Transcript:

Michael (00:44.618)

super unique about our story, we lost the business and we got it back. Don't miss an episode. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Let's dive right into the next episode of The Family Biz Show. Welcome everybody to The Family Biz Show. I'm your host, Michael Palumbos with Family Wealth and Legacy in Rochester, New York. And today we've got a great show for you. We got Dan Williams from 

 

Michael (01:11.916)

Williams Fence of Central New York out in the Deansboro area. Welcome, Dan. 

 

Dan (01:18.87)

Michael, thanks for having me. 

 

Michael (01:21.192)

so our tradition on the show is to kind of ask you to provide, you know, what was your journey coming into the family business? everybody's journey is a little bit different. I'm just curious what yours looked like, you know, from, you know, working, working in the family business to school or what did you, you know, what was your journey to get in there? 

 

Dan (01:45.038)

Okay, so I was, it's interesting because my dad had that entrepreneurial spirit going back to high school was a trapper, you know, sold for went all the way up through logging business. And when he get out of Vietnam, I grew up on the family farm across the street. So my first steps were literally at work because we lived on the farm. And, you know, we just 

 

Dan (02:10.094)

That's way it was at five. I got paid a nickel a week and I was in charge of sweeping majors and throwing throwing hay down. couldn't wait to get up in the hay mile. Uh, so I kind of graduated to like the calf barn. And by the time I was 11, I was like getting three bucks an hour was pretty good pay. And, um, I was driving tractors, doing field work in charge of about 75 young stock, uh, certain days of the week. And, um, 

 

Dan (02:38.55)

And then in 1988, my dad sold the farm, which broke my heart. And we moved across the street to my grandfather's place. My dad had always been a builder. He was a CB in Vietnam. it was like, he was always building something. He built the farm from scratch. So we started doing like concrete work, jacking up houses, putting basements under them. And my dad just wanted to get back into agriculture and we had this 60 acre farm. 

 

Dan (03:07.278)

So he hired this guy, Troy, the Grass Whisperer, to put a fence up for us. And Troy couldn't run a business, but he could build a hell of a fence. So he hired us to help him. And when we got done building that fence, he said to my dad, would you buy my business? So for $1,700, we bought his small tools and 100 people on the customer list. And we, uh, 

 

Dan (03:35.054)

We already had a skid steer. bought a pounder and we went to a school out in Pennsylvania. And that was like, I was a senior in high school and, it was 1993. So dad incorporated in March of 93. And, uh, my grandfather who had been on the farm was bored to pieces. So he came on as our chief salesman and, uh, we hired a guy by the name of Jack Frost right out of the. 

 

Dan (04:04.386)

You know, character, right? Jack Frost, your nose. Yeah. And so it was a team before that, that first year I had a running scholarship at Allegheny college. So I worked through the summer building fence all day, running at night. And then I went to Allegheny in the fall. And every summer after that, I worked for dad, you know, in between, you know, college. I had one of those storied careers where. 

 

Dan (04:34.67)

It took me seven years to get a four year degree. I wasn't the student I am now and I had injuries. I actually rode my bicycle across Canada and down the Pacific coast in 93 had a bit of a epiphany and thought maybe I wanted to live in Colorado. So I did that for a brief period and then came back. 

 

Dan (04:58.478)

And then I graduated from SUNY IT with mechanical engineering major and geology minor in 19... Well, would have been... 99 I actually graduated. I married Melissa in 97 and then my mom passed away in 1998. So was like this whole big upheaval in my life. 

 

Dan (05:27.392)

And so when I graduated, got a job at Griffith Air Force Base for literally two weeks. And I was sitting at a desk and I just was looking deep into the future. And I was like, there's absolutely no way I could do this for another 25, 30 years. So I called dad and I was like, dad, I just want to come back and work for you. And at the time he was really struggling with my mom's death and all those things. And it just worked out. 

 

Dan (05:57.378)

that he just said, yeah, come in and take over field operations. My grandfather, was in his late seventies, was still selling. And I dove right in and we, it was really my thing. Like I, I really enjoyed, you know, building things and working with clients. So that, that was, that was when I came on full time was 19 would have been 99. 

 

Michael (06:23.352)

Okay. Talk about, you know, so it was farm fencing at the time. I mean, that's, know, for the most part of, you know, what you did, talk about, you know, what you did back then versus, you know, what was the kind of progression to where, you know, what you do today and what's different about it. 

 

Dan (06:43.394)

Yeah, I mean, when we started, nobody knew what high tensile electric fence was around here. Everybody was in barbed wire, very regressive area. There was quite a bit of farming here still. So we weren't able to like fill our calendar up when we first started on just straight farm type fencing. And I remember doing whatever it took. I mean, we did concrete work. If someone needed a flat pour in a garage, we could do that kind of thing. 

 

Dan (07:12.992)

We did some privacy stuff and backyard stuff, but we didn't really love that. We really love being outside. probably I would say when I came on in 99, that was when we really made the shift and just said, Hey, we're just going to go to straight farm fence. 2000, we worked for a guy by the name of Bill Ziff. It was the first billionaire we ever worked for. 

 

Dan (07:42.092)

That just changed the game for us. It was like, wow, that really, it put us on the map for being able to do something really big. The guy was spending 70 million a year on his property and he wanted all the deer kicked off. So he hired us to come in and build about four miles of fence through in Pletton County. So we're talking, it was either this or that. It was not level. It was a massive project and we did that. And then we, 

 

Dan (08:12.502)

We had been doing a lot of this watershed work in for New York City in the nineties. We, did more of that. That was, I basically lived in Delaware County. I was in Delaware County during nine 11. People knew me better down there. New York city spent about a hundred million dollars on fencing and all kinds of products, projects to get the animals out of the streams. And we did a ton of that work down there. 

 

Dan (08:42.693)

Because like I said, wasn't our area was pretty it's just what they weren't up with the times. But you know that that was kind of the progression. We ran with that farm fence model until the 08 market crash. And then I got concerned. Oh my gosh, what's going to happen? Maybe we should diversify and do more. And in 2008 we expanded our we scan we expanded back into residential. 

 

Dan (09:12.394)

some commercial and Well, that didn't last very long. I mean we were We kind of walked out again in that nine eight Timeframe it would have been in the fall of wait, actually When the stock market had crashed what like what September? I had a girl that answered the phone and ran our retail store and she was like I got a guy here that wants to fence in a hundred acres and I was like 

 

Dan (09:41.374)

This guy's serious having to meet me over at my farm and I've got like 10 miles of fence on the farm and I consider myself to be a good grazer and I knew how to build systems for grazing animals. So I meet this guy and he was no B.S. We did this project. It was I think, you know, I want to say it was 70,000 80,000, but that was like the tip of a huge iceberg. 

 

Dan (10:08.334)

Ended up doing 90 miles of vents for the guy over the next two years. And it just really, it catapulted our business. That's when we expanded into excavation and just really, things really blew up at that point. 

 

Michael (10:23.864)

Love it. Take a second before we start talking about what you do today and what's different. Talk about the transition. When did dad start to step aside and what did that look like? 

 

Dan (10:42.466)

Yeah, so it's interesting because I look back now and I'm like, man, I feel like my dad was lots of a control freak than maybe my mind tells me he was. also, I really as I've learned to kind of step back and trust the team that, wow, he was doing things and I didn't really know it. 

 

Dan (11:09.774)

You know, probably right off the bat, like I said, when my mom passed away, my grandfather was taking care of sales. So he was pretty, pretty on that. And dad had taken a backstop. He just said to me, you know, make a mistake. Everyone does make it twice. I'm going to start to wonder. And that was kind of the deal. And I surely made a ton of mistakes along the way. In 2003, 

 

Dan (11:40.418)

We bought Endless Trails Farm. It 345 acre farm, unbelievable. Like we hit it out of the park. We bought this property for 700 an acre with the barns and houses and like crushed it. Dad and I went over there and we worked nights and weekends and we turned it into a B &B. I was a one third owner, he was two thirds owner. Had 160, had a cattle over there and we had a 

 

Dan (12:08.386)

box stalls, people could bring their horses and stay and ride. We, our farm actually was adjacent to 20,000 acres of state land. So it was unbelievable. Our guests could ride right off the property, right into 130 mile trail system that the state maintained. It worked great. And that was the beginning of the end of dad working at Williams Furnace Company. It was 20 miles away and he 

 

Dan (12:37.834)

Moved over there and i'd say in like, five He came in one day. We had a really really difficult customer and i've since fired her but at the time he threw his measure and wheeled out his briefcase and he's like, i'm done and My grandfather had passed away Two yeah about two years prior So he was supposed to be doing sales and it turns out 

 

Dan (13:07.758)

I was really the only one doing sales and running the business. So in 05, he was like, I'm done. I'm like, when? He's like, right now. I was like, oh, wow. Like right now? I didn't get like two weeks notice. got, I'm done. In 08, we finally came to a deal. I sold out my shares on Endless Trails and he sold out William Spence Company and I paid him every month for the next 10 years. 

 

Dan (13:37.75)

and it worked great. 

 

Michael (13:41.314)

Had you guys talked about succession before that or not really? 

 

Dan (13:44.622)

Dan (13:45.062)

So we had a buy sell agreement that we had set up that was super rudimentary and he gifted me stock in lieu of more pay. And I think that may have started, it started pretty early. I think when mom died, he was like, you know what? I don't want to do this forever. I'm going to get this set up. I think he just knew that I cared and 

 

Dan (14:12.586)

It was going to be okay. He wasn't going to just give the business to me. So we had someone come in and do a full independent audit and evaluation. He was very fair about it. and Neil, was, it was pretty simple. got to 50 % and he was like, you know what? Good enough. I'll, I'll you buy out my 50%. I'll buy out your 30 % of endless trails and 

 

Dan (14:41.366)

I made, you know, Melissa and I made payments and it was pretty, it was pretty simple. 

 

Michael (14:48.11)

Nice, very nice. What was it like working with your dad? mean, you, you know, from the days of the farm all the way was like the only thing that you knew for the most part, you know, go to school and work at the Air Force base. What was that like for you? 

 

Dan (15:02.838)

It was tough. dad and my grandfather were either pass or fail. And that's like something that we talk about in Vistage with the Cavanellos growing up on the farm. You either did it all the way or it wasn't right. You know, those guys had tempers. So, you you deal with that and we don't always treat family as well as we do strangers. So that was was. mean, my grandfather's nickname was Grumple. 

 

Michael (15:28.334)

100 % 

 

Dan (15:32.832)

Okay. Yeah. I mean, we were like eight, 10 years old doing what a grown man was getting paid to do. And if you missed the mark on it, you sure heard about it. But they were fair and they were very progressive. So 

 

Dan (15:56.098)

That was, that part was cool. And I think that's what's really been something that shaped me is my dad was never afraid to try something new, something different. And you, we know like this is the greatest rate of change in business, if not the history of the world, right? What's going on right now with technology and AI. Every day it's like, holy cow, I did not know that you could do that. 

 

Michael (16:03.744)

Okay. 

 

Dan (16:25.934)

But they had that mindset back then. Like everybody around here had top load, unload silos. My dad put in a bunker silo and they're like, that's crazy. Everyone had tie stanchion barns and my dad put in a free stall, which took the labor way down. They were constantly thinking along those lines, which I think they really ingrained into my mind as well. 

 

Michael (16:55.714)

Yeah, if you can get things done faster, better, stronger, all in, right? 

 

Dan (17:02.072)

Right. Yup. 

 

Michael (17:04.301)

So you talk about, know, it was pass, fail, was maybe a little tough. What were some of your favorite parts about working with your dad and your grandpa? 

 

Dan (17:16.45)

You know, think the joy we brought to our customers, the relationships that we built, people really trusted my grandfather. And when he came to sell you a job, was like, we're going to follow through on this. was just learning that simple approach that customers just really clamored to, which is I'm going to tell you what we're going to do. 

 

Dan (17:46.626)

And then we're actually going to do it. And we're going to do it in a timely fashion. What frustrated them and frustrates so many customers is the whole not knowing. I call, they don't call me back. They call me back, then they don't show up to the appointment. They show up to the appointment and they never give me an estimate. They give me an estimate, I sign the contract. 

 

Dan (18:15.394)

they never give me a start date. They give me a start date, they don't even come close to it. They start the project and they don't finish it. And for us, was like early on, my grandfather was like, I told them that we were doing this. And I had a couple of fences I had to take out and redo. You learn quick that whatever he told them is exactly what we're going to do. And it was... 

 

Dan (18:42.562)

Those are good lessons to learn early because you, if you can do those things, I don't care what you're selling. Customers going to, going to buy it. Yeah. Cause you're delivering. And that's what we tell our team today is just this, this process is all about that customer. If we don't do these things right. Yeah. We have no reason to get together in the morning. 

 

Michael (19:06.99)

It's funny because I've got some younger people that have been working for me, whether they come in as interns or just new starts and the same kind of thinking. They're like, I'm still young. How am I going talk to somebody that's 50 or 60 years old and be able to hold my own with that? said, well, there's a couple of things that are real simple. One is, don't just be on time, be early. 

 

Michael (19:36.802)

You know, tell them what you're gonna do and then do it. And start to, know, if you build this track record of building trust, just like your grandfather did with people, I gave him my word what I was gonna do and then by, you know, come heck or high water, we're gonna make sure that we do that. And when you do those things, does, the age part starts to go away. You don't have to know everything, you just have to know where to get the information and, but trust. 

 

Michael (20:06.262)

and building trust and showing up on time and just doing the basics goes in awful long ways. 

 

Dan (20:13.602)

Yeah, and to be honest with you, we were figuring it out. I remember we worked for this guy by the name of Dennis Yowsey. He was, my gosh, fussy, particular. He had the nicest farm in Madison County, legit. And we did a fence for this guy. It's still standing today. I drive past it because my uncle lives out that way. But it took us a week to do that fence, to do it right. And then if you fast forward, 

 

Dan (20:42.26)

in the probably 96, three years later, we were cranking one of those out a day because we had better processes, better equipment. And that was, it was really fun to see that progression. We were on that thing. I had a guy that I worked with early. It's unfortunate. He ended up getting into drugs and I fired him. But before that, 

 

Dan (21:07.35)

we called ourselves super fencers. We had super fencer on the truck. Like we were all about figuring out how to do something more efficiently, better. It was just, it was just bred into us. my, and my dad and I didn't, he would be like, Hey, you know, I remember the one of last times he was on a job. was like, dad, I got it. Okay. We're not doing it that way because 

 

Dan (21:35.47)

It's another mile walk around the fence and I'm not walking another mile. Like I'm, I'm all about saving my stops here. And so just, just understand that what we're doing is actually better. And, uh, he was like, all right, whatever. And it was cool after that, because he would just see the money in the check checking account. You know, it was like, I went out and sold the job after grandpa died and. 

 

Dan (22:04.638)

sold it, worked with my girl, died in the office, got the material, did the job, billed them, and he just sees it happening. He's like, wow, it's like these things are happening without me. 

 

Michael (22:17.89)

And that's a nice experience for somebody to be able to turn it over to the next generation and just watch it happen. That's great. Talk about what you do, you know, what do you do today that's different? And talk about, you know, where and where you're going, the outlook that you see for the company. 

 

Dan (22:39.948)

Yeah, so we've really made a hard pivot over the last year and a half, two years. Right before COVID, got a, went, I went to Goldman Sachs. That was the first business school I'd been to. Okay. Up until that time, we literally ran off a cash balance. All right. There's money in the checkbook and you know, I didn't really know what. 

 

Dan (23:06.574)

damn thing about business. Like I said, I studied geology and mechanical engineering. know, that being said, it was working fine. But I wanted to really, myself, once dad and grandpa were gone, I was looking to be able to pull myself out of the business. was, Melissa and I and my wife were very deep in. This was 2018. It would have been a Christmas party. So I a friend that said, hey, you should go talk to Tim. Tim. 

 

Dan (23:36.236)

guided people at Mount Everest. And my buddies, it's crazy. This guy, it's like six ways to Kevin Bacon with this guy, Dan. Like he goes, this guy over here was on Jacques Cousteau's boat. He was his right hand man. yeah. I was at a party and I'm like talking to this guy and he's telling me stories and it's like remarkable. So, any rate, I go over to Tim and I'm gonna talk to him about Mount Everest. 

 

Dan (24:02.254)

Uh, cause he had been up there on 96 when all the people had passed away. John crack our wrote into thin air about, about that. And he was actually one of the guys that saw the forecast and the weather and he called his team off. He was like, I don't care if you guys have shelled out 60,000, ain't going to help you when you're dead on the mountain. So his team stayed down low and he actually didn't rescue and recovery efforts. Um, 

 

Dan (24:27.776)

He's guided people all over the place. In fact, him and I were talking, we're to go down to Patagonia next year and do something big at 20,000 footer. But any rate, he's running about a 30 person business remodeling and designing high end homes in Coopershoun. So we talk about Everest, but like two business owners, you're always naturally, you go to business. That's. 

 

Dan (24:54.35)

eating up 95 % of your brain most days. So all of a sudden he's like, we're talking business. He's like, I how do you run your business and go to Everest? He goes, Oh my gosh. It was a complete at show before I did this Goldman Sachs small business school. It's free. So I went right home and I applied and I got into the fall session. It actually, you do two week long sessions at Babson. 

 

Dan (25:21.518)

So it's a entrepreneurial school outside of Boston, really cool place. But Goldman Sachs does a great job with it. The rest of it was online. And this is right before the pandemic. So this is fall of 2019. And I pulled myself out of the business. I spent about 30 to 40 hours a week working on, there were 14 modules in this program. 

 

Dan (25:47.688)

and it started with the numbers. So I had to get all our P &Ls together and started learning about balance sheets and cash flow, realized we could probably use a better accountant. That didn't happen right yet, but it definitely got me along those lines. And so when I graduated in the fall of 2019, I came to the team and I said, we got to get an ERP system. We've got to get in the cloud. 

 

Dan (26:15.466)

and let's use this winter to do it. So we started January 2020, not knowing a pandemic was coming three months later or whatever. And so became the most painful time of my life, full disclosure. I tell people, like, we launched that ERP system in April, right after we ran out of toilet paper and two by fours had a daily number. 

 

Dan (26:44.814)

It was freaking nuts. so began like the next, that 2020 and 21, we had four people selling for us in our business. One was doing residential, one was doing commercial fence, one was selling excavation and the other was selling ag fence. Then we had put everything into this system and we were still trying to get our financials were in QuickBooks. So we didn't have everything talking. 

 

Dan (27:14.414)

when the pandemic hit and our business went from, I think we did like three. Well, if I looked at the numbers, it was 2.7 million in 2019. And then we just went three and change almost four. And then 21 was like 5.7 last year was, or 22 was six, six, nine or something or no seven, eight. 

 

Dan (27:43.31)

And then last year was 10 million. So it just went like this. And I finally in 21 because, you know, like I said, we were so overwhelmed. I was trying to run the business from an excavator seat, trying to run jobs. Meanwhile, my wife is like, I have no idea what the hell's going on here. You guys are buying equipment. I don't know about it. You're hiring people. It was was chaotic. 

 

Dan (28:12.718)

That's when I came out of the woods on at December 31st at 21 and Said we got to do something different. I took about a week and just decompressed that was when we hired a CFO and came in and just Rebooted our ERP system and got rid of QuickBooks and got everything into one one place That was actually the I joined this ditch as well, which you know, I've told you this story 

 

Dan (28:43.158)

I love to ski powder. I do not ski crappy snow. I don't care. It just isn't fun to me to hear my skis making the noise of. Because I don't like ice and I don't like it. I don't like it. But in February, we're in Jackson Hole and I had paid 1,100 bucks to go on a guided tour. 

 

Michael (28:56.398)

Okay. 

 

Dan (29:08.204)

and the snow was absolutely horrendous. And I was like in between, do I cancel or do I go? And something just said to me, don't cancel, go anyways. And if you've been to Jackson Hole, you take the tram, 4,000 vertical feet up. And when you go guided, you go out of bounds. So it'd be like skier right. We went way over into No Name Canyon. The wind's blowing like 50 miles an hour. The snow is... 

 

Dan (29:37.592)

horrendous. There's like nothing. It's wind effect, it's sun effected, it's crusty, it's super variable. And the guide was like, wow, I just expected it would be better right here. And it's not. He's like, hang on. And we just happened to look over and we saw another guide coming with two individuals. he's like, 

 

Dan (30:01.006)

I'm going to talk to this guy and I want you to take, take a few minutes, just talk with these guys, eat your lunch and we'll figure out how to get down. And, um, so I was asking the guy, I'm like, you know, where are you from? Cause I, I'll talk to anybody. And, uh, he goes, New York. go, I don't, I'm from New York. Really? Wow. What do you do in New York? He goes, Oh, I own a construction business. I'm like, no kidding. Me too. I go, what do you do? He goes, so I do, um, paving and I got a glory. He goes, I go, 

 

Dan (30:30.378)

Okay, so you're out here on vacation. He goes now I moved out here seven years ago and I was like wait permanently and he goes yeah seven years ago I I I made the move out here. I'm like, so hold on. How many people do you have working for you in new york? He goes i've got about a hundred I'm like you have hundred people working for you new york and you've been out here seven years. How the hell is that possible? And he said I joined vis stitch And I was like that stuck in my mind 

 

Dan (31:00.104)

flash forward we made it down through the worst snow our guide was like he goes i've never seen somebody so he he's like he just kept apologizing he's like i'm so sorry i mean we're in breakable cross should have torn an acl all day long he goes i can't believe how happy you are and you know how you're not like upset about this or anything and i was like all i could think was 

 

Dan (31:24.342)

I don't really give a shit. If I'm getting anything out of it, it's the fact that I'm calling this Vistage company when I get back here and this goal of having a business run without me, something I was really after. so I made that call when I get back to the condo. And I think it was like the Tuesday, I remember talking to Scott Gibbs and being like, holy shoot. just, tears started to flow. 

 

Dan (31:53.346)

Cause you know, you've been in business. It's like, it just becomes like that one child that you, know, when it's great, it's great. But man, when it's bad, it's like, it's bad. was, I was, I was in the, yeah, it was, was exceptionally hard. And I felt like, I tell people this, felt like Tommy boy before he learned how to sell work. was like smashing the cars together and lighting them on fire on the dude's desk. I'm like, how did I get to this point? Like I was so good. 

 

Dan (32:25.145)

And then suddenly when we hit the scale button and went like this, just completely lost all, you know, sense of direction and what to do. 

 

Michael (32:37.42)

Yeah. that is so not uncommon. It is so common, guess, that it's just that you get going and you're good at doing something. You guys were spectacular at putting up fences and excavating and, and, and, and then to go from taking that skill set to becoming a professional 

 

Michael (33:06.222)

business, you know, I'm doing the air quotes thing for people that are listening and to be able to scale it, it's all about the systems and processes and it's not just the systems and processes for doing stuff, it's the systems and process around culture and people and cash flow and getting all of these things going and making sure that our strategies, you know, going in the right direction. You guys could execute, matter of fact, 

 

Michael (33:36.258)

You know, I would be remiss if I didn't talk about the fact that you have a machine that you built called the GSD, Get Stuff Done Machine, which I just think is awesome. I know that's not the acronym that you use, you know, for radio purposes or for the podcast purposes, we'll go with it. But, you know, that was, you know, to your point of, you know, how can we do something better, faster, stronger when it came to the work 

 

Michael (34:06.304)

It was easy to implement, you know, new ideas and figure out, know, Hey, if we took this part of this machine and that part of that machine, and we made a Franken fence machine, it's really going to help us shave a lot of time off of this. Well, that part inside of the business, like the soft sides of the business and strategy that's not always taught and it's harder. It's much more difficult without having some other people around you. 

 

Michael (34:35.598)

like you do in Vistage, I do in Vistage. That's how Dan and I met was through the Vistage world, being in the same Vistage group together. And it's a journey. even for someone like me, who is a business coach, and we've done some work together in utilizing the Metronomics business coaching system and business system, the tough part of that, for me, 

 

Michael (35:04.494)

is the fact that, you know, I always looked at my business is without me, it doesn't operate because, you know, I'm the wealth advisor, business coach, I'm the one that's the feed on the street. And it took, you know, me watching somebody who was a much smaller business than I was, who said that they didn't, you know, they wanted to, you know, run their business from afar and 

 

Michael (35:33.646)

spend more time doing motocross and watching him become successful at it. I'm like, Michael, it's you. It's not, it's, you know, and every business can be run using systems and processes and getting help from people like Vistage or Metronomics or whatever business coaching system that you're using. Good for you. I find it exciting. What would you say, you know, in the past two years or so are some of your 

 

Michael (36:04.162)

favorite moments and some of your favorite, you know, aha moments through Vistage and Metronomics and the Goldman Sachs, you know, school. What were some of the things that, you know, today you know that they were turning points for what you were doing? 

 

Dan (36:19.118)

gosh, I spent so many of them along the way. I mean, I just feel like the, um, the first aha moment was joining Visage. And what I said to Scott was every month, I got what I needed. If it was either the speaker that came in, that just was like, Oh, wow. Um, you know, starting off with Scott, because I was in such a, such a bad spot and you're sitting there and you're like, Oh, I'm going to blame other people. 

 

Dan (36:47.758)

And he's like, you broke this, you fixed this. If you want to be the CEO, if you want to be the leader of this company, it's like the Buffalo Bills, they lost yesterday, right? Are we going to blame the kicker or is it the team? And I just had to take ownership of it first. And then from there, was a 

 

Dan (37:10.058)

It honestly was like a monthly thing. Like I learned something. wow. That's, that's going to be super helpful for what we need right here, right now. cause we were, we had to fix everything. I mean, it was like cleanup and aisle one through 16. didn't, it just, and it took time. what, what I feel like having that once a month meeting gave me hope because I would be. 

 

Dan (37:35.726)

feeling like, oh gosh, this last month's been such a grind. And then you go and you just realize there's 10, 11, 12 other people that are, they're all dealing with stuff in various forms. So that along the way, we just had Greg Boston come in and talk about accountability. And that, 

 

Dan (37:59.88)

Absolutely changed the game for us. It took my partner and I have since got a business partner that's part of the program and he really helped get us aligned on on accountability. That's like the most misused word in the business dictionary. I would call it right now. I'm going to hold you accountable. Sounds like a prison sentence and it sounds 

 

Dan (38:29.076)

awful for the person that's holding as well as the person being held. This idea of ownership, that really has changed so much of our culture instantly. Just having a discussion with the team that I'm going to be accountable for the fact that things haven't gone as well as possible over the last three years. That being said, we have done a lot. It did also change my mindset in 

 

Dan (38:58.414)

You know, what I grew up in, Kevin Ellis and I talk about this, pass, fail on the farm, you know, but that's not, it's not realistic. We can't just go zero to a hundred on changing our business. It's going to be, at DOS it's going to be this, and then it's going to sometimes be awesome. And then sometimes it's going to be back and whatever. It's going to be that, that crazy, you know, who knew that was going to happen kind of concept. 

 

Michael (39:27.096)

But if you look at businesses across the US, very few break a million dollars in revenue. And not only did you guys break a million dollars of revenue, and through that, you hit the 10 million mark, which is unheard of. Most people that are employed think that every business owner is out there 

 

Michael (39:51.778)

doing 10, $50 million, they're all just getting fat, dumb and happy and rich off of the work that we're doing. At the end of the day, the amount of work that so few businesses break through that and get to that number, and to get there, it's a lot of reinvestment and a lot of building up your people and your equipment and your systems and processes. It's not just any one thing and it's... 

 

Michael (40:19.648)

It is a boatload of work sometimes, and I bet you might agree with this, there was times when it was, you know, back in the simpler days when we didn't make as much money, it was a way easier sometimes. 

 

Dan (40:33.568)

Yeah, I've always been, I'm an ultra marathon guy. So I was already doing the six, seven days a week thing with the business. And I tell people like, I was really good at that. And then, you know, I could juggle eight things. I could do this and that I could get my teams out. I could bid all the work and do all these things. It's fine. You can do that to a point, but when you get to the pain line, 

 

Dan (41:03.04)

and you cross over it and you keep trying that, it just becomes catastrophic, not just for you as the business owner, but for the business itself. And now like this light bulb moment that came on, I see it happening. I can get up in the morning, I do a whole routine. My hot tub looks out on my shop so I can see what's going on from five o'clock. 

 

Dan (41:32.024)

But I can see now like things are happening without me and the teams are talking and they're problem solving and they're, or we call it solution finding. But they're doing these things without me. I had to retrain my brain though that I don't have to be involved in every single one of these things. And now I'm taking the Dan Martell approach of buying back my time and 

 

Dan (42:00.716)

continuing to do the things that I wanna do now. I'd set a goal, I've always been a goal oriented person and that came from running in high school. Like I would write down, I wanna break the school record and I wrote to runners world and said, my coach isn't that good. 

 

Dan (42:21.558)

I need someone to help me break 428.7, that's a school record. And I got a guy from Runners World who developed a whole plan for me and I was goal setting, that's distance running. It's like, hey, I'm gonna run 50 miles this week. I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that. I was really, really into long-term goal setting and my goal back in the 20s, 

 

Dan (42:46.194)

was to be retiring to age at age 50 to what I call stage one retirement. Cause I never, never, I always joked around, but I said, am I, I don't know if I'll ever retire. Like I don't picture myself going to the diner and talking about what I used to do. it just, it's not me. but at stage one, I could then run my farm, like a tourism type business was this goal I had. And. 

 

Dan (43:13.71)

That's actually happening now. We've got a cabin that I started building during the pandemic on my eight mile mountain bike trail system. And people are just running it. I got some dude coming tomorrow night from Canada. It's like, Oh, wow. I've got the blueberry broke farm resort that's hooked onto our farm. And we had guests there this weekend. So I'm dropping scones off and just lighten the hot tub and doing those kinds of things. 

 

Michael (43:43.896)

Let me pause you for just a second. Dan has Blueberry Brook Farm and it's, the blueberries are the size of apples it looks like. They're not quite that big, but definitely monstrous blueberries. And he makes fabulous, fabulous scones that are absolutely delicious and part of being at Blueberry Brook Farm. 

 

Michael (44:11.29)

and then there's a, a wood fired hot tub that's on the property, which is also, you know, very unique in this day and age. So very, some very cool stuff happening. here, you know, here we are in this world of fencing and excavating and a lot of the fencing work that you do today. And I just, you know, again, I know this from us working together, but it's, you know, you're doing the solar. 

 

Michael (44:40.556)

you know, the solar farms and fencing those in and the excavating around them. And at the same time you're running, you know, you've got real estate, you know, pieces, you've got farm pieces, you've got the bike trails, you've got blueberry brook farms, you've got a lot of things going on. So you are doing that shift of, don't have to have, you have your hands in everything, but you don't have to do everything. And you have other people that are accountable for what's going on in. 

 

Michael (45:09.59)

I would put you at, this may be step one of those things. And that, you know that you're working to get this, you know, phase two and phase three. And I just, it's fun to watch you do all the things that you do. 

 

Dan (45:25.592)

Thank you. Yeah, we had talked earlier about where the business was and we just reset our core purpose. Our core purpose is GSD better every day, which we're actually building out on those words now. So we're saying instead of, know, S-H-I-T, get safely done. You know, what are some other words that we can fill in on that? Because 

 

Dan (45:55.19)

I'm getting I'm using that as like, okay, the base framework for now let's get the input. What does better mean? What does every day mean? And then family innovation and commitment are our core values. What does family mean to you? And we're going around the team and we're asking, what does innovation mean for you? What does commitment mean for you? And we're going to keep building that out. We're very 

 

Dan (46:21.806)

very committed to becoming a construction management company that happens to specialize in fence excavation. And we're actually doing the concrete for like the inverter pads in the solar. We're really, really proud to be not just in solar, but our team is focused on doing it better. You know, if we talk about safety and I talk with some of these companies that we're working for, 

 

Dan (46:49.59)

Number one concern is safety. The second is the swift or the environmental impact of the construction project. We've been working off road doing fence for 

 

Dan (46:59.51)

you know, 30 years and our clients didn't want their property destroyed. They wanted a fence put up or they wanted an excavation project done. My dad would be like, you know, stay out on the perimeter of that field. You don't want to be burning any extra hay lot. just, you're thoughtful about what you're doing. If you're on someone's lawn, same thing. They want a fence. They didn't want to re-landscape their lawn. So, you know, we learned by... 

 

Dan (47:25.932)

whatever processes, mistakes, et cetera. But what we're saying now is how do we do this job? And we do it much more efficiently than our competition. And safety is just better because we have less people and we're doing it faster. So, and by faster, I mean more efficient, not running around like a chicken with your head cut off, but with purpose. Fence is linear. If I start at point A, I don't want to be 

 

Dan (47:54.302)

I don't want to be going like all over the place. I just want to go around it. And I want to cut those trips down because we're going to put up, I would say we could, if what we were talking about with our team, we're probably going to be on the order of at least a couple hundred miles of fence this year. 

 

Dan (48:19.662)

Yeah, 100,000 foot fences to do. you know, if we take one extra trip around, that's 150 miles. That's like almost going to Albany and back on foot. That's a long walk. And if we can cut that down, we're going to be safer and we're going to be less environmental impact because we're not all over the place. And that's been the cool part is 

 

Dan (48:44.536)

getting the team really thinking about that. Like there's so much opportunity right now in construction. I'm very, very excited about taking that scrum process of thinking along with the lean concept that's already in manufacturing. I feel like manufacturing's a good solid 70 years ahead of us on this. That Toyota way, that Deming came up with. 

 

Dan (49:13.402)

before World War II, it's really how we beat the Russians or the Germans and the Japanese was Deming said, hey, we got to pump out planes, tanks, bullets, butter with the women, the children and the people that couldn't go to war. And he took that process of simplification. And then after World War II, they sent them to Japan. the Japanese didn't come up with lean. 

 

Dan (49:41.558)

it was Deming that brought it to Japan. then, you know, they kind of took ownership of it. We are not in construction. What gives me so much hope is there's so much upside potential. Like we haven't even tapped it. Toyota said they looked at their process and they thought 90 % of their car was waste. And they... 

 

Dan (50:09.6)

eliminated that 90%. And then with the 10%, they did it again. That's something that construction, it's just, give me your drug addicts, give me your alcoholics, give me your guys that can't get a normal job and we'll build some shit for you. And excuse my French, but that's the way construction's been. It's been, you know, not, not thought of as a professional industry. I see that changing. 

 

Dan (50:38.529)

And that's certainly what we're doing with our organization. 

 

Michael (50:42.37)

Yeah, talk about the impact of people on your organization and how that's been a mind shift for you over the last few years. 

 

Dan (50:58.476)

Yeah, so thank God for Vistage and some of the speakers. I think prior to that, I saw everybody as me, which is not really the best way to go about it. It's like, why don't they just want to run around like an ultra, know, hyperactive and overachieving, you know, knucklehead and realizing that to build a really 

 

Dan (51:27.596)

high performing team takes a whole bunch of different people and personalities. And when you bring all those together and put the right people in the right places, you know, my wife does the payroll and she does, she, she looks over the checkbook and reconciles it every month. That's not me. Okay. If there's there, there's people that all fit in. And for me now it's like recognizing that. 

 

Dan (51:58.008)

coupled with what Greg Buston said a couple of months ago, you got to figure out what it is that drives and motivates people. And none of them are going to be the same. And once you unlock that, then that's when the real good stuff happens. You're not pushing anymore. They talk about the flywheel concept. Sure. I've been thinking a lot about that flywheel concept. And now it's going. 

 

Dan (52:26.41)

Okay, Dan, let go, let go back away. You know, it's, it's, it's important now for me to, see it finally. I'm gonna, I'm not saying I'm not going to be around, but at the same time, I'm not going to go on meddling. I'm going to ask questions, a lot more questions. And as my buddy Tim says, he spends two hours a day with his in his business. 

 

Dan (52:57.192)

and a majority of that is built in leadership. 

 

Michael (53:02.274)

Makes a big difference. So if we look over the next 12 months, what would you say is your top priority, your number one priority as the CEO, business owner for your businesses over the next 12 months? 

 

Dan (53:17.102)

So we've been experiencing cashflow issues for the last two years as we've grown. When you grow on that kind of a curve, 30%, 40%, I mean, there's two ways that you can fund it, either go to the bank or not profitability. I have a key hire that's going to be coming on here real soon. 

 

Dan (53:39.506)

I'm going to be working with him and the leadership team to get us on the cash flow positive and then to be funding growth in a way that makes sense. That's to me, think, my top priority. 

 

Michael (53:59.598)

Okay. I'm gonna throw a curve ball at you. When you look at your family, totally outside of business, but what are some of your favorite family traditions for the Williams family? 

 

Dan (54:13.97)

wow. So it's changed a lot, I think, as the kids have grown. For us, the thing that happens once a year, and we didn't talk about this yet, was Daniel Bard and Mudfest. And my family came together after my niece was in the Sandy Hook tragedy. And she was about four rooms down where the 21st graders were lost. So she heard everything. Her best friend, Daniel Barden, was one of the 20 

 

Dan (54:43.66)

first graders that was lost in Newtown. My wife and I went down. My sister lived next door to the Bardens. And what do you go say to people that just lost their seven-year-old boy? We had met him like Daniel six or seven times prior at birthday parties and family events. For me, like I tell people this out of the worst thing that had happened in America. 

 

Dan (55:12.382)

certainly in a school outside of Columbine was so horrible for so many people, but it was an inflection point for me at 39 years old. realized I had only been about me and my family. When we went to the church for the funeral, the last speaker said, you know, if you can do something to change, you know, the discussion in this world, then do something. And I had this epiphany about, 

 

Dan (55:39.982)

putting on a mud run. had just run two Tough Mudder races. And the guy I had run those races with owned MKJ Farms, two miles from my farm. Willie Nelson had played there, Charlie Daniels' band. And I immediately turned to my wife when we were walking out of the church. I said, we're going to put a mud run on for the Bardens. And not knowing anything, I made three phone calls between the church and the cemetery. 

 

Dan (56:07.606)

And we put that event on, it would have been April 13th of 2013. And the Bardens came up. It changed their lives, according to Mark. Mark said it literally gave us hope. People did great things for us, but your event gave us the strength to keep going on. And that was the only goal I had at the time. I just wanted to get them back on their feet. We ended up 

 

Dan (56:37.09)

We raised like $83,000 off that single day of that. It was crazy. Mark called me that fall and said, would you do it again? And I said, I was already planning on it, Mark. And he's like, can we make it bigger? And I was like, don't threaten me with a good time. We're doing this. so that second year, we had a half mile kids run with 12 obstacles, a five mile obstacle course that 

 

Dan (57:06.006)

or 5K obstacle course. think we had like 12 obstacles on it. And then I added a five mile, which that year we got a biblical 42 inch dump late March. We had the event on April 5th. We, yeah, no, we had snow. We had 15 foot snow drifts on the top of the course. I had plans of building obstacles up there and I just called it Glacier Ridge and I put a sign. They were like post hole and. 

 

Dan (57:35.594)

up to their waist in it. was bananas. No one died, thank God, but it was hard. Our kids never went on a spring break after we made the Mudfest because every single year we had to get the course ready. 

 

Dan (57:53.836)

And that was our deal as a family. We'd go over there and we leaf blow it, cut the trees off, throw the branches, paint. Everything's done in Irish colors because that's the Bardens. So everything got fresh coat of paint and then we'd be building stuff. Now we're up to 35 obstacles on the five mile, which is bananas. So every year that's something that is kind of a tradition for about part of March. 

 

Dan (58:21.43)

all of April and now our event this year is May 4th. But the day off is like our tradition, like our whole family comes together. You know, now it's like 500 people from Connecticut, the Bardens. 

 

Dan (58:35.916)

And it's just freaking awesome to see like all our kids get dressed up in their kilts and they got their outfits and they're out on course. it's like, you know, here's crazy Dan Williams, dad out there. You know, I got a big bullhorn and I'm like, I always make these, if you've ever been to Burning Man where they make the Burning Man sculptures. So every year I make this huge hollow log sculpture. 

 

Dan (59:03.97)

and I painted all day glow Irish colors and carved into it with a chainsaw and then we fill it full of accelerant so it explodes into flame to start the event. We have the bag pipers and it's just awesome because I watch the kids just, know, there's thousands of people but I'll see them on the course with their friends and then afterwards we're all together, you know, as a big family and... 

 

Dan (59:32.014)

It's just, it's turned into a cool thing once a year that we do. 

 

Michael (59:38.114)

I don't think I have asked that question and gotten quite an answer like that before. So thank you for sharing. It's the Daniel Barden mud run. 

 

Dan (59:49.582)

Yeah. 

 

Dan (59:50.282)

it's DanielBardenMudFest.org. I'll send you the link and we'll put it up there. We have three ways to, I tell people, we have people that volunteer and we've got about 150 volunteers a year. Volunteers end up becoming racers a lot of times because they see people out on the course and are like, I can do that. And then they end up racing or we have racers that tear their rotator cuff doing whatever. 

 

Dan (01:00:18.956)

and then they become volunteers. And then there's the spectators and we move people all over the course. We literally have a bandstand on top of the monkey bars at the mile and a half mark, which is insane. It's got a 40 mile view and people are just fricking partying all over the course, having a great time. And then we put on a barn dance. So we'll have seven bands and Mark Barden will come with his, his kids have been playing with him. 

 

Dan (01:00:47.732)

on the main stage and they are unbelievable. Mark Bardin just played with Sheryl Crow and Peter Frampton. Yeah, he's played with Paul Simon. He will melt your face off with his guitar. His daughter Natalie rushes it and James, the eldest son, plays bass and is great. 

 

Michael (01:00:53.932)

Okay. 

 

Michael (01:01:07.47)

Amazing. Well, Dan, thank you, thank you, thank you for sharing every, you know, with us here. I hope everybody got something out of this. This was just packed full of a ton of information. Dan Williams from Williams Fence of Central New York. My name is Michael Palumbos from Family Wild and Legacy. You've been listening to the Family Biz Show and I just want to say thank you all for joining us. We can't wait to share another adventure on the Family Biz Show with you. 

 

Michael (01:01:37.068)

next time around. Thanks everybody. Have a great day.