[ 00:00:12 ]Today, we’re joined by my co-host, Bob Payton with BobPayton. com, who is on my left. And across from me is our guest, James Bennett with Bennett Services, LLC. Welcome to the show. Thank you. I’m glad to have you. So tell us about Bennett Services.

 

[ 00:00:26 ] We are a small niche steel detailing company. So we do a lot of work all across the U. S., Bahamas. A little bit everywhere.

 

[ 00:00:36 ] So how do people come to find out they need your services?

 

[ 00:00:40 ] Any steel fabricator out there needs our services.

 

[ 00:00:43 ] So you’re really, that’s your customers, the steel fabrication companies, okay. Yep. And so where’s the gap in the marketplace where they don’t have somebody like you on staff? Is that where the opportunity is?

 

[ 00:00:54 ] A lot of fabricators do not have detailing on staff at them all. It kind of went away early 2000, 2008 when the market kind of started, tanking really a lot of a lot of fabricators that was the first cut was why is that because they’re still there were still outside detailers at that time so you know they it was easy to cut stack in the you know in the office and that was the easiest because we can still get it drawn just using outside detailing okay yeah um we you know And Bob talked a little bit before the show or whatever. He knows one of my old partners as well. So we always had a small group within the company that could take care of a lot of the little stuff and the hit, you know, the red hot stuff, I should say. And then, you know, the larger jobs would get subbed out. And, you know, it was just easier that way. Right.

 

[ 00:01:50 ] So how many companies like yours are there in the marketplace? A thousand. Really? There’s that many? Okay.

 

[ 00:01:57 ] At least and so tell us about Bennett services and I mean obviously it generated kind of out of a need right it did um you know I’ve been in steel my whole life my dad was an iron worker so um you know I I grew up in the business um worked for him in the summers you know at the end of high school towards the summers and the winter breaks and stuff like that uh part of the raising gang so I would send the stuff up in the steel and hook it and send it up with cranes and knowing all the crane you know lingo and all that stuff but then uh kind of messed my back up and that was that was kind of the end of it and you know uh words my dad always said is use your brain not your back yeah um so you know I always loved drawing I I originally wanted to be an architect and that’s a bad word now for me.

 

[ 00:02:49 ] They come up with some strange things. And then we got to invent them to make them work. But that’s what I wanted. I always loved drawing and just happened to. I went on to school, of course, ITT, which kind of went out of business.

 

[ 00:03:06 ] You know, fault them— they got me my position when you know, got me a start, and you know, it was my first interview I went to, and I got hired. So that’s how I got started in this deal. So 92.

 

[ 00:03:17 ] Oh, that’s awesome, cool.

 

[ 00:03:18 ] Yeah, and just for the uninitiated and unwashed, who don’t know what detailing is, any steel phantoms kind of described it.

 

[ 00:03:26 ] It’s been described a lot of different ways, but uh, the easiest way is uh, think of like a watch. Each little piece from the watch has to be made in order to create that watch. So, the easiest way to explain it is: each little piece in there has to be drawn so somebody can make it, and then somebody at the final puts it all together. I create the drawings to make it as well as to put it together. Okay, so that’s the easiest way to explain it. Yeah, good explanation. Thank you.

 

[ 00:03:58 ] So, tell us about your company. Is it just you? Do you have a support team or um, we just hired two doom people.

 

[ 00:04:04 ] Okay, we’ve got—I’ve got people all across the US. Um, you know, it started out just uh, I walked away from Indiana Steel and uh, started that, and and went back to what I enjoyed doing, and that was drawing. I didn’t get to do a whole lot of that while I was at Indiana. steel so i ran the drawing i was also part owner you know quality and i had too many hats yeah and just wanted to get back to what i enjoyed doing so i asked him to buy me out went home and started it and my son was working for me at the time at indiana steel and he stayed there until i got established and came aboard and it’s been been a great ride that’s awesome how big’s your team today That’s what I was counting a while ago. It’s like, oh, how many I got? Okay, yeah. There’s seven of us.

 

[ 00:04:52 ] My wife parked them. Oh, that’s awesome. But he’s got a remote workforce.

 

[ 00:04:56 ] Yeah, it’s all remote. So I work for out of my house. My son works out of his house. And then I’ve got a guy in Texas, a guy in Florida, a lady in Pennsylvania, a guy out in Terre Haute, and my son’s over towards New Pal.

 

[ 00:05:14 ] There you go.

 

[ 00:05:14 ] So how do you communicate with the team? Is it mostly on Zoom or Slack?

 

[ 00:05:18 ] We use Teams a lot. Text, email, whatever we can use. We’re setting up a Discord channel. Getting ready to set that up where it works great for us because it works. very well for like gaming i can jump in and share my screen for somebody to show them how to do something real fast and jump right back out i don’t have to send an invite like teams and then wait for them to accept it and all that discord is a is a little quicker and a lot better so yeah that’s great we’re setting that up right now so what are some of the challenges and constraints that you’re dealing with as a business owner uh consistent work yeah i think that’s probably the most thing and then uh The hardest thing is getting paid. Really?

 

[ 00:06:00 ] Yeah.

 

[ 00:06:02 ] Is it getting paid or getting paid on time? Both. Really? Okay. Yeah. We’ve got a company that we’re dealing with that’s possibly going out of business. So chasing money, calling GCs. Just had a contract switch from the fabricator over to the GC so that we could get paid and we can finish the job for the GC and make it. Make them happy so right um but yeah, it’s it’s a challenge, but you know, so getting the work isn’t a challenge, but getting paid for it is sometimes yeah. I think you know, believe it or not, getting paid is probably the hardest part. Sure.

 

[ 00:06:39 ] Wow, is that pretty consistent across your industry?

 

[ 00:06:42 ] No. Really. You know, out of seven years, there’s two fabricators that I’ve had issues with regarding getting paid, but you know, other than that, it’s not bad. Most of them, we have a set of limitations and expectations of what we expect, and they have to sign off on that. It kind of explains everything that we’ll provide and what we expect from them and what our terms are.

 

[ 00:07:12 ] So it’s a great, you know. As we quote a job, they have to sign off on that job. So send it back to us and here’s our terms. So most of them, you know, they’ll explain and they’ll say something, you know, that, well, you know, you’ve got 15 days on here. You know, our normal’s 30 or our normal’s 45. That’s nice. Yeah. Tell me up front and we’re fine. You know, that’s the easiest. So just tell me up front.

 

[ 00:07:37 ] right yeah you know so how does the how did the steel fabrication companies go about selecting a firm like yours is it based on price or is it availability or how’s that we do a lot of marketing okay believe it or not um we use linkedin as well um that that’s our probably 99 of our marketing right um we do We do a little bit on Facebook and stuff like that, but LinkedIn is huge for us.

 

[ 00:08:03 ] My son wasn’t a firm believer in it for years until about two or three years ago when we started getting clients from it. And he realized, oh, it’s paying off now. So now all of a sudden we have another portion of Bennett Services that we just started that is marketing. So we do LinkedIn marketing for other companies. Okay.

 

[ 00:08:23 ] Other companies like you?

 

[ 00:08:24 ] Yep. yeah we try to we’re doing in steel only okay so construction or steel then we’ll is our little niche and that’s what we know and that’s how we you know so they you know mostly you know we’ve had a couple already and it’s been great oh that’s awesome so yeah so what are you looking forward to this year with your business um this will probably be our best year ever um you know we we just hired the two extra or two new guys and then uh we’ve got um We’ve got a lot of things that we, you know, that’s five-year plans and things like that of, you know, we’d like to, because, you know, the program that we currently use or whatever, there’s other programs that do the same thing. That’s just SDS is one I’ve used, you know, my whole life. So, you know, 30 years of using it. So, but there are a couple other programs, Tecla and Vocad and a couple other ones that, you know, that we’re thinking about having a team. that utilize that because there are fabricators out there that don’t want SDS drawings.

 

[ 00:09:26 ] They want Tecla drawings. So, you know, we can create a team that we can, you know, manage both. And yeah.

 

[ 00:09:32 ] Right. It expands your capabilities and your opportunity. Right.

 

[ 00:09:36 ] So, you know, a couple of them, we’d use you if you did Tecla. I’m like, well, I don’t know Tecla. So, you know, but, you know, if we can later, yeah, be happy to. That’s awesome.

 

[ 00:09:49 ] Bobby, I know you were asking, we were talking a little bit before. What do you look forward to in 25?

 

[ 00:09:55 ] 24 is half over. Yeah, true.

 

[ 00:09:58 ] 25, I would say we’re probably going to grow a little bit more.

 

[ 00:10:03 ] We’d like to get about 10, 15 people all together, whether they all stay in the same program or whether we jump a little bit. But I know we’ll grow a little bit more.

 

[ 00:10:17 ] What do you see happening? Obviously, without going political, we’ve got an election coming up. We still have inflation. We still have costs fairly high. Interest rates are high. How’s that affecting you?

 

[ 00:10:29 ] Different markets, believe it or not.

 

[ 00:10:32 ] Texas is booming. California is booming. Even though you hear otherwise on California that everybody’s moving away and all this stuff, California is huge for us right now. We got in with a fabricator out there a few months ago.

 

[ 00:10:47 ] And residential is huge for them out there. And it’s just Malibu, Beverly Hills. I mean, we’re doing them everywhere there. But Texas is huge for us right now.

 

[ 00:11:03 ] There’s a couple other markets, but East Coast, I’ve seen it’s kind of slowing down a little bit. West Coast is booming.

 

[ 00:11:11 ] Wintertime, North slows down, of course.

 

[ 00:11:16 ] Yeah, I mean, it’s nice that you’re remote and that you can service wherever the hot areas.

 

[ 00:11:22 ] Yeah, and we’ve got clients everywhere. You know, we’ve got, you know, like I was telling Bob a little bit, you know, we’ve got clients in Montana, California, Texas, New Hampshire, Michigan, Indiana, of course. You know, we’ve got them everywhere. So one market slows down, the other markets usually pick up and help us out. Yeah, that’s great. so yeah you got to diversify you got to go elsewhere you can’t just stay local to where you’re at you know it just doesn’t work yeah we we found that out you know do most of your the new clients you’re getting are they they were doing the work and now offshore or offshore outsource it to you or were they just not doing it at all as you mentioned the offshore yeah offshore is a huge competitor to us to the detailing market um india is very huge in steel detailing sure india and philippines as well um they’ve had a huge market and they’re cheap labor yeah um so it’s hard for us to compete but we

 

[ 00:12:22 ] get a lot of our clients that have tried india or tried an overseas firm and It can be hard. It is. It’s very hard because you’re on different time zones. I guess the speech and everything else is hard to understand a lot of times. So a lot of people, they have to manage it a whole lot more. And they’re not one that they haven’t been at a steel fabricator. They haven’t worked at a fabricator. They don’t know.

 

[ 00:12:51 ] All the lingo, all the, and if you, if you peel back that, if you peel back that onion, right. And you’ll look at it and do the analysis on it of the extra time that you have to spend with administrative burden to manage that project. And then the, the cost, the opportunity cost of waiting on the time delay of the change in the market times. And you, is it pretty even when you compare those things when it’s not just about price, when you look at the entire picture?

 

[ 00:13:16 ] No, no. to a whole different world. For them, like I said, you peel back the layers or whatever. U .S. Detailers, you’re going to get a quicker response.

 

[ 00:13:27 ] To me, you’re getting a better quality.

 

[ 00:13:30 ] Normally, most U. S. detailers have worked at a fab shop or worked as a fabricator or a welder or something. They have that knowledge.

 

[ 00:13:42 ] You can’t learn everything off of the internet.

 

[ 00:13:47 ] A lot of young folks I think that I think that’s that’s what I was driving at.

 

[ 00:13:51 ] My question was: ‘Hey, that you know, you can’t there there’s a cost of there’s a cost associated beyond cost right when you outsource overseas absolutely so the response time the quality um you know what you’re actually you’re getting you know you know and we’ve been told that you know We’re going to use you guys because we can get a quicker response if we have questions. And answer your phone. My guy’s not sitting out in the shop waiting on an answer for a day and have to move steel or have to do something or move it out of the way. They can pick up the phone. They call us. As soon as we get the phone call, you’re going to get an answer right then. We’re not going to let it sit.

 

[ 00:14:26 ] Right.

 

[ 00:14:26 ] So that’s the plus, I guess, with us and with the UFs.

 

[ 00:14:30 ] Yeah. Sure. So you’re based out of Greenfield. Yep. And is that where you grew up?

 

[ 00:14:36 ] No, I actually grew up just south of there in Fairland. Oh, really? Okay. Yeah, I’ve heard of Fairland. Yeah, the blinky miss it. Right. Yeah.

 

[ 00:14:45 ] Fairland that had the little lake with the ski ramp.

 

[ 00:14:48 ] Yeah. Yeah. Went there many a times in the summer. Yeah. Yeah. Now it’s the casino across the road from it. Is it? Yeah. That’s true. Yeah. So I grew up there. And then ninth grade, after the end of ninth grade, I moved to Shelbyville. And that’s where I met my wife.

 

[ 00:15:01 ] Okay.

 

[ 00:15:02 ] So high school sweethearts. Yeah, that’s awesome. I’ve been married ever since.

 

[ 00:15:07 ] Yeah.

 

[ 00:15:08 ] Yeah. So what drives you? Are you a morning person? No. Night owl?

 

[ 00:15:11 ] No.

 

[ 00:15:14 ] I just, I’ve never been a, you know, a super morning person. I’m getting up at six o’clock or anything like that. But, you know, there’s, there’s been times when the world details, you know, if you, if I tell you, you’re going to have it, the drawings by the, by the time you get them, but, you know, wake up the next morning. I’ll work 24 hours if I have to to get it done. That’s just who I am. My son’s the same way. If we tell you you’re going to have something, well, you’ll have it.

 

[ 00:15:37 ] But we’ve also, like the guys that work for me, other than me and my son, they don’t work more than 40. I don’t want them. I live that life of working 50, 60, 70, 80 hours a week, and I don’t want that, and I don’t want my workers to do that. You want them to have a life. I want them to have a life. I want them to enjoy life. i pay them well um you know i feel i pay them well um you know and i want them to have that life and you know detail for you i missed a lot with my kids because i was work i bet you know my first five years i average 55 hours a week average so you know it’s it’s not worth it sometimes but um you know detailing is it’s a it’s a stressful job you know what makes it stressful um Believe it or not, an engineer is going to give you the design. Everything else is on you.

 

[ 00:16:34 ] We’ve got to make it work. We’ve got to make it fit. We’ve got to go up without a problem. We’ve got to make sure that the fabrication doesn’t have any issues. And all that in line, you’ve got to make sure that it’s not going to fall.

 

[ 00:16:50 ] That’s kind of important. Yeah. So as a detailer, you got to know what you’re doing.

 

[ 00:16:55 ] Do you have any liability associated with that?

 

[ 00:16:58 ] I do have an insurance liability. But most of the time, the detailing, you know, AISC, which is American Institute of Steel Construction, they provide tables and tell us what will carry and what will. But, um, you know, there’s a lot of connections out there that just, they’re not in tables. They’re not. So we, we hire an engineer occasionally here and there to, to check our stuff. And, you know, if, if the, the engineer record wants it to be checked, um, we’ll, we’ll pay for an engineer to have it checked and he’ll go through our stuff and make sure it’s okay. So, yeah, but now 37 years in the business and, you know, I kind of know what I’m doing, but right. Um, at least once somebody to check it every once in a while, that’s fine.

 

[ 00:17:40 ] Yeah so what do you do in your spare time? What do you like to do for fun?

 

[ 00:17:45 ] Uh, well I have a 56 F100 that’s my my fun car. My wife waffling bought me for my uh our 25th wedding anniversary. That’s my fun car. Then I go fishing every once in a while. You know, Getting ready to take off next week, and we’re leaving Tuesday to go to Alaska for a week.

 

[ 00:18:06 ] That’s cool. What are you going to do up there? Just relax?

 

[ 00:18:08 ] We’re taking a cruise up there. We did it two years ago, and we’re going to take a cruise this time.

 

[ 00:18:14 ] We’re taking some of the family with us this time, so they get to experience it. Taking my in-laws and my stepmom and, well, Riley, my son that’s in the business with me, he’s going.

 

[ 00:18:29 ] So a bunch of us, I’m taking eight people all together. That’s cool. It’ll be a nice fun trip. Tell us about your family. I’ve got three boys. Last one just graduated high school last year.

 

[ 00:18:41 ] He’s a mechanic. So he’s doing oil changes, stuff like that until he can work his way up.

 

[ 00:18:52 ] I told Bob a little bit ago, he just interviewed to be a mechanic for the post office. Oh, that’s cool. So that was yesterday. So we’re waiting on that answer. And hopefully, you know, he was in the top three. So hopefully he gets hired. I’d love to see it. You know, that’s, that was, that’s his passion. He loves to be a mechanic.

 

[ 00:19:09 ] Which would that be the USPS for Indianapolis? Yep.

 

[ 00:19:12 ] Working out of Indianapolis office. So, you know, yeah. And then my middle son, he’s a auto body. So he does the auto body. So I’ve got one that can fix it and one that can repair the outside. It’s going to save you a lot of money for it. Yeah, exactly. You know, so he’s, he’s been doing it for a few years now and he’s, he’s learning, you know, he started out as just an auto detailer, cleaning them and cleaning them up and stuff like that. But, uh, got the opportunity to jump in and go to do auto, you know, auto body and he’s happy as can be. Just bought his first house two days ago. So that’s cool.

 

[ 00:19:48 ] Yep.

 

[ 00:19:48 ] And then my oldest son is, uh, you know, works for me and probably works just as much as me, if not more. So, you know, he helps run, he runs all the guys for me. And so I don’t have to, I try to do all the bidding. And so we kind of do. We kind of divide up his stuff. Then my wife takes care of all the, the accounts payable and receivable.

 

[ 00:20:11 ] She’s the one that gets to make all the phone calls.

 

[ 00:20:13 ] She leaves that to me.

 

[ 00:20:17 ] She’ll send it to me and say, ‘They’re running late.’ I’ll make a phone call.

 

[ 00:20:23 ] She just works part-time. She works for the USPS as a delivery. She does the rural carrying.

 

[ 00:20:32 ] A little bit of everything.

 

[ 00:20:35 ] She gave up her aim. Uh, she was a HR, a PHR, whatever you want to call it, professional. So she gave all that up a couple of years ago. Just the, it’s just not fun. Yeah. You know, office life is just not, she was working as much as I was, if not more. So we just, yeah, we like to enjoy life now. That’s the fun part.

 

[ 00:20:58 ] Yeah. That’s cool. Yep. Have any grandkids yet? No. Not yet? No.

 

[ 00:21:03 ] Not yet. You want to knock on wood? He said that really quick. He looked worried. My wife wants them so bad. Of course. You know, my oldest son, he’s got a girlfriend. She’s a good girl. My middle son, he’s got a girlfriend. She’s a good girl as well. So my young one, he wants to finish his 65 Mustang before he.

 

[ 00:21:22 ] That may help get a girlfriend, too. That way, I’ve got money to finish it. Yeah, it makes sense.

 

[ 00:21:29 ] Yeah.

 

[ 00:21:30 ] No, he won’t give up a 65 Mustang. Yeah, ever.

 

[ 00:21:37 ] We did that for his 18th birthday. Oh, that’s cool. And my middle son, we did a 78 Camaro for him. He wanted a second-gen Camaro. So that was his 18th birthday. Oh, those are cool cars. Yeah. So we’ve got a whole realm of classic cars.

 

[ 00:21:51 ] What do you have? You’ve got…

 

[ 00:21:53 ] I got a 56 F-100 truck.

 

[ 00:21:55 ] Oh my goodness, yeah. So I’d like love to see a picture of that after we’re off air. Yeah. I should do yeah.

 

[ 00:22:02 ] It’s cool yeah.

 

[ 00:22:03 ] What kind of music you listen to?

 

[ 00:22:05 ] Everything, believe it or not, yeah. Um, I listen to you know classic rock, country, you name it, pop. Are you going to any concerts this year? Um, I went to, when did I go to? Colt Ford was the last one.

 

[ 00:22:21 ] Okay.

 

[ 00:22:21 ] Where was that at? Eight Seconds Saloon here. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I’ve been there before. Yeah. I’ve seen him, I don’t know, probably five, seven times. Wow. I’ve met him quite a few times. Met him in person a couple times. Eight Seconds is a cool place to catch a show because it’s an intimate setting. Yeah. So, you know, none of that. I think it was about a month after he got put in the hospital. He had a heart attack. Oh, no. Yeah, right after his show. So, Brinkley Gilbert saved his life. Yes. Yeah.

 

[ 00:22:53 ] Yeah.

 

[ 00:22:54 ] He puts on a great show. I enjoy him.

 

[ 00:22:57 ] Yeah. So, how can people find you if they’re looking for you?

 

[ 00:23:02 ] Everywhere.

 

[ 00:23:03 ] You can search me on Google. Find me on LinkedIn, Facebook.

 

[ 00:23:08 ] We’re all over the place, business services . com, business services LLC . com.

 

[ 00:23:12 ] Okay, awesome, perfect, yeah.

 

[ 00:23:13 ] Well, thanks for coming on with us today. I love it. Yeah, I appreciate it. Happy to be here. Yeah, great story. Thank you. Love it. Yep.

 

[ 00:23:20 ] Thank you. Thanks man. No problem.