Running a construction company might look like pure success, especially with events like CONEXPO-CON/AGG approaching. But in this solo episode, Taylor answers your questions and gets real about the hidden, intense pressures involved: managing multiple businesses, constant travel, endless cash flow worries, and balancing family. He describes this demanding tightrope walk, familiar to many entrepreneurs, as being filled with anxiety and burnout risk, impacting both business and personal health.
Handling this pressure, building a strong team, and maintaining drive are crucial for survival in the construction world. Taylor shares his unfiltered battles with "copious amounts of stress" and offers practical strategies for attracting young talent and fostering a resilient company culture, emphasizing how grit and knowing your core 'why' are essential anchors.
Topics:
- Managing stress as a business owner
- Why your 'why' matters
- Hiring young talent through social media
- The value of hard work and attitude
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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, back here by myself for another solo episode.
I do want to quickly remind everybody that CONEXPO is less than one year away. We will all be in Las Vegas with 2 million square feet, a crazy amount of things to just go and see. Tickets go on sale in August, so make sure to sign up for the newsletter. Everything will be linked, as always, down below.
But seriously, guys, you have less than a year for CONEXPO. I feel like, you know, when we started this podcast, it's been this crazy ride, and then here we are, you know, less than a year out of North America's largest construction show. That is honestly fantastic. My favorite part of it is the people, genuinely. I can't wait to see everybody again and just have a good time.
I'm bringing like eight people from Ken White Construction down. It's going to be a lot of fun. So make sure to stay tuned for that. Like I said, newsletter, so you know when the tickets go on sale, and there'll be discount codes. If you listen to the podcast, I'll be announcing discount codes. So stay tuned for all that info.
Today, you'll notice I'm on my phone, and I'm on my phone because I want to show everybody that I am on Instagram, and I just put out something saying, "Hey, I'm going to be doing another solo podcast." And my favorite thing is honestly coming in here and talking to you guys. I love talking to other people, but there's nothing more that Taylor loves than talking to Taylor. Narcissist.
Seriously, I love responding because it's so genuine and real, and it's like, that's what exactly you guys are asking about. It's the only time, because like we try it on YouTube a lot of the times to like talk in depth or talk long form about business, about money, about cash flow, about hiring, firing, personal life. It just doesn't convert well, or we haven't figured out how to show it well. So that's why I really enjoy the podcast. And then getting your guys' feedback, being like, "Dude, I listened to the last podcast. That was awesome. Unreal. Cool."
So we're going to go down the list here, and there's a couple that stick out. A lot of people are asking about, you know, employee retention, how to attract new people, new hires. And then a lot of stuff about, you know, personal growth. And we've talked a lot about that.
One thing that I think a lot of people are asking about here, especially Links Outdoor Services, says, "Struggles you face that you don't talk about." And I feel like lately, what has been going on is just copious amounts of stress. And yes, I use the word copious. I can be smarticles too.
You know, stress has been one thing that I've– I wear a Whoop. Let me start by saying this. This video is not sponsored by Whoop. However, if they would like to, I think it would be a great addition to the podcast because I think everybody should have a fitness tracker, especially one that levels out and manages your stress.
So on my fitness tracker, it tells me, you know, you've been in stress 4 hours and 30 minutes of the day. It tells you your current stress, and it takes all these different readings. It's based on, you know, heart rate variability, your heart rate, how much you're moving, how much you're not moving, respiratory rate, blood oxygen. It takes all these things, and I mean, it does more than that. But lately, my stress has been through the roof, really high. And I actually don't even need an app to tell me that. I just know because of anxiety, I get chest pains. I spoke about it in the last podcast as well, too. I have like cardiophobia, self-diagnosed. But ever since I had A-fib, anything, any weird feeling or anything I get in my chest, I immediately say, "Oh, great, I'm dying." And I am lying to myself as well, too.
But that's been going on a lot lately. And I thought last week, I've been away on vacations. I just got back from a business trip with Caterpillar. They took me to their Decatur factory. I toured their factory in Peoria, where they do track-type dozers. We did the loader factory, we did scrapers, we did rock trucks. Really cool. And all this, before that, I was away in Florida. And then before that, I was away on a honeymoon. Then I was at a buddy's wedding, Will, from Will Power Excavation, which he's a good friend of mine, but he's totally ghosted me on the fact that I told him I want to do a podcast. So somebody clip that, send it to Will, and say, "You are a POS. Get on Taylor's podcast."
All this to say, I've been away. That's why I'm explaining it. And being away and not having my desktop computer is really stressful for me because I can only do so much on my emails on my phone. I mean, I obviously get it done and you can do whatever you want. But being on my desktop, like having my keyboard to be able to type out longer format emails, going back into my files or on my drive, importing, you know, plans or whatever. And it's because I have two businesses. I have Ken White Construction, and then we have PriTec. PriTec, that's the new hat that I'm wearing right now.
PriTec was another kind of failing business that, you know, me and my father bought last year. And getting it off the ground, presumably and ignorantly, I thought, "Oh, we'll just buy the business and it'll kind of just run itself" because all the employees were like, "Cool, yeah, we'll stay." We got six awesome employees over there. And that wasn't the case. Hey, guess what? If you're the business owner, businesses take a lot of work.
So dealing with that, trying to get projects off the ground. We have a lot of projects that we're working on right now, some really interesting and large ones, which you guys will see coming up. Being away, Ken White Construction is going through winter time, and winter time's always kind of slow, but I mean, we're fortunate enough where we're busy and we're constantly keeping the guys going, which is great. But worrying about cash flow in the business, especially in construction. We do a 35-hour guarantee for the majority of our guys. And you know, so you got to make sure you got enough for payroll put away, and then you got your source deductions, and then you got HST on the work that you've been doing. And you got to make sure you don't spend your HST, or your taxes, or else the tax man's going to be like, "Hey, where's all your stuff?"
All this to say that I just don't know how to deal with stress properly, and I haven't been dealing with it properly. Alcohol is definitely not something to help with. I'm not somebody that drinks a lot. I used to drink way more than I do now. But I mean, I drink maybe one or two days a week, and I'm talking three drinks max. I find that alcohol just kind of heightens my anxiety and heightens the stress with business. I know a lot of people– I love sitting down at the end of a long day where you've earned a nice bourbon or something. But I don't think that that's a really healthy avenue. So I've been working out a lot, but I've been away on vacation, so I haven't been working out, and I know that that's catching up to me as well.
So I guess I kind of just want to discuss, you know, my thoughts and my feelings with it. And owning a business, you have to be able to manage a level of stress that other people sometimes can't even comprehend. And there's so much behind-the-scenes stuff also that, you know, NDAs and stuff that I can't speak about. Nothing serious, but just like, I'll label it as bull crap. Stuff that as a business owner, you just have to deal with. And it's stuff that will go away, and it's stuff that isn't a huge deal, but it's like hanging fruit.
The level of stress that you have to operate at and the roller coaster of emotions of like, "Heck yeah, things are going awesome, great!" And then you just have a week that's just like, totally tanks, everything's wrong, employee problems, financial problems, project deadlines, projects going wrong.
And then, you know, all that, I'm having another kid in two weeks. Like, I mean, you could have a kid any day now, I guess, we're near the end. So like, there's that as well, too, that weighs in on it. So then you got personal and family in it as well. And I've found that I'll catch myself being really stressed and kind of mindlessly scrolling. And the mindless scrolling, I find really doesn't help. So first of all, cut that out. If you're somebody that's listening to this and trying to cut the mindless scrolling out, because all that does is make my stress worse, I find. Try to have a healthy balance of work-life. I've been away a lot. I haven't seen my family much lately because I've been traveling for work. And I got home yesterday, and now it's currently Saturday, and guess what? I'm here working, doing stuff.
But I think of all of it, and to put a spin on it in my head, I go, "Well, we did Disney with the family. We were in Florida for two weeks. Me and my wife went on a honeymoon." And I'm not saying all this to say, "Haha, look what I did." I'm saying this, that sometimes there's big sacrifices for things that you want in life, and you need to sacrifice some stuff in order to achieve that next level that maybe the next guy or girl isn't going to achieve or doesn't want to achieve. And I think that's what just separates people from getting into these next levels, you know?
And I was just on a Cat factory tour with a guy that is the next level past me. I think I work a lot. I put in a lot of hours. I'm here early, and I'm here late. I'm at home, I'm on emails. It's the weekend. I'm actively working. My brain driving down the road, my wife will be like, "Hey, what are you thinking about?" Because I'm just like staring into the distance. “Oh, what? Sorry, are you guys talking to me?” That sounds bad, but it's true. But this guy that I was with was next level. I mean, he was older than me, he was 37. And we got talking about, like, your why. And I remember him, he's like, "Not to say it in the wrong way, Taylor, but I get it. I get that like, you love your family and you have time." He's like, "But where I'm headed, I can't have a family."
And I'd love to know everybody's take on that. So definitely, let's start a conversation around that. I disagreed with him because I said, "Well, look at guys like Elon Musk, who has 14 kids or whatever he has, and he still manages the biggest companies in the world, and he's the wealthiest person in the world." I know he has help with nannies, and I know that he might not be the best father in the world or be totally present. So that's where the word sacrifice comes back, is that I know that there's other dads that are out there that are way better than I. They're at home right now, and they're not working. And that was a choice for me to come here.
But what this guy was saying was that, you know, in order to get to the next step, I can't have kids. And I just totally disagreed with it because I think that if you're at a point in your life where you're having kids but your business is growing, then you can be like, "Well, you know, I'm a little more financially stable now. Okay, well, maybe we could hire a little bit of help," which I'm assuming Elon and a lot of other successful people do. I just don't think that that was a good excuse. But also, he is doing more than me. He's an animal. He was thinking about work 24/7. And he was a really good dude, and he puts a lot of stuff into perspective. And I'm sure I'll hear about him having a 100, 2000, 300 million dollar company one day very soon. But it was just interesting that it was like I think I'm sacrificing a lot, but he's sacrificing more, in my opinion, because it was like, "Well, why?"
And then that's when we got in the conversation of why. And I was just talking about that. But my why is for family. Like, I was having a conversation with ChatGPT this morning, as I normally do, just asking it about like, optimize, you know, some mental thoughts in my head and how can I fix some habits that I have. And ChatGPT almost reminded me of my why because it has memory in it, right? So it remembered that at one point I've said, you know, like, my goal is to set up generational wealth for my family, you know, my kids and my wife and their kids and their significant others.
And I think that was my point of conversation with this gentleman, was I feel like I have a more important why. And I'm like, that's me saying that. That's my opinion. His opinion was, "Yeah, but I think my why is actually, you know, more important. And I think that I'll hit my goals because I don't have a family and I don't have the same why." So we were both thinking that we were totally in the right. In my mind, I still, you know, it flabbergasts me that some people think like that. But I guess that's just kind of what separates somebody whose trajectory is to hear more like this rather than like this. And that's kind of how I plan myself, is that like, I think that I sacrifice a lot of family time, but I also made time for family. I took two weeks off, and we went to Florida, and we did all that stuff.
So that is an important thing. And I think that dealing with stress and dealing with everything that's going on in your business, your family life, and to deal with these stress levels is you have to remind yourself of the why. And that's what ChatGPT was ultimately telling me this morning was, "Remember that you told me this is your why, Taylor. Now, really think about that every morning when you wake up. Like, why am I doing this? This is exactly why I'm doing that." And I don't do that enough. I don't tell myself that enough. And I think that we all need to tell ourselves that. And I think that if you're listening to this and you don't understand your why, you need to figure out your why. And I think that will alleviate a lot of stress and anxiety because I immediately kind of felt better. I mean, today I'm still a little bit off, but I know that after this, I'll go home, the kids will be napping, I'll have time to go do a little bit of a workout, and that'll feel better as well, too. But understanding your why in life is very important and crucial.
So that's been going on a lot in my life recently, and I really kind of just wanted to touch base on that because I know a lot of people can benefit from listening to other people's sacrifices or thoughts.
So a lot of the other questions that we have here, like I said at the beginning, are to do with employees. For instance, Kaston Massey said, "How do you get young employees to see the career growth opportunities in the trades?" And I would say there's probably about 15 or other 20 questions in there, and assumably younger guys asking, younger guys and girls asking, "How do I get into the trades? How are you attracting young people? How does a young person move up in a business? How do they ask about that?" So let's talk employees, and specifically young employees.
We're fortunate enough where the median age here at Ken White Construction is probably 23. Lots of younger dudes. The oldest guy in the office would be my dad. Our coordinator is 20-something. I don't want to talk about her age. That's like rule number one. But my estimator, he's the same age as me. He's two years younger. He's 27. So we have a really young crew. The guys that are on the field are like, you know, early 20s, and there's a couple like Corey, you know, he's 44, 45 now. He's been with us for nine years.
But obviously, the biggest thing that we've done to attract young people has been social media. If you're listening to this podcast, you've known what we do online with YouTube and Instagram, TikTok. Everybody who has come here in the past four years saw us and found us on social media and sent an email to careers or reached out to me or sent a DM, and I saw the DM. That has been huge. If you're trying to attract some young generations, you need to go where the young people are. And I've been saying this literally for six years since I started social media, and I was doing my own podcast. I remember talking about it in this exact office. This is my old office where I used to work.
You have to go where young people are. Like, young people aren't going on Indeed to go get a job. Young people are watching reel content. And when I say reel, I mean, R-E-E-L. Like, they're watching reels online on Instagram or TikTok, wherever it is. And they might be unhappy or thinking about a change, or they want to move. And they see a company from their local community, and it's something that looks fun. And they're like, "Dang, this is really cool. I'm going to send them a message." And then, like, not following up from somebody being like, "Hey, like, are you guys hiring?" with an automated message or like, "Thanks for reaching out. We'll get back to you shortly. If you’re looking for…" Like, no. Young people want simple, easy. And you don't want to miss out on a good guy or girl. So you always have to have the follow-up to them reaching out. And that's what they want. So you got to be where they are. You have to be where the young people are. And they're online. Older people are online as well. Like, everybody, if you want to hire, I can't stress enough, the biggest point of this conversation is be on social media and make cool content.
Show what you do, give value to people, but do it in a way that attracts them. You know, like, I know my audience because personally, I am my audience. I'm a blue-collar guy. I like reaching blue-collar people, specifically between the ages of like 18 to 40. I'm right in the middle of that. I'm 29. And I know what music we like listening to. I know what cool shots would be. Like, I have the marketing brain for social media, and that's how we've kind of created this empire of Ken White Construction on social media.
If you're not that person, you need to hire somebody that is. And if you're on the other end of it right now listening, and you're an employee, go work somewhere where you see they're investing money into showing their business and doing it in cool ways. And I guarantee you, somebody in upper management that makes high-level decisions understands it and gets it. Like, I wouldn't personally, if I was just an employee, go work for somebody that has no social media or they're not doing anything cool online because I'd be like, "Well, probably it's just an outdated place to work, and it's not a fun place to work." Personally, that's my opinion. Other people be like, "I don't care about social media and TikToks and reels. I just want to go run an excavator or a bulldozer." Hey, to each their own. I'm saying, me personally, I'd be like, "Oh, yeah, I want to go with the place that, you know, is bumping Big X the Plug and showing their excavators being pulled on lowboys with rollers going down the road." That stuff's cool.
And then as far as once you get the employees, or if you're an employer, because I like talking from both points of view, with us personally, how do you show the path of growth? For us, it has been internally, like, promoting within. My head estimator used to be a foreman. Last year at this time, he was a foreman. Now he's our head estimator. He did that because our current estimator left to start his own business, and we had this immediate gap to fill. And he already expressed to us that, "Hey, if there's an opportunity in the office and estimating, I'd love to be able to do that and help out." So we're like, "Here's your opportunity, Bubs, get in."
Our project coordinator, Catherine, sorry, she was a dump truck driver and a damn good dump truck driver. So we lost a really good dump truck driver, but we gained an even better project coordinator. And she manages stuff day-to-day. So everybody seeing these people in positions and the crazy career path that they have and if my employees are listening, I would hope that they see that. And we talk about that, like the growth at Ken White and career paths. But I also feel like as an employer, laying it out, we show by doing. And I feel like if I had to remind them every three months or four months, be like, "Hey, if you guys really want to succeed and do well, here's the path. Here's how you could do it."
I want the people that are figuring it out on their own. Catherine and Alex both verbalized that they wanted to grow and they wanted to be in the office and if there was opportunity and they actually started doing those positions without asking for more. And when I say more, I'm talking money. They both started doing the positions, and they just started doing them. And it wasn't like, "Okay, show me the money, and then I'll start doing it." It was like, "No, I'll start doing it, and hopefully my boss shows me the money." And that's the way that I love it.
Every year, there's a percentage increase, bonuses, sure, whatever. But if you truly want to make more, start doing more. That's what I would say to the employer side, if some young guy's listening. Start doing more. I just had a conversation with this one guy we hired last year that I think has a lot of potential. Do more for the company. Always have the company's best interest in your mind. Try to save us money. Be safe. Just try to be the ultimate employee and make the company more money, and you will succeed. And I know that if you're an employer listening to this, you're going to be like, "Yeah, damn right, that's how you do it." But if you're an employee listening to this, you might think like, "Well, yeah, no shit, so you could buy another truck or you could, you know, go on a trip." But it's like, that is exactly how you succeed is you have to think about making the next person above you better and making the company more money because that never goes unnoticed. And if you're at a place where that does go unnoticed, go somewhere else because there's lots of other places that will notice that. Hard work never goes unnoticed. Even at a big company, because your foreman will notice that. And then he'll tell his super and be like, "Dang, like dude, like, you know, like Alex, he was watching. We were at the job site, and he realized that the native soil below, like, and now we're into a change order because it wasn't suitable soil. Like, he thought of that all on his own." That's going to get to the top.
And just consistently show up on time, consistently work really hard. That's another thing I always say. And I had this conversation with the guy that works here the other day. It was like, "Dude, hard work will never go unnoticed." I love guys that work incredibly hard and just put their nose to the grindstone and get it done. And that's essentially what it takes. I mean, there's no secret sauce, there's no secret recipe. It's hard work. To me, hard work out-trumps talent every single day. If I see a guy that might not be the best operator in the world, and we have him in an operator position, but he shows up every morning early, he's greasing his machine before everybody else. He's determined and bound to be the best operator, even though I know he might not be that guy ever. But he makes efforts to talk about and want to do more in the company. Like, that person, I don't care if they're not a good operator, I'll find another position for them and be like, "You know what? That guy might be a good lead hand or junior lead hand. Here's some plans. Go home, learn how to read some plans. You have any questions, ask. Let's work together so you can gain more skills because your work ethic and drive is far beyond not being good at being an operator."
And I think that's an important takeaway that you should understand, is that your personality and characteristics, how you carry yourself, how you can lead, how you can take charge, how you present yourself are all things that employers are looking at to see who that next guy or girl is coming into it. I hope that that kind of is clear because that is the ultimate how you succeed at a company. And like I said, if you're somewhere where you're like, "Yeah, right, I've been doing that for three years and I've never even gotten a raise or nothing." Go somewhere else. There's a lot of options. I mean, it's maybe not where you are, but here right now, you can go anywhere else. If you're not happy, go somewhere else. I tell my guys that too, all the time.
When we went through a couple changes last year, "You're not happy? Leave." Like, that's totally fine. Another one they were talking about was like, "How do you keep your guys motivated?" and "disgruntled employees," and this and that. Like, we've been fortunate enough that there's people that come and go, and then you hear like banter or this or that. But for the most part, honestly, everybody that has worked at Ken White and left, I mean, that's just the course of life. They're young guys. These are young guys and girls that we're hiring. So they just didn't find their solid fit. And I'm talking about people that have quit and also people that have been fired. It's just not a good fit. And there's nothing wrong with that.
It's really hard for us. And I talk about this a lot with my buddies in the States because I can't talk to anybody around here because everybody doesn't want to talk about their market or their pricing or how they're doing stuff. I shouldn't say not everybody, there's a few guys, but I talk a lot in-depth business with this group of guys that I hang out with in the States. And they were going through some employee issues, and we all had different perspectives on how they should deal with a guy who's a, you know, we refer to them as somebody who's a cancer, right? And it spreads within your company. And he said he had a group of two or three of them, and how can he solve that? And my opinion was, get rid of every single last one of them so that everybody else looks around and goes, "Damn. Taylor was not playing."
These guys were like, causing stuff, they were starting stuff. They were like making a mutiny in the business. Yeah, no, get rid of them. And that's my take. I'm very cut and dry and black and white with that. I used to put up with a lot more than I do now. I used to do a lot more. And some employees have kind of just ruined that in the past. And ultimately, it's all my fault. Like, that's part of me learning. But if you have employees or you're an employee, do yourself the favor, do your employer a favor, and just leave. Just go to the next company. Don't drag it out. Don't try to bring anybody else down with you. Just head out and leave.
And when I say this, we have an awesome group of people. And when I honestly say that, everybody who's left, like, there's no bad blood. Everything's fine, great. They can think whatever they want, but everybody that's worked here in the past has helped us grow. And I appreciate that, and I thank that. But the crew we have now is super solid. Everybody's close. We're not all best buds. We're not all hanging out on the weekend, but when we're at work, it's a great community, and it's good culture, and it's fun. And we know that we can have fun. And I think that that kind of starts at the top. You have to be able to show them that you can have fun, but you also have to have that edge where it's like, "Okay, it's time to get shit done now. And now we need to go. We need to do stuff."
So I think that's all really important. And I want to make sure that people get the key takeaways from today. If you're stressed or you got a lot of anxiety, you're not alone. If you're an employee and you feel lost, or you're an employer and you feel lost with hiring or finding the right fit, you're not alone. That's just normal everyday stuff that people have to deal with. And to chalk it up, that is life. I don't think that there's a life out there where you have zero stress or zero financial worries. Everybody worries about something. I mean, you hear about some of the richest people in the world and some of the saddest people in the world. So be thankful for what you have. Enjoy time with family. Understand that there are sacrifices in life to get more if you want more. But things are pretty good, man. Things are pretty good for us here at Ken White Construction right now, too. I'm really happy with where we are. And I'm really excited for the future, and I think you guys should be too.
And I'm really excited for CONEXPO. I wasn't supposed to be like a segue into CONEXPO, but I'm so pumped. I'm so happy to see all you guys. Like, that was the coolest feeling last year going there and seeing people with our sweaters, seeing people come up and being like, "Man, I love that episode where you were talking to so-and-so," or, "I love this episode where you talk about this." That stuff was so cool. Make sure that you guys get your tickets. Make sure you get your hotel rooms booked, because it's going to be an awesome time. And I'm super excited for that.
So thank you for listening to the episode. Kind of a more in-depth, personal feel vibe because that's just kind of what I'm doing in my life right now. And that's what I appreciate about the podcast. And that's what I appreciate about you guys listening. So thank you very much for tuning in. We'll catch you guys on the next one. As always, take care.
