Scaling a family business usually requires preserving tradition and maintaining the status quo. But in a high-stakes, low-trust economy, clinging to the old ways of handshake deals and unchecked hours can destroy a company rather than save it. Taylor White sits down with his father, David, to reveal the hard truths about modernizing a legacy construction firm into an eight-figure powerhouse.
The conversation gets raw as they revisit the friction of transitioning from a local operation to a modern enterprise. David explains why the era of doing business on a handshake is dead and shares the brutal reality of why he let Taylor reach a breaking point before stepping in to help.
Topics:
- How marketing evolved from yellow pages to social media
- Generational mindsets on failure, ego, and risk
- Navigating conflict and partnership in a family business
- How family values shape culture and employee support
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Episode transcript:
Taylor White: Welcome back, everybody, to the CONEXPO-CON/AGG Podcast. I am your host, as always, Taylor White. Here today, back in probably where we film our best podcasts, is when people are here in person. I like doing it in person the best. It feels good. I am sitting here today with my dad, David White. Dad, thanks for being on.
David White: No, it is my pleasure.
Taylor White: Okay, good. It is going to be good. Before we get into the podcast, I want to remind everybody that registration is live, baby, for CONEXPO-CON/AGG 2026, March 3 through the 7. There are over 2,000 exhibitors and over 3 million square feet of just some of the coolest stuff in the construction industry and industries evolving around it. Make sure you use the code PODCAST30 for purchasing your tickets for 30% off. Right now, the offer is only valid through December 5, so grab your crew, mark your calendar, and we will see you at the show.
Thank you, everybody, for tuning in today. This podcast is brought to you by John Deere Power Systems. Shout out to John Deere Power Systems for being an awesome sponsor of it. I have some SparkNotes with me today. Dad and I did a podcast a little while ago, and it was a great time, and we talked about some stuff, but I thought, you know what? I do not want to repeat everything. I want to start fresh. So, first question would be, Dad, how much money do you make after taxes?
David White: Two hundred dollars, I think.
Taylor White: Starting off, I wanted to ask Dad about the last one where we talked about how it came from Grandpa to him and stuff like that. I think what would be really interesting is hearing your perspective on the business now. I would like to hear your perspective on how things are now with me in the business as well, and everything else that we have going on. I want to get into that later because we have other businesses together as well. But what do you think that I have done differently that impresses or does not impress you? What stuff do I do that makes you go "nice," and what stuff do I do that makes you shake your head?
David White: You are very aggressive.
Taylor White: Okay, but are you saying that is impressive or makes you shake your head?
David White: No, impressive.
Taylor White: Okay.
David White: Because you are aggressive in meeting people and making things happen. You are not afraid to go out and put yourself out there and chase the chase.
Taylor White: Okay, that is cool. And what would be something that worries you?
David White: Well, something that worries me about you?
Taylor White: Yeah.
David White: The only thing is to slow you up because there seems to be no fear, which is good, but it is bad.
Taylor White: We talked about that at a lunch the other day. We met one of the new finance guys for our local Cat dealer, Toromont Cat. We were sitting down talking, and Dad at one point was like, "Oh, you know, I have the fear of failure." I kind of stopped the conversation and said, "Well, I find that an interesting topic because I do not have the fear of failure."
David White: Yeah, that is what I am talking about. Because it is like I do not want to fail and I do not want to be part of that.
Taylor White: Why?
David White: Because I worked too hard. My father worked too hard. That is in me, though, that I do not want to say, "You know what? I failed on this."
Taylor White: Yeah, but why? I get that you have worked hard. Everybody works hard. Like the next guy down the road, maybe he worked even harder. Who knows?
David White: Failure is not an option in my mind.
Taylor White: Yeah, okay. Do you agree on that? But you are scared of the failure. Failure is not an option in my brain, which is why I keep pushing. It is not even in my head. But if I do fail, I do not care.
David White: I do not know. I care. I just care. I am not sure why, but I do care what people will think.
Taylor White: Yeah, it is an ego thing.
David White: Yes, I guess. Yes.
Taylor White: Like I have always said, we could buy as much machinery tomorrow, and if we could not make the payments on it and they had to come pick it all up, I do not give a damn.
David White: Yeah. It bothers me when I am not able to do that, to fulfill something that I committed to. And I am not saying that it would not bother you, because I think it would bother you. I just do not think you have experienced that. I went through some times where I have had to call people to say, "I cannot make payments on something. What can we do?"
Taylor White: Fair enough. But I feel like I have gotten the business to a point where it is. Everybody else this year around us that we talk to is having a terrible year, but we are not having a terrible year.
David White: Exactly. But I am just saying there is always something on my shoulder going, "Just be careful. Just be careful." When that is not on your shoulder, you are more balls to the wall and let's go.
Taylor White: Yeah, I agree, but I don't agree with what you are saying because you are essentially saying you have not seen the hard times, so that is why. But we are in hard times. Canada is in a recession right now. People are not spending money like they were. But here we are, super busy with good profit margin work because we have created a name for ourselves. We have marketed, we have had pass-down generational clients. We are in a good sitting position.
David White: Exactly. And I think, like you said, the keyword is generational. Generational is what is keeping us flowing right now. Also, I think it is everything that you are doing online and socializing with people that I would not have met. I was in my own little world, and you have opened up the world to the bigger landscape of things.
Taylor White: On that topic, if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would you tell your younger self about doing what you are doing now? Forget business, even just in life. If you could go back in time and tell your younger self something, what would you tell your younger self?
David White: Seeing the way that you are today with people, putting yourself out there, meeting the people, being more interactional, I look back and go, maybe I should have put myself out there with people. I should have put myself into some of the associations in the area to become part of the community more than what I had. Because at that time, being part of the community, I have seen what it has done for you. It has opened up doors. You are dealing with business people. I was more dealing with the local contractors or homeowners. But that opens up the door.
Taylor White: It was just so much word of mouth back then.
David White: Yes, it was.
Taylor White: You didn't market.
David White: Marketing to us was Yellow Pages.
Taylor White: And that was the extent of it.
David White: Yes.
Taylor White: And you were not thinking back then about branding and culture and growth like that. You were just content doing what you were doing.
David White: There were only two companies around whenever I was growing up that were showing branding.
Taylor White: And that was rare because we are from a very small town.
David White: Yeah. Whenever we were seeing it, it was like, "Why are they painting all their stuff all these colors?" It just did not make sense. And it never really caught on until you came along. The generation now, it actually has helped, for sure.
Taylor White: That is crazy. A lot of people do that, and everybody is on social media. We were just talking about that at the lunch, too. Whenever our business started going on social media, nobody was putting themselves on social media. And now everybody is.
David White: Exactly. If you are not on social media, for sure, I think it is necessary.
Taylor White: Which is whatever. That is a conversation I have often. Everybody knows that now. If you are doing a podcast and people are asking for advice, be on social media. Everybody knows you need to be on social media. So that is just what it is.
What is the biggest difference between how business was done then versus now? I am talking transactionally. What do you see as the biggest shift in how business is done, both with residential and commercial, with the clients?
David White: Dealing with clients back when I was taking over running the business with my father, you would get a phone call, and people did not mind if you got back to them two days or three days later. Today, whenever you are dealing with people, it is more like if you are not back to me within 15 minutes, there is a problem. Why did you not get back to me? That is totally different from what we were used to doing back then.
Taylor White: That is a good point. I didn't think of it. My point would be, today I have the impression that I do not trust anybody.
David White: Exactly.
Taylor White: And everybody is out to screw you. So I think what has changed from when you were doing it versus us, and because we come from such a small area, is that I tell the guys and girls in the office here all the time, if something is totally messed up, you are changing anything: email, document. "Oh, you had a conversation with someone on site?" Send them an email. I know that it sounds repetitive in the office how I repeat it constantly, but emailing the smallest conversations is vital. Like, "Oh, the client got us to dig an extra hole over here." Then when you go to invoice them, they go, "Well, we didn't tell anybody to do that." It is like, "No, you did."
With residential, it is nice you are still dealing with people, but now you get different people that aren't from the country or not from around here. They are looking for the next dollar where they can save, and they can sleep at night knowing they screwed a contractor. So, I find covering your ass is so different now.
David White: Because we took on jobs just on word of mouth.
Taylor White: Zero POs.
David White: None. I never had a signed contract up to eight years ago. Eight years ago, we started doing signed contracts with deposits. Other than that, we just go do the job. Your word was your word. Then it got to the point where your handshake was what seals the deal. But today, yeah, it is definitely different. You are not doing that.
Taylor White: It is different.
David White: You go to a site meeting, you are having to put that site meeting into a minute form. So it is totally different from dealing whenever we were doing it.
Taylor White: Now, that was kind of from your perspective looking out at it. Another thing that I want to get your take on is how labor and work ethic have changed over the years. I would like to get your opinion on younger crews because we are a young business. Our guys out there are young. If our guys are listening right now as well, it was just last week where we made a joke when we were in Louisville at the Utility Expo. That was awesome. We were like, "Oh yeah, we got to get our guys to work more." Then we were joking because, for the amount of work that we do for the size that we are, our guys are good guys.
David White: Yeah, they are putting in the hours and they are getting stuff done.
Taylor White: They are putting in the hours and they are just good. But I would like your input on how this generation is. What do you think about it?
David White: Well, I think when I was growing up and getting into the business, we would start at 7:00 in the morning and we worked till 6:00 or 7:00 at night. Nobody was like, "Okay, it is 4:00, 5:00, let's wind it down." We just worked till whenever we had to do it. Today, I find it is hard. On Saturdays and even Sundays we worked. We did what we did on the weekends to keep things going. Nobody ever complained. Very rarely you would say, "You know what, I got to work Saturday," and they would go, "I can't make it." They would work Saturday.
Today's generation, I find it is totally different. I do not know if they are paying more attention to family-oriented stuff than my generation did, but they want to be home at 6:00. Work from your 7:00 in the morning till 5:00 and then I am done. And on the weekends, whenever you go to ask for something, it is hard.
Taylor White: Is that good or bad?
David White: Well, is it good or bad? Exactly. That is the big question with me. With me, I missed out on a lot of stuff doing that.
Taylor White: So, work-life balance is better nowadays. So what is worse? I mean, I look at our books also, and we started in 1968. We are having our biggest years now, with the most amount of money and stuff like that. So, what is the right way and wrong way?
David White: No, I know. And that is what I mean. It is like, who is right and who is wrong? Because like you say, we are getting work done, we are keeping the clients happy, our business is growing. Everybody is working Monday to Friday and we are getting stuff done. Come the weekends, if we need the odd weekend, they will step up and they will come in and do whatever needs to be done. But like you say, before I never took the time off to say, "Go away on a summer vacation."
Taylor White: You haven't either. We are just wired differently, that is all. I think that is kind of what it takes as a business owner though, too. Guys listening that have their own businesses know this.
David White: It is sunshine and you are working.
Taylor White: Yeah. We are not a 12-month-a-year business. We have this much time to make our revenue, and then whatever we do in the wintertime basically just keeps guys busy. You lose money at it, or you are just making enough to literally cover the bills to the penny and that is it. But as a business owner, obviously, you get back what you put in. So you put in more, you will get back out more. That would be the thing.
I would also think that the younger generation, especially now, is different. Millennials used to be the youngest generation, and now it is weird to think that there is another one below me. I still think that I am super young, but I do not think that they are a bad generation. I just think you have to look at who you hire. We generally hire country farm kids from the Valley. That is kind of our vibe and that is who has worked here. Not everybody is, but about 90%. Generally, they are good kids, good guys, good young men, really. We are hiring them when they are 18. I think our youngest is 18 right now.
David White: And they might not have a lot of experience, but you can see that they want to.
Taylor White: Yeah, exactly. And I think that sometimes we have to remind ourselves of that. Like we had an instance where a young laborer who is 18 pressure washed and made a mess of the shop, a mess of the hose. But no one ever showed him how to do it. No one ever showed him "this is how we do it." We just assumed, "Well, you would know how to do this," right? Because I knew it when I was 18. So I think stuff like that is when we have to remind ourselves, okay, we have a young crew.
David White: And I do have to remind myself of that. Because I do find it is like, "Oh my God, are you kidding me? You do not know how to do that?" But it is like you say, they are young. They do not know.
Taylor White: One of the workers that we were talking about today, he does our aggregate stuff, and he is going to laugh when he hears this, but he has a girlfriend now. He has never had a girlfriend in so long, and now he has a girlfriend and priorities kind of change. Before he would be the guy to stay till 6:00 and everyone has gone home, but now it is 5:01, those gates are closing at the pit, and he is gone. And you cannot really blame him.
David White: Yeah, but that is that generational thing. Before, whenever we were coming up, as I said, is that right or wrong? We are still getting the production done. It is like that extra hour. I look at it and go, in that extra hour we could get an extra four loads of material done or delivered to site.
Taylor White: Yeah, I think so. What do you think was the biggest change from you running the business to me running the business, and just in how the dynamic changed there?
David White: I think it was structure, basically. When there were four guys that I had to manage, it was really not that hard to manage because I was the structure. I did the estimating, I did the invoicing, and I did the meeting the people and setting up the jobs. Today, it is not like that. We have people in place to help implement all that structure.
For me, it was hard at first because to step away and not be the big dog that basically set up, priced, and everything, to go, "Okay, I got to step back now and let that go and let everybody else take over." It has been hard, but it has been good. It is nice to see how it has worked, too. So that is totally different, the business structure. But that comes with growth too. The growth that we have had in the last six years is something where my father would have looked at it and said, "I cannot even believe what you are doing with it."
Taylor White: Yeah, no, I agree. To add to that, when do you think that I finally stopped being the kid on the job site?
David White: I think after you came back from out West.
Taylor White: Yeah. I was 20 when I came back.
David White: You left when you were like 18, 19 years old. Whenever you came back, you were a different person. You were a man, not a boy.
Taylor White: And you think that is whenever I changed?
David White: It was the start of the change. Because I think each year, as you got a taste for the business and as you started to learn the business, you grew and you changed as the business grew.
Taylor White: How do you think that we navigate disagreements? The note says "light humor worked great with us," but I would say we actually have some pretty dark humor. But how do you think we navigate disagreements?
David White: It is actually crazy, but I think we do it very well. I think we have our disagreements, but we are man enough to man up to go, "Okay, we know when to say 'Whoa, enough is enough.'" We say our piece, we go our separate ways, but yet in the end, when we were apart, I think we realized where we can come together and we solve it.
Taylor White: Yeah, we were talking about this again at a lunch the other day. We were highlighting how good our relationship is in order to be able to have businesses. We have businesses and we are hitting eight figures between the two companies that we are turning over now, which is crazy to think about. But I think it is also because we work as business partners because there is no jealousy. There is no, "Oh, well, he did that," or "I did that," or "I got this," or "He pulled that much money out of the company for this or that."
Because that is when you get to the nitty-gritty of being business partners. You are there for money, and if one guy takes more than this guy, and you are somebody who is a bean counter, it is not going to work. I think that is also another thing; it is a constant joke between us about obviously money and stuff like that. But what I am trying to say is being on the same page is really important as well, too. And not being jealous.
David White: I equalize everything as we go.
Taylor White: Yeah, exactly.
David White: And I am 100% right. I agree with everything you are saying there, because I think you agree with me: it is not about the money. We are doing this for our family.
Taylor White: Yeah, my kids.
David White: And that is the way I was doing it, too. It is the future. That is what we want. And you have the same goal. So sure, we want to be rewarded and we want to live the way that we live. It is not extravagant by no means.
Taylor White: No, I am not saying we live extravagantly. But we are living and doing things that we want to do. We went to Disney last March with our whole family, and that was nice to be able to do.
David White: Yes, exactly.
Taylor White: It was like Dad and I pulling out a dividend from the company to pay for everybody to come down. That was nice to be able to do.
David White: Exactly, with the grandchildren.
Taylor White: That is what you mean by what it is all about. And that is what I agree with, too. It is not about buying a sports car or something like that.
David White: Not about keeping numbers and knowing how much the other person took.
Taylor White: What would you say was the hardest moment that we have ever had working together and how we handled it?
David White: Hardest moment? Wow, that is a good question.
Taylor White: Yeah, I think I know where mine was.
David White: Hardest moment for us? I think it is through the growth of the business.
Taylor White: No, hardest moment. Not just growing pains. Something where you are like, "Yeah, that was pretty tough to get through with you," or "That was a situation where we were at each other pretty heavy."
David White: Was it when you were out on equipment trying to figure out whether to come into the office and run the business?
Taylor White: No. My moment would be probably when I was driving the Volvo.
David White: Yes. Yes.
Taylor White: The dump truck.
David White: Yes. You were out on the site day after day.
Taylor White: You do not remember what happened? I can tell.
David White: No, I don't remember what happened, but I remember you were upset. You wanted out. You were like, "I am done."
Taylor White: The bulldozer incident was just me losing my mind in a bulldozer; that wasn't anything to do with work. The Volvo dump truck incident was one day I was driving the dump truck, and I think I was two or three months into living in my first home. I think at the time I was getting paid like $30,000 a year, $35,000. And I think that is honest to God what I was getting paid.
David White: Way too much.
Taylor White: Yeah. Nowadays, you couldn't do that. I was living in a house and still doing that, but that was pre-COVID. I remember I was just upset because I thought, "Man, the amount of stuff that I am doing for the business, I am just not getting rewarded enough for it." I had a dump truck load full of topsoil because I was starting the soil business. I was driving the Volvo, and I would have my AirPods and my notepad, and I would be trying to shift gears, driving, writing stuff down on a pad, and talking to clients.
I pulled into Dad's office with the dump truck and I hit the air brakes. I remember walking into his office and just saying, "Look, this is what I want and this is what I am doing, or else I am out of here." And you were like, "You are crazy. You are not getting that." So then I called Jill and I said, "Well, then the truck is sitting parked there." And I called Jill to pick me up.
David White: Yes.
Taylor White: He asked, "What the heck is going on?" And I said, "I am quitting the business. I am leaving the family business. I am going to start my own thing." She said, "Okay, I will come pick you up and we will go home." So she picked me up. I think it sat for a whole other day. Both of us kind of stayed quiet. And then I wrote down on a sheet of paper what I was thinking and everything. And then I think you were finally like, "Okay, we got to sit down and talk about this and we got to work it out." But for me, that was it.
David White: I remember the day that you actually pulled in and you jammed the brakes on. And you were like, "Okay, you know what? I am done."
Taylor White: I think now, looking back, that just came out of frustration because I was heavily underpaid. Being the boss's son, now I get it. I will do the same to my kids. But people think, "Oh, you would get paid crazy because you are the son." It is the opposite, right? You are underpaid. And I was underpaid. But I think looking back on it now, I was just frustrated because I knew how much energy I had.
David White: You wanted to grow.
Taylor White: I wanted to grow the business. I am money-driven, and I knew that there was so much potential and money to be made, but yet I was still living like I had nothing, because I didn't. In the business, we weren't doing what we were doing today, and that is where the frustration came out of. I knew there was potential here, but I couldn't do it. So I was either doing it here or I was going out on my own and doing it.
David White: But you know what, though? I think if you look back at it, too, that is part of the plan. It is part of you being pushed to the limit that you step up, and it is like, "Okay, well then show me what you can do."
Taylor White: I do not think you planned it like that, but okay.
David White: No, but that is the way it all works out. If it was easy, that push wouldn't have happened.
Taylor White: Yeah, I would agree. How would you say family values influence the company culture?
David White: Oh, I think it is all about family values. The people that work for us, we care about what they are doing, what their life is like. We are not greedy as far as pinching their money. We pay fair.
Taylor White: An example that comes to mind about this is one of our laborers, the young guy we were actually just talking about. He grew up on a family farm, and he needed the month of October off—soybean season. He needed harvest season off to help on the family farm because his parents needed the help to get the crop off for their family legacy, their farm. Maybe another business would be like, "No, you are not taking a month off work in a busy season." But although it is tough and it sucked, we were like, "Well, yeah." My first thought is, "He has got to do it." I think that is where it influences us. I think of my son; if he was working somewhere else and I needed him, I would hope that his boss would be like, "Of course your dad needs you, it is family business."
David White: But that is the change in generation. Because I was never like that whenever I was growing up.
Taylor White: You wouldn't have let somebody go and work on a family farm?
David White: You are either in or you are out. Today it is more flexible with that. But that is the way it was.
Taylor White: No, I disagree. Take deer season. Look at our schedule during deer season week. You and I are both gone. We got five other guys gone. That doesn't make up full crews.
David White: But you know what? We were always like that. We would shut down. The companies would shut down for that season. But that is different than one going home to work on a farm.
Taylor White: Yeah, for sure. And we, at the end of the day, could say nobody gets it off, but we go deer hunting. But I think that relates to the question well because it is family values. We know that we want to take the time off to go deer hunting because that is just the Ontario Valley culture, to take the first week in November off to go rifle hunting. I think that is how it translates into the business: we understand that week is going to be totally messed up.
David White: I don't think we have ever said no to somebody that needs some time off for family. We have never said no. That is not what we are about. If you come work with us, you are part of the family. We get it, we understand it, and we will work around it. So one person being off or two people being off in a day is not going to change anything.
Taylor White: Where do we draw the line between work and family?
David White: That is a very good question.
Taylor White: Because I know my answer: there is no line.
David White: Yeah. As far as the personal part of life, I don't need to know the personal part. I think that is the whole thing.
Taylor White: What do you mean?
David White: I don't even need to know details of the people that work for me, their family details. Is that what you mean?
Taylor White: No, us. Where do we draw the line between work and family? Not our guys.
David White: Oh, you and me? Oh, jeez.
Taylor White: Yeah, I don't need to know if the guys are having an argument or what is going on. If they are having a bad day, okay, we will pick up your slack. It is all good. But no, between us, where do we draw the line?
David White: Where do we draw the line?
Taylor White: That is why I said I know my answer. There is no line.
David White: No. We are almost 24/7. When we talk, is it business or isn't it? We shoot the shit and we will go and we will have Thanksgiving, which we just had. We are joking around about stuff, but we are not talking about business all the time. But business stuff does come in.
Taylor White: Of course.
David White: We make jokes about it, but it is not like it consumes us. It is just part of us.
Taylor White: You have a family business. If you say, "Oh yeah, we shut it down, we don't talk, we don't do this," I think that is probably a lie. Everybody that is surrounded by you is benefiting from or is a subject of the family business. I grew up with Mom working in the family business. My wife works in the family business. Mom still works in the family business. Everybody's life is just our business.
David White: So there is no real switch.
Taylor White: Yes, that is what I was thinking. There is no line.
I have another question. What does legacy mean to you now that the company is in its third generation?
David White: Jeez. Legacy to me is making my father proud. Basically, I like to be able to start and finish and hand off to you what my father gave to me as an opportunity. And then now we would be giving you the opportunity to move it to your family. That is legacy to me. Passing on the family business and being able to live a nice life.
Taylor White: Yeah, no, I would agree. I think it is not just financial, but it is personal and community-based as well.
David White: And to be known as a good person. I don't want to be known as the grumpy old guy that was around here for years and "Oh, he passed on." I want a legacy of "Oh yeah, he was the guy at the end of the office, and I could always go talk to him." That is my legacy. And that my family is happy.
Taylor White: You need to start smiling more then.
Legacy for me, I am still young, so I know how someone would paint the picture of what my life was and what I have accomplished, and I think that it would be pretty cool. That is why I film everything. Being able to go back, my kids and their kids going back and watching footage of me from 2016 to now, growing the business from blonde hair pushing snow to what we are doing now, building buildings in Ottawa—it is kind of crazy. So I think my legacy is kind of writing itself.
But I think legacy with the business, with Ken White Construction specifically, is doing stuff like legacy projects. A small thing is such as signing on the Storybook Farm at the fairground. Getting our name on one of the actual barns that can be there forever. I always wanted that. You have the other people that have their barns, and I just wanted that. Right now it is still the Storybook Farm, but 20 years from now, people will just say, "Oh, the Ken White barn."
Even on a larger scale, what we did three years ago now, starting the Ken White Foundation for students pursuing the trades. A $10,000 a year donation at West Carleton Secondary School. I think that carries on the legacy of even Grandpa. So I think if you are in a family business, no matter what, you can still continue on the legacy of your family business and of Grandpa, but doing it in a way that benefits your business while benefiting the legacy of your family and your last name. I want the "White" last name to be known. I like when you pick up the phone and they are like, "Oh yeah, it is those Whites." I like doing that. I like building up our family.
David White: And it is not just myself. It is the same as what we have started with the charities, donating to charities and doing our annual golf tournament. We are almost over $100,000 in three years of charities that we are doing towards children, towards the Hospital for Sick Kids, and whatever charities we choose. But it puts our name out there to be proud of. We are very fortunate and lucky to be able to do stuff like that.
Taylor White: Yeah, I agree.
David White: That is where you have to realize, and I think that is the thing that we don't stop and take a minute and go, "Holy shit, we have done this." We look at our year and it has gone by so quick. But we do make an impact to a lot of people on a day-to-day basis. The people that work for us, they help us, we help them. The charities, the community that we are helping. You don't pay attention to that until it is sometimes too late. And you go, "Wow."
Taylor White: Yeah. I think it is important to stop and smell the roses. But sometimes we don't do that.
Last thing I had was advice for anyone listening who is thinking of bringing family into their business. What would you tell them?
David White: Well, I think bring them into the business, but they have got to go work somewhere else first. Don't bring them into the business and think from day one they are going to be working for me and not have any experience working somewhere else. They ought to be able to go work somewhere else and then come into the business. By that time, they will know what it is like on the other side. And then when they come back to do stuff in the business, they are going to have a direction and they are going to know what they want because they have tasted what it is like on the other side.
Taylor White: Yeah. I think you can always tell the kids that were babied or given everything. The business either stays stagnant or it doesn't work or nobody wants to work for that guy.
David White: If you cannot make it easy, you don't want to make it easy. You want to make them respect and earn what they are going to go into.
Taylor White: Yeah, I totally agree. That is it. Thank you, everybody, for tuning in. Thank you to John Deere Power Systems for sponsoring the podcast as always. Again, March 3 to the 7, code PODCAST30. Use that code, go get your tickets. We will see you there. We are super pumped to go. We got a massive crew coming down with us this year and we will see all you guys there. Catch you on the next one. Take care.
David White: Thank you.
