Matt Bachtel of Bachtel Excavating joins host Taylor White of Ken White Construction today to discuss his journey from one man and a truck to a thriving multi-generational business. Matt shares his conservative approach to growth, emphasizing the importance of consistent, meticulous work, and open communication with his team. He reveals the surprising risks of staying small, the challenges of balancing family life with entrepreneurship, and the critical roles that both his wife and his right-hand man, Keith, have played in his success. Matt also offers invaluable insights into attracting and retaining young talent in the trades, fostering a positive company culture, and adapting to the ever-evolving landscape of the construction industry.
Do you fear taking risks in your business? Are you concerned about attracting and retaining talent? Matt's conservative approach and focus on consistency created a company culture that attracts young talent. Today, he shares how open communication and a supportive environment have been key, and how, by prioritizing these values, you, too, can build a resilient business.
Topics:
- Determining when to rent vs. buy equipment
- Balancing being conservative, and when to take (calculated) risks
- Managing debt and equipment maintenance costs
- Reflecting on the first year of business ownership
- Adapting to industry changes
- Building a positive company culture
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Episode transcript:
Taylor White: Welcome back, everybody to the CONEXPO/CON-AGG Podcast. I still sound like an alien three weeks into it. This cold does not want to disappear on me. Today, I have somebody who I know that a lot of people are going to love, enjoy listening to because I think just from personal experiences and listening and seeing what they're doing online, it's very interesting. I have Matt Bachtel with me. Matt, thanks for being on here today.
Matt Bachtel: Thanks for having me.
Taylor White: Yeah, I appreciate it. I'm super pumped, like I said I know that everybody's in the push season right now to get everything done for Christmas and the projects. I appreciate you being here today. And yeah, I'd love to maybe give the viewers a quick summary of who you are and kind of what you do.
Matt Bachtel: Yes, I’m Matt Bachtel. I'm from Massillon, Ohio. We're in Northeast Ohio between Cleveland, one hour south of Cleveland, two hours north of Columbus. We've been in business since 2000, so this is our 24th year. Currently, we have 17 field personnel and then there are five full time employees in the office. And then I'm the sixth person kind of as the owner and senior project manager. And then my wife, she also acts as CFO and supports the rest of the team. And then she also has a separate trucking company that has three trucks and drivers. So we stay pretty busy.
Taylor White: That's really cool. So it's like a true family business.
Matt Bachtel: Yes.
Taylor White: It's 22 years, correct?
Matt Bachtel: 24 now.
Taylor White: 24 years. That is wild. That's really cool.
Matt Bachtel: Yeah. One guy in a truck 24 years ago and then just methodically growing it from there.
Taylor White: What's that growth been like? When you sit down sometimes and think about looking back on it, if you had to explain to somebody the feeling of growing from that to where you are now, how's that feel?
Matt Bachtel: It blows my mind. I'm an entrepreneur, but I'm also ultra conservative, so I never imagined that I'd have this many people. When I started, I was just one guy, two guys. So I was in the field doing everything and then you start growing it little by little. I was so fortunate. My right hand man, Keith came on board and we methodically grew it and then he brought his brother on and we just kept picking away at it but didn't think it would be this. What we found out though is there was actually more risk to the people in not growing then growing because if life happens, people have to take time away from work for different things, family matters. Kind of out of some of those experiences, we realized there was actually more risk in not having some redundancy in people to step in and carry the torch when somebody couldn't be there.
Taylor White: That's really interesting. And I think that it's cool that you realize that you need people and you need really good people. That is kind of key and you need people that sort of have some leadership character characteristics. You need all different types of people to kind of make things going. But what I found interesting is you said ultra conservative and generally with that it's like your risk, you don't like taking a lot of risk. And obviously, you have taken a risk because look at where you are now. But how would you kind of say to somebody that wants to start a business and wants to do it, but they don't want to take that risk because of high risk, high reward?
Matt Bachtel: I think the first thing is you have to know who you are. I think that I was fortunate that I kind of knew who I was. And especially in this day and age of social media in that you look around and you see Taylor White making YouTube videos and growing and doing all those things. And I can name them all, it's crazy to see there's almost a celebrity world on social media. The American Pavement guys, all that stuff. But you really have to look in the mirror and know who you are as a person. And I knew I could only control so much growth, I could only handle so much, so I was very methodical and in my approach. I would say that I was fortunate. I worked for an equipment dealer before I started business so I understood rental and rental purchase. I believed in proof of a concept probably longer than I should have. I had started off with mini excavators and small rubber track machines. But my, let's say 160, 200 size excavator, I probably rented for almost five years. Maybe I rented for three to six months a year, turning it back in for the winter. I probably took money out of my pocket. But I really enjoy sleeping at night too. So I knew who I was and I held true that even if maybe I left a couple nickels on the table at times.
Taylor White: It's interesting. I love it. And what I really want to ask you is a question about when rent went by. That's what I wrote down on a piece of paper because I think that that's a lot of important for a lot of guys that are starting out too. When do you look at a piece of equipment, the utilization rate, how often are you using it, what are you spending to rent it, when is it time to actually bite the bullet and maybe take on some debt or use some of the money? And yeah, that would be like part two of the question of like do you buy something brand new then when it's time to buy or do you take $40,000, $50,000 that you kind of have saved up and buy some outright that's a little bit older but might need a little bit more maintenance?
Matt Bachtel: What I say is I've done it all. So my first piece was brand new. I worked for a John Deere dealer. My last sale as a salesman was to myself. I bought a 50 John Deere Mini excavator. A year later I bought an 85 Kobelco excavator. I did have debt on those. But then the 1 ton truck or the old beat up F700 that pulled it, I paid cash for those. And I don't even know if the math worked. It was more the mind game of I'm going to run new iron because that's what makes money and then I'm going to support it with trucks and trailers that I buy at a discount. We had a very tight business model. One hour from our shop. We don't have a lot of travel so I don't necessarily need a first life semi or tractor trailer. I can get the second life one and get a lot out of it.
Taylor White: Yeah, 100%. Yeah. It's kind of like looking at what you need and also a lot of different factors. I look at the interest rates and stuff. During the COVID and stuff like that, when the interest rates, you were being able to buy machines at 0% and these rates were super crazy and the rate of borrowing money was there. It allowed us to really grow and take on some good debt, obviously, manageable debt, but it's pretty easy, especially in construction, I would say, to get into unmanageable debt.
Matt Bachtel: Yeah. And I saw a lot of people in my community do that. They came in hard and fast. And they had this beautiful fleet and all the veterans were going, “I don't know how he's doing it. I can't figure that out.” And I really, I was fortunate. I had a lot of mentors in my community. I probably talked to almost every excavator in our county and they would all say the same things. And a lot of times it's smoke and mirrors. It's rare that somebody can come in with very little experience and take on all that debt and have it work out. We were fortunate. But here's the tough part of it: I actually sometimes let fear drive my decision making. So my fear of debt, my fear of a downturn, and this is 20 years into my career. This is like 20, 21, 22. We had paid down our debt to almost nothing. But then our maintenance costs went from 3% of sales to almost 10% of our sales. So that's like the hard dollars that you spend on the repair. But what you don't factor in is the nuisance of having to deal with that problem of the breakdown every day. So we had actually let our fleet age. I feel a little too much out of fear and did not leverage good debt properly. So like this year, I had to go out and buy two dozers, a 200 excavator, three GPS systems, but that was because I spent two of the previous years being conservative on debt, but then overpaying in repairs and the nuisance of breakdowns.
Taylor White: That's an interesting approach the last couple years because it's almost opposite of what a lot of people did. And I find that really interesting because I look at ourselves and go, “Okay. We leveraged a lot of good debt and had a higher overhead, but there was so much work going on.” And I look at kind of what you just said and like, I can only imagine the money that possibly the business would have been able to keep away or keep some liquid cash in the business over those years when it was so busy and you could get your profit margins higher and being able to have that buying power that you do now at a time when now the dealerships actually are stopping at the offices and they're trying to sell the stuff. Because during COVID, it was like, “Oh, you want a 325? Good luck with that.” I remember, it was just the craziest thing. It was like you were trying to sell the salesman on why you should get a machine first. But now that things have quieted down and the buying power is back to the business owners, I feel like you put yourself in a really smart and good position.
Matt Bachtel: Here's the thing is I think that we're calculated and we think, but we also just sometimes have good luck. I say this, and I'm not proud of it. It's my weakness as a leader sometimes, I let the fears stand in the way of progress. But it also has served me well because in ‘08, I was able to weather that storm. I started in 2000 and I remember like 9/11, all my builders canceling basement digs like the day afterwards. So I'm always trying to balance that risk reward. And again, I think it goes back toI just know who I am and I really have to go home and be able to sleep at night.
Taylor White: Yeah, it's interesting. My father is in our business, he is much like yourself and that's how he operated the business. That's how he ran and. And what I find interesting, you were saying kind of your right hand man that kind of came in. Kurt, I believe you said his name was.
Matt Bachtel: Keith.
Taylor White: Yep, Keith. Sorry. I kind of look at it like, is he the ying to your yang kind of thing? Is one of you guys maybe sort of the brake and one of you is the gas and you kind of compliment each other?
Matt Bachtel: We compliment each other and we are different. He's steady. He was a grocery store manager. He wanted to be a part of building something, so he labored for me and then I taught him how to be an operator. So over the course of three years, he went from a grocery store manager to a foreman. But what he did is he took everything that I taught him and made it better because he's the rock, he's the steady force behind everything. So people talk about not being able to get young people in the workforce, all these things. Out of 17 people, 10 of them are under 30 for us. Well, it's because you got the rock leading them. They respect him. They know that he's done everything and he's so consistent at it. So, yeah, he was the consistency when I had the entrepreneurial, I was the squirrel or the dog chasing the squirrel around at times. And he could settle me down and say, “Hey.Llet's go grind for a while and steady things out.”
Taylor White: You said earlier, maybe I don't see myself as the most effective leader. And I think obviously that's you being humble in a sense. And I think you probably are a really great leader. But what makes somebody great like Keith? What makes a good effective leader in your opinion?
Matt Bachtel: I think with him being able to do the mundane over and over and over. This is going to be the third podcast I've been on and it's humbling to have people reach out to you and say, “It seems like you really have things figured out.” And then you realize you don't. You want to say, no. We have a lot of positive good things going, but we don't have it figured out. But the advice I give to my college age kids or anybody that asks is the ability to do the mundane over and over and over again, to not waver. If our process is you do a walk around with the dump truck before you pull away with the chains, you do it every time and you don't compromise. So consistency, there's nothing sexy about it, and we both have it. We're both very meticulous in the way we approach things.
Taylor White: I really like that. And I like it because I think that you could have given a really more classic answer of being like a leader that steps up and he does this and, and I feel like I've heard so many different answers about a leader. But I feel like yours is actually so different in a way and it's so right because being consistent and showing up, just showing up is kind of what makes you successful as a person, as a leader, as somebody in an important role. Because if there's one thing that my guys could count on me for, and they know whether I'm puking my guts out, dying, I'm still showing up. And they might have to drag. Like last week, I've been deathly sick. I haven't missed a day. But I did miss a day last Thursday because my office people were like, “Get out of the office. We don't want you here.”
Matt Bachtel: Yeah, they're looking out. Self preservation, right?
Taylor White: I was forced out of my own office by my staff. I truly believe that if people– Because I don't tell myself or even our top people that, “Hey. I'm going to rewrite the book of knowledge,” or, “I was the best top scholar.” But you know what I do have? I have consistency and I will continue to show up. I will show up every single day. And I think that that's very important what you said about Keith and probably even yourself is that no matter what, I'm consistent and I will show up. And every single day I know what I have to do, and I will continue to do that same thing every single day and day in and day out.
Matt Bachtel: Consistency is key. There really is not much even. I think back to the first year in business. I wasn't afraid to make phone calls and when people called, I returned their call within a couple hours. And so many of my competitors wouldn't return the phone call. So I think all those little cliche details really do matter.
Taylor White: Talk about that first year in business. What was that like?
Matt Bachtel: Oh, I was so naive. It's pretty cool. I actually found a legal pad with our business plan on it. I thought I had lost it. And my daughter was working for me last summer and she was cleaning things and found it. It was decent. And I think I might share it on social media because it was pretty simplistic. But the part that wasn't there is there was zero financial planning in it. So it was the marketing, it was the equipment, it was the customers, all those things. And I remember going to the first accountant and he said, “What are your projections?” And all I told him was what the hourly rate, the going hourly rates were. So I think we did $180,000 that year. I didn't start till May of that year. Extremely fortunate. My aunt and uncle owned a remodeling company and they were very involved in their association. They allowed me to park my equipment at their shop for free. They gave me a chicken coop. Like literally my first shop. I wish I had a picture of it. I think I do on some old phone. It was a chicken coop. And I thought I was living in high heaven. I had some cones in it, an extra shovel and a rake and a wheelbarrow. And I think we did $180,000. It was me by myself. Keith would come and work for free on Wednesdays and Saturdays when he was off. My brother, who was a construction management major at Ohio State at the time, him and I would work, but we would scrap as much as we worked sometimes. So that was the first year.
Taylor White: Then talk about the first employee. First employee is Keith, right?
Matt Bachtel: My brother technically was the first part time employee. And then Keith came on in 2001 full time.
Taylor White: And I know we've already spoken about Keith, but I am interested to know I guess from your standpoint, what was the decision making being like, “Okay. I'm taking on a full time person. I'm now responsible for someone's pay that's got to feed their family. I'm ready for a full time position.”? Because that's a big leap when you're in business. taking on your first time full time employee.
Matt Bachtel: That's where the naivety comes in. We had to take on a full time person. His wife was pregnant. My wife was pregnant with twins. So you think about some things. I had to pay him equal to what he was making at the grocery store as a manager. So I paid him more that year than I made. And we knew our wives wanted to be stay at home moms. So in year two, we took on full time benefits. So we've offered benefits when we were two guys in a truck.
Taylor White: Holy.
Matt Bachtel: When I hear people say they can't provide benefits, we're a small business. I don't believe that's the case. But you have to change your mindset. What did we give up for that? Maybe a little salary. Maybe it took two years to buy a truck instead of one but it was a priority. And to this day, it's not what you make, it's what you keep. I know that bad things happen to good people, so benefits are huge to our company. It's just important to me that our employees have those.
Taylor White: Talk about your first big piece. What was the first big piece of equipment where you're like, Okay. Wow.”?
Matt Bachtel: Man, I don't know. I love equipment. I'm like all the other people that you see on the show. But we were so methodical because it was a mini excavator, then another mini and then it took to ‘06 until I got a John Deere 550 dozer.
Taylor White: Nice. Good size.
Matt Bachtel: Yeah. And we still have that. That's our dump site pusher. It's probably on its third undercarriage and that, but this was the first big one. And then I think we got about 140 Kobelco after that. So it took us from 2000 to 2007. We grew from 180,000 in sales to a million in sales in ‘07. So then the bottom dropped out in ‘08 and had to start to start over a little bit and then grew from there.
Taylor White: What was that like? What was ‘08 like? For us, I'm in Ottawa, so we have a very protected economy because this is like the nation's capital, so a lot of federal money here. But curious to know from your standpoint, you take it from that much to build it up to a million in sales and all of a sudden ‘08 comes. What are your thoughts? What do you do?
Matt Bachtel: We were fortunate because of the conservativeness to not have debt. But I can remember we had enough carryover to get through the first half of the year and then it started to get pretty lean. But we were pretty diverse, so we did some homeowner work that was like emergency water lines and sewers. We did have new construction, but we are in northeast Ohio, former Rust Belt, kind of downtrodden in the ‘80s and ‘90s. But one thing is we're not Nashville or somewhere like that where the growth is crazy. So the booms aren't as good and the busts aren't as bad. So through our conservative nature and just kind of the nature of our market, we muddled through. But I can honestly say that all of the growth we've had has come at the expense of some of my other buddies that were in the business. We've grown into a commercial net, but I watched two of my good mentors, second generation guys, lose their businesses in ‘09 and ‘10.
Taylor White: That's crazy. Are you fully commercial or do you do residential as well too? Both?
Matt Bachtel: We're still both. And I don't know if it's a legacy thing, but here's the thing, I boxed myself in. When you come in to get an interview with us, we say, “Hey. Listen. Unless we have another ‘08 and crap hits the fan, we're going to try to stay within one hour and we're going to try to work you in Ohio, which is seasonal almost year round.” So we make some pretty big commitments to our people, so that means that I need diversity. So we are going to give you an idea. This spring we did a 5,000-foot water main right down the middle of a road in our hometown, and on that road we were also doing a Starbucks and a Panda Express. But then we had another crew dig in basements for a long time, a guy that we started digging for 20 some years ago. So we have not abandoned the past, but we definitely kind of compartmentalize it a little bit because you do have to have a different set of tools and skill set. But that residential area is also a great training ground. So Eric, who's been with me since this is 22nd year, he's the residential foreman. Well, he's the trainer of these 19-year-olds and as soon as he gets them trained up, then we steal them and put them on the commercial cruise.
Taylor White: How are you finding these young people? How are you attracting young workers to your business?
Matt Bachtel: Word of mouth, social media. Really, word of mouth. I believe that we've gotten the reputation as being the place to send your son or daughter that has the aptitude to go to college but chooses not to go to college and they need a safe place to send that kid that was in either the trade program or college prep. Then they get to graduation day and they're like, “I don't want to go to college.” So we have a lot of guys that have the aptitude to go and they came from good families. Maybe 15 years ago or 20, they would have gone to college. But now that the trades are more appealing, we're attracting those people, but we're extremely patient. I joke, I was a mama's boy. I didn't like to get yelled at by coaches, so I don't ever yell. You can run into the side of my truck, I'll be pissed, but I'm not going to yell at you. I don't want to be yelled at, so I try to treat people the way I want to be treated. So there's an extreme amount of patience within our organization for mistakes that young people, I can't even say young, inexperienced people will make.
Taylor White: What's your culture like there then? You're saying you're not screaming and a yeller, which is super nice. You caught a young, good, young crew, are you driving culture? Are you constantly thinking about the culture there? Are you doing things to improve cultures? I mean, obviously, you're doing something right if you're attracting these people.
Matt Bachtel: We think about it and are conscious. Obviously, I'm on social media, I follow everybody and I see what we're doing. But really the thing is you can do all those things. You can have luncheons, you can have parties, you can do all this, but at the end of the day you got to just treat people right. We do those things, but I believe, and maybe my employees would feel differently, but that we do them just because it's the right thing to do and it's from our heart, it's not to check a box. So we're streaky. We'll do a luncheon in July, but then maybe it's a while before we do something else. It's not always consistent. But if we're making a good profit and we're doing well, we're going to share it. And the same thing is, if we're not doing well, they know monthly in our safety meeting, we talk finances, so they know whether we're doing good or bad. But I think that the culture has to be cultivated. We had a right hand man come to us two years ago and say, “Hey, I was on another crew for a week,” and that is not a Bachtel crew. He's like, there's some kind of dysfunction there. So instead of just kind of ignoring it, we had to sit down at my conference table with six grown men and we said, “Hey. This individual brought this to our attention. What's going on?” And there was some serious disrespect. And it was one new employee who had been a referral, who came out of the shoot looking good, but that person was not respectful in meetings. If you were talking, he always had a sarcastic comment or a joke to make. And I love to have fun and I love to goof around in that, but when we walk through the doors, it's game time and we're serious about what we're doing. So I know that was a long winded answer, I don't know if I answered your question or not.
Taylor White: Oh, you did. You nailed it. And you're 100% right. It's kind of like you're thinking about it and something you should think about, but at the same time it's like I always look at people. I always tell people, we were doing culture before, culture was cool. Before, it wasn't called culture. It was like we were going up to the hunt camp anyways with all the guys when we were a smaller crew, shooting skeet, having a good time, having a fire, having a beer or two. That stuff is stuff that we've been doing forever, but it just got labeled as culture because I was too dumb to understand what all that stuff was. But it was just like, “Hey, we like having a good time with our employees and treating them right. And if I was working somewhere else, I'd want to be treated the same as how I treat them.” But another thing that you said that I'm so interested in is you talk finance with your entire team.
Matt Bachtel: All the time. We just had our safety meeting. It's 6:30 on Monday morning. Once a month, there's a third party that comes in and administers it. But at 6:00 AM, the whole team was there and it was just like, “Here's our workload. Here's what we've done that's going well. Here's what we've done that's not going well.” I don't give the exact profit margin in those meetings, but I'll say, “Hey. We're down 3% relative to historical and that directly affects your compensation, the equipment replacement, and the fun stuff we do.” It's not to like nickel and dime anybody or anything, but we talk about it all the time.
Taylor White: So you're not talking specifics being like, “Hey. We did $475,000 this month, normally we're doing about $520,000 and we're not making our margins that we need to make.” You're talking from a general perspective like, “Hey, guys. We're 3% down from where we need to be. Timmy, you and your crew, you guys ended earlier a bunch of these weeks and we can see here that you guys took four days off. That hurts us.”
Matt Bachtel: We're doing a little bit of that individually with crews post finishing a job. And I think that that could be a game changer if we did it consistently. But as the group, let's say they know that we did $7.9 million in sales last year and they know that we did it the year before and that wasn't a good thing to have two years in a row at $7.9 million. That means you didn't grow enough to cover the raises in the inflation that occurred. Now, top line sales don't make everything. You can have a very profitable year but just on a very high level, you need to have some kind of growth. We did our first subdivision this year and it's been a great job and learning lesson. And we put in sewers for years. The mainline sewer, I figured would take two weeks, it took four weeks to do. So I said,”Hey, guys.” And I personally was out there training them. So I took a 22-year-old, a 23-year-old and trained them how to be a mainline sewer lair, and I screwed it up royally. I was so anal about getting it right that sometimes I slowed them down, so I'll take responsibility for that. But we talked about it as a team. We talked about it and as their crew and as a team, they did nothing wrong. I probably should add another week in the bid. And then my anal retentive nature and my desire to perfect the process slowed us down at times. And then we had a couple just gully washer rainstorms. But my point is we are discussing things at a very high level. But one of the things that we haven't been doing enough of is we collect good data and job costs, but we don't do enough post job analysis as an office or as a team to really use all that good data and apply it to the next job.
Taylor White: I also feel like a lot of companies, ourselves included, is you're not debriefing after the job. The only time we generally will talk about a job is if it went really bad. And it's like, ‘Okay. That went really bad.” But then when you have jobs that go really good, we don't talk about them. It's just, “Okay, great. That went really good. We made lots of money on that. That's great. Let's go to the next one.’ I think what you're saying and what I see is like, well, we need to talk about why it went really well as well, not just the bad.
Matt Bachtel: And I don't know if I have the courage to do this, but what if we ran the experiment where instead of feeling the need that every crew, every day needs to be moving, that you had a crew on a job for three weeks. Let's say it's a new Starbucks, and then you took one day to clean the truck out and get reorganized and have a debrief and then a handoff meeting for the next job, then went and started. But because we're in Ohio and you always have this pressure of weather and that we don't have enough discipline to do that. But I feel, I don't feel, I probably know that we should do that. My weakness as the leader is to not miss a single day. I feel like the team could do so much better. If we think about an NFL team, what do they do Monday? They have one day off, but it's a lot of film study. And that's what makes them great. I think we could do more of that at our company at least.
Taylor White: I totally agree with that. I think that that's super smart. But like you said, you look at it like, okay, do we take that day and do that but then I'm missing out on a full day productivity and revenue, but maybe taking that day that it'll actually make us more profitable or make us more efficient? And you just essentially won't know until you try.
Matt Bachtel: Correct. Yes.
Taylor White: So it's one of those things where it's like you don't want to do it, but possibly you should. I'm interested to see like over COVID and stuff like that. You bought some machinery this year and stuff. You wrote a business plan out on a sheet of paper when you first started. Do you have a 5, 10, 15, 20-year goal? You mentioned kids. Are they in the business? Are they going to come into the business? You got some succession there?
Matt Bachtel: We have a general framework in discussions between my wife and Keith and I, but it is not formally written down. And the three of us are going to make a point to do that in the near future. I'm 48, Keith's 49. We have a lot of gas left in the tank, but we are not waiting till we're 62 or 64 to figure this out. There's a reason that there are so many young people. I have a 60-year-old operator and then Eric, Keith's brother's 50. Then there's the two of us in our 40s and everybody else is under us. So we are very good in that realm. So when I say it's not formally written, but that is our strategy is we're going to build something that's sustainable, that somebody can take over. Who that is? I have six kids.
Taylor White: Good for you.
Matt Bachtel: Yeah, we have a great family. So I've got one that's an accountant at Deloitte, one that works in insurance. She graduated college. I have an electrical apprentice. I have two girls studying business at Ohio State, and a son that's a senior in high school. So this is the hard thing. And you talk about balance and work life balance and that. So my kids didn't grow up like you and I did, where you could go out in the field. They were involved in a ton of activities. We were doing commercial stuff by that point, so they did not get to experience it maybe the way you and I did, but they did listen to all the shop talk at the dinner table. So even though they didn't set out to be business people, I think through osmosis, they all have a business tilt to them or whatever. Everybody's cleaned the toilets at our shop. All the guys in the house have mowed the grass there, they did some of the grunt work stuff but none of them have worked in the field. So I don't know where that goes, but I do know that two of my daughters have interned with us in the summer. And it was so cool to see my one daughter who's an accounting major, she did all the billing for the trucking company and she was like, “How was our tonnage today?” And it was so much fun to see that and it bonds us. I just took a couple of them to lunch on Saturday and we were talking business and social media and branding, you name it. So I don't know where that leads, butI have these capable children. But also, I have a 25-year-old foreman that's got a two-year construction management degree that's been with us since he was 18. I got a 27-year-old foreman that's been with us since he was 19. There's guys, we're building a pipeline, we just don't know where all the pieces will fall now.
Taylor White: Well, the good thing is there's lots of time to figure that out and see where life's natural path we'll kind of take that. But I'm really interested. I have two kids and a third one on the way so I got lots of catching up to do for you for six. But how did you manage six and the business?
Matt Bachtel: The business was smaller at the time. The office was in our basement. My wife's amazing. So I mean everything's about if you don't have a good spouse. She's a CPA, accountant by training. That's what she did before we were together. So she was used to that. Believe it or not, accountants, they work 12-hour shifts. When you're working for a big four, you're grinding just like a contractor, so she got all that. She took care of a lot of the kids' stuff. But I hear you talk about with different people, work-life balance, trying to figure it out. I think the reality of being an owner and having kids is, generally speaking, at least until you really get the business humming, it's a 10 or 12-hour a day job. I just chose to get up early and try to get as much of it done and then I would try to race home at 5:00 to jump into the carpool line or coach a team. But everybody was okay with dad going down to the office at 9:00 and working from 9:00 to 10:30. I don't feel like anybody felt like they were cheated or anything like that. So I think it's just that we made a commitment. And again, it goes back to what my commitment to the guys, will only work within one hour. Well, that allows you to get home and see your kids and stuff. So we are very intentional with the way we build things and I'm just very fortunate to be able to do it, and not everybody can do that.
Taylor White: I love that. I definitely. That's something that I struggle with. But I love hearing every single different person's outlook and opinion on it. Because just when you think it's hard with two and all, my wife's pregnant with three, and around here, not too many people have that many kids. They're like, “That's crazy.” But then you talk to somebody like you that had six kids and you're kind of like, “Well, yeah .The business wasn't as big.” And it's like in my mind, I'm like, “I don't care if your business was just you or 400 people. You're self-employed. There's a lot riding on you and there's a lot to do to make things work.” Especially with six kids, you're probably having kids at that time as well, and newborns and ones that were older and young. That's really impressive and I think you need to give yourself more credit for that. That's really good. And specifically, your wife as well too. Like you said, your spouse, that's ultimately what holds it all together.
Matt Bachtel: Oh, yeah. And here's the thing, as we're mentoring our teams and looking at our teams, we got to remember that too. Sometimes I feel like we should actually interview the spouses.
Taylor White: Yeah.
Matt Bachtel: Because if a guy's got something bad going on or a guy, girl, whatever it is, if they're not getting along, it's coming to work with them too. Nothing worse than watching somebody go through a divorce or a hard time like that. It really could take a player and make them deficient for a while. And you have to decide whether you're, you're going to walk beside them or not in that journey.
Taylor White: Yeah. It's hard to do that, specifically in our industry as well, too. Because I feel like it's changing a lot more, especially with the younger kids, younger guys and girls, they want to talk more about that stuff. But specifically me and how I was raised, stuff like that was just stuff like if you're going through a hard time or whatever, you didn't want to talk about it, but sometimes I wore it on my sleeve. Which I'm not saying is a healthy way to do it, I'm saying that that was probably wrong. It's true. Like, you said, you don't bring it to work, but you bring it to work and you wear it on your sleeve. And I feel like you need to be able to talk more about that or being a true team leader, being that rock, like you're saying, like a Keith, does it take somebody like that being like, “Hey, listen. Where you're lacking, I'll pick up because I know you got some stuff going on and we need to talk to each other more about that.”
Matt Bachtel: But you got to verbalize it. We've done that. We've had months where I've just pulled them in and said, “Hey. There's a lot going on.” And I said, “I only know a fraction of it. I don't know what everybody's got going on.” You need to pick people up and stand by them. And one thing is, I think what's helped me in my whole career is not accepting the norm. People say, like, “Oh, guys don't want to talk.” I'm going to tell you, when we started talking to our guys, they really did want to talk. They really do. And I've used counseling and helped me in so many ways. So when I see people struggling, the first thing I do is, “Hey. Our health insurance has counseling. Let's get after it and see if you can work the problem and help yourself and your family.”
Taylor White: You need business owners like yourself and places like that that actually give the guys an area or a space to feel safe to talk about that stuff, but also give them the tools to succeed in that stuff as well, too. Because you could say you want to do all these good things, but you need to actually have, like you said, be like, ‘Hey. Our benefits actually cover this and you can reach out and do that sort of stuff.” I am really excited. And if there's one type, one thing you wanted to end people on and a word of advice for a new business owner or somebody who's going through growing pains, what would you say to them?
Matt Bachtel: They're not alone. Here's the thing, I don't believe anybody's got it all figured out. Yesterday, I was doing paperwork and I was listening to Aaron Witt read the Goodfellows story. Have you seen that he reads some of these– So the Goodfellows, I never thought I'd enjoy Aaron Witt being a storyteller so much, but he read their story and they were founded in 1920. They poured into this book about their hundred year history, about how many struggles they had. When I look at my career, to our customers, to our employees, I think we've treated them well, and it's a good experience. But it doesn't mean it's not without sacrifices, mistakes, bumpy roads. I would say that since the pandemic hit, I had to throw out the book that got me through the first 19 years, the playbook. And the playbook is getting rewritten. And with AI and all these technology things, it's even going to come faster. So you're going to need to embrace change and look at every change factor as an opportunity to make money and to grow your business, and it's easier said than done. When you're going through that change, sometimes, we're humans, it wears you out. So you have to figure out how to battle the downs or the fatigue and stay positive and keep your team moving forward.
Taylor White: I love that. I love it. And I know that people listening to this are going to pull a lot of value out of that, and I really hope that they do. And I want to thank you for coming on and taking the time today and chatting about that sort of stuff because I know again, and you know, life is crazy and busy and business is busy. But I really appreciate you coming on today, Matt, and dropping some knowledge for us.
Matt Bachtel: No problem. Really appreciate the opportunity.
Taylor White: Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you everybody for listening to the CONEXPO/CON-AGG Podcast. We'll catch you guys on the next one. Take care, Matt.
