 All right, we're live Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. I actually put the start time at 6 0 5 p.m. Just like our Tuesday sessions So I just decided to jump on because I saw a few people were in the waiting room and while we wait for YouTube to let everyone know that We're here Just let us know who you are. Tell us about your organization. Nikki already put in there my nation enterprise Hampton Rose, Virginia cyber RMF IT. So again, let us know who you are The name of your entity the city that you're from tell us a little bit about what it is that you do or what you're trying to do so thank you, Nikki for that and While we wait patiently For everyone to join us on board. We will salute our family cliff Nikki Maria, that's here a little bit early. I did change the time to 6 0 5 p.m. How's my sound? Can you hear me? Just fine. It looks like as long as I keep this microphone close to my mouth that things are working out good So Baltimore count the cost LLC's first light of financial coaching. No research. Just looking to approve Provide office supplies to the government good stuff. Welcome cliff today Interesting enough this topic that we're discussing I First started writing about it back in 2018 So back in 2018 They actually had on here sounds good. Okay, excellent. Thank you for that back in 2018 60 minutes did a feature on the San Francisco Millennium Tower building anybody familiar with that particular building Anybody familiar with the San Francisco Millennium Tower building? That's actually leaning It's a 58 story building a lot of athletes There were multi-million dollar condominium units and that building is actually leaning It's been leaning for a while In 60 minutes reported it three years ago And how did it get to that point of leaning and so back in 2018? I started writing an article about one of my thoughts and ideas of how did that happen? And why is that happening? And so that really sparked today's conversation because you know after sitting on the sidelines and not doing anything about it and then seeing this particular Instant happened recently. I just thought I would share some of the insights That I had from working in the construction industry And so that I can help some of you avoid some of these mishaps as well because Maybe you're aware of this. Maybe you don't know about this, but I actually was I suffered multiple lawsuits from huge construction companies that were targeting us mom-and-pop businesses and so they were targeting us small businesses and They threatened us with lawsuits and so, you know for me This is something that I want to try and help other people avoid and this is also the reason why I decided to come back into The federal marketplace so while we wait for people to get here Because we did say 605. I just I see you know, there's about nine people in a room So let us know who you are. I see Lelani's here. I see Clifford I don't know who else is out there or we're waiting for people to come on board Just let us know again. Tell us your company Tell us the industry you're in the city that you're in as well. So And then also give us a give us like hit the like button one time so we can help push this out to the world I think this is an important topic because there's a lot of people in construction and so Because there's so many of us in construction I think if we were just made aware of some of these things It would help us when you're reviewing that You know 60 page contract that you get in the private sector So again, why are you jumping on boy? Let us know who you are. Let us know that you're here So that we can find out and see if we can try to help work with somebody out there. So if you've ever Experience or seen any of this thing like this this contract I have was 33 pages This particular contract 56 pages This one is an 84 pages So if you've seen or you experience anything like that that you've seen that companies give you And you're like, oh my gosh I don't even know where to start at and like, what should I be looking for? That is why we're making this video today because I think if you know a couple of like key things within the contract terms That will help tremendously for you to be able to know that the person that you're dealing with and For you to make the best decision for yourself whether or not you want to proceed with that contract Not a sexy topic, right? Not as exciting as how to win ten million dollar contracts or how to go from zero to a hundred million But I think it is a necessary topic and it's something that I believe a lot more small businesses We're made aware and they were cognizant of it Then they could fix that problem anybody out there heard of the San Francisco Millennium Tower Anybody out there heard of that project? Anybody my folks in California, I got a couple people here in California mark. Welcome brand factory. Welcome All your fesso welcome All right Catholic instruction out of Baltimore Medical consulting media digital media products All right again Let us know I see about four or five people that let us know who they are the other people that are watching this again Tell us where you're from the city you are there are your organization name and what is that you do? Teddy from TDR works Chicago painting. Okay. Let us know you are because again like I said I think that this is a really really oh It's Nikki. Oh, hey, Nikki. What's up? I see you on now. All right So again, I this for me like I said for those that are just joining us It's really close and I and I kind of weighed it Until all of the media tend to die down to talk about this subject because it is I know it is a sensitive topic But I think it's one that's necessary. So again, let's talk about some of the first things that Happen to folks out there when you are in the construction game And so it looks like this is our crowd for tonight. So thank you all the folks out here Joining us make sure to get hit the like button, please. All right. We're gonna jump into it the first thing that That happens that I noticed that people have had experiences with one of those things is material Escalation and let me show you on the screen. I want to show you a real-life example because that's what we do now Granted this is from 2014, but it's a real-life exituation. So in this particular scenario What happens is the same thing that's happening for of right now So right now a lot of us because of the pandemic because of the factory shutdown You are receiving delays in your materials And so what happens is a lot of times when we buy from the manufacturer the manufacturer Themselves will have in here escalation clauses. So the manufacturer will say will give you a price increase After a certain period of time, but if you sign a contract six months ago or five months ago You may not be able to pass that cost off to the prime contractor or the government for that reason This is an example where I received a notice of a price increase from my manufacturer Okay, and it says that the project extended past the material protection date, which it did However, in my contract It says there is no material protection dates or material cost protections afforded under my subcontract agreement so My cost went up $40,000 on this particular project and because I did not have any clauses for material cost protections and my subcontracted agreement guess what I had to do eat it so that hurt and I want you to be aware of that so that that way you can When talking to manufacturers when talking to the contractors that you're aware of it Make sure to hit like button. I see 19 people and only six likes So that's something that I want people to be aware of the other thing is The tax exemption. Let me show you this So pull this up on the screen All right now when you're doing state and local contracts the majority time their tax exempt however in some instances and Maria will tell you this we found out that they cannot be tax exempt. So we've had projects where the government Even though the government may be tax exempt the particular contractor a subcontractor Was not tax exempt and so if you estimate that job or you bid that job Without implying the taxes because you figure it was a state local or a federal project And you can't get a tax exemption for status. You have to eat that So that's second thing I want you to look out for Nikki so that's happening to her right now, which is a signing contract yet Teddy says he just sent over a 99 page contract. So yeah, no these are real things that are happening and So I want to talk. I mean again, we're here to talk about real stuff You know, I want to I want to give people the information so they can make decisions And so those are a couple things that I know is now those aren't even the seven that we're getting into, right? So that's just like some stuff that happened that again, I know is affecting people today right now in this particular pandemic during these times now, let's get into some more technical things and Let me go in To hurry at hold on. Where's my stuff? All right. All right So let's get into some technical stuff while we wait for people to hit the like button over there the seven These are the actual seven subcontract clauses that I want people to be aware of and again If you're in construction and have friends in construction, please please please Do them a favor do yourself a favor Make sure to watch this video and pay attention and search for these contract and search for these clauses within your contract Reasonably inferrable. Ooh, anyone knows what that means reasonably inferrable Neither did I right because you're like, what is reasonably inferrable? That seems harmless, right? So reasonably inferrable A good example of that that I have here is that says When you are looking at construction drawings and it shows a door All right, and you price to replace the door It does not tell you that the door needs a frame And so even though you know that you need a frame for the door the drawings don't show a frame And so in your contract it says you are responsible to buy the frame even though in the drawings There is no frame. So that's called reasonably infer, which means that If you're gonna put a door in you need a frame now Seems harmless, right? Well, it's a big problem because let's say It was a window and like we had a project with 300 window replacements, but it does not specify replace the frames Obviously the windows have frames that doesn't mean we have to replace the frames So that is something that Can add up really really really quickly? And so what happens is when the design documents are so incomplete that the contractor has to begin drawing too many Inferences the result is that obviously we're now constructing on the fly with materials and methods and things like that Which causes us to lose money. So what it says is the best offense against that is The reasonably inferrable clause is to review all your design documents look for completeness and constructability And so what we do is We make sure to ask those questions when we are pricing our jobs to primes Now this mostly most of things that we're gonna talk about today applies it when you're a subcontractor Not really a prime contractor. So most of the things that we're discussing today applies when you're a subcontractor So as a subcontractor you want to make sure that you point out things that you don't see and Though they may be obvious They're not on the actual drawings or they're not written in the documents And so you want to make sure you don't want to think to yourself that Well, I'm not gonna say anything because I'm gonna get a change order later because your contract may say this clause in it And then guess what? The guy the person the contractor who's gave you the contract's gonna say nope that's your fault You should have known that the door needed a frame I'm not saying you're right or wrong all I'm saying is that these are the types of clauses that people will use against you and Your negotiations and then when you're trying to get like a change order trying to get paid They're gonna go back to that clause in your contract. So again, we What I'm doing here. Oh, by the way, just so you know Someone's They told me no because one directly government. Good job Maria cliff won't find calling this anywhere. That's correct. I Don't know what it is, but I just got my black laws Blacks law dictionary. Cool. So, uh Number two pay if paid clause Pay of pay anybody heard that pay if paid So what that says is that's actually and all the websites when you look at construction Contract clauses subcontractor clauses. This is like number one And this should probably put number one on my list But this is like the number one issue that you will find in your contracts will say pay if paid Not pay when paid you want pay when paid, but this says pay if paid I actually in my subcontract agreements I write paid when paid because when the government pays me I pay you and so forth But this one is very specific says pay if paid and what it says is that the clause Tells the subcontractor that they may have done the work paid for label paid for materials But the general contractor has no Legal obligation to pay you unless they get paid by the project owner So how do you spot that in your contract agreements? It usually says there's a condition precedent to the payment will activate a paid if paid clause you want to look for that in your contract language Now The thing about it is is most of the time You don't really necessarily have control over this stuff So most general contractors are pretty savvy and they will refuse to actually remove this contract And so they'll end up just working with someone else because they know how powerful this is However For me The way that I see this is that if you understand and you see these things in there You can talk to the contractor. You could talk to the project manager Uh, if you really have to take the project, then at least you can communicate that you're aware of these things And so that will put people on edge that you've actually read the contract you understand it And so that you're not a person that they can actually push over so These things show whether or not somebody wants to operate with you in good faith All right number three Do do do Right to withhold payment by the way Let me go back to number two So, let me tell you guys number two. Hey quintin swift, what's up, brother? Hey, brian amster. How are you? nicky All right, let me go back to number two and tell you how dangerous this paid of paid clause is In fact, no, let me go to number three and then I'll give you the real life example Right to withhold payment The owner's right to withhold payment for work is there to protect the owner. Sure makes sense But also contractors should make sure that the contract language doesn't allow withholding of payment for Anticipatory breach of the contract. So what that says is that? The this particular prime thinks that Give essentially gives them the power to withhold payment Because of whatever reason they say now they'll draw it up and it'll be nice and it'll be a good excuse But ultimately, um, it says for breach of contract. So anything that you do That they deem Like on the verge of breaching it. They have the right to withhold payment So now how does that apply in a real-world sense? So I'll give you an actual scenario that happened to me a few years back where And this is why, you know, I say You know, I showed the example about these these buildings and what's going on is As a subcontractor as a small subcontractor, right? So you get these buildings that are being built and all these people working on the projects You get the developer. You got the owner. You got the developer. You got the prime Which is probably like a joint jv of some big prime And then you got primes below them and then subs and subs of subs And so you get down to the little guys And us little guys the ones actually out there putting the concrete putting the steel Pouring a slab doing all the work on there and you can go to any town USA and find this on any projects So where does this right withhold payment come in at? What happens is If you're actually working on a project and you're the little guy on the project and let's say you see something wrong, right? So let's say in my particular scenario. I'll use my real life example I was building a building and this is one of the reasons why actually I didn't write this article like three years ago because I was scared truthfully Because you know, it's like telling on people and so I saw something wrong with the project that had to do with the Foundation But my attorney said if I disclose this information to the owner And they kick the contractor off Then that this will kick into the right to withhold payment clause, which means then I'm not do any of my monies so You have to make a decision between And again, I I told my bonding company. We told the insurance company. We told the prime contractor We've got it in writing. We have pictures everything The only person that we didn't tell was the owner of the project and we if we told the owner of the project And they removed the general contractor from the job Then they had to write to withhold our payment and we were owed hundreds of thousands of dollars So they put people in a precarious situation to make a decision between doing what's right Um paying your bills paying your family like paying your employees and stuff and then dealing with litigation lawsuits and You know I'm taking the court, which you don't have the ability to stand. So that's why to mean Um, and again, not just myself In fact, let's go. I'm going to show you guys so that you know That I did my Homework, you know, I have all these cited references as well So you can go to any site of references and I'll make sure to include it on here Um, a lot of these are all law groups that put on these these clauses that I was able to pull this information from So it's not just me saying this stuff This is a widely known problem in the industry that's recurring that no one is talking about until after Something like this tragically happens. And so these to me. This is there's always, uh Underlying theme or a background to why how do we get here? How do we get to this place? Right? So in my opinion Teddy says snitching But in my opinion, we need like a whistleblower's clause to where the small subcontractor guy Won't get in trouble or won't lose his, uh, his financial All the money he's put out material suppliers and all the work he's put out For reporting something that was done improperly or incorrect on a project. So Right withhold payment And deminified defend and hold harmless By the way, I'm not a lawyer Just want to put that out there. Uh, I'm not a lawyer And so whenever you have a contract Seek legal advice I'm only helping to help guide you when reviewing a 80 page contract or a 50 page contract Where are some of the areas that you should go to immediately and see if these things are in there? And so that's why I provided real life contract examples to show how my contracts had a lot of this stuff in there As well indemnity indemnity indemnified defend a whole harmless So it's interesting about indemnified and we use that a lot like I use that word all the time and I mean, I know what it meant, but I doesn't I didn't really know what it meant and ultimately And some of these contracts they have these broad indemnity clauses, which means essentially no fault requirement um And so it says that The clause exists in construction where the general contract and owners are asking the parties downstream. You and I the subcontract is to protect them from harm Okay, and so what it says in your contract is the language the subcontractor shall indemnify defeat and hold harmless will activate an indemnity clause and What that means is that um, they have a no fault requirement And it could be nothing to do with your work. No connection to your work at all But you still have to pay the damages that's related to And again, this is a broad this is a we're talking about is a broad form of indemnity clause You still are liable for the damages to work that's done that has nothing to do with your scope of services And so you could be on a project with 10 other contractors um, and this happened to me And still be liable for that. Um one of the things that you could protect yourself it says is um Shift the risk and limit the insurance and negligence only to the things within the realm of your scopes of services Um, typically it's these things are paid out by insurance companies However, if your insurance company have to pay out a claim because of something that someone else did It's just like having a car accident All of us our insurance is going to rise and I mean, I remember paying a ton of money and working with comp And I paid a ton of money in liability. And so again, it doesn't help you if that happens now It says here, uh, and again, I'm reading this off of the the legalese website. So that way, um, you know I'm making sure I get this right If it says if you agree indemnify it means you will reimburse the other party in the contract when there is loss or damage All right, so ideally you want to indemnify risk that you've got control over So things that you got control over that make sense Um, so you're not offering to pay for loss and damages that someone else caused And so when you agree to defend another party, which is the defend clause You're agreeing to pay what it costs to defend them against a suit brought by a third party Unlike when you agree to indemnify when you agree to defend There doesn't need to be a loss that's proved So if someone can sue there doesn't have to be any kind of loss and then you agree to defend that person Um, or defend that entity whatever it case may be whoever you're seeing that for And then when you agree to hold harmless, you're saying that you would both defend as well as cover the losses no matter who's at fault Yeah, it's a lot. So one way to avoid this clause is to only agree Like I said to indemnify defend or hold harmless where you have control over potential losses or damages Yeah, mouthful, right Um Again, just giving you information to draw from to review to look at no damage for delays This actually came up on multiple websites Just like the pay to pay contract Literally about four or five of these legal websites had this particular Clause as one of the most destructive clauses for subcontracting agreements out there no damage for delays So it says when a clause does not allow the contract to get paid for delays It is a a no damage for delays clause. So nicky, you were saying and um that that was happening for you, which is If there's now your situation might be a little different if the general contractor Causes delay if the owner causes delay They're not going to compensate you or reimburse you so for example If you've got I don't know 15 guys 10 guys or 10 people working on a project And they say we have to stop the project for five days Well, you've got to find a place to put those workers at You didn't have anything to do stopping the project five days the schedule says you're supposed to work Everything says you're supposed to work. They stop the project and then you say, okay, what am I supposed to do with these five people? Um, I have to still pay them because you know, they still got to work um And then they say in here. Well, we've got no damages for delays um, and so it what happens is uh, This is again, like it says construction risk your business success depends on completing the projects on time Um, and they limit your claims that you can make when submitting that things that do not That impact your schedule that you can't control. So things be on your control that affect your schedule um, and so Again, we want to look out for this because why? There's so many factors. There's so many other people working There's so many like You know me I was putting the metal buildings if the concrete guy didn't pour the concrete in time if the bolts weren't set If uh, the fire hydrant wasn't moved if the staging area wasn't there we could not do our job We had to send out equipment the equipment sitting on the site. I'm incurring expenses for the equipment I'm paying monthly for the rentals. Um I rented a machine that closes the roof off, you know, maybe nicky. She's doing uh underground work and heavy equipment She's got I don't know hundreds of thousands of equipment sitting out there And she was supposed to start a monday now. They're saying she can't start for two weeks Who pays for that equipment? She can't just sit in the equipment back to where it came from because If she's not there on the start date, then now they're saying she breached her contract because why she's getting a notice for potentially impacting the schedule So there's all these things That go that you have to consider that go into the mix and I hope that this is making sense. By the way, if you have questions Put it in there. Um You know because again, we want to talk about this stuff Hold on. Let me read. Let me read some things before we keep going. Hey room our miller sheet metal HVAC duck work guy Everybody says snitching Niki says she dealt with it. It was their fault. She had to eat the cost Yep Will says Eric, this is the thing that happened to you. I watched one of your earlier videos, correct? Exactly. Exactly all right Number six Lean release So lean release um Something that we do standard Uh a lean release basically is a waiver of your rights conditional upon payment so, um If the prime is going to give you a check you sign a document that says you it's called a lean release that you waive your rights um, and You essentially get paid As a subcontractor lean release states that you release claims up to today upon payment of the money that you requested And if the certification there are no other claims on the project and in one of the most dangerous parts of a subcontract in terms of being paid for your work They're normally required on a monthly basis upon filing out your payment application to close out a certain portion of the job Which means payment can be initiated by the general contractor But it's also waiving your rights saying you have no further rights to payment So lean releases we do them all the time. Um, it's pretty standard in the industry um What we want you to be aware of about the lean release is that To protect yourself you want to carve out specific claims So for example, you want to put in writing exceptions on the release that are clear That way if you ever have to make a claim later on You are released them from all of the lanes except for these these items Um, and so you want to make sure obviously you have the paperwork and everything to support that But I would uh, when I did my lean releases, I would only release them Uh, partially for you know, these particular things I went and released them Holy and in full for everything because uh, as you know in construction, there are always Other events other things happening around that was pushed off that couldn't be done right away. And so um What happens is most people Most of us are so desperate for money That we'll just sign whatever they give us and then turn it in because we need to get a check So we could pay our payroll pay our lights pay our bills and keep, you know, everything going um, so we're not considering The long-term effects after the contract ends or when the contract ends or after it's all over with All of these outstanding issues that were never resolved. However, you've been signing lean releases the whole time um exempting them from Uh, basically essentially, uh any liability or responsibility with taking care of those other unresolved issues So just something to be aware of As you're going off in your process Nikki, I love it that you have a lot of these experiences. That's so great that you can come on and and share that and then The final major thing and we've got four more after this actually but the final major thing is liquidated damages The liquidated damages most of us in construction are pretty familiar. We call them ld's for short Um, essentially, it's you know, if you come in and you deliver the project late Then they will charge you daily weekly whatever it is. It's in your contract And it's so it's essentially saying that, you know, you can't come in and jeopardize the contract if you do They're gonna charge you a fee So it says uh for each day after substantial completion day activate to liquidate damage clause What the thing that you want to know about this is this You want to limit the claim to things that are your your company's own Soul fault as opposed to a broad liquidated damages clause So for example, you could be required to pay for things that are unrelated to your work That happened to me my project other people Including the prime contractor caused the delays in the contract They passed down the cost of the delays to the subs So again, you want to make sure that that is only applicable to your particular scope of work so and then a couple of the things that um Always always you want to be make sure of in your projects are payments So you want to make sure what's the process the timing documents required approval process and the terms of the payments Changes in work you want to make sure that You're aware of what's expected, which not how the changes will be handled how they're spelled out in the contract Terms how long you have to notify the owner of any changes how the notification takes place and what to do if there's a disagreement dispute resolution It determines how conflicts are settled as far as can I come to an agreement? arbitration mediation litigation Um and claims any time to dispute between owner and a construction manager or contractor It may not be settled basically to a claim and you want to know how that's handled and why is that important because One of the things that I learned the hard way and you know what we all learned less than the hard way I learned a really hard way one of the things that I learned the hard way was um and one of my contracts it said if there was a dispute and um I had to take them to court It had to be at the location of their home office location Now someone said they watched one of my videos earlier Okay, why does that matter? Well? I'm working in miami, which is my home base And uh, we had a dispute and in fact I actually filed a lien against the project And when I filed the lien against the project I actually um, you know, I did the right thing I filed a lien against the project for money is that I was owed Now when it came time to enforce that lien, I actually had to Take, you know, I had to actually file a lawsuit To take the company to court in order to enforce the lien. Well Guess what happened? In my contract it says if This dispute arises um, we have to Now check this out. This is this is what this is where it affects the little guys We had to Um defend or sue them in the place of their home office The company was based out of georgia. The project was based in florida so now Since I had a bond on this project I had to have Not just an attorney to sue them and because again, I could I could afford attorney in florida. All right fine I had to have an attorney in georgia And I had to have attorney in florida So I'd have two attorneys But since I had a bond on the project and the bonding company was involved I'd have Four attorneys So I'd have two attorneys in florida two attorneys in georgia because I had to represent myself and the bonding company And I had to you know, represent us both in florida and georgia. So now I had to have four attorneys before I could even Talk about suing anybody or enforcing my Lean rights, which was through a suit for That's why this stuff makes a difference That's why this stuff is super important because If I had known all of this When I first got into the project I would have made a lot different decisions going through this project because essentially I was up against a no-win battle and these people knew that and they had me exactly where they wanted me and There are so many predatory Contractors out there, which is the reason why I'm on youtube and the reason why I decided to go into photorena because of all of this Happening out there But I do understand that there are people that are still operating in a private and commercial sector and I just want to make everyone aware So that they can look out for these things and they can know who they're dealing with the best Advice that I can give anyone is to know the people that you're working with Have references. Yes. That's not always possible. I get it. It's not always possible to know who you're working with It's not always possible to get references from other subs. I've done with them But I can tell you for your sanity For your business Do your due diligence with working with any prime contractors because it really It it can be the difference between heartache headache Stress and peace of mind. So, all right, let's open up for questions Kins is how are you so upbeat about? About being mess with it so often I feel for you man What's going on? Welcome to the chat. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome Um or one too many and insurance will drop you that's correct will Does also relate to plan revisions. I guess I don't know what your question is will on plan revisions because I'm just getting into it now Anyone I listen. I'm open For anyone that has anything that they want to say Nikki says can you be more specific with lean release? um So on the lean release niki, uh, ultimately And again, I don't know at what point you ask the question um Let me drop to you Ultimately, all I'm saying is uh, when you're filling out your lean release if you have Most of us just sign blanket lean releases that essentially It says that you know up until this date You know, they don't owe us any money Even though we have outstanding Issues arise with the project. So all The article is saying is to put written exceptions On the face of your release that are clearly stated. So one example that I can give you with me is uh on one of my projects that I did at the air force base there was We had a dispute between A wall that had to be constructed um, that was not shown on the drawings And so the the prime contractor Did not catch this wall and if you look at if people who don't want to read blueprints um When you look at it from the roof Plan and it goes a through z like let's say a to b b to c c to d e d f When you look at it through there, they missed a section of roof on a roof plans um, and then when you look at the The building drawings that shows the actual walls um And if you follow the path It looks like it's a complete wall However, if you follow the actual letters that shows you how it's drawn on there It's kind of hard to I can make an illustration for you Let me see if I can do an illustration really quick for everybody to understand it Okay So If you are looking from the roof plan You go a b c d e f g h Right and a So if you're looking at from the top down view, that's what you're looking at But then when you're looking at the elevation side with the walls I don't know if I I Some people will understand this All right So if you're looking at the walls you see here where it goes e f a b But do you see how it's missing g and h? So you can't tell from the wall drawing Um that you're missing anything unless you look at the roof plan and it shows there's g and h it looks like E f a b it's a continuous But really there's a carve out that goes back to g and h and you so you can only see that from roof plan So the the prime contractor missed that on my one of my blueprints and when they missed it They did not want to acknowledge that as a chain torter and so even though I was getting paid throughout the contract Um, I did not want to give them a a release for that particular Uh item because it was still a pending issue if that makes sense I know I went a long way around to give that example, but so, um Can't how are you so upbeat? Can't you know, I'm upbeat. Um, that's actually a really good question can Well, the the reason why I'm upbeat after being messed with so much is All of the things that happened to me led me to different places in my journey to where I'm at today If you know if these things didn't happen to me those bad things even though I'm trying to You know, I'm telling people about them and all this kind of stuff If they didn't happen to me then I would not have that experience to draw from to share with you here uh, the other thing is that Um because of all these things that happened to me in a commercial sector That's what someone said to me go back to where you you know best, which was the federal government That's what brought me back into the federal government arena Because these things happened to me um, I had to go out and because I was in such deep debt I had to go out and literally pick up this project that was bigger than anything that I ever thought I could do I would have been terrified to do it normally But because I was so far in the whole A million dollar project couldn't even take me out the whole even two million couldn't take me out the whole so I had to go after a project that was Outside of what I thought was my capacity Because I needed the money and so I was so desperate that I need the money, which is why I truthfully believe that We all can do things That are greater than what we believe out of desperation If you have to right so if you have to um, and so for me can That is the path that brought me here today So I'm thankful for the good and the bad and I continue to practice that even now um with everything that I incur so You know the the problems have never stopped and the problems. I don't think will ever stop. They're just different problems So so for example, um today. Yes, I don't have those same kind of problems I have different issues, but I always look at it like I can't see the future And so there's a reason why this thing has happened to me And this is exactly where I'm supposed to be at and so now I just changed my attitude about how I handle these things As opposed to looking at them negative and again, I promise you at that time I did not have this mindset at that time. I was like curled up in a ball I didn't want to get out of bed My I had my had chest pains. You know, I didn't want to check my emails I was scared to check emails But when I look back at it, uh, those things propelled me to the next thing to the next And to the next and so that got me back in the federal arena It got me to completely abandon um commercial work, uh, it Took me to a project that was bigger than anything I'd ever done before And then that project is what cattle pulled at me to youtube That's actually what financed me to be able to go on youtube and start making content for all of you out there And which is the reason why You know me and the reason why I could come on like this and have 40 50 people come on On board because Of all the content I produced out. So all of these things gave me like a superpower that I wouldn't have had otherwise So that's that's the way I look at it today ken All right Brian says it's great. Yes. Thank you, Brian. And you know, Brian when you say I'm a great artist, um What's interesting about that is, uh You know when you are in these Situations and you're working and you can't pay your employees and you can't pay your staff And they owe you money and people are threatening litigation threatening lawsuits Um, you don't feel like it's such an artist If you actually don't even feel like a winner um So it's really Hard and uh, let me show you look I again niki. I thought I did everything right. Here is my claim of lean Hold on This is the claim of lean that I had With the company and as you can see it was uh Dun dun dun, where is it at? There's a claim of lean for a hundred thousand dollars Okay, 720 thousand dollar contract remains unpaid 100 thousand was it 100,994 dollars 94 and 47 cents I did everything by the book. I did everything that they told me to do And I still ended up, you know being defeated because they had an army of lawyers and so um You know that was the the issue Absolutely can yes these shenanigans are not happening at the federal arena Um, I don't see any this kind of stuff happening. So What's going on? Uh mark How is the labor shortage affecting construction contracts that were signed up pre covid with a clause such as material increase Be appropriate for labor increase all right, um We haven't the labor shortages for us We haven't felt that mark. So um for me, um I've never seen a contract clause for labor shortage only for materials. So, um You know, we don't have a we don't have an issue with labor shortage Uh, really that comes to when you're first Estimating the project mark knowing that you have the team and the Staff and the people capable of delivering it within the time frame So what I would say mark if you've got that issue Just make sure you have a long enough time that you can get the project accomplished With the staff or the labor that you have and that would help you in that regard Um, because there is I've never seen and I'm not saying it doesn't exist But I've never seen a clause that protects you from a shortage of labor. So Yes, niki lessons make me better Uh area is a resource you can point us to that can help us develop proficiency in reading blueprints Um Ken, you know, it's interesting. That's a very good question And I remember when I first was trying to learn how to read blueprints By the way, did anyone can you raise your hands in the chat if you understood my my drawing? Did it make sense to you this drawing that I did? I hope I hope it made sense to maria. That's my baby goat Um, anybody else brine is this this drawing make any sense to folks? Okay Back, let me do this Let me write on it. Okay so That's the elevation view and that's the error view or the roof From the roof layout and this is the elevation view from the walls. So this is the roof and these are the walls So Yeah, good. Okay, cool All right Where is it by? All right. All right. All right. We got some people in here. All right. Um, yeah, ken So actually when I first got started and I was, um Trying to figure out about reading blueprints. I went to a lot of people to ask about it and um All my friends that were contractors they You know, they learned from other people they didn't no one I knew took actually classroom schools The architects were obviously did schools and lessons, but us contractors we learned from other people teaching how to read plans It's actually pretty straightforward. If you spend a couple of months Um with a contractor and your particular field or industry They'll teach you how to read the plans all of my guys taught me how to read blueprints and plans So I I just learned from working with my guys who who've been doing this for years They taught me how to read it and at some point I saw somebody was an ac guy I first learned how to read uh air duct plans. So that's actually the first thing I learned how to do was read, um Plans for uh duct work Um and for ac systems So those are some of the first plans I start reading before I actually knew anything about construction All right Thanks cliff. I appreciate it. Um Brian learning is limited when you win That's right. I still like to win though, brian I don't want to keep learning at some point. I want to win not just learn uh Sharon Marie Nice cliff great testimony Quentin Swift that's so encouraging Ken that's correct. There's you know federal government. There's a lot of prisons that protect you out here Um, niki says yep community colleges. That's a good place to start community colleges will help you in that regard Oh, brian says he would have been different Okay, um If it was his relate to his stuff, that's true All right Maria says I remember the story of the drawings the real drawings. Yes. Oh, I have the real drawings on here Yep Reboot into art. It's hard. I needed someone to really understand it Yep, go ahead mark Okay, niki learned from working with an estimator Captain caveman smoothies don't make for good sailors and watching the history channel isn't going to get it either Agree agree agree. So no, I I you know, I um What's interesting, so let's talk, you know It's funny because today, um I was supposed to do that at a panel And uh, what's interesting is that we had four people scheduled for the panel and one person showed up and um The the the interesting thing about that is the person that showed up actually Turned out that he knew me and he had met maria and I uh in orlando At the event that was put on by the national parks Uh, and so what was really interesting about it was uh, he said eric I remember you from this event and I and I I didn't remember him I remember his face, but I didn't know where he's like I met you in orlando at this event by like the us agriculture or parks and like that and I was like Hey, I remember that and so um, the cool thing was This particular gentleman showed up to the event and when he showed up um today We talked and we talked and uh, he was actually uh, he's been in the a day program for two years And he's starting to put together all the building blocks for his business And what I what we talked about in the discuss and you're you're hearing on the the podcast that's coming up Was the importance of showing up and I thought um How how how his name is tomas maria tomas is the guy's name and so I thought how um How cool was that that I was able to to use a real life scenario where so many people don't show up So many people don't show up. I keep telling folks out there time and time again Uh, is that a lot of times half the battle is showing up Nikki came out to the event and she met our team and stuff up in virginia um Actually, both nickies came to the event And so so many of us We forget the importance of just showing up and being present and so tomas came today And uh, we were on a call and it was just him and I talking and it was supposed to be a three-person panel And him and I were talking today and from our conversation We exchanged information. We found out that he was working with Uh, another one of our guvcon giant students um And then I found out that he was working in cyber security and it so nickie bradshaw. You'll be meeting with him um, he's he's working on stars three and Cio sp4 and he's got a couple joint ventures going on So this person was the most the busiest person out of all the folks out there and the one that was experiencing uh, the most Success, right, but he's also the one that made time to be present and to show up And to be on the call to give back and if you've read that tweet that I put out there I'm consistently saying that The people that are present the people that show up the people that actually give the most receive the most And uh, I think some of you have been a witness to that as well Because you know Maybe you had the opportunity and you didn't take advantage of it But really what I find and he and he said he goes eric If I what if I didn't what if I canceled on you today or if I didn't come and uh, it wouldn't have been so dramatic for me But the the benefits to him, uh, would have been significantly reduced. We found out that he actually his company was acquired Uh, in fact, hold on maria. Let me get that information for you I'm gonna pull him up So you can see him He actually it actually his website looks a lot like, um It looks a lot like, uh, I don't know why it's not going up Tom He was actually so it's interesting. Um, maria is that he actually from fajardo, portorico So he actually served in the military Let me see if you know him Let's see if you remember him Tomas Santos Alejandro There he is So yep, he's uh, his first company was actually acquired um, so his first company was acquired and um It was acquired by a tribal company And from there he learned as a general manager working for alaska native He learned all things about actually what it takes to build a business to build a pipeline gap analysis bid no bid He learned all that stuff. And so he's applying it to his firm and Uh, right now he's on seaport. And like I said, he's going he went after stars three Um, he's got several idi cues. He's working. Um, I think he's at five locations at this point Panama city, Jacksonville, charleston, south carolina He's working up in road island at the naval war college and he's working in portorico So i'm telling you it's just it's just so important. I I mean, I cannot emphasize enough for folks out there Uh, how important that is Because it really does make all of the difference in the world For folks. So again, even things like this, uh, coming on calls talking to each other meeting other folks out here Networking with other people. I think is such a critical element Um To to your journey in this guv con space. So I do appreciate the folks that support it Uh, but may I say youtube university? Uh Ken said, oh, I got you. But yeah, I don't have anything ken on on teaching that stuff. So, um, but Definitely, I I just thought that that was a a lesson today That the other people who have not had the same success in these programs Uh, they are probably the type of people that don't show up. They're probably the type of people that uh, they're You know, you know from time to time they missed their appointments Uh, and I've had other students. I'm not going to mention names that Uh, we're supposedly meeting with a day companies that the person cancelled They didn't make it or they had to reschedule the last minute And so that to me when I hear that type of person talk about What's wrong with the programs and why things are not working I'm looking back and saying that they should start by looking in the mirror and seeing if they're doing all of the activities necessary, so You know, I'm really happy Um for tomas and I'm really happy that I got a chance to meet him and reconnect again And so I'm looking forward to working with him and his team in the future and also Combining efforts with him to go after some stuff because He's a little bit further ahead of us in certain areas and at the same time I'm farther ahead of him in other areas that he wants to get into so there's a lot of Mutual benefits to both of us and it's looking forward to a great relationship All right Let's see anything else before we close out today. It's seven o'clock. I didn't want to bore everybody All right. Yep. Nicky. Oh, Nicky a call Um Okay, maria didn't remember him Cliff is new to group Good job. Cliff. Welcome first youtube live Yeah, uh, you know, it's interesting cliff because this is not these are this is not a fun and sexy topic But I guarantee you this today's lesson will save someone thousands of dollars if not tens of thousands of dollars If you apply these things today and look at it even if you ask the question This is going to save someone ten thousand dollars or more easily easily easily Because you're going to be more astute and part of my obligation and part of my responsibility is as actually helping people to become more astute and understanding of of what this is because We don't all have the money to hire lawyers to read review all the contracts and every contract We don't have we're you know, we have limited funds Even when I was speaking with tomas today for where he's at in his business He has the funding but where he's headed to go in this business. He doesn't have that funding. So, you know And this is the same situation all of us are going to find ourselves in as we continue to grow as we continue to win as we continue to Expand our business expand our operations add on team members, you know That's just gonna that's just inevitably what happens. It doesn't matter if you're at two million You're gonna have that problem when you get the 10 million on the problem when you get the 20 million I have that problem. So money is a finite resource and you know, unfortunately Until you know, someone out there solves that that problem with financing small businesses It's still going on and it's perpetual and so we're looking for a solution um A man quit and said never boring amazing good stuff Someone said, you know, it's funny because someone said eric, you you know, I come up with these different topics I don't know this stuff. It comes to me. I really Believe it or not And and I know a lot of people aren't going to make it to the end. So I could say this I really was afraid to share this information. Believe it or not um, because you know, obviously, you know, uh, the backlash that comes with it, right If you expose one of these major companies and you've seen this before on tv before You go out and expose some of these major companies. Um, you know, you get backlash for these things and some of these organizations are really large And um, you know, so they can do bad things to you Um, but at the same time if someone doesn't step up and have the courage to expose them then I for in my opinion Uh, there's gonna be more things like this, you know, this millennial towers and this, uh, building collapse happening time and time again because People are not blowing the whistle on what's happening at the ground level and ways in which we can stop these things And unfortunately The law does not protect us from litigation lawsuits. There's no there's no fun That funds contractors who don't get paid because they rat it out the developers and the owners Or they rat it out the contractors. There's no fun that pays for us. We you know, we And and this happens to even with medicine and and they say and um, you know, our western world We treat illnesses, uh, as opposed to the symptoms. So I'm just saying if we go back to the root of the issues and we start there We could probably fix, you know, what's happening after the fact So yeah, it's easy to go out and raise a bunch of money after, you know, this thing happened and a disaster happened um But we could have, you know, got to the root of the problem and blown the whistle a long time ago and prevented this tragedy from happening So that's why I came on. That's why I shared Uh, thank you so much. Thank you everybody. Maria. Enjoy your recession. La Lani Be good. Kenny. What let Kenny take care? All right. I'm out