 What should a business owner do when customers try to cheat and take advantage of them? Welcome to this episode of the Anabaptist Perspectives podcast. This is an exciting episode because I get to interview my dad, Gary Schrock. And you've been doing construction for a number of years. You started a business in 2006, had quite a lot of interactions with customers and all kinds of interesting people along the way. So in this episode, we wanna dive into some of those stories and see what are the lessons we can learn from that. So I think the first question that I have for you is you have this biblical principle of a soft answer turns away wrath. Could you tell us a story that illustrates that in your own life? Yeah, there's a few things that come to my mind. And as far as handling a situation like that, the soft answer is definitely the correct way to do it. Seems like when voices raise, things escalate, but it's really interesting to see how the person responds when you just talk in a regular tone and answer them whatever they're after. That varies, that varies. And usually it's something that isn't as bad as what they think it is. With a little time, it probably wouldn't be that bad. But an example for that is about that, I should say, is people, well, for instance, there's this person that wanted some trusses. Okay, we have a truss plant and we build trusses for people, roof and floor trusses. He wanted his trusses six foot tall from the bottom to the peak. And for perspective, on building a house, like the peak is the top of the roof line, basically, for a house. So he's saying I want it from here to here, that tall. Yeah, from the ceiling to the peak, we want it six foot tall. And that can be because they're matching up a garage or wanting to come underneath something and there's usually a reason that somebody wants something specific, so we build them custom. And so therefore, we drew it up and he approved it, signed it, said that's what he wants. So we made them six foot tall. Well, if they go out to the job site and the homeowner comes over there and he said, no, no, no, no, this is wrong. It's supposed to be a six-pitch. And so he's calling, he's talking to one of my sons and he's getting a little excited because we built the wrong trusses for him. So he was thinking six-pitch as in like angle of roof, not how tall they are. So a six-pitch might have been seven foot tall, I don't know. But we went according to what he said. And my son said, well, you approved it and you signed the paper. Well, he doesn't look at that paper, that's what he said. So basically we had something that we could stand on. He transferred him on over to me and said, dad, talk to this man. And so he's saying, this is what he wants. We're building the wrong thing. And just to talk to him in a normal tone, it's like, that's okay. It looks like something here isn't quite what you want. We'll just build you another set, bring him out there tomorrow the next day and you can continue on your project. It doesn't have to stop. And it's like, you just popped a balloon. And he can't argue with the problem that's been solved. We'll just send you some more and pick the others up, bring them back. We'll sell them to someone cheap. So the problem, what he thought was the problem couldn't argue about it because he's got trust us now. And so it's sometimes those real quick things to just listen to a person and just say, that's fine. We'll take care of the problem. And they're not expecting that. They're expecting a little bit of an argument going on and it didn't happen. So it kind of popped a balloon. So there's other things that have happened along the way to where people just get upset rather than look at it and see how the problem can be solved. And times we make mistakes, they make mistakes, but how do we handle the situation? And a soft answer a lot of times takes care of it. And so in a scenario like that, this person, it was his fault. I mean, he said this is what he wanted and it's actually not right. He's probably expecting you to say, oh, we can't work with that and get all upset and things. So you're talking about, I mean, you're losing a lot of, you're losing time and money and it's a big hassle for you probably to do this. I think that's one of my questions. What is your philosophy? I'm not even sure the right word for it. Your mindset, I suppose, for dealing with people who basically are trying to cheat you or take advantage of you. And maybe that story wasn't necessarily taking advantage, but kind of was because it was this other person's fault and he said this is what I wanted. What is your mindset? Like, how do you decide how to handle those situations? That's a hard one, because sometimes you know it isn't your fault. I mean, you just know it isn't. And some people don't want to back down and say they're wrong, that's just so hard. So you have to accept it, you go ahead and do it and you just move on. And you have to be willing to lose once in a while. And one of them somebody told me you're just too soft or too kind sometimes. But it has eliminated a lot of problems, a lot of stress, things escalate and it goes to law, you know, people they just don't want to give. It ends all that, agree with your adversary quickly and just be done with it. So sometimes you'll be taken advantage of, you're correct. Yeah, I've heard you use that verse in the past, agree with your adversary quickly and that's something Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount. I think the verse continues on like, if you don't, you'll be drugged to court and et cetera, the number of, it escalates, kind of like what you're saying. So really a lot of the mindset you use for these things is to de-escalate it, to keep it from ballooning way out of control and everybody getting mad and so forth. I guess that's a good way of saying it. Yeah, and then it's usually forgotten and over with and I don't really remember much of those situations and I've heard stories of people that even came to the office and want to work with us. Something happened at a job site. Contractor says it's not his fault. The trust company says it's not their fault. You know, somebody may have got hurt because of a bad structural problem. And so nobody is claiming fault and one time there was a doctor bill of maybe $1,400. But the contractor wasn't willing to pay for it. It's not his fault. It's trust company's fault because it wasn't built correctly. This is another trust company. This is just a story to show what can happen. Nobody wanted to take fault and say they were wrong. So even if it's not your fault sometimes, just go pay the doctor bill. But then you're saying, I'm the one in the wrong. And that's where it gets, but the last I heard that situation there is at $3 million right now. It escalated too. It's at $3 million is the last I've heard. Whoa. $1,400 doctor bill. And so that's just a case where you still have to prove who's at fault and this thing has grown and grown. But if you pay the doctor bill, you're saying I'm at fault. No, let's take care of the person, worry about the rest later because they're still trying to find who's fault. So yeah, just take care of it right now instead of that back and forth. And so that's an extreme case. That's an extreme case. It is, but it does illustrate something. And it seems like you keep coming back to this concept of almost like working in peace with people or working in unity because now in that situation with this other company, now they've made a lot of enemies. And I'm guessing you're trying to not, you're not trying to do that. You're going the other route and say, well, how can we remedy this? How can we restore the relationship, I suppose? Is that a way of saying it? Yeah, just take care of it. Just take care of the problem. And what is the problem? And like I said, you might not even be at fault. There's times you just have to willing to take the loss and you move on. We've done it numerous times, but it's worked out, people come back because you're able to work together and they have a confidence in that. And so there are benefits to it and you don't do it just because of business reasons, but because it's the right way to do it. Another story to answer that question as far as being taken advantage of, we did have a set of trusts that went out to a job site. They ask, like your room right here, you got knee walls. It's a story and a half. And so they wanted knee walls a certain height and we made them that height. And they were actually asking for the very end of the trust to be that height. And so if the very end of the trust is that height, as it goes in, it grows taller just like here, but they told us to make the knee wall this height. So that's what we did. But when they got out there, they're constructing the house. They call back and said, this is something is wrong and this is not gonna work. So that's okay. If we'll just make those eight trusses and bring them back and just put the new ones on. He's like, no, no, no, we don't have time for that. We're out here, there's eight guys framing. We'll take care of it. We'll make it work. And this is the builder that's saying this. The builder says that. And well, down the road, we get a bill for $10,000. And that bill was because the trusses weren't right and they had to move their bathroom to get the ceiling highest. They had to move it away from the slope ceiling. And so it took some floor space out of their upstairs and they figured X amount of area because the contractor made it work. Like he said, he would, but we get this. So the homeowner probably went to the builder, the builder onto us and like say, here's this components. Just like somebody gets hurt and trust company know this contractor, it gets passed on down the line. So, you know, it was $1,800 worth of trusses and now we're looking at $10,000. So what we did then is we figured out how long it would have taken to take that apart, paying for the eight guys figured very, very generously building new trusses, putting them on and getting everything right. It would have had to shut down the job for, you know, a day. So we figured that all together and we come up with around $6,500. So explained that to him, said this is what we feel would be a fair number and we send him a check for $6,500. And it's like, we had every reason to say that we did it right. This is where you get taken advantage of once in a while. But I'd say it went from homeowner to contractor down to us. And I don't know what the contractor had to deal with on this, but somebody has to have fault here. And it was one of those cases where you do it and you move on. Never heard another word from him. No way. Never heard another word. And then I said something to one of my sons. I said, I wonder if we'll ever hear from that contractor again. And my son's on the computer and he said, well, that's fine, Dad. He said, I've got a $20,000 roof somewhere in there. That's just a statement. He said, I got a big roof I'm working on right now from the same contractor. He just sent over another job. No way. And he said, quote this roof and we've done numerous houses for him. And that's in the background. We've never discussed it. It didn't, it hasn't hurt our relationship. And it was a matter of days we had another house. He probably trusts you now in an incredible way because of that. But that's pretty wild. That's pretty wild. But yeah, you have to be willing. But we've been blessed. We've been blessed. And I think we need to just remember that. What we have is because of what God has blessed us with. We need to be accountable. We need to manage what he's provided for us and what is the best way to handle certain situations. So that's kind of where I've been. That's not always easy. I'll just be straight up front with you. It's not always easy, but still felt like that's what needed to do. So we talked about your mindset of how you decide these things and agree with your adversary quickly and soft answer charge way wrath. That's in the case of maybe someone trying to take advantage of you or cheat you. What happens when someone tries to do a kind of business deal that that is unethical or doesn't align with your values and tries to manipulate it in that way? That you have to be very ready for because it's gonna happen. It's not when it happens, it's gonna happen as far as the dishonesty thing. And one of the ways is when people ask about working for cash. And because kind of save some taxes on their end, we don't have to turn it in on our end. It's a great way to make money. But for us, we've forced chosen not to because it's wrong. And sometimes that's hard for people to understand. One customer said, oh, yes, it is good to be honest. It is so good to be honest. I'm thinking you were just trying to deal, doing a cash deal here. Just trying to cheat. But he said it's so good to be honest. And it is. And I told one person, I said, well, if I cheat the government, how do you know I won't cheat you? And yeah, I guess that's true. But the sad thing is one time I met a person and he was paying me for his trusses. And I'll just give you the amount. It was like $7,000. Well, we have 9.75% interest. So you like tax on that? Tax on our sale. So that adds up. Not the interest. I should say sales tax. We have 9.75% sales tax. And a $7,000 job at almost 10% sales tax would be $700. And this pastor asked me when he was doing the cash, he said, can we just do it regular? Just I'll just pay you cash. And I told him, no. Now, I didn't say nothing to him about it, but you don't forget things like that. And if I feel like if I would do transactions like that down the road, somebody will make a comment about these Christians are just like everyone else and possibly popping to their mind. Yep, I know exactly what you're talking about. Wow. So-and-so did that for me. But so it's a good testimony. That really hurt that pastor's testimony to me that it willing to, and some people probably don't even think about it. They think it's actually fine just to work with cash and cheat the government out of the sales tax. And probably don't even think about it. But the long and short of it is it's a right and wrong issue. So choose to do it right. I also, I don't want people to do things to me. So I shouldn't be doing it to them. It's doing to others as you'd want them to do unto you. I don't want anybody to cheat me. So don't be willing to cheat someone else, which here it would be the government. I run into it with lumber broker. Sometimes they'll say what's the other person's quote and we'll beat it. And let me know what they quoted and we'll do it for less. And I told them I don't do that cause I really hate when somebody does that to me. Like if we give a quote somewhere, I don't, I hate that. But now the lumber brokers I work with, they have confidence that I will not give their number to another broker. They're gonna trust you in a different way. See, that's maybe not an issue of you cheated them cause there's no, you're not taking money or whatever, but it's an integrity thing where they know, hey, I'm not worried that this guy is going to, you know, go behind my back and undercut my price by kind of manipulate, you know, whatever. That's a pretty profound thing because for that broker to realize, why wouldn't want someone to do that to me? So why am I asking you to do this, you know, to take advantage of someone else or, yeah. Yeah, that's an integrity thing. That's pretty powerful actually. Yeah, cause that would be feel funny if I'm a broker and you give somebody a price and knowing that they might take your price somewhere else and always beat you out. That'd be hard for the broker in a way, but some of them do that to others. But I've actually, I'm trying to think of where I heard that. Maybe it was one of my brokers that they actually like it because they know that I will not give their price to someone else and so they can trust you that I'm not gonna go and undercut them. Just small things like that. Actually it's almost like a new thinking for some people. They're not gonna forget that. Yeah, but then in the end, they see a benefit. They see a benefit. So we talked about, you know, people trying to maybe cheat you or take advantage of a situation like those people sent you a letter asking for $10,000 and things like that. What about a situation where someone just straight up doesn't even pay you? And that's that, you gave them a, we built them a product or something and they're just like, see, I'm never paying for that. That feels like it's kind of taking it to a whole other level. What do you do in a situation like that? That one there is another hard one. But it's happened to us, it's happened to us. Back more years earlier, there wasn't as much work and a lot of times contractors, sometimes they just pay us force building supplies. It's a monthly thing, goes to corporate and all, but homeowners, we usually get money up front now because you can be taking advantage of it. But it did happen one time. I'll just kind of answer your question with a story where there's a contractor actually didn't pay. And then I find out that it sounds like he went bankrupt. He's had all kinds of problems. I don't know if people are after him or what. So here he owes money. Of course, I want money too, because it was after the collapse, 0708, 0909 when money was so valuable because it wasn't there, we didn't have work. People weren't building. And I thought, you know, this fella has had a hard time. Sounds like he's in rough shape, can't get a hold and won't answer his phone. So I thought, if I ever get a hold of him, I'm gonna tell him I've forgiven his debt just so he doesn't have to worry about it and that it's gone. So I went to, he has a place of business in town where him and another person share an office space. And I decided to go there and see if I can find him. He would just pop in, do some things from time to time at his office. And so I went, his friend that had the other section of this office, he was there. So I asked him about this contractor and he said, I don't know, he in and out sometimes, but I said, well, can I call him? He said, I don't even have his phone number. He said, nobody, but his wife has his phone number. So I said, well, if he comes back in, have him call me. And sometime later, here he did, he called me. And I told him, I said, I just wanna tell you the reason I wanted you to get hold of me, I wanted to tell you that I forgive your debt. Now it wasn't a real big amount. I think it was under $2,000, but still that was a lot back in 08 or 09 when the economy was bad. And I said, I just wanna tell you that I have forgiven this debt and that you don't owe it to me. I know you're having a hard time and he didn't know what to say really. So we visited some and I told him, if I walk down the street and I see you, I wanna be able to pop into a restaurant and we can sit down and eat lunch together. I said, that's how I have forgiven you and you don't owe it to me anymore. Versus I hear people, next time I see that guy, I'm gonna kill him. You know, you can have that kind of attitude, but it was different and I just felt like that's what I should do. Maybe it isn't like that all the time, but in this situation I felt I should do that. Well, let's fast forward it. Actually, as we hung up, he said, well, I'll tell you what, here's my phone number. You can call me. So now his wife and I had his phone number. I found that kind of interesting. Nobody had his phone number, but I did. I kept in contact with him over time, but a few years down the road, well, we had an order of trusses from Lowe's and we go to deliver them. It's a garage, porch type of thing, nothing real big. And wouldn't you know, our truck pulls up and it's this contractor that used to be a contractor. It was his, he went from a new house to a double wide, basically, adding on to it and here it was him. And he didn't expect that because he bought them from Lowe's, but we built them for Lowe's and so our truck shows up. Oh my. And he called me and he said, Gary, he said, I never did pay for those trusses and I'm gonna pay for them. I said, no. I said, I told you, I've forgiven that debt. Then you don't owe it to me. He said, no. He said, I'm gonna send a check back with the driver. I'm gonna sign a check and it's blank. And when you get it, you fill it out and you tell me how much it is. I want interest and everything put on there for the last two years. Just call me back and tell me how much you made it out for. And I said, no, you don't owe me anything. He said, yes. He said, I want to sleep. That was his answer. He said, I want to sleep. So I guess this has been bothering him some. And he said, I want to sleep at night. And so he did. The driver comes back, hands me a blank check. I could have wrote on whatever I wanted to. That is wild. So I went back and found the old invoice and I made it out for whatever it was and called him and told him, this is how much I made the check for and thanked me and he was happy. This weight fell off of him. Wow. It just fell off. And hopefully he could sleep after that. But for him, that was such a turning point in his life to be able to come back to that debt and say, I will make this right. And I think that it was important that you don't rob that from someone. Even though he did forgive it and he didn't have to. It sounds like it was very important for his own. I don't even try and think of the right word but own piece of mind, I suppose, to come back then and say, I want to take care of this because I did the wrong thing here. That's really powerful. So as long and short of it, it's good to work with your customers. Like I said, you are gonna be taking advantage of, you will. But the best thing to do is keep a very, very good testimony with the people you work with, how you handle situations, honesty, integrity. It all is blended together and one, we're Christians and that's the way God wants us to live. And so we need to practice that. And I'll just talk about it, but we do need to practice it. We fail, we make mistakes. Probably times we answer back like we shouldn't. But as a whole, to try to do our best to work with people. And if that means take a loss, you take a loss. Because doing the right thing and that that person is more important than the money. Is that a fair way of saying, is that kind of how you think about it? Yeah, because it does change, it makes people think. When you do it out of right and wrong, just the different situations that I talked about, it does make people think. And it's so different. It's almost like it's shocking. I've seen it right where it's just like, you pop the balloons. Then what else to say? It just comes to an end in different situations. So now say it'd be a lot more money. How would I respond? That would be a challenge. That would be a challenge. Cause it's easy to say, you know, it's this, but still relationships are relationships. And it wouldn't be, that one would be a hard one if it would be a lot of money. That you'd really think that went through, but you'd have to be, do what the Lord wants you to do. Do what the Lord wants you to do. And I feel that, like I said earlier, we've just been so blessed and don't wanna be greedy and just the whole goal of business is to get more, more, more, more. That's not the goal. Those that will to be rich, fallen to many hurtful us. And it's like, I'll climb over whoever I have to, honest or dishonest, that's what I'm after. And I'm gonna get that. Doesn't matter how I get it. That'd be, that's a terrible way to do it. Not to have that drive where that's my whole goal. And it, business can be a ministry too, with employees or with customers, both ways. So for those that are watching or listening to this that maybe they don't own a business or they're an employee or something in a business. How do these things apply? It's, I'm guessing the principles are universal. So as we close this episode out, can you bring it down to what are the base principles that apply to anybody when it comes to how they live, how they handle situations like this where people do take advantage of them? What would you say to that? The biggest thing is you have to not just focus on yourself. That is one thing there. And honesty and integrity speak so loud to people. Somehow they remember if they've been cheated or if you can't trust someone. They don't forget that. But if you are honest and they can totally trust you, like I say, employee, business, however, that's probably the biggest thing is that people trust you and know that you're not a selfish person. You're living out what Jesus said and you care about people, not just your business, but you care about people. Yeah, that's interesting because I actually had to think, this is kind of bizarre, but literally yesterday I met, I ran into a local fellow here and you and another person from the church had put a new roof on his barn. It's been like 15 or 20 years ago and he still remembers that as like you guys were amazing and I trust you. And like he just had so many kind words to say about that. I had to think about how many people have a crew come in and put a new roof on their barn and they remember it 15 or 20 years later. But there's something about how you all lived and walked and I don't know, it didn't strike me as a particularly unusual job. I mean, it was okay, you put a roof on but I think that that honesty and integrity and you did a good job and that person has still not forgotten that. And it makes you think like how many other stories are like that out there where people don't forget how they've been treated and they don't forget when they see something that's high integrity, high honesty like that. Yeah, to have people trust you is so valuable that they don't have any concerns or yeah, just not well, uncertainty but that they totally trust you. That is a very good feeling. I like it when people say I wanna set a trust is don't even ask price. That's kind of nice. Not to say I'm gonna tack on another $100 and I tell them the same price before or after. And they have that. Yeah, we have that where we show up and they just ask how much is the bill. I like it when it's that way they don't even ask a price. Now the extreme situation, the extreme is when a contractor gives you five signed checks and put them in your drawer and whenever we do jobs and you deliver them and I'm not around, just call me and tell me how much you made the check out for. And you could easily tack on an extra $100, $200. You never know. Oh my. Actually write all five of them out, you know. Wow, that's incredible. No, we do. Incredible trust. There's a contractor that gives us signed checks for down the road for, and if we run out he says I need to get some more to you. So I like that feeling, that's extreme. I know that's extreme. That doesn't happen just every day. But I like it that way and I think it's good that a person looks at us that way. And also we love it when we can look at other people that way too, just have no worry about it, just totally trust them. So yeah, whether you're an employee, owner, anybody like that, just integrity, honesty. I thought I'd share that story. That is pretty wild right there. That don't just happen very often. Not that I'm anything special, but I'm sure it probably happens other places too, but that one there I never heard of before. It happened to us. But you've built a level of trust with him that he just knows well, I mean, of course you're gonna be honest. And that only comes from consistently showing that you are, that you do have that level of honesty. And that's a big deal. Like that person won't forget that. And they'll be like, there's something about that company, I can trust them. And I think that's a real testimony for a lot of people. And we're coming from the Mennonite circles here in North America and a lot of our people have businesses and that can be a huge testimony of, yeah, they're honest. We can trust him or it can go the other way. If there isn't that level of trust, it can be a pretty serious damper on this Christianity. And people look at that and I'm not sure about those Christians because kind of like the pastor you mentioned earlier, that still kind of blows my mind. And maybe he didn't think of it, but yeah, people won't forget when you do something like that. Yeah, I still remember that. That's incredible. And other customers, I don't remember some things, but that there. Remember, trying to save $700 and then plus I can do it under the table and I can save some money to win, win for everybody, but no, it's wrong. Thank you so much for sharing some of your stories. I appreciate it. You're welcome. Thanks for watching this episode of Anabaptist Perspectives on the topic of honesty, integrity and proper business dealings. If you found this episode interesting, you'll like this one that we did with Kevin Breckbill, which you can find linked below in the description. You can always find all our content over on our website at anabaptistperspectives.org. Thanks so much for watching and we'll catch you in the next episode.