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Why am I so passionate about what I'm doing today? With empowering women to learn how to tackle their own home improvement projects. It's because if children see their mothers using a drill or using tools, they will naturally overcome fears about it and go. My mom hung up a curtain rod. I think I can figure this out, right? Right.

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And so, moms are so influential, as are dads. And my influence in this space really came from my dad. However, my grandpa also had a rental, and I helped him with painting. My mom was a wonderful painter, and, we just were a very handy family. Welcome to the Builder Hacks podcast, your go to destination for cutting edge strategies, time tested systems, and invaluable insights to revolutionize your construction business and elevate your life.

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Join your host, Nate Piper and Keith Meals, seasoned contractors who are not just in the trenches but are also pioneering the future of the industry through Concord University. In each episode, we dive deep into the minds of the industry's most accomplished building professionals, uncovering their secrets to success and sharing actionable tips to help you thrive. Whether you're a seasoned veteran or just starting out, our goal is to empower you to build a brighter future for yourself and for America.

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Tune in. Level up and let's build a better tomorrow together. This is the Builder Hacks podcast. Build your future. Building America.

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And I'm super excited today. So I get to bring on someone that I've known for a few years now, and Jen and I have had conversations. I don't know how many conversations. So about getting more women into the industry. And that's been a huge goal of mine. And I've worked with so many people in the industry who are female, over the years.

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And to me, that's been something that's missing and such an opportunity that's out there. So but Jen's actually she's has multiple different businesses. So whenever I started whenever I met Jen. So she's got a business called Entry envy. So what she got into whenever she was remodeling her own home. And I let her tell you that part of the story, just to go ahead and build that piece in there.

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But she started that businessperson in her conversations with me, as we've been going through this many, many years now, when I say many years, it's been like two and a half years. So it really hasn't been that long. just seems like a lot longer, because she's such an awesome person. Got to know so much about the business of entry and and what she's created and built that business into.

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Unknown
And now she's actually launched a hammers and Flip-Flops community, where she's going ahead and helping women actually do projects around the house. So to me, that's really cool because I know there's there's a lot of people who don't want to go ahead and do those things. They've got some, I'm assuming, some fears behind that. And we'll dive into that a little bit with Jen today.

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Unknown
So on find out. So but I'm going to go ahead and introduce you to Jen. Jen tell us a little bit about you. Hi. It is so good to see you. It's a pleasure to be on. Thank you very much. you know, Keith, when we first met, it was actually in January of 2021, and I didn't have any businesses at the time.

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Unknown
I was currently managing a law firm. I was in the legal industry for about 18 years, and I was in the middle of a home remodeling project and so by day, I managed the law firm. At night I would get the kids dinner and then usually starting around 7 or 8 at night until two, three, four in the morning.

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Unknown
Whenever I couldn't do whatever I was doing anymore, I would go to bed for 2 or 3 hours. I get up at 6:00, get the kids to school and do it again, and I did that for about nine months. That was how long the remodel took me. taking me back to that time that longer and how that all started.

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Unknown
January of 2020. I left a marriage and took my two kids and the dog and, forced in the tortoise. The tortoise got to come to. Yeah. And then in March of 2020, Covid hit, of course, as we all know, and the real estate market went berserk. And so now I am a single mom in the financial turmoil of a divorce, trying to buy a house at the peak of the real estate market.

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Unknown
You know, when everything was cash over, asking price disappearing, if it even hit the market in 12 to 24 hours. Right. And so I got what I could get. Beggars can't be choosers. And so August 1st of 2020, I moved into a home that was in the neighborhood that I wanted to be for my kids schools. but it needed a lot of work.

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Unknown
And so and I knew that, and I wasn't afraid of it. My dad was a construction in construction for 40 years. I grew up in the days before cell phones, and so after school, you know, I just my mom worked at a restaurant at night. And so often I was with my dad and we were either on a, you know, helping one side job or we were doing something around the house.

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And it was just literally throughout most of it and started going home and baking cookies with my mom. I was out in the garage, you know, changing oil with my dad. I didn't know anything different. Right. And so I but I didn't know how much I learned truly by that. And so my junior year of high school, we had to take the Asvab test and is everybody does I think they still do that.

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And my counselor came back to me. I had a class of about 150 students, and I grew up in Blair, Nebraska, and she said, you scored the highest of every student in the school on the mechanics section and construction. Well, what's going on here? I started laughing, I mean, like, I don't know, you know, they asked you what a carburetor was.

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They asked you what all these parts were. And I'm like, I just it literally. Is that so? One of the things I'll, I'll keep going. But when I go back to the space of why am I so passionate about what I'm doing today with empowering women to learn how to tackle their own home improvement projects, it's because if children see their mothers using a drill or using tools, they will naturally overcome fears about it and go, oh, my mom hung up a curtain rod.

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I think I can figure this out, right? Right. And so, moms are so influential as our dads, and my influence in the space really came from my dad. However, my grandpa also had a rental and I helped him with painting. My mom was a wonderful painter and, we just were a very handy family. So I moved in this house on August 1st of 2020.

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I open the garage door and I never had seen the garage because it was for sale by owner situation, and that was off limits because they probably had to pull all their stuff. And so, you know, it's Friday night, it's 4:00 am by myself and I open up the garage door and I'm so excited to like, go into the house.

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And it's four walls of 1974, olive green paint in the garage. That wasn't the color you're going for. Yeah. I'm like, oh boy, this isn't going to work. And I just looked around. I thought, you know what? Here's the deal. This is the first place you start moving stuff into. And if I don't paint this right now, it's like never going to happen.

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So it didn't even go in the house. I put the garage door down and I drove to, you know, whichever big box store I was going to at the time. And I bought four gallons of white paint and a paint sprayer. And that was where it started. And I started taking before pictures, and that was my first 24 hours.

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I just did that project and got it as clean as I could be, and I recorded it, and I went on to record every single project I did in the home, and I actually talked through it. I create, I blogged it, it was called Cheaper Than Wine. I created instructions written. I love to write. I don't know whether that's cheaper than wine.

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Jen, just to let you know, I it will. This will work in this industry. And so what type of wine. Yeah there's I thought that if I remodeled lamb House and did that every night instead of drinking a bottle of wanting to be cheaper than remodeling the house, that's not how it went. I drank and I remodeled, but, you know, much better return, though.

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Oh my gosh. Right. I mean, I have $40,000 of hard costs in the house. Everything else was, you know, and that included, you know, I paid the electrician to do some rewiring for me. and I paid a guy to help me mud and tape because I hate that from the drywall side, but, I mean, everything else was was me.

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So I added about $125,000 in value to the home. That's awesome. It. Yeah, it was amazing. And what was so critical for me is that actually ended up being my therapy. That was like the best therapy I could have ever paid for, was just having this time to think in the middle of the night. So keep in mind this is Kovit 2020 and we've got hundreds of thousands of women out of work at this time because entertainment, hospitality and tourism are shut down.

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There's tens of thousands of like home built that are home owners doing, remodeling projects, home improvement stuff. And it seemed like every time I turned around, somebody was complaining, one of them that they couldn't, you know, the electrician didn't show up. They couldn't get a plumber. The handyman was late again, you know, just couldn't get anybody to do this.

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The bids were so expensive, whatever. And every single construction company just couldn't hire enough people during that time. And I just in the middle of the night, while I'm working all night long and having so much time to think, I thought, this is ridiculous. We have such a great labor pool available that are perfectly capable. I mean, those are creative spaces that were out of work, and people who are creative are usually really good with their hands.

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And I'm like, we have such a great opportunity to be able to solve this labor shortage problem. These people don't have a job. These people are willing to pay. How do you bring them together? And I, I thought a lot about this and that is when you and I first connected. It was in January of 2021, and I'm trying to figure out how to solve this problem.

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And ultimately I worked. I went down some rabbit trails for a couple of months, and I remember about the beginning of March, kind of nodding up there and saying, listen, I hear you. I know I'm supposed to help solve this problem, but I can't figure out how to monetize it. It is not a part time volunteer job I can do in the middle of the night, right?

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I am a single mom with two kids. I'm still remodeling my house and I have a full time job. That's a kind of a big job. So like, I'll get back to you, but please. Right. And I've never been able to let that passion go. But so couple more months go by. So now it's about in the April 2021.

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And I'm coming home every day. And I'm such a huge person. On first impressions. It doesn't matter where you are in your life when you walk into a meeting, to a party, to wherever, including your own home, that first few seconds sets the tone for everything. And people underestimate it over and over and over again. And when you walk into your own home, you pull up to your house and it doesn't feel nice.

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There's an internal piece of you that says, is this a place that I want to live, right? Do I want to be proud of my house? Right. When you walk into the garage and it's absolutely a disaster user. It's just the garage. No, it's chaos. You're walking into the first thing that you see this place of like, not peace and calm.

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I always compare it to a hotel room. I love walking into a hotel room because it's so clean. There's no clutter, and it's like, I want my hotel, but I want my house to be like that every day. That's right. It's always funny because, like you and I've heard this before from other women, whenever I've talked to them, it's like, that's always such the focus of the clean, non cluttered area that just goes ahead and gives you that peace.

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And that's it's one of the differences with at least with me, I can't speak for all men, but it's like for me it's like it really does. Like for me it's like it's all about the function. As long as the things that I need that are there, are there, that's what I pay attention. And you're the only one who knows where they are.

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Okay, I get it, I get it, you know, I and I'm and I'm like that too. My garage is not perfectly clean right now. It also has a full time business in it, but it's a different story. But, you know, I came home every day and I'm like, you know, the inside of my house look brand new, look beautiful, but the outside look like fixer upper.

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But I'm out of time, energy and money. And I'm like, oh my goodness, solve this problem without, you know, spending a ton. So I decided the easiest solutions were to paint the garage door, paint the front door, update the front light fixture, maybe clean up the front porch a bit, clean up the landscaping, and I get to these house numbers and I'm like, you know, we can't even see them.

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They're above the garage. They're old. One of them's fallen off and I'm like, maybe we could look for a new house timber sign. So I start googling that boring search. Don't need to do that. And the only one that I came up with that I like was the vertical. And it has it had house numbers on it. They were kind of modern and floating.

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And then there was this little planter box on the bottom and I'm like, oh, well, that's kind of fun. And like, I'm going to go make that because everything's out in the garage. And then of course, I had to go by the numbers and. Yeah, and then I wanted to paint gold. And so I do this whole thing, I get the signed end super cute, and I'm like, what the heck am I'm going to plant in this little box because it's about a three by eight size, and you're going to drop the wood.

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If you water it all the time, it's going to die. We live in Nebraska. It's only going to grocery for months at the end of the year anyway. I'm like, I'm not putting anything real in here. So I go to, you know, whatever Hobby Lobby or Michael's or whatever. I was going and I spent about 45 minutes, $38.

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I remember it of getting full floral stuff. And this was right before it was right around Easter. of 2021. And so I get all of my stuff because I'm making it look like it's for Easter, and I go home. Now I have to find my wire cutters. Those are those are a thing I can't find very often.

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And then I got, like, a Spanish moss. Oh, you're paid, by the way. I know you're the damn wire cutters. And I've got, you know, Spanish moss torn up all over the garage. I got a vacuumed up and I'm like, well, this is a pain in the ass, too. I might as well water it twice a day. So I started googling folks floral holiday and seasonal decor kits, and I wanted somebody to just send me a little decoration.

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And for over a month that I didn't have to water representative of holidays and seasons, and I could just switch it out and stick it in there. And no one did it. There was not anyone who did that and looked at the people who are making signs similar to this. Nobody was shipping anything, right? I it was instantaneous.

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It was the lightning strike up like, you've got a business model in your house or on your hands. So because it was literally on the front of my house and it was like, oh my God, the sign is so cute, where'd you get it? And I was like, well, it's not the sign that makes it. So it's decorations making it cute, right?

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Right. So I decide to go down the path of, starting a company called Entry Envy, and we do custom exterior home signs. We also have an interior version for apartments in assisted living, and we ship about 500 monthly and quarterly full floral holiday invoices and all the markets all over the country. So that is super fun. I loved that in October of 2021.

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So I've been a little busy the last few years of building this business. I no longer work in the law firm, but I have not been able to let this passion of women in the trades go. And what's been very interesting is that I, as of was building the company. I have people that are building our signs. Right.

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And I'm teaching young women to use it to build for the first time, to use a sander, you know, an electric sander, how to paint. And they love it. And then on the other side of the company, I it's, it's more manufacturing because I've got women that are using hot glue guns and both, you know, floral tape and like they love it.

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It's all the crafts I have been waiting list of 25 women who want to work for me at any given time. And I'm like, this is really interesting. I really want to do this work. They love this work, but why are they working in another? That's that's a great question. I mean, what they have, you have you ask them and figure that piece out.

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Yeah. Yep. So a couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to speak to a private few months ago, actually, had the opportunity to speak to the general counsel for a large construction company here in Omaha. And we were talking about, his view of of women in their workplace and their culture and, you know, recruiting and hiring and all of that.

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And it all boiled down to his like, we'll hire anybody who can read the tape measure. They won't apply. We don't have the applicant the next day. Not I don't believe in confidence is the next day. I was already scheduled to speak to 30 students that were between the ages of 16 and 18 that were in a program here called Avenue Scholars.

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And they, it's for the it's primarily geared toward students that are not on a four year plan for college, but two year associate's degree or less, and trades as a huge focus. And so I have the opportunity to speak to them. And my mission was really like to keep them like, you guys are on the right path.

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You're thinking in the right direction. Stay this course. You know, there's so many opportunities and maybe a quarter, about a quarter of the students in that room were women, young women and I get done speaking, and every single one of them came up to me and said, how can we work for you? And the light bulb went off and I stepped in.

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What I realized is that they don't have the confidence to go and apply to these male dominated spaces, be it a trade war, a union, a construction company, you know, any of the apprenticeship programs, there's a gap. And we know statistically that at least I do in in corporate America that if I might, I might get these numbers slightly wrong, but not much that men, if they know how to do 50% of a job, require of the job description.

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They're like, perfect, I got it. They apply women. If they don't know at least 90%, they're like, oh, I could never get that job. They were set a difference in the confidence, the way that men and women think. So in a male dominated industry that is already really intimidating and not exactly like holding up the welcome signs for women going, hey, come out over here and you know what they say and what they do are two different things, right?

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You've got this gap, confidence gap of women that are going, I don't I don't know all of that. So I'm not even going to go and ask. They don't know that. All they need to do is be able to read the tape measure. And so I am on a mission to change that and to help make women aware of the opportunities that are in the trades, be it either the daughters that are considering what they're going to do after high school and the the, the moms that are doing DIY projects in their own home in the middle of the night, on the weekends, going to a corporate job that they don't even like yet realized,

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like, hey ladies, you can make a whole lot of money and do something that you love in the trades. And so that's that's the conversation that I'm working on right now. And I love that piece. And I love the fact that you actually know the kind of the why women aren't stepping forward with that piece, because that is it's one of the questions I've always had, you know, most of the women that I've had that I've the opportunity to work with, whether they were other construction managers, whenever I used to work for other builders.

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So, or whether it's people who own their companies or work in the field, they're usually some of the best workers out there. So and that's what I've seen, and usually their skill level. And I might get right to what you're talking about, where they feel they've got to know 90% to even think about something like that. Whereas and I think you gave us a lot when you said 51, what we need is 50%, because I know Nate and I feel like 10%.

00:21:06:06 - 00:21:25:06

We're going full speed. Yeah. so that so like to me, that's that is so insightful because I've never realized that piece. And it's like I even look at page working for me at this point. And it's like I'm always looking for her to step up. And I'm like, you know, you know, these pieces, you know, like whatever.

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Her and I talk so she's able to run through what needs to happen. Yeah, whenever she gets on the site. And I know part of it is definitely the culture. There's no question about it. So with it being so male dominated, especially in the field piece of it, well, it being so male dominated that that she has now.

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And I'm like, these guys are all just normal guys. I said number one is said they all know me and they're not about to go ahead and do anything. So that's going to go ahead and offend me. And so they're going to take care of you. They're all open to that because multiple of them have had female field employees working with them.

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So they know what that's like. And I'm like, I just want you to go ahead and step up. And that that was so insightful. I'm like, so how do I go ahead and create that in my company? Right. So I think that I thought a lot about this. so I've worked in male dominated industries for 25 years.

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I worked for, a group of plastic surgeons for my first five years out of college, then for lawyers. And, both have women, but there's different roles. And I see this too, in the trades. Right. So about 5% of women are in the field in the trades. Right? There's another 10% that are working in administration. And the back side, you know, the back office.

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Right. And that's sort of similar in those other two industries that I've been in. but yet every other industry has actually been able to narrow that gap along. We have more women graduating from medical school and law school every year and have for the last eight years than men. So we were able to close the gap there.

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Why not in the trades? I think there's I think first of all, it's a it's a very systemic cultural issue that is really a product of just the way life is and our reproduction. We we have only in the last roughly 65 years had mainstream access. And even at that ish to buy baby formula bottles and birth control.

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So, you know, it was simply excuse me, simply a sheer fact of women had to stay home and take care of the babies, because that's how everybody in the option right there, there was no option. And so the first time women really started to come in to the workplace was were in the field at least, was World War Two, when there was just no one here.

00:23:46:19 - 00:24:11:14

Everybody was at war. And but that number hasn't really moved. Sentiment. And so I think that's part of it. So with that being said, we have to address the three piece periods pregnancy and pumping and these are conversations that men start to get really queasy about, like, oh God, what are we dealing with here? Right. You know, but these are legit issues.

00:24:11:16 - 00:24:33:12

It's it's just life is what it comes down to. It's just I've got five kids. I understand that it is. It is an abundance of things. It's an abundance of things. But I but I bet you also know that when your wife was pregnant, she wasn't sitting down with four other kids when she was five months pregnant. She's doing everything and you're like, stop, I'll move that for you.

00:24:33:12 - 00:24:52:00

And she's like, I got it. Thanks. Get away. Right. You know, like, women are tough as nails. And so it's actually the men that are scared of the women being like, fragile. I think in a lot of ways than what the women are. We're like, we're fine where we got it, you know, at least the breed that we want in the trades.

00:24:52:02 - 00:25:09:24

Like they're like, I'm fine, you know? So part of it is it's like, not like we just need to have we need to open up conversations. We just need to be like, okay, this is what we need to be able to accommodate this. And it's not that hard. we people are, you know, employers all over the country are managing.

00:25:09:26 - 00:25:30:05

Where do you create a private place for, you know, a woman to be able to pump there are so many incredible like, totally like pump like cord free, like I don't even know what to call it. I mean, they're just slipping the stuff in their bras and they're great. Like, it's not that big so we can overcome all of these things, but we have to open up conversation.

00:25:30:05 - 00:25:51:02

So I think that's huge. The other thing that I think is super significant is that most of the time on in the world of construction, and I don't know exactly where this comes from, you guys could probably tell me this better, but like, you're on the job site at 6 or 7:00 in the morning. Well, I sorry for the language, but you should showered and shaved and walked out the door a lot of the times.

00:25:51:02 - 00:26:09:15

And moms are still getting kids ready to go back and lunches, getting everybody to school. Well, we can't have it both ways. We can't ask them to be on the job site by 8:00 in the morning when they can't even drop off their kids until 750. So we have to accommodate that. And then, oh, by the way, who's picking them up?

00:26:09:15 - 00:26:35:13

And there's so many conversations about, like, any childcare in this country is out of control and unconscious. And it's and that impacts some men too. So if we want to all have a quiet quality of life, and that includes being able to not be paying more in childcare than what we're making, and we need all the help do the jobs, we are going to have to consider different hours in this industry.

00:26:35:16 - 00:26:54:28

And it's really not that big of a deal I mean yeah. Okay. Like you talk about you know road construction right. And it needs to be done before rush hour. Okay fine. Can we do it maybe possibly between 10:00 and 2:00 in the afternoon as well. Do we have to have it. Do we have to be off the roads by seven?

00:26:54:28 - 00:27:23:05

You know, and not to say that even overnight stuff is out of the question either for women. I mean, I know that that's that, isn't it? Okay. But we just have to keep in mind through all these conversations, the childcare, because it's all real. It's all related to the three piece. And then the kid piece. So for like my company and, and the we have zero scheduled hours and the women that work together on teams set their own team hours.

00:27:23:08 - 00:27:40:29

And this is what needs to be done and come in and get it done whenever. This is how many hours during the week you we were allotted to be paid. Let me know if there's overtime. Let's just get it done. I have had been doing this for three years and I had zero issues with labor. And again, a waiting list of people who want to work with us.

00:27:41:01 - 00:28:04:17

They are super responsible. They're super organized. They love what they're doing. It's not it's not a fight. It's a struggle. The other thing that we're doing that's really interesting is task based pay, and it works really well on the manufacturing side, but it's no different than what a lot of times we do for a job. This is the quote I don't care how long it takes you to get it done, if this is how much you're getting paid right.

00:28:04:19 - 00:28:20:13

And, you know, I came from a union father where, you know, you get your this is your schedule and you get your breaks and you get your lunch. And right, I mean, he and I joke because I don't ever sit down. I take no breaks. I take no lunch, I never have, I don't care who I'm working for right now anyway.

00:28:20:13 - 00:28:39:29

You run a business right early. Start a business. That's what I mean. Even when I worked in corporate like that was never a thing. Like, you know, everybody's got a different mentality around it, but I just that is a huge, huge part of it. It comes down to this whole this whole kid piece. But again, every other industry has been able to figure this out.

00:28:40:02 - 00:29:06:25

So we surely ought to be able to do it in this too. And you know, I love Qatar's change management model. The number one thing that it takes for people to change is where the perceived pain of staying the same is worsening the pain of change, right? Well, we are coming into a mode of the next few years of literally not having enough people to work in this industry.

00:29:06:25 - 00:29:27:29

Right. And we're we're already there. So that part goes out. But it's going to get worse. It's going to get a lot worse, going to get a lot worse. So we get to the place of does that. Where does that pain threshold hit? Where finally we're saying, okay, gosh darn it, I don't want to meet this Gen Z group where they're at because of not just the women in that space.

00:29:28:06 - 00:29:50:25

It's the men too. It's just a different thing. I don't want to do it. And we had to put in our time and whatever, right. But if we want buildings and we want homes and we want safe roads to drive on, and we're going to have to make some concessions, and if we don't include women in that conversation, we're excluding 50% of the potential workforce already don't have enough of them.

00:29:50:27 - 00:30:06:05

That's I love that piece. And it's the the different hour piece is something that's interesting because I know I've got like I have a tall guy right now. So who does Tyler Force? And Mike's got everything in his life paid for. which means that he's out there and he's, you know, he's putting money away. Hopefully he's put money away for his retirement.

00:30:06:10 - 00:30:22:08

So he's out there making money, getting what he needs just to take care of himself and put some money away. So there's no needs to be out there. So his schedule is usually gets in sometimes with nine and ten. So usually works till about 3:00. So and then he heads home and it's one of the it's the funny thing that I look at.

00:30:22:08 - 00:30:40:27

It's like I don't even think twice whenever he's doing that, because the level of work that he does is one of those pieces that it's so good that I don't have to very rarely on any of our projects does. Mike have to come back and do anything for Punch Out. So it's just that good. And it's like, so I fit like a that's an a combination I give, I don't worry about him and what I love to have a more hours.

00:30:40:27 - 00:30:54:00

Of course I'd love to have a more hours because I know what more we can actually accomplish as a company with him being able to do that. Yet at the same time, if he's happy, which means that he does good work while he's here. So and my homeowners get the results that are looking forward to makes me happy.

00:30:54:03 - 00:31:14:22

So on my end and it's like that's that was kind of eye opening. Whenever you get inside, that is, you know, it's one of those things that you have to look at. And it is it's it's not something that that I've ever thought of before. So I was having to give those accommodations, especially on the childcare. And because you're right, if you know that if the dad's working, someone's got to be getting the kids off to school, so someone's going to be picking them up, you know, if they're unable to go ahead.

00:31:14:22 - 00:31:39:23

And if dad's unable to be flexible and take care of one of those things, then it's going to have to lead to mom figuring that piece out, which is usually what works. Left with a lot of families. So it to figure that thing out well, and it's not just child care, it's parent care too. And you know we're we're in that you call it the sandwich generation, where then you're in the middle of the year dealing with the little kids, but you're also dealing with your aging parents, right?

00:31:39:23 - 00:32:04:14

And it's it doesn't matter. Dependent is a dependent. And I think one of the things that is, I think it's underestimated by men and maybe just not willing to admit it by those that know it is that women do have an incredible ability to multitask and juggle a lot of different things on their plate because they have no choice.

00:32:04:17 - 00:32:21:18

And, you know, you and I, Keith, can can definitely speak about this if you want something done as the busiest person to do it. And when women know they have to get this done, and they also have to drop off cookies at school and they have to go take their mom to a doctor's appointment and they've got it.

00:32:21:21 - 00:32:41:05

You know, do it all there. They just figure it out. They're like, right, I'll get it done. And they need that flexibility and they will reward with high quality work product and loyalty if that. That does. Accommodations can be made. And of course you have to have the right personality. And what I'm saying doesn't apply to every single person.

00:32:41:05 - 00:33:04:05

Just like it wouldn't apply to every single man, right? You know, it's just but you hire the right people with that mentality. And I always say hiring the right person and let them do their job. What the way. Right. Either a good employee should not be needed. You need the micromanagement of it. And so I think that is it's it's the our accommodation and it's the flexibility that they need.

00:33:04:05 - 00:33:33:26

And as long as it's not being abused the work is getting done. It's exceeding, you know, meet your expectations, let it be. But I have also seen situations where, those men are threatened by that level of productivity and they're like, you're making me look bad, slow. As I say, it's the old union piece there. So when the new person comes in and is killing it like you need to slow down, you need to.

00:33:33:29 - 00:33:59:13

Yeah. You know, so it's, you know, there's this is I mean, the bottom line is we're talking about thousands of years of culture and, you know, hundreds of years in this industry. And again, we've only really stepped into being able to have women work in this space in the last 65 years or so. And it's going to take a long time to change it.

00:33:59:13 - 00:34:27:02

So, you know, what I'm looking at is creating a pipeline opportunity of of people becoming aware of the opportunities. And so the first piece is for me, I'm starting with the moms, because if we can have moms influence their children both as good role models, but also being aware of, hey, maybe there's something that my daughter or son would be better at than, you know, out of the gates.

00:34:27:02 - 00:34:46:22

They don't know what they want to do. They don't have the money to go burn for four years in a degree. let's let's look at some other options that I think a huge piece then I'm and creating underneath. And so this is a second company is hammers and flip flops. So that first group is teaching the moms how to tackle their own home improvement projects.

00:34:46:22 - 00:35:13:00

I did some research and I had about 200 respondents to my survey. And what I found is that 47% of women have a handy spouse, brother, dad friend that will help them with the project, or they already know how to do it themselves, or they're hiring it out. Okay, so 47% of my people, let's just call it 50, were like, I'm good, I don't need this, right?

00:35:13:02 - 00:35:38:00

50% are like, I don't have one of those people in my life or that lived nearby. I don't know how to do this. Where the highest point in history of single women for whatever, you know, for like divorced, widowed, not getting married, whatever the issue is. and then you've got that other that, that group also saying, I don't want to wait for a handy person to come and do this for me.

00:35:38:02 - 00:35:56:26

I want to get it done. I ordered my curtain rod off the Amazon. It came out. I want it now. Right. So let me hang it up. or they can't afford it, you know. And so there's the projects. Just sit there. So that's a group that I'm targeting to help give them the confidence to be able to do this on their own.

00:35:56:28 - 00:36:16:13

the second group in underneath that sort of is then the kids side of it where I want to, you know, basically do group coaching. If your children are interested in this, let's have conversations about the opportunities that are available and let's get the basics done. Yeah. I want you to know the difference between a square and a level.

00:36:16:13 - 00:36:38:29

I want you to understand I had the funniest conversation I did for my friend's daughter. She's like a square. It's not a square. I don't understand why is it called the square? I'm like, but fair point, fair point. You know, their dad asked her to go get the square out of the garage or whatever, and she's like, she's spent forever because there's no actual square out there to pick up that.

00:36:39:01 - 00:36:55:02

Right. And, and and I'm like, buried there. Right. But, you know, we didn't drill in a screw gun, you know, let's read. Let's understand how to read a tape measure. I thought everybody knew what a 16th was, but apparently that's not the case. And this is not, at all that. Yeah. Yeah, these are the these are things I'm learning.

00:36:55:02 - 00:37:16:12

So anyway, and then the second arm of that is, you know, empowering women who are doing a bunch of DIY projects and saying, listen, you guys, a can I work for a construction company? or B, you can create your own company. And, you know, let's look, what does this look like? And being able to help them do that.

00:37:16:15 - 00:37:36:29

And then the third, I guess, or maybe fourth piece because I've kind of got those three already. my next project is construction camps for kids, because if we can plant the seeds early on, I mean, let's be honest, we got a bunch of retired grandpas out there right now who need something to do Monday through Friday, nine to noon during the summer.

00:37:36:29 - 00:37:58:19

Right? So let's help, you know, kids learn how to, you know, hammer nails and, you know, axes stuff, right? How to become productive adults basically is what it comes down to truth. But you start planting the seeds. And, you know, my girls right now are 12 and 14. And I know that if they have the opportunity to take shop class, because we know so many schools, they don't even offer it anymore, right?

00:37:58:21 - 00:38:24:25

But they're not going to do anything or their friends aren't doing. But if they all remembered when they were younger and did camps and they had fun, they might, they might. So there's a pipeline. And so I know the thing that I love about that is, and one of the things that I have seen, I only saw the same opportunity as Jen was talking, this is that piece of the people that are coming in to hammers and flip flops, and it's kind of their first experience with things or that have had a very limited experience.

00:38:24:25 - 00:38:44:03

This is a more in-depth experience. If they're starting to do some of the things in their own homes now is those people who the light bulb does come on and they do say, you know what, this is something that I think I've got interest in. I seem to like it. I'm doing well at it. And like you said, it's them getting the experience that they get, the confidence that goes behind it.

00:38:44:03 - 00:39:07:02

Now that they're like, you know what? This could be something. And it's like, I see so many different. Like for those people like that, it's where do you take them next and giving them the next step. Because if you don't have that, I mean, for hammers and flip flops, your goal is to get them doing so was really the biggest thing and helping themselves out so and and realizing that they're capable to go ahead and take care of this without having to worry about anybody else.

00:39:07:04 - 00:39:23:24

And that's for those next people. It is what's that next piece and what's that next step? And I would love to go ahead and figure out a way to go ahead and and work with you on that side of things, because I can see that as being a way to go ahead and develop for the people who are in there, or the daughters who see the moms doing these things.

00:39:23:26 - 00:39:45:02

So and they're like, well, I don't know what the next step is because there aren't shop classes, so there aren't those opportunities as much as there used to be, to at least dip your foot in to see whether it's something that you like. Well, and there are incredible trades, schools and programs and so much available out there. But there's sort of like to me it feels like there needs to be a little interim space.

00:39:45:05 - 00:40:03:22

The trial, the test, the B. Yeah. Do I want to go. Do I want to go down there. So. Yeah. we can make some magic happen there. Pretty good combination. Yeah I think, I think it's a good opportunity for everybody. So on that side of things, you know I just I want to make some comments and some statements here.

00:40:03:27 - 00:40:20:03

Jen. It's great. to kind of like get to know you over this podcast here and, and kind of listen to your journey and how you've gone down this path and, and I think you're on the right track. I, I've been in the construction industry for the last 20 plus years, and I've seen a lot of things kind of come and go.

00:40:20:03 - 00:40:40:22

And we're, we're, he's right from the Gen X group. And so it's kind of like we grew up in a different area. You're in the same, same boat. And you're right, there are so many problems that we're trying to solve all at one time. And one of the reasons why we're starting and Concordia University, is just because of that same thing.

00:40:40:23 - 00:41:03:11

And I don't view the roles that need to be done versus men versus women. I just see it as a job that has to have a function that gets attached to it. And what are the solutions that we have to have in between? And we've and I've gone down the same thing. And me and Keith have had this conversation multiple times about how do we get people interested and back into the trades.

00:41:03:14 - 00:41:21:06

Because when I was in high school, you know, well before high school, I had a hammer and a nail and go out and build stuff in my back yard by myself. I had my dad, my uncles, everybody were just, oh, we just do things right. And it didn't have to be perfect. It was just, okay, that's good enough for me.

00:41:21:06 - 00:41:41:26

Let's get started. And and that's kind of where it started for me. And then in high school or with auto mechanics or woodshop, there was you work with your hands and you got you got comfortable with it. And that kind of led into other things. And I went off to college, and then I tried to be a stockbroker, and I figured out that, like, suits and ties and, and, pulled out.

00:41:41:26 - 00:41:59:27

And I love being in construction. I love being able to create things. Most importantly, I love watching transformation. That's really my passion. And it started off in transformation between something ugly to something pretty and then and kind of elevated into I wanted to see the transformation for the homeowner, for what they were going through to have something better.

00:41:59:29 - 00:42:26:07

And now I'm in the transformation of watching my employees go from nothing into something better. And all of that is the same thing, what you're talking about, you're specifically talking about it for women. I enjoyed it, everybody. And I think that there's a role there for women. I'm not gonna lie, I, I was a, a component of women art for the trades for early 2000 to about mid 2000.

00:42:26:09 - 00:42:48:12

But since then, I've started hiring on women, and I started understanding how to work with them inside the trade component. And what I found is I've got a couple of good project managers who are who are female. And what I've found is that if I slow down and I ask more questions with them and then give them more answers, they then grow and thrive.

00:42:48:12 - 00:43:04:04

And then once they get to the point where they have confidence, where they can go in and they know it, then they will project that confidence onto every man in the job site. And then every man gets in line like his mom was like telling him like, hey, you need to pick this up. You need to get order.

00:43:04:06 - 00:43:27:28

But it's getting them to that confidence level. That shift is a big key, and I think you're on the right track of being able to like, expose them, show them and bite them in, give them the knowledge and then let them go. And I think that's I think that's a power. I think that's powerful. So I think you and I think the you hear on something that is true, women need more explanation.

00:43:28:01 - 00:43:47:06

They like they tend to not be a just do this. They you know, because I said so they they need to have a little bit more understanding because it might not make sense in their head and they might actually be right. Yeah. Maybe they are not. Are you doing it this way? Like, why don't we just do it this way?

00:43:47:06 - 00:44:04:25

And you're like, well, because that's the way it's always been done. Well, how about we do it different, you know, and reimagine this? Yeah, yeah. How do we even imagine that? But I but I do think that they, they, they want that understanding and that is part of that confidence. So I very interesting. That's great I and I agree with you.

00:44:04:25 - 00:44:25:27

It is such a rewarding. I mean in corporate you rarely get to see what you did. If anything the job never ends. It's the same thing over and over and you never really get to see the work product. And there is nothing better than throwing paint on that wall and being like, boom, there we go. That's what I was talking about.

00:44:25:27 - 00:44:36:26

You know, it's the change. Instant transformation. Yeah, exactly.