The value of knocking on the neighbor’s door with Ryan Jenkins

Show Notes

Today on “The Building Code,” Tom and Paul are talking to one of our customers from down under in Sydney, Australia, Ryan Jenkins. Ryan has been a carpenter for 10 years and is a site supervisor at Tass Construction Group where he’s been for two years. Ryan has a lot of experience in the construction industry and is an advocate for creating and maintaining relationships with clients and their neighbors.

Check out the full episode to hear more about the company’s mission to “customize homes, change lifestyles and create memories.”

In Australia, do you employ certain trades or do you use subcontractors?

“There are building companies that will subcontract everything out. They’ll subcontract all of the carpentry, like all of the framework, the cladding, the roofing – everything. As for Tass Construction Group, we’ve got our own internal carpenters, so we’ve got our own employees. We’ve got about 10 guys on site and that’s a variety of first year apprentices, second years, third years and a couple of tradesmen as well. So, we’ve got a vast array of people with different experience levels. And we’ll subcontract out the other trades such as electrical and plumbing.”

Why is maintaining good relationships with your clients’ neighbors so important in your process?

“So, me being the supervisor, I go around to the sites and each site had its own foreman and the foreman has his own crew of carpenters. My job is to keep the clients happy and to keep the neighbors happy. And I think if I do that, it shows that we’ve delivered a good project, but we’ve also delivered good service. Now, that service being we’ve engaged the neighbors – we’ve kept them happy, we’ve kept them involved, we’ve kept them up to date. It’s just being friendly with the neighbors and being personable. I’ll go around on a weekly basis and just check in – making sure everything is alright and if they need anything. Yes, sometimes they might be angry and it’s not ideal for them, but at the same time, they feel like they can actually come to me with any problems.”

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Check out Ryan’s testimonial on our customer stories page.

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Transcript

Tom Houghton:

You are listening to “The Building Code,” your guide for a better way to run your business. I’m Tom Houghton.

Paul Wurth:

I’m Paul Wurth. Never gets old you saying that, Tom.

Tom Houghton:

This is what? The 90-somethingth time of you hearing me say that?

Paul Wurth:

This is episode what? 93?

Tom Houghton:

Sure.

Paul Wurth:

We’re going to have to have a banger for number 100.

Tom Houghton:                                                                                

We’re working on it.

Paul Wurth:

Do you have plans yet for it?

Tom Houghton:

We’re working on it.

Paul Wurth:

Okay. Well, were going to-

Tom Houghton:

We’ve got something-

Paul Wurth:

… big celebration.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah. This is all part of our ramp up, though. So, the guests leading up to 100 are going to be great.

Paul Wurth:

It’s getting good.

Tom Houghton:

And that’s completely true with today’s guest. Today, we’re joined by Ryan Jenkins, project manager at Tass Construction based in none other than Down Under.

Paul Wurth:

Where’s that?

Tom Houghton:

In Sydney, Australia. Ryan, thanks so much for joining us.

Ryan Jenkins:

No worries guys. Thanks for having me.

Tom Houghton:

And Ryan did us a solid by getting up super early to record this podcast his time. So, we appreciate you getting up early and chatting with us.

Ryan Jenkins:

No worries. Glad to be.

Paul Wurth:

Have you had your coffee yet? You ready to go?

Ryan Jenkins:

Yeah, I’ve had my coffee. I was up at 4:30 this morning. So, that’s what time I wake up every morning. Get ready. We’re normally out on site pretty early. So, I’m ready to go.

Paul Wurth:

Holy cow. What time do you guys quit each day?

Ryan Jenkins:

Well, I normally work from about 7:00 AM to 6:00 PM, but our guys on site at 7:00 AM to about 4:00 PM.

Paul Wurth:

Jeez.

Tom Houghton:

I know. They’re hard workers.

Paul Wurth:

Hardest working guy in the industry there. I love it.

Tom Houghton:

Exactly, yeah. We love talking to our friends down in the Australia, New Zealand area because you guys, you’re hard workers and you put out a really good product. So, if you’re not following Tass, you should definitely follow them on social media. They’re putting out some really great stuff on the interwebs as it were. So check the show notes. We’ll put in all their social handles there, but I think it’s just @Tass Construction.

Ryan Jenkins:

@TassConstructionGroup.

Tom Houghton:

Yep. There we go.

Paul Wurth:

Well, since you guys have met each other before-

Tom Houghton:

We have.

Paul Wurth:

… because you’re-

Tom Houghton:

I had the privilege of meeting Ryan in person last year, got the opportunity to go down and film and chat with a couple of our clients down there. So, we made a video with Ryan. We’ll put that in the show notes too.

Paul Wurth:

There you go.

Tom Houghton:

So, but yeah. I mean, it was great to be onsite and see the work that you’re doing. And then, of course, you know, follow along on social media and actually after I left, seeing the projects getting completed. So, I can speak firsthand that these guys do great work, and Ryan is a stand-up guy. So, super excited to have him on the podcast.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah. Well, how about me and the other rest of the audience get to know him a little bit then? Since you guys are familiar.

Tom Houghton:

Absolutely. Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

So, Ryan, tell us a little bit about yourself and your background, and if you want to, get into the company too. Let’s see about that.

Ryan Jenkins:

Yeah, for sure. So, basically I’ve been a carpenter for 10 years now. I started out with a small construction company just in my hometown. It was just me, my boss and two other carpenters, and I did my apprenticeship there. From there, I became a foreman with that company. And basically, I was a foreman with them for 10 years. And along the line there somewhere, I actually had a pretty bad experience with a client, I should say. And I ended up in hospital due to stress. So, I was in hospital due to stress from that client. And then I was really young. I was only 25 at the time, and I didn’t see it coming. I wasn’t prepared for the stresses that life and work do put on you. So, when I got out of hospital, I had decided to leave that company. I just didn’t think I was very fit for that company. And the door opened here at Tass Construction Group. I’m good friends with Ben, and he offered me with welcome arms, and they put me on as a supervisor. And I’ve been here for two years now and I’ve grown so much as a person. And it’s such a great company and a great vibe to work for.

Paul Wurth:

That’s great. So, I’ve always noticed this, as Tom mentioned, we’ve got a great set of clients in your area, Australia, New Zealand, kind of how we bracket that. But it feels like in Australia, specifically, their process to become a construction company and then to work at a construction company feels very, I guess, formal in a way-

Tom Houghton:

Structured.

Paul Wurth:

Structured.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah, much more structured, yeah.

Paul Wurth:

You had mentioned apprentice then you had mentioned, I think, site supervisor, but it feels like these titles are very much like the same across every company. And it’s sort of like a very clear ladder or organizational structure you go through in a company. Is that fair to say?

Ryan Jenkins:

Yeah, yeah. So, basically what happens is you do an apprenticeship. So, apprenticeship lasts for four years. You come on as a first-year, and it goes for four years, and you’ll go to TAFE. So basically TAFE is college. You also go to college one day a week where you’ll get taught by teachers. You’ll get taught the ins and outs of your trade. So, this is for all different trades. So, whether it’s bricklaying, landscaping, carpentry, plumbing, electrical, it’s all the same. You do a four-year apprenticeship, you’ll go to TAFE for three years, and that’s one day per week. And then from there, you have the opportunity to grow and become a tradesman. You can become a foreman, but you can work your way up through the company. But it’s the same four years of training. And once you’ve hit that four years of training, you get your certificate three in that specific trade. And then from there, you can just develop your skills even further. You can go on and get diplomas. I’ve done more at certificate four in building construction. And that enables me to actually become my own builder and run my own company.

Paul Wurth:

Okay. Well, and so, that university is throughout all of Australia, and it’s one entity that does it.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah. So, it’s called TAFE. There actually is a lot of private companies now that do it. But generally, when you’re an apprentice, there’s colleges all throughout, I guess, Australia, especially in New South Wales, all throughout Sydney and New South Wales, they’re generally pretty close to each other. So, you don’t have to travel too far, but you basically go on there one day a week just to get that sort of offsite training. Basically, you’re just getting taught the ins and outs of different materials to use, different techniques, because some people’s jobs might not show them the whole broader trade that they’re actually working in. You might have a carpenter that their company just specializes in cladding or their company just specializes in framework. So, it’s basically to give a better understanding of the whole trading itself.

Paul Wurth:

Interesting. And just one last follow-up, and I don’t mean to take all the questions. But do you find then that there’s less subcontracting to companies and the actual GC employees more of the trades that are the full-time employees? Or is it still an equal mix?

Ryan Jenkins:

Yeah, that’s a good question. So, there are building companies that will subcontract everything here. They’ll subcontract even all the carpentry, like the framework, the cladding, the roofing, everything here. Us at Tass Construction Group, we’ve got our own internal carpenters. So we’ve got our own employees. We’ve got about 10 guys on site and that’s an array of first-year apprentices, second-years, third-years, and a couple of tradesmen as well. So we’ve got a vast array of people with different experience levels, and we’ll subcontract out the other trades such as electrical, plumbing, all those other subcontractors as well.

Paul Wurth:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). Make sense.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah. So, let’s talk a little bit more about your team and about Tass in general. So, Tass’s mission on the website, it says, “To customize homes, change lifestyles and create memories.” That’s a pretty good one. So, can you tell us a little bit more about that, how you got to that mission and the meaning behind it?

Ryan Jenkins:

Yeah, so basically, they created that mission probably a few weeks after I joined the company. We’re a pretty young company. We’re only four years. They’ve only been around for four years. So, it’s still sort of creating the core values and the things to follow. And I remember the day we actually created the customized times and change lifestyles, create memories. And we thought like, “What are we about?? Yes, we do want to customize homes. We want to be custom homebuilders. Whether that’s new builds or custom home renovators, we want to create new homes. We don’t want to follow suit like certain designs. We want to expand on people’s homes to the way they’d like to live and to how they would want their home to look. And by doing that, we’re changing people’s lifestyles. They’re going to have new areas that they can hang out in. They’re going to have bigger houses that they can spend time in. And by doing that as well, we’re creating new memories for them in the future.

Paul Wurth:

Wow. We’ve had a string of episodes where this theme of, “We’re not just in this to make money or as much as we can” – which is not by any means a bad thing. Businesses have to make money. But this theme of businesses sort of looking in and going, “Why are we doing this?” To drive our culture and to drive our team every day when, maybe, the work does get a little mundane or it’s tough days, you sort of go back to that. So, I guess that’s a really good thing for our industries. We’re starting to hear that more and more.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah. I mean, I would just tag onto that. Obviously, money isn’t everything. And so, it’s nice to hear other companies that we’re working with that use our software, that they recognize that, and they’re putting their customers first, as first and foremost. I mean, I just loved the last part about creating memories. I mean, home, you spend over a third of your life there. And this is where you’re going to raise your kids or just live life, right? So, you’re a huge part of somebody’s life just by working in their home. And it’s awesome to see that you guys are putting such a focus on that.

Ryan Jenkins:

One of our other mottoes is to experience the journey. Now, we want the clients to have a great experience from start to finish. We just don’t want it to be just a project where they go, “Okay, cool. Here’s the plans. Can you go off and build this?” And then they come back and it’s finished. We want them to be involved. We want them to feel the emotion, the excitement. And we want it to be like an experience for them. We want it to be a journey. We want the project to be finished and they go, “Well, is that it? Let’s do this again. That was so exciting. That was so much fun.” We understand that, as you said, they spent so much time in their home. This is such a big part of their life. And when they are building, they’ve saved for so long. They’ve saved for years and years, they’ve done so much time in planning and they’ve spent time with architects and they’ve spent time with their family discussing how they would like their layout to be created. And we’re the ones we can actually create that. That’s what we need to understand. We’re actually building their dream home that they have spent so much emotion and time imagining and we get to create the final product.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah. I mean, it’s great to focus on that. I think some of the best companies that use Buildertrend and that we’ve had the experience of talking to over the last couple of years, that’s really where they center themselves in that journey. But that’s also one of the most difficult parts of building, right? That journey can be very, very rocky. There’re some elements that you can’t control, obviously. So, when you guys focus on completing projects on time and on budget, I mean, how do you deliver on that? Or do you guys have systems that help you deliver on that?

Ryan Jenkins:

Yeah. Well, delivering, like obviously, if you’re trying to deliver a project on budget, you want to be as detailed as possible in your tender. When you give a quote, you want to give as much detail, you want to factor in the things that can go wrong. We know that we’re trying to create an experience, so we don’t want things to go wrong during the build. So we want to be as upfront as possible. And sometimes may blow out our costs and make our cost seem bigger, but we can then go to the client, “Hey, look, we’ve included this, this and this. And we’ve included this detailed proposal. We’re trying to create a system where the build isn’t going to blow out.” And then when it comes back to the construction time, obviously like Buildertrend is a massive part of that, Aaron and Ben, the directors, and they do all the quotes with Josh, our estimator.

Ryan Jenkins:

They will basically tell me, “Hey, we’ve given this quote, we’ve estimated this amount of time.” I’ll go straight to the end of that schedule. I’ll put that time in my Buildertrend schedule, and then I’ll work backwards from there. And that’s how we keep that building on time and in budget as well. Obviously, things are going to come up along the way. You try and mitigate that as best as possible. Any of things the client does want to produce change orders, we want them to be able to choose change orders for things that they want to add extra, not because they have to.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. I think a lot of times construction companies, especially when they’re younger, they get tripped up trying to sell the dream. “Oh, it’s going to be fantastic. We’re going to be able to do it for this price.” I think what I heard from you guys is you guys focused on the reality as much as you can and over-communicate that. And I mean, I think that the general knowledge of people these days, they’ve heard about bad situations with constructions, how they said it was going to be one price and it blew up on them. I think they’re looking for a little bit more of that clarity and that reality. So, kudos to you guys on that.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah. Obviously, you focus a lot on the client experience and building the great relationships that you have with your clients. Obviously that extends if you’re doing a larger project to the neighbors or the neighborhoods. So, can you talk about how you guys approach that and why you think it’s important in your process, obviously, to do that?

Ryan Jenkins:

Yeah. So, me being the supervisor, I’m the supervisor and I go around and I run all the sites, and each site has its own foreman and the foreman has his own crew of carpenters. So, my job is to keep the clients happy and to keep the neighbors happy. And I think if I do that, it shows that we’ve delivered a good project, but we’ve also delivered a good service. Now, that service being that we’ve engaged the neighbors, we’ve kept them happy, we’ve kept them involved, we’ve kept them up to date. We know how intimidating it can be having a bunch of subcontractors and tradesmen in your street just prancing around with their big utes and all their heavy machinery and all their power tools. It’s a massive inconvenience for them. Some projects can go up to 12 months.

Ryan Jenkins:

If you’ve got to put yourself in their shoes, some people can be shift workers and then they’re having to sleep, and all of a sudden they got power tools running all day. So, being friendly with the neighbors and being personable, I’ll go around there probably on a weekly basis and just checking in and making sure everything is all right, if they need anything. And all that does is it builds a relationship with the neighbors. Yes, sometimes they might be angry, and it’s not ideal for them, but at the same time, they feel like they can actually come to me with any problems. And all you got to do is listen to them. And if they do have a request, say they say, “Hey, look, I’ve had a really rough night. I just need to get two hours of sleep. Can you just keep it quiet for the next two hours?”

Ryan Jenkins:

Then we can look at doing stuff that’s not going to produce that much noise for the next two hours. Then we’ve kept them happy. And then the rest of the build, we’re going to have a really good relationship with them. It’s going to make things so much easier. I think there’d be a lot of contractors out there that have a story where the neighbors have pushed back on a lot of things or have had arguments, or there’s been disputes on site. It’s about breaking that barrier. We want to break that stigma of the big intimidating builder. We want to be able to walk up and want to be helper. “How are you? We’re going to be building here for the next so-and-so months. If there is any traumas, I just want you to know you can come see me with anything at all.”

Paul Wurth:

That’s a great takeaway. I mean, I don’t know how many people do that. Just do a quick circle around the neighborhood, knock on doors. A little pro tip for you, maybe you guys can drop off cookies or something.

Tom Houghton:

Well, in the COVID world, it’s a little hard to do that.

Paul Wurth:

Oh, that’s right.

Ryan Jenkins:

So, what we actually do is we do go around a week before we commence construction and I’ll introduce myself. I’ll give them a letter telling them what works we’re doing, or basically sort of give them a running schedule of the work. Just so they know when demolition is, when framework is. Just so they can be a little bit aware. Obviously that schedule does change. And then, right at the end of the build, after we’ve handed over to the client, we’ll then go around and give a thank you letter to the older neighbors in the street-

Paul Wurth:

Great stuff.

Ryan Jenkins:

… just to them putting up with us.

Tom Houghton:

I love it.

Paul Wurth:

Great stuff.

Tom Houghton:

I also want to say, I think you get 10 points for mentioning the word ute on the podcast.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, I didn’t know what that was. It’s like some animal?

Tom Houghton:

No, it’s a truck. Basically, it’s like a work truck.

Ryan Jenkins:

It’s a pickup truck. It’s actually called a utility vehicle. So everyone in Australia just calls it a ute.

Paul Wurth:

A ute. Okay. Thanks for defining that. I think me and the rest of the listeners were-

Tom Houghton:

I love it. That goes back to the Aussie Man reviews reference because he just got a ute a little while ago. I don’t know if you’ve-

Ryan Jenkins:

Oh, yeah.

Tom Houghton:

Anyway, that’s a whole another podcast episode. So, we’ll stick with this one. I love that you’re doing that for your clients, but then also just delivering that great service to the neighborhood. And I’m going to go out on a limb here, I’m assuming that that has led to some sort of increase in business because if I’m a neighbor and I’m being approached by a construction company, who’s already gone out of their way to do this. And then even following up with like a thank you note, like, “Thank you for letting us come into your neighborhood and help make this home better.” And the first person I’m calling is that company when I need something done.

Paul Wurth:

For sure.

Ryan Jenkins:

Yeah. Well, it’s funny you said that. We just completed a job in a suburb in the inner west in Sydney. And after we completed that job, we ended up working on the next four neighbors’ houses in that street. Just to do small jobs like a new garage, some letterbox works and another new carport and another new garage. Just we’re so friendly with them, they just trusted us straight away. It’s building that trust. And it’s not only just to get low small jobs from them, but if they can have a friend that will go, “Hey, look, we’re looking for a builder.” And then they can say, “Hey, look, we didn’t get these works done to our house, but this builder was great. They did some work in our street. We highly recommend that.” We know that a recommendation goes so far. It’s so much better than just seeing a builder on Instagram or on the socials or seeing an ad on TV. A recommendation from someone that you know, you’re likely to go with that person.

Tom Houghton:

Absolutely. I mean, we talk about that all the time. I know I’ve talked about that in my classes that I teach at Buildertrend University. The power of a testimonial video and hearing it from somebody else, it just goes so much further than any money spend that you can do on ad words or whatever, because people want to hear it from somebody else who’s actually experienced your service. And if you’re putting out a great service and a great product like what you’re saying, people will talk about it and that, well, it’s going to ultimately generate business for you just by nature of you doing a good job.

Ryan Jenkins:

Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, I mean, I think this is a stuff we talk about in the podcast. I mean, it’s all great, but like this is the stuff that I think gets me and you excited is companies really thinking about outside the box, how to just be kind and be proactive, especially in things that happen every day. So, kudos to you guys. I mean, if you want to take the cookie tip, you can. I mean, I [crosstalk 00:19:15]-

Ryan Jenkins:

[crosstalk 00:19:15].

Tom Houghton:

Maybe post-COVID cookie tips there.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah. Just whatever.

Tom Houghton:

Or pre pre-packaged cookies, I don’t know. Speaking of cookies, that’s not going to work as a transition.

Paul Wurth:

It’s a good try.

Tom Houghton:

But I tried. Giving back is where we could go at that, or setting a new standard in the area. You guys are accredited with Australia’s HIA Green Smart Professionals. It’s something that’s obviously near and dear to my heart. We’ve talked about on the podcast for things like being energy efficient, solar, et cetera, et cetera. So, maybe you could give some background to why you’ve put an emphasis on that and how that works in your business day to day.

Ryan Jenkins:

Okay. So, in Australia, probably the same over in the USA, it’s all about energy efficiency. Especially as we develop as a society, people want to save energy, they want to save money, they want to save costs. They want a better, more economic home. They just want a better run home. Now, Aaron’s decided to become, yeah, the HIA Green Smart Profession. And we’re aiming to build one to two of those houses per year. Once you build one to two of those houses per year, you actually become accredited green, smart builder. There’s a lot of things to influence in that, such as different types of glazing, the insulation. I know over in the States, actually, I’m very intrigued by how in-depth you guys go into your insulation. The panels on the outside of wall and the spray foam on the inside.

Ryan Jenkins:

It’s amazing to see how some builders over there do that. And I love watching those videos. But over here, with the green smart, we’re trying to create houses that basically can eliminate that heating and cooling. Because that is the biggest energy waster over here. Especially in Australia, we’ve got summers that are 40 degrees Celsius. I don’t know what that is in Fahrenheit, but [crosstalk 00:21:14]-

Tom Houghton:

It’s over 100 degrees easily.

Ryan Jenkins:

There you go. And then that’s probably a standard summer. So, basically, two months of the year you got most days are over 40 degrees. And then in winter in Sydney, you’re down to about between five and ten degrees. I know down in Victoria, it’s a lot colder than that. But also in winter days, we can have winter days that will skyrocket back up to 30 degrees and just drop.

Ryan Jenkins:

So, we’ve actually got a lot of temperature change throughout the year. So, we’re trying to create homes that will heat and cool themselves efficiently without having to run haters or AC units or anything like that. And then, yeah, it’s going to come down to probably the building products you use in the home, the insulation, how you orientate the home. Whether the kitchen’s in the North. It depends where you are, I suppose, in the country as well. And then how you heat and cool your water. So, that’s a big one as well. So, solar-powered hot water systems. We’re actually about to install a heat-pump water system at one of our jobs, which is really, really efficient. And then there’s also new efficient air conditioning systems and stuff like that. But the way the industry’s going, that’s where we’re going. We’re going for these green, smart houses. We’re going for these houses that it just feels really nice and comfortable to live in all year round because the house does the work for you. You don’t have to turn on all these electrical appliances to heat and cool your home.

Tom Houghton:

Absolutely. It’s smart. Again, that just goes back to, I think, why we’re so impressed with your business is that you’re thinking ahead of the game, you’re delivering the great service, but you’re also thinking ahead to what’s next. And I think we would encourage all of our listeners definitely be thinking about that, right? So, especially, we’re in 2020 and obviously the year didn’t shape up how any of us thought it was going to shape up, but still, that doesn’t mean we can’t make advances in technology and in areas that help improve the environment, the envelope of the home to help make it more comfortable on the inside.

Ryan Jenkins:

Definitely.

Tom Houghton:

Well, so, the other thing we want to talk about with you, obviously, since you’re in a different neck of the woods then we are up here, what are some trends that you’re seeing kind of down in Australia?

Ryan Jenkins:

Well, I actually was speaking with Ben and Aaron, our directors, before we had this conversation. And I’m like, “What are the trends we’re seeing?” And it all depends where you are, I suppose, in the country. Like here where I live right near the coast, you’ve actually been to sort of the area that we work. We’re right near the coastline, and that keeps a lot of coastal sort of Hampton sort of trends, as well as a lot of modern. But there’s a lot of people using raw materials like off-form concrete, raw brick, a lot of timber. Using those sort of raw dense materials that really give a nice modern look and then add in a twist. But then, you could also go back into sort of the Sydney suburbs where people are bringing in a lot of bright colored bathrooms and bright colored kitchens.

Ryan Jenkins:

There is a massive array of different trends in sort of different areas around New South Wales. And I suppose it depends on the client’s flavor. We’ve had a lot of clients where we could do one build that’s a Hampton build and I go to the next foreman’s job site. And that’s a completely different sort of Victorian 1920s sort of build right in the depths of Sydney. So, it all depends about what the client wants. But there are some certain things, like there’s a lot of curves coming in. A lot of curves in buildings, curves in bathroom walls, curves in kitchens. You say that a lot, which is really cool. We’re just about to install a kitchen that has a nice curve in it. Basically, any area could be different. You could walk down the street in one area and it’s got a Hamptons home, it’s got a modern home, it’s got a cottage-looking home. It’s very broad in Australia, I reckon.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah, absolutely. I would. I would testify to that. When being there, you’d walk down the street and see lots of different styles of homes. I think the curve interest, that’s kind of an interesting-

Paul Wurth:

That’s interesting.

Tom Houghton:

That’s a curve.

Paul Wurth:

Inside and outside.

Tom Houghton:

A curve ball there, yeah.

Paul Wurth:

I feel like you’re just rubbing in the [crosstalk 00:25:26]-

Ryan Jenkins:

Yeah. A lot of arches and a lot of curves to the front of buildings. Well, I haven’t had to do one, but I’ve been seeing a lot of off-form concrete curves, which will be very exciting to do. Also, it makes you very nervous just to make sure you’re just getting that perfect curvature to it.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah, absolutely. Well, Ryan, keep the great work there again. We love seeing what you’re putting out on social media and we love what you guys stand for as a business. And I think that’s fantastic. I think if you’re in the Australia area and you’re considering, you need to work with somebody, you need to work with Tass. So, we’ve obviously got a lot of great clients down there who are doing great work too. So, I obviously know you don’t service the entire continent of Australia, so-

Ryan Jenkins:

Maybe one day.

Tom Houghton:

I’ll love it. I love the ambition. That’s so good. Yeah. So keep up the great work. Thanks for coming on the podcast and kind of sharing how your business works. I think one of the huge takeaways is that cookie thing.

Paul Wurth:

Or some version of that.

Ryan Jenkins:

I’ll take that to the next meeting, for sure.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, there you go.

Tom Houghton:

Everyone loves cookies.

Paul Wurth:

There you go.

Tom Houghton:

All right. Thanks, Ryan.

Paul Wurth:

Thanks, Ryan.

Ryan Jenkins:

All right. Paul, Tom, thank you very much. Cheers.

Paul Wurth:

Cheers, man.

Tom Houghton:

Love what you heard? Don’t forget to rate and subscribe to our podcast so you can hear from more guests that will benefit your business. Also, please check out our show notes page for more information on what we discussed on this episode. You can find it at buildertrend.com/podcast. Thanks for listening. And we’ll see you next time on the Building Code.

Ryan Jenkins | Tass Construction


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