Evolving Business Minds

How To Grow A Successful Business with Lance Cayko | #121

• Andy Silvius • Episode 121

Share episode

Embark on a captivating odyssey with Lance Cayko, the entrepreneurial polymath who defied his agricultural destiny to construct a legacy in architecture and building. From the windswept fields of North Dakota to the boardrooms of business innovation, Lance's story is a testament to the transformative power of mentorship and the relentless pursuit of passion.

Throughout our discussion, we trace the contours of Lance's riveting journey, unearthing the trials and triumphs of starting an architecture firm in the teeth of the great recession. With a narrative that weaves through the perils of guerrilla client acquisition and the rigors of legal navigation without a license, Lance's experience lays bare the essential versatility and resilience needed to turn a fledgling startup into a flourishing enterprise. His insights serve as a beacon for those facing their own entrepreneurial tempests, illustrating that with determination and creativity, one can weather any storm.

As we conclude our session, the spotlight turns to Lance's innovative approaches to business scaling and talent nurturing. Hear how a "farm league" of architecture students and the unlikely transformation of mechanics into construction aces became cornerstones of his firm's success. It's an exhibition of how strategic pricing, training as a revenue booster, and a hands-on approach to education can multiply the growth potential of any business. Join us for this stimulating conversation, packed with actionable wisdom for anyone looking to sculpt their own venture into a triumph of adaptability and foresight.

Episode Sponsored by: Olive Branch Bookkeeping, Inc

Message from our sponsor: A profitable business needs a tailored financial solution for growth. Understanding your needs and what matters most to you is our #1 priority. We have put together a bookkeeping service that will allow you to take control of your business and future growth.

📲 Schedule a discovery call with Olive Branch Bookkeeping, Inc here: https://calendly.com/caryn-23/discover_conversation

Evolving Business Minds podcast links:

Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/evolving-business-minds/id1498316242

Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0Qqiizmt3UzcbQM9EJFViw?si=cJSjUhPMTSqS5tH0z7SkUg

Links to connect with Andy Silvius:

Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andysilvius/

Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ResourcefulAgent/

Follow on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewsilvius/

Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andysilvius?lang=en

Follow on X: ...

Andy Silvius:

All right, welcome back to another episode of the Evolving Business Minds podcast. Our guest today is a successful entrepreneur, architect and builder. He co-founded his architecture firm, f9 Productions and turned it into one of the fastest growing firms in his area. I want to welcome Lance Saiko to the show. Thanks for having me. Andy, pleasure to be here. Bud, absolutely man. So before we get going into too much of the recording, why don't you take a minute just let everyone know kind of an overview of all the things you currently do and then how they can connect with you?

Lance Cayko:

Yeah, sure thing. I'm an architect, builder, real estate developer, investor, podcaster, philanthropist, professional fisherman, professor at two universities, and you can reach out to me on linkedincom and just search Lance L-A-N-C-E, last name psycho C-A-Y-K-O. I'm the only one on there with that name, and we will.

Andy Silvius:

I'll make sure everything's in the show notes as well, so that you guys can click the link. So I'd like to just first dive into your background, like how you got started in business in general and started your architecture firm. How did that all come about?

Lance Cayko:

Yeah, sure, so I'm 41 years old right now and about yeah, sure, so I'm 41 years old right now and my journey started when I was 13. And in terms of being an entrepreneur, I tried. I grew up between in Northwest North Dakota in a very rural area, grew up in a town that was basically 500 people, wasn't even an incorporated town, so it's technically a village, no paved streets, nothing like that Super rural. My one side of my family was a cattle ranch and the other side of my family was a cattle ranch and the other side of my family was a sugar beet and durham farm in northwest north dakota and they I I tried farming with dad for about a week one summer when I was 13 and it was we were going to do irrigation, so and it out by hand. I mean you had to be out there with, uh, carrying all these irrigation tubes and you make them into siphons and all this stuff.

Lance Cayko:

And and North Dakota is actually pretty brutal all the time in terms of the weather. So in the summer it's not much better. You would think that you're worried about the cold up there, but in fact the summer is even worse. I mean it's a hundred percent humidity, a hundred degrees, very brutal, a lot of mosquitoes, and it's not that I'm a wuss or anything, but it's definitely doesn't help at 13 to be waking up doing that for a week with your dad, who you don't get along with that well at that time in my life. Anyway, every three, about every two or three hours, you have to get up, go change water, maybe try to get back to get some sleep. It's just kind of like grueling.

Lance Cayko:

For sure, farming is hard. Like I, I have the utmost respect for people who work with their hands and, matter of fact, I still do. I'm still a builder in that kind of sense. But uh was trying to work with dad, didn't get along with him and I said, hey, man, I don't think this is for me, I'm gonna go try something else. Uh, my matter of fact, I even have a replacement for you, my best friend chris. He's more than happy to come do this stuff. This is a great opportunity for him. He's like excited about it. Plus, he likes you. I'm not that big of a fan. So you told your dad this more or less.

Lance Cayko:

I mean, we knew that's like we just butt heads, we're just like some relationships are like that, you know. I mean I said it politely and everything, uh. So I called his best friend up that night after I quit and his best friend's name was bruce. He's a general contractor. And I asked bruce, you know, hey. I said, said hey, I'll do whatever it takes. Do you have anything? I'll pick up garbage. What do you got? And he goes well, I just signed a big contract. We're going to do one roof a day for 80 roofs over the summer. And he explained to me how much he would pay me $7.25 an hour.

Lance Cayko:

I thought that was fantastic back in the day and he said you can be my gopher. And I was like, cool, what's that? And he's like, well, you go for this and you go for that. When you're not going for the things, then you can get up on the roof. And I was the best dang gopher he ever had, because I was so adamant about like learning a trade to do something like that and I had always been that kind of kid growing up, like grandma would always give me, make sure I had a sketchbook and legos and stuff to build and be creative and doing. I always had the vision of of sort of being something like that, some kind of creative in that kind of way. Yeah, just felt it and uh, I just fell in love with the industry um about halfway through the summer. I loved the camaraderie. I loved how uh dirty everybody got, how early we had to wake up, because then at least we got like had a full eight hours of sleep at night.

Andy Silvius:

It was just great and so Well, there's got to be some. There's got to be something different too, about, like, branching out away from family and then working for somebody else, right?

Lance Cayko:

Yes, and what it really boiled down to for me was where the entrepreneurial journey starts with. This particular story is. I didn't realize until I read Rich Dad, poor Dad later, but that I had my rich dad and I had my poor dad. My rich dad was Bruce and my poor dad was my dad. And so about halfway through the summer, bruce, he noticed something in me. I mean he was just like huh, this guy's like probably one of the sharper kids I probably had on the job site and he works really hard and he actually gives a crap. I mean, all the other guys were just kind of kind of drunkards, you know, roughers, it is what it is. And, uh, he's. So he turns me one day at lunch and he goes how much you think I'm paying? How much you think I'm charging the clients? Uh, for each hour of your labor? And I go, well, 7, well, $7.25,. Right, I mean, that's who you pay me. And he laughed and I was like, well, what's so funny? He's like, well, that's not how it works. You know, I charge the owners three to four times when I'm paying you. And then he explained why he does that and why any service-based business does that in terms of the profit, the insurance, all the overhead, just how it works Right.

Lance Cayko:

And I, and then I then I, you know took a look like a few steps back and further understood the rich dad poor dad dichotomy. It was like I had the one dad who was a farmer, had this severe anxiety about money and it would stem down to me and my brother. I was just did not have a good relationship with money. They were, they love to say, and I, later on, I figured out how to tweak with money. They loved to say, and later on I figured out how to tweak what they loved to say, which was, they would say, all the time, having money isn't everything. And later on, one of my favorite rappers the favorite rapper that I guess that I have is Kanye West. His phrase is having money isn't everything, but not having it is, and I thought, oh, that's it, I get it Because it's the freedom from anxiety.

Lance Cayko:

I'm not this person who wants. I drive a used 2015 Suburban. You know I don't have a lot of. I don't have hardly any debt. I wear black clothes every single day. I'm not getting fancy suits, that sort of thing. It's not about possessions, it's the. It's to me, free from the anxiety of it. It's not about possessions, it's to being free from the anxiety of it. So when I saw the difference between the two dads call them that, everything clicked for me and I go oh, I've got to be a general contractor one day. I need to be a builder, I need to be an entrepreneur, like Bruce. So that's actually what got me started with that mindset moving forward. So every summer after that I would go learn a different trade of construction so I could eventually hopefully be that person.

Andy Silvius:

And you were 13 when this started, 13. And you had already read Rich Dad, poor Dad, no, no, no, I had read it later.

Lance Cayko:

Okay, and then that's when it framed it for me and when I said, oh, I have a rich dad. I had a rich dad, poor dad, interesting yeah.

Andy Silvius:

Hey everyone, I have a quick interruption from the show, but I'll make it brief. I've got something that I think is vital for every entrepreneur out there and it can be a game changer for your business. Navigating the business world demands more than just passion. It requires crystal clear financial insight. That's where our company, olive Branch Bookkeeping Inc, comes in, offering not just book cleanups for those behind on taxes, but also comprehensive monthly bookkeeping, payroll management, corporate structuring and the key to informed decisions detailed profit and loss reports. Imagine this your financial record, spotless and strategic, paving the way for growth without the headache of entangling years of bookkeeping yourself. With Olive Branch, you're equipped with financial clarity to steer your business forward. So if the thought of sorting out your finances feels overwhelming, let Olive Branch Bookkeeping lighten the load. They're more than just bookkeepers. They're your financial clarity partners. If you'd like to see how our team can help you and your business, I'll include a booking link and contact information in the show notes so you can schedule a free discovery call.

Andy Silvius:

That's super interesting. I mean I started working at a very young age I mean even from probably seven years old just taking care of neighbors' houses and watering and stuff. But I started out in the trades in construction as just a lumber helper, running around moving lumber from one side of the job to the other, and that's really cool that he kind of took you under your wing, though, and just not only showed you the grunt work but broke it down so you understood what the business was, and I'm just impressed at a kid who's 13 to be able to go and say, well, now I'm going to learn a different part of the trade every summer and then just stack those up. Something that really stuck out to me when I was digging into your bio and everything was the fact that you started F9 Productions in 2009, which was during the great recession. So how was that for you and what challenges did you face building a new business during those tough economic times?

Lance Cayko:

It felt like we were in a corner of a corner when we started the firm, for multiple reasons I mean, just like you stated. One of the biggest ones was we were in the middle of the great recession at right at the beginning of it actually is when we really formed it. So we, we, we bled. You know, we bled for like three or four years. It was just really difficult in that kind of way, uh, but we had no choice, uh, where it was like no other option really, because half of the um half of half of everybody in the AEC community architecture, engineering and construction community were laid off during that period.

Lance Cayko:

It was really devastating for that. It was a. It was a depression, was a depression level environment for that community for sure. Kind of like the tech sector is whining right now and they're like, yeah, 10, 20 percent of you are laid off. Like you should have played ball with us, right, and it was. It was horrible in that way. So I had two kids to feed. I wasn't about to go back to North Dakota to the mosquitoes again.

Andy Silvius:

I love Colorado.

Lance Cayko:

We moved to Colorado for a reason the mild winters and all the other good stuff. So when we started the firm we had no prospects either Meaning we had, I think. We had like one contact in the state who was a general contractor, but he had no work either and that sort of thing, and we had to use some really interesting guerrilla tactics to try to get our first clients. We were also unlicensed too, so we had to reuse some really interesting guerrilla tactics to try to get our first clients. We were also unlicensed too, so we had to understand, like as architects. We had to understand what we were. We trained formally as architects, with master's degrees, yes, but we couldn't call ourselves architects. We couldn't practice public commercial architecture, like, if you like a, do a storefront or something like that. We had to understand the legalities of it all. Yeah, and there was a. There was enough space after we did our research where we could navigate and still get billable work and good work and stuff like that. And so we started out doing houses, small houses and little remodels and anything like that. We would do a lot of uh, building information, modeling, um cad drawings and stuff like that. We were just scrappy for like three or four years in that way and, uh, one of the ways we got work was craigslist, so no other architects.

Lance Cayko:

I'm always like fascinated by architects, not because I am one, but because of, like, their poor business behavior and it's just very indicative of most architects. They are artists first, business people second, and I'm going you need to kind of be all of it If you're really, especially if you ever start hiring people and then they're relying on you to get the work and be a good business person, and then their children are relying on you and they're everybody. It's like you can't leave them hanging out to dry, like the poor business owners who hired me and Alex and then ended up laying us off because they didn't. They were bad business people, you know. They didn't even believe in advertising and that sort of thing.

Lance Cayko:

So it was difficult for the first three or four years and then eventually the economy started to take off in 2013. And it's been a since then. It's been an amazing trajectory of growth. But we really built our business on being the opposite of those people that laid us off, trying to have multiple legs of business to stand on. So you know we would take on almost any kind of project we could, and then we got licensed and we could advertise and we kind of took that approach to it all. So we like to think that we are setting ourselves up to basically have a stool with four or five legs versus a stool with one leg. And that's what those other people who let us down did.

Andy Silvius:

You know you mentioned that you recognized you had to take on all of the hats right Advertising you couldn't just be a creative first and a business person second. You had to understand all of it. I think a lot of people in business struggle with that when they get into any form of business, but there's definitely certain fields. Creative space my wife and I own a bookkeeping firm and she's the bookkeeper. But typically you see people in the CPA accounting, bookkeeping space and they do zero marketing. It's just task oriented do the work and then that's it. And so I've just tried to take my real estate background approach to like grow her business. But yeah, that's interesting. So that obviously was a very tough time. I know you said you got scrappy and took on just any job that you could, but were there moments when you guys wanted to give up?

Lance Cayko:

No, because we had no choice. I had mouths to feed and there was no looking back. I think once we decided that there was, there was while I was forming. I formed the company about three months before Al got down here because Alex was finishing his second master's degree. He went back to school after he got laid off. First he went back to school and thought this is one year, I'm just going to incubate myself and insulate myself in the university system again for one more year and then I'll come out and the economy will be back.

Lance Cayko:

And it's like we didn't know any better. I mean, we just like we had no idea of like the macroeconomics, um, behind it, and I think we definitely opened our eyes in that kind of way. Uh, eventually, so we. But there was when I was forming the firm. I actually interviewed with iron horse architects down in denver and there was a hundred applicants and I got sure listed to like five and then I took there. So they had like a second round of interviews where you take this test with the software and everything. I just murdered the software and I got the job and she was all ecstatic. She called me and I turned her down and I was out of like 100 candidates, I go. No, I'm making the decision to go out on my own in that kind of way.

Lance Cayko:

So I'm a stubborn, persistent guy just like Al, and I think we had so much personally weighing on the line already, with our egos involved with it, that we're going to do this and do it the hard way and climb a mountain every day for a decade, basically, that we just had to do it. So, no, there weren't any times that we were worried in that kind of way. I don't think we have a give up attitude. That doesn't mean it got. It didn't get hard, sure, and there were definitely some scary moments and all that sort of thing, but there was always. There was always enough glint of like one project would come through out of maybe 10 where you would get the design fix. You would sort of feel that energy, that creative energy, and you could see like the door would just open up a little bit further and the light would come in a little bit brighter, and that's that's what really kept us going, plus the freedom part of it.

Lance Cayko:

I think that's one of the biggest. You know I'm driving all the time, uh, up and down Colorado going to prospective meetings or job sites or whatever like that. So I have a lot of time to think and uh about the past, the present, future and just sort of be, and the freedom part of it is kind of everything for me, honestly, that's what it boils down to, and when I ended up having my two little children I had during this stint too of like starting the firm my wife left us all of us and went out of state. So I was raising two kids by myself for about three and a half years and that was really critical to to be able to have that freedom, and I was like there's no way I could even do this. If I went back to work for somebody else, I would. I was just in that era so I did. That is a thought that, honestly, just never even really crossed our minds.

Andy Silvius:

Yeah, now I understand the freedom aspect. I think a lot of people hear freedom, though, when we talk about entrepreneurship and business, and think it's like, oh, I'm gonna have a ton of free time and I. That's not what you're saying, right? You're just saying you had the freedom to be able to schedule yourself as needed, yeah, and move time around you know it's opening day at my favorite reservoir tomorrow to go fishing and uh, I'm taking the whole day off.

Lance Cayko:

That's like, that's hey, like it's not worth it to have these businesses if you can't do this stuff. I'm so serious. Yeah, it's carb, it's carving out and being you're. You're you can be more free to be intentional with your time yeah.

Andy Silvius:

So after starting your business, what are some key fundamentals that you found to start and grow a successful business?

Lance Cayko:

Oh, communication number one. So I think I think if you start, if, if you come from, if you start a business in the way we did, where you're, you're reacting to being laid off or fired or being put in those kind of positions being laid off or fired or being put in those kinds of positions I think you should be reactionary in how you start your business and sometimes your reactions aren't going to be good, but I will say that that's, that's like a fundamental driving force for us is like oh, we were reactionary. We saw how the people we were working for put their all of their eggs in one basket.

Andy Silvius:

So, that's.

Lance Cayko:

That's not good. Like you know, you hear all of this diversity is our strength stuff in the media, right, and my twist on that is like sure In business, like diversity is our strength in business, a hundred percent If we have, if we have multiple different clients, multiple different typologies, multiple, multiple different streams of income. So that was a big focus for us, for sure is to do. Diversity is our strength through business in all of those different ways that I just described. And then communication I would hear all the time being in that office or out the office Alex work in, or just hearing from prospective clients once we started meeting with them that they go go you were the only one that returned our calls.

Lance Cayko:

You were the only one. It's amazing how many people dropped the ball. And it's maybe even worse in the architecture community because they're there's a lot of big egos. There's a lot of, uh, you know, thick rimmed black glasses and that kind of like air of importance, self-importance and grand of like an artist, like oh, you're hiring me on this, this big artist, right, and so there's a huge lack of customer service, um, and care in that kind of way. So those, those two things were pretty huge. Um.

Lance Cayko:

Then there's some just basic fundamentals. I think everybody should do so. If you're just starting out, I think start with a less is more mentality. But then also you need to have some basic accounting in place, right, start a separate bank account, like separate your personal money from your business money. That's very obvious, but a lot of people don't do that.

Lance Cayko:

First calculation. You need to try to pay yourself a salary every two weeks, every month, every week, like a steady, steady, w. You need to try to pay yourself a salary every two weeks, every month, every week, like a steady, steady. You need to basically be a w4, w2, because eventually you're going to want to leverage your credit in some way. Whether it's a personal expense like a car or renting office space or getting equipment or products, you know you have to have credit for products. Sometimes you have to. The bankers are very uncreative people, which is kind of like the double-edged sword of them. Right, but as long as you check all the boxes, then you can get the loans, and part of that is making sure you have a steady income. So you look more like an employee versus an owner, like at the end it's going to come out no matter what. You're an owner, but if you're showing a steady track record, that's key. I think those three things were probably the biggest things for us.

Andy Silvius:

So much of what you just said resonated with me more than you can imagine. So, like I said, we run a bookkeeping firm and one of the big things that we've been great about over the years is separating our money. But we did the same thing when we incorporated. When I had my real estate team, we incorporated and then we were paying ourselves W-2. So we had a paycheck coming in and, yes, when a bank's going to look at you for a loan, they're going to look at all of your assets, your cash, everything. But the discipline that shows that you have consistent paychecks going to you and I think it just helps you create a set up a successful business in a way that you're already accounting for your income. And so when you go to hire new people, it's not like, oh, am I going to make enough? It's like, no, this is already built into our, to our profit and loss.

Andy Silvius:

But the other big thing that you mentioned that is so obvious but in most people screw this up is the communication. I've seen it and I've made this mistake in the past, but I've seen it firsthand with businesses. I've helped be a part of friends of businesses that I was helping them grow. We see it every single day with our firm, with our bookkeeping firm, where we've probably gained in the last month.

Andy Silvius:

We've probably picked up seven new clients only from, specifically from not having communication with their previous bookkeeper. They came to us because no one would return their calls, they weren't communicated with, they didn't know what was going on. No updates, and it's like it's free for you to call your clients and tell them what's happening. Yet most businesses will ignore the communication and dump more money into marketing to bring in new clients, while they're meanwhile, while they're losing their existing clients through the back door, and it costs more to acquire new clients than it does to just take your current ones. And so we actually launched it's fairly recently. We recently launched a consulting portion of our business for client retention, because it's something I feel so strongly about and it's such an obvious thing in my mind, but people just drop the ball and they don't take care of it.

Lance Cayko:

Yeah, it's wild to me. What's really ultimately how I get mostly really really confused about it is I'll go well, I thought we had these things. You know, we have these smartphone, we have these supercomputers in our pocket now, and so how hard is it to text call email? So we have a fundamental rule. We have, like a F9 is our F9 Productions, is our architecture firm, and then out of F9, there's nine principles and one of them is communicate and it's very, made very obvious to staff that, like the rule is, if a client gets it tries to contact you, you have one hour within the within the business day seven to four or eight to five, whatever people pick for their day to get back to them. Even if you don't know the answer, that's okay too. So just you can say hey, I'm looking into it, I will get back to you as soon as I can, or 24 hours, so they have sort of this window of one to 24 to do it.

Lance Cayko:

And that for us, has made probably the fundamental difference in differentiating us from other architects and I think why our growth has been so good in the past decade, why we're back-to-back best of mile high winners for best architecture firm in terms of customer service in Colorado and stuff like that. So this is me. I'm not trying to be braggadocious or anything. I hope other designers or just business people hear me and believe it and go look me up and then say, oh yeah, he's telling the truth, they're crushing it. I want to crush it too. Good, please, like the world would be better if we had better customer service. And after COVID too, it kind of it went in a toilet for sure further and it's like, oh my goodness, there's a huge opening here, people, there's a huge opening for you.

Andy Silvius:

Yeah, and I don't I don't see it as being braggadocious or anything. I think that I mean that's the whole point why I have this podcast is to be able to present people like yourself that run a successful business and have learned the lessons, because there's so many people out there that want to start a business or currently run one, and it's just they struggle and they don't see some of the things that are important. It's very easy to be distracted in the marketplace right now with everything we have going on that. I think we really, when we're running a business, need to get back to the basic stuff that works and it's uh, it's easy to look at the flashy stuff and jump on that. I also just I love that you built in your principles into your company name.

Lance Cayko:

I was curious what F9 stood for, but you answered it, so yeah, yeah, thanks, yeah, I mean we, we mean we we kind of uh it, the reason why f9 was really there is there was a hot key on the keyboard. It's still there. I mean, if you look at your top of your keyboard it's like f, f1 through 12 is on mine. Yeah, um, and it started that was the hot key for making the photorealistic renderings in architecture. But we, we have this thing of me and al of, we do alliterations right, so then we broke it down. F9, oh, look, it's even more meaningful now, and then that's why we're also serial entrepreneurs, like we have. F10 Productions was his book that he published, so he has an LLC for that. F11 was the first set of tiny houses we built. F12 Productions is our real estate company and then F14 is our construction company.

Andy Silvius:

So we skipped f13. Yeah, f13 is skipped any reason why just superstition, you know just silly superstition okay, like friday the 13th yeah so this may, this question may kind of overlap with what it takes to be successful, but what are some common mistakes you see other business owners making that is stunting the growth of their business?

Lance Cayko:

I think they are charging. I think they aren't understanding how much they should charge right away for whatever they're doing, and I have empathy for them because it's a shot in the dark. So maybe, if it's okay, I'll just tell you how we figured it out. So this is part of the formation strategy, right, and some people hate this story, but some people are like, ooh, that was brilliant, and some people hate this story.

Lance Cayko:

But some people are like, ooh, that was, that was brilliant. And I go, it's. It's a free market, isn't it? Guys? Like, isn't it supposed to be capitalism and competition and cutthroat and all this others, okay.

Lance Cayko:

So, uh, when we first started the firm, like I said, we were using Craigslist to get um, prospective clients because no other architects were doing it. And Craigslist back in the day. This would have been like the 2009 years, 2008,. Right, and back in the day you used to be able to. You could post a lot more for free. There was less money involved. They weren't trying to monetize it so much. It was still there was no Facebook marketplace, so they owned a lot of that digital space. And then you could put HTM. You could write like basic hdml very quickly and have like a really nice ad and you could put like, you could embed images in there. So it's perfect for us designers and architects, right.

Lance Cayko:

And so, uh, me and al were like, well, what should we actually be charging? Like, like, like, where should we get a contract from? How does this all work? We weren't architects, we couldn't be aia, we couldn't get their contracts, and we go, I go, what if we put our fake ad like we're a client and we have this land in the mountains and we want we need an architect to design the project, and he goes. I think that's brilliant.

Lance Cayko:

So we made up an email address and did the whole thing and we got like a hundred. It was again. There were so many people without work at that time. It was probably the perfect time to get as many proposals and numbers from very hungry architects as you possibly could. So we got all these emails, all these proposals. We took in all that data. We made a spreadsheet and everybody would list their hourly rates. Everybody would list then their fixed fee rates for like the whole thing. And then we did some math where we would like divide the fixed fee rates by the square footage of the house we were proposing so we could see what people were charging on average per square foot versus what they should be for hour and we kind of found a good happy place. And we kind of found a good happy place. We kind of did it. It was a good happy place of oh, this is what me and Al need to pay ourselves every two weeks to meet those kind of fundamental goals that I talked about earlier. And then.

Lance Cayko:

So we had our baseline and like, here's what we need to make. So we could then. But we knew we there's no way we're going to command the really high fees. We don't want to be the low people, because that's actually not who you want to attract. You kind of need to weed out at least, I would say, 30, 40 percent of prospective clients and we're like, oh, we should be in the middle. So that's how we figured out how to do it.

Lance Cayko:

So I think you have to do some kind of special ops in some sort of way to figure out your competition, right. I mean, if this is a free market, that's that's. That's that's how we did it. And competition, right. I mean, if this is a free market, that's that's. That's, that's how we did it. Um, and it worked really well for us. So you know, that's that's the problem. I think some people just shoot for the moon too much and it's like, no, no, but I agree with you, you also don't want to be down here. It's like, how do you find that goopy, gray middle where all the answers really are in life?

Andy Silvius:

it seems like yeah, and I've noticed there's a there's a lot of people that gravitate towards the low end because I think as a new business owner, you have less confidence in your abilities or you just come in with like not knowing what to charge so you just go okay, well, I'm going to undercut everyone else. But you're right, it attracts a different type of clientele and I think the discipline it took for you guys to figure out the middle ground because a lot of people in my experience people I've talked to their friends, other co-workers, people I've been around that own businesses. They look at the lower number and they don't want to like they wouldn't go for the middle number because they don't want to miss out the people on the lower end because they think that they're going to lose revenue. But really you probably end up spending more time with the lower end pricing and they probably don't. You don't probably close as many of those.

Lance Cayko:

Yeah, yeah, it's exactly and, and, and here's the, the we actually. So that's not to say that we didn't take on some of those people, for sure, there was certainly a percentage of them that we would still capture. And I what's been really interesting for me in the past five years now so we've been in business for 14 years technically, and in the last five years some of those are very early on, low ball people have came back for maybe a second project and we were in that an hour and they just I thought, oh perfect, there'll be a repeat client in the future. This is a long-term game. It's like playing golf and actually it proved to me which people I didn't believe. Other people when they would say this, they would say, well, those, those people, you know, they're kind of just always going to be in that category. And it's true, they didn't end up hiring us back again. They actually were like, oh well, last time you did it for this fee and I'm like it's been a decade and we've printed how much money right, right, it's different.

Andy Silvius:

But yeah, but you didn't cater your entire pricing model to the low end, is what you're saying. You just you would still take the jobs as they came in if you sometimes you had to say yes, I mean you know, you got to eat.

Lance Cayko:

Sometimes you just had to reluctantly go okay, we'll do it.

Andy Silvius:

We got to eat. You know one of the books that I have noticed have? There's a couple books I've read over my lifetime that have the most impact. Rich dad port ad was probably one of the biggest ones, and then I would say the next one is the 100 million dollar offers by alex hermosi. Have you read that one?

Andy Silvius:

no, I have to write that down so that one, and then he's got a leads book. But the the offers book breaks down exactly what we're talking about, and it's it's creating a space of one, of one, of zero. Like you, instead of comparing yourself to other people in your space, your competition, and then figuring out the price. It's like he breaks down how to build a great offer that supports a higher price. But you know, it's all relative right, as you're brand new. You can't come in and charge a premium because you're new and you just got to. You have to earn your way through it.

Lance Cayko:

Yeah, yeah, it's interesting, though I think we I will say we are starting to experience that in the last again about five years, where we finally have some signature buildings that we've done that have went, fairly, you know, that have went, uh, you can, they're easily googleable over the internet. I mean people will find us that kind of way and they'll come to us because of that signature look, and then you are in that premium category of uh and that's ultimately where you want to be. But I think it's. I'm glad you brought up the perspective of, yeah, but it might not start that way like aim towards the north star. I think that's a good north north star to have and whatever your business is, for sure is you want to be, you want to have that kind of demand coming at you for sure, yeah, yeah, or different levels of pricing where you have the premium demand but you can still cater to the other part of your customer base.

Andy Silvius:

So I'm also curious, as you just started to make the decision to grow your team, what did that decision-making process look like and how did you determine what positions you needed to hire for?

Lance Cayko:

Yeah, in 2013, when that economy started to turn around, we started looking for our first candidates to bring into the bring into the office. And, uh, we reached out we're, we live, we're up or one up. We have two offices one in longmont, one in um denver. Longmont is right by boulder, colorado, for anybody who's been around this area. So the university of colorado, boulder is right there. We wanted to try to tap into their architecture students and so we sent out uh, we sent out like a little flyer. We got a ton of inquiries because the economy was still pretty soft, and, uh, we started interviewing candidates and none of them none of them were turnkey. What I mean that by that is, I felt like I could instantly bring them into the firm and, within a couple days, have them doing billable work, maybe after a little bit of training, for sure, right. And so we reached out to the University of Colorado, boulder, and we go hey, we really want to hire candidates, but they aren't turnkey. I mean, they're just not. We need them to be more adept at this particular piece of software. Is there anything we can do to help? And they go. You know what? We actually have an opening in the engineering department for you guys to teach, if you want, and we had master's degrees who were qualified. So we took that job and alex has been teaching that class for 10 years. I quit teaching that one about three years ago and I moved over to a different department to teach something else, um, but then what? We what? Why I'm talking about what we ended up doing is then our best students became our best TAs and then our best TAs became our best you know those employees. So we we actually ended up kind of creating a farm league in that way, and I also teach in North Dakota state as well, our alma mater and now we that's how we select who we want, essentially. So it's kind of a earned privilege that we have versus, I think, a lot of other private sector folks like ourselves in that sort of way.

Lance Cayko:

Yeah, and at first we just wanted, we just know we needed help, and it was like all right, I don't like what do we need help with? We just need somebody who is turnkey and kind of the best student and then from there we'll assess where we're at with needs and stuff like that when you're a startup. We was just like we just got to fill a seat right um with the construction company, though it's definitely been a more pointed effort on who we're trying to hire, and I have, for better or for worse, been turning mechanics who are tired of the mechanics industry into my best carpenters, and then I turn them into my best foreman, and then I turn them into my best carpenters, and then I turn them into my best foreman and then I turn them into my best superintendents. So I actually like when some people are sort of like balls of clay and that's why, you know, I talk about this sort of crawl walk run scenario in both of those, in both of those business typologies.

Andy Silvius:

Yeah, what a better way. I mean, I just can't think of a better way to be able to hire and grow your team than to be able to be an educator for them and pick from that. I mean, we're going through this process right now. We're hiring a new team member and so I just went through 29 applications today and I'm reading through all their resumes and the questions and you just can't. There's a lot of them, I can tell, seem like they're lying on the, you know, using AI to write the answers for questions. They don't seem like a real story, but you guys had the firsthand experience of being able to educate them and see them how they interacted in class their personalities probably work ethic to a degree and then to just be able to pick from them and say, hey, I want you to come work for us. Are you interested? Like, I don't think a lot of people have that.

Lance Cayko:

No type of a funnel, but that's great. People get real jealous and I'm like well, you got to, you got to sacrifice, you got to teach. I mean at the end of the day, yeah, I mean it's a, it's a lot to juggle, but it's back to that freedom part. It's I'm free to make my schedule and just be very organized.

Andy Silvius:

Yeah, without having an employer and that's how I can do all the things. Yeah, and I would say, for most people, I think it just getting creative, like that's just a creative way of doing it. Yes, is it different than others? Um, you know, maybe not everyone has the ability to go in and teach at a college, but I'm sure, like you're saying, look at the internet we have now. I mean youtube, everything else. You could be an educator online and attract people that way.

Lance Cayko:

Yeah, a hundred percent.

Andy Silvius:

Uh, what are three specific things you have done to increase your revenue and grow your business since you started it?

Lance Cayko:

Uh, training is a. Training is a force multiplier, which is one of the principles of the F of the nine F, nine principles for sure. So, uh, but it came on the heels again of of being put into the universe, being becoming an educator. And then it was like, oh okay, now we actually have to teach the software. I know we said we were going to do it and we could do it, and now we have to come up with a course, and so we use that course now in and out and then at, actually, and we always try to kill like three or four birds with one stone with whatever wherever me and Al do like oh okay, so this course can now work for the university, the universities that we teach with. It can work for our employees, because sometimes we don't always recruit directly out of in that way. There are plenty. I would say, you know, 30, 40% of staff has not been our direct students in that kind of way, but we still then teach them that course when they come in, for sure, and then the course ended up being actually it generates revenue for us because we sell it online worldwide in that kind of way. So training is pretty fundamental.

Lance Cayko:

We believe we were huge two-second lean people. I don't know if you know that the author of that book is Paul Akers, the two-second lean people. I don't know if you know that the author of that book is paul acres, the two-second lean method. He studied the toyota and how they made two-second, two-second improvements on their process line, on their manufacturing lines. And then the idea is, oh, if that two-second improvement I'm multiplying it, how many hundreds, millions of times? Look how much more efficient and lean I am because of that. So we read that book probably three or four years ago and it's been a game changer for us. And now we have these meetings. Every somebody presents their two second lean, their win and their process of improvement for the firm once every two weeks. And then we talk about projects too and it kind of it's a good, just a team building exercise in that kind of way. So I think that's that's one of the things we've done and then made to stick. I love recommending books If anybody's a business owner out there and they haven't read.

Lance Cayko:

Made to stick that's where we that's where we come up with our cool marketing ideas, like when we ended up getting on Fox 31 and Denver 7, because we proposed the Amazon headquarters the second one go in Denver and it was completely conceptual, but then it ended up winning us a townhome project in the end from the private developer.

Andy Silvius:

So two second lean and made to stick. Made to stick Can't recommend them enough. Yep, I'll look those up. So, knowing what you know now, if you could go back in time, what is one piece of advice you'd give yourself? Don't worry about it.

Lance Cayko:

It's all going to be fine. You're on the right path. Be as present as you can. The past is past and the future is unknown, and the present's a gift.

Andy Silvius:

It's a good answer. That's not what I expected Most people would give a you know some specific tactical, but it's like you're right. It's easy to get caught up in the worry and the stress of everything, but if you're making progress, it's just progress.

Lance Cayko:

Yeah, even the bad stuff. I'm a huge believer in the law of polarity. Especially in the last like three or four years, it's just kind of just like. I'm just like I can't quit talking about it. Uh, if something bad happens to me, I actually get excited because I'm like, well, something good has to happen next, because that's the law of polarity, positives and negatives. The universe doesn't exist without it. If it's just good, good, good, good, good, I literally get nervous. I'm like because you're waiting for something to break. Yeah, when's the rug gonna get pulled out, you know? So, yeah, b, just b that's good.

Andy Silvius:

I like that. Okay. Last couple questions before we wrap up. So I'm asking every guest this um, what are your thoughts on ai and how do you think it's affected business owners and entrepreneurs currently, and how do you think it will affect them in the future?

Lance Cayko:

I think it's a double-edged sword, like anything. I think I'm not. I'm definitely not a luddite, but I do. But I do respect, uh, people like ted kaczynski, where I go, where I you know, reading his manifesto like there is a limit to the technology and it. It does take us away from just nature and then being present right with it and and when, where we're at in the universe, I use it. We use ChatGPT all the time. I don't use it. The way I've learned to use it is like for writing blogs or for my nonprofit. I wrote it, helped me write the grant.

Lance Cayko:

But the mistake I think a lot of people make right away is they go oh, okay, I'm gonna be able to start and finish this whole thing front middle end, and that's not what it's good for. It's good for either a final push when you're just out of energy. If you feed all of your human words into it and grammar and phrases, then it can actually reflect you pretty well, and then I think it's also maybe only good at the very beginning stage of just maybe. Hey, give me some ideas for a blog, 10 ideas, and then tweak it and tweak it, tweak it, but the meat 90 of the work still has to come from you, and that's one example. Um, you know chat, gpt, and then there's the visual side of it. So, mid journey, all of those like architectural visualization tools and stuff you're seeing, also super powerful.

Lance Cayko:

Um, I think the devil's in the details, though. Yeah, probably when it comes in the software we're like the little tweaks are going to make the biggest difference for us. So like being able to easily now Photoshop out a car in front of a building with by just highlighting an area and click generate, fill, and AI knowing what I want, without me typing a prompt Like that's, that's where I like it. So I don't have a. I just have a healthy skepticism about it. It's like anything double-edged sword positive, negative. Overall, it's probably 51% positive, just for us being more productive and hopefully more free.

Andy Silvius:

Yeah, I like that. That's why I ask everybody this question, because I'm getting such a range of different answers. Some people are terrified of it, some people think it's the best thing ever, and then there's some people middle of the ground or middle of the road. I'm sure my listeners are sick of hearing me say this, but something that I use it for is brainstorming. It's when I'm working on creative work, marketing frameworks, things that I want to build or create. It's a good thing. I struggle when I look at a blank piece of paper. I might have an idea or I'm on the cusp of an idea, and so for me, I can take a piece of that, plug it in and just the feedback loop I get. It may not even I may not use any of it, but just the fact that I get some feedback from it, some input. It's different than me going to google and trying to type in my idea and then look at like the thousands different search results. Right, yeah, so just be able to play with it and then build from there.

Lance Cayko:

And uh.

Andy Silvius:

I love it for friends and then for like minuscule, like regular day-to-day tasks. It's easy to to build automations and stuff. Yeah, definitely so. Last question if you could leave listeners with one actionable item, uh, that would have a positive impact on them today. What would it be and why?

Lance Cayko:

Whatever you're afraid of doing, you should do it, and you should not worry about even doing it. You should just. This is the one. As soon as you hear my voice, you should just make the decision I'm going to do that and then be done with the anxiety of not doing it perfect.

Andy Silvius:

I love that. Well, lance, it has been great having you on the show. I think this is going to be just an absolute fire episode for everyone listening, because I think you have a lot of insight. I'd actually love to have you back on again if you're ever interested, because I think we probably only tapped into a very small percentage of the knowledge that you have to share.

Lance Cayko:

So thank you again yeah, thanks for having me.

Andy Silvius:

Brother appreciate it absolutely and I just want to thank all of you guys for listening. If you've enjoyed the show, that you have to share. So thank you again. Yeah, thanks for having me. Brother Appreciate it Absolutely. And I just want to thank all of you guys for listening. If you've enjoyed the show and felt like it provided you value, I'd love to hear in the comments what stuck out the most to you. We'll see you on the next one. Outro Music.