach them they’re not going to do things maybe the way that I want it done, and just paying them the automation was a no brainer.

Brian Basik (32:44):

Yeah, there’s tonnes of automation out there for pavers and concrete guys. You’ve got one that is okay. There are other ones that are out there that might be a little bit better, and those CRMs are changing all the time. And so for those that are out there that don’t have a CRM or want to upgrade, that’s a good investment. Look at the future of where some of these platforms are going. I was with Keap and they bought Infusionsoft, and I think somebody just bought Keap. And so there’s a lot of aggregation going on in the business, and so you just got to keep up on that kind of stuff. But it’s certainly a technology you got to implore at this point in order to be

Christian Hernandez (33:19):

Successful, right? Yeah, and it’s always evolving. I mean, when I picked my CRM system, I didn’t know of many of them that were out there. And this was three years ago, four years ago, and now there’s so many out there, especially with all this new technology and stuff that’s coming out, ai, all those things. There’s a lot of options out there. There’s a lot of things that definitely work. So there’s a lot out there for

Brian Basik (33:43):

Contractors. Today’s episode of Hardscape Insider podcast is probably brought to you by Christian Hernandez Concrete, the trusted name and top quality concrete work. Whether you need to replace a cracked driveway, extend your existing one or create the perfect backyard patio, Christian Hernandez concrete delivers expert craftsmanship and lasting durability. Don’t leave your project in the hands of just anyone with over 105 star reviews. Christian Hernandez concrete is the go-to choice in Lee County for precision, reliability and exceptional results. Visit chc concrete.net today to schedule your free estimate and take the first step towards your dream outdoor space. But in the end, the last thing you mentioned is just at the end when you’re done with your job, that’s the time where you basically can thank the customer for being a customer, which is really good, and then ask for a review. That’s the best time to do that, and you do a great job of doing that.

(34:37):

And so as I look at other companies that are out there that are struggling a bit, you’re on the first page of with just about every keyword you can imagine because of the number of reviews, how quickly you respond to those reviews, your website presence, all that kind of stuff matters. And so you do a really good job of doing that. And so that’s been really cool. And so, hey, listen, I really appreciate you being on our show for the first time. You’re my first visitor to hear it, so I appreciate that. Not only that, you’re one of my best customers, and so hey, thank you for everything that you do. We really appreciate it, appreciate you being on the show. Any parting thoughts that you have for anybody out there thinking about scaling their company in this industry?

Christian Hernandez (35:20):

No, just do it. Don’t wait. Just get it done. Start doing it. Learn. If you don’t know, ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. What my father used to always tell me is, if you want to be somebody or be in a specific position, go rub elbows with people that are already in that position. So just instead of hanging around people that aren’t where you want to be, go hang out with people that are where you want to be, whether they’re older, younger, it doesn’t matter. You can learn a lot from people. So it’s really just one of my takeoffs.

Brian Basik (35:49):

Great advice, man. I appreciate you being here. Thank you very much.

Christian Hernandez (35:50):

Thank you. Thank you for having us.