when people ask me why i love what i do so much it’s pretty easy i get to work with most my best friends every single day nick snyder is one of those guys great friend smart dude probably the most optimistic person i know he’s the ultimate success story in scrap in my book started from the bottom running cans and got to where he is today on straight up hustle strong work ethic and just being a good dude check it out all right ready ready mickey just finally get the opportunity sit down cheers cheers another scrap life episode mm-hmm thanks for having me on some beers in twin falls that’s good um last time we were in twin falls with uh meeting with one of our customers um i snuck away they were eating lunch at a brewery and they had those uh beers in the refrigerator and you could buy six packs so that’s what we got yeah the food is good too yeah anyone’s in twin yeah brewery total brewery that’s uh they got good grub good beer it’s a good spot they kind of took an old building and recycled it

yeah they didn’t tear it down and build some brand new state of the art you know they actually took an old building probably from the early 19s mid 19s and like fixed it up and put some beam in there and like made a full-on brewery so it’s cool those restaurants with that beam and those um those glass garage doors and i just love them you know they’re just like uh you know one of our other customers their basement has that beam in it yeah i just love it you know no there’s there’s some cool stuff that can be done it’s almost old buildings but aluminum can you know it’s pretty fitting right perfect ubc ubc’s um you know man i i’ve we’ve been doing the scrap life for a little while you know it’s the whole um social media um whether it’s recycled idaho scrap life whatever it’s kind of been a brain child of you and me like just scheming on things um for a while now and uh obviously jay is the technical guy so like yep the reason we have the mics and the lighted sign and the podcast room

like i mean that’s a lot of it’s a lot of jay it’s a lot of sage and you know and you and i are you know mostly driving the okay what are we gonna do what are we gonna shoot you know all that but probably the whole reason that it all exists and the reason it runs all day every day is because of you well i started our facebooks i’d say honestly probably in like 2012. i started them then and i was basically i had a bunch of free time on my hands i was over here opening boise we were so slow compared to what i was used to i was used to 120 customers a day just running every day and i came here and i felt like i was doing something wrong i was like god okay i had four customers today you know and then it just took a long time so i was trying to fill in the cracks you know and i was like i’m like we might as well just make facebook yeah and then we started inviting people and not posting very much and you know we

didn’t really start posting a lot till last year and a half yeah last october last october when we met said let’s go all in and we tried a few different things with facebook instagram and all that and we even hired someone to do it and that was just a we got a really good customer out of it so it worked out yeah you know it worked out but like just it makes you learn like make sure you know what people are doing with your social accounts so what he was doing is he was messaging people from me yeah he said hey you know i’d love if you followed united metals but while you’re at it also follow all these other all his other customers so my close friends would be like what the man like because some of his clients were weird they were like it was just industries there like what is nick up to and like and he was talking to people like as me but talking to him like they didn’t he didn’t really know him yeah so i had we had to fire that guy and like i said at

the end of the day he made us a really killer video that we still promote on youtube and we learned right like he was learning i think yeah he was learning wheeler and i think that’s the kind of the coolest the coolest thing about it i mean where we people ask us all the time like who’d you guys hire to do on your social media and like and you know you and i have had this conversation and like obviously we have a team of people that we you know it’s not just you and me sitting here you know we have sage and marissa and jay and you know other people on our team that are posting but like really it’s we take a lot of pride in the fact that we do it all in house like we we’re like in the process of starting our own media company and not necessarily like today so that we can service a bunch of other customers right now we’re building it out so we can really just service all of our own brands but someday i mean once we get all of our own stuff all

the way dialed in like we would like then that way that is kind of like the next the next step for us i’ve had like three of our metals customers ask asked me if we could do stuff for him yeah and i just had to be like man like really keep up with like we’re not keeping up with ourselves you know where we want to be maurice has done a great job of building uh uh job duties for someone we’re going to try to hire yeah i want to get with tom uh next week and put that out there to just keep building our team so if we were there as a media company we could have three clients right now and that’s just what’s crazy because so many people in the recycling world or the manufacturers or just construction they don’t do anything and if you’re not thinking about it you’re gonna get left behind in a hurry i’ll go for sure and there’s a lot of opportunity if you’re willing to like just get in front of the camera and tell your story whatever your story is and my wife like laughs

at me all the time now because i was like one of the most anti-picture taking like we don’t we the first family photo we’ve taken as a family was we took it on a cruise in this last december with lindy’s parents and the owner and she’s like i had to call you into taking it because you won’t even take a family picture with us but it was her parents um 70th or no 50th 50th wedding anniversary or something like that and so she’s like i don’t give a you’re taking it and i’m like happy wife so i i wouldn’t do it i remember you one i remember you were so anti facebook and you’ve taken full 180 like the hardest one you’ve ever seen because you at one point told me to like like shut it down on like because i was trying to run facebook ads and yeah all that and i’m like all right and and we put our money back into google and it’s still most of our money is in google yeah you know but we and now you know now we’re posting every day you’re posting like a

madman and you’re even posting yourself because at first you won’t even post pictures of yourself and i realized like i’ve said this before like if i didn’t think it was good for our business i wouldn’t do it but i think that there’s value add like and not just good for us to go get more business but it’s good for our business it’s good for our people like i enjoy the fact that there’s a bunch of camaraderie about truck drivers sending us pictures of them parked i i guys are running equipment taking cool cool pictures of the the equipment with the sky and the clouds in the background or rain or unloading the customer or whatever i mean there’s the safety component obviously but for me like it does build so much like inner company pride it helps your culture no doubt about it it’s if you didn’t get a dime of the business out of it yeah anything else and if all you got was like camaraderie and culture it’d still be worth it one thing i think um you know like an hour ago we were on a clubhouse home and we briefly

came up that call was going fairly long i didn’t want to get into culture too much yeah i think culture is one of the most overlooked things um and i think if like you said if all you get from all the hours because it’s not free it’s not free for our company to no absolutely no we’re we’re asking for pictures we’re taking the time we’re doing it and even if you’re not doing a paid advertising you know by far it’s not free but it’s worth every penny because you can tag like i did a post this morning for papa ferris for nick mentions that guy works his ass off because you know a lot of like a lot of other guys they probably don’t always get the proper maybe pat on the back but i love like tagging them i love my banana hey this guy is kicking ass yeah i’m after it and i love if you’re posting you’re telling your story you’re putting it out there like i just love every part of it and i love exploring new things and connecting with people in clubhouse like that’s things new yeah you

know a year ago i mean i think it was around but no one was talking about i didn’t know about it at least no but it allows you to connect it allows you to talk to people it allows you you know to pick other scrap recyclers brains or other whatever industry you’re in it i mean it is what it is um and i don’t want to get too too too far into the social media side on our end because i think that that’s i mean i wanted to bring it up only because like you’re obviously an integral part of that and it’s kind of funny how like your job has shifted over the years and i think that the cool thing about doing like a scrap life podcast is like i’ve always said like my best interviews are all my friends um i i’ve obviously got interview people that aren’t necessarily maybe become my friends over time just whether they’re a vendor customer consumer or whatever but ultimately i mean like i just the scrap life podcast was always going to be about just hustlers and grinders of our industry someday i would like

to take it a step further and do like hustlers and grinders of all industries and i feel like i could literally probably do a podcast a day for the next few years and not cover all the hustlers and grinders of the scrap industry so i’m not in a hurry to leave to interview anybody else that’s not in scrap but just because there’s so many good people out there and i i’m always want to start in-house and to go through you know a lot just the guys we’ve hired so i’m super stoked yeah yeah i’m excited to be honest i’ve been and been excited for this so and it’s been a long time coming but i kind of wanted to get some traction that can get you on here um so why don’t you i mean we’ve why don’t you give everybody just like a little bit of history about how the hell did you end up at united methodist i love this story man yeah and a lot of people i tell it to i try to tell it to a lot of the guys that that i me and i that are

new that i train and be like i tell them this exact story you know really it got it’s got to go back before so i lost my job in 09 and at the time i had this girl i was dating i really really liked her and i was like you know thinking about asking her to marry me i didn’t have a job you know i couldn’t go to her dad i was like doing side jobs the economy was shitty i was like painting houses with sean sullivan and his dad because he didn’t have a job either because he’s an electrician he lost his job and i was like i gotta find a job i applied at wells fargo i made it to the last interview but i owed him like twelve hundred dollars in overdraft fees that’s not good for the job interview i think i would have got it until they like figured that out i thought they might give it to me so they’d get their money back they got their money back eventually okay and then so i went you’re your little sister is in my grade yep she told me

and sean sullivan that the pipe company was hiring so we went to interview with joe ross we went and we did a team interview like step brothers and for the record i carried that interview i will say that over and over again i tore it up because the job before that’s what i did for like i interviewed with people with disabilities i would train them how to interview yeah i’m fairly good at interviewing we went in there i was like i felt pretty good like oh maybe i’ll get a job at you know trader valley pipe um and the next day we were doing a side painting job and sean and his dad were late like super late i mean where the are they yeah i’m just there painting trying to get a hold of him whatever i’ll just get started and sean shows up he’s like i got the job like what he’s like yeah my dad made him yeah drove him down there to talk to joe to follow up and yeah at the time there’s only one spot but i think joe thought there was two spots but then like i

don’t know if it came from you or your rod like only hire one person yeah anyway like a few months went by you needed someone to help in the recycle center uh-huh so i wanted to well joe told me just like a little backstory we were like gosh we need somebody in the recycling center and jones is like hey i got the guy like i interviewed him for the pipe yard well i killed it yeah but he said but i hired uh sullivan because um his dad and my dad were friends i never knew that part yeah but i mean joe liked you so at the end of the day like you got beat out by a relationship so i went and interviewed with you i felt like i did good you know i got you offered me a job yeah then i took it man and i took it in you know i started over at caldwell and and to be 100 honest like i didn’t plan to stay around that job was a job yeah like i mean at the time like that i mean it’s not any job isn’t a

job if you need a job like let’s be i should but and of all the jobs a person has available dirty jobs if anybody has a a job opening today like all the job openings i mean i think that that job i mean literally you bust aluminum cans open at least for the first few months just to prove that you can do the job it eventually evolves into more than just breaking open nasty yeah yeah at least the first few months yeah but it was a pile of cans like insane so only ripping nasty beer cans bob cans open for a couple months on end isn’t is is kind of a job but it’s a job and it paid the bills and um so i just want to make sure like when people say like oh you got a job you miles you just walked in like you’re the manager with boise i like not exactly no i i had to pull out nasty out of cans for two months yeah but the funny thing happened at that time i had a job so i felt comfortable enough to propose to my now wife

you know and i had a stepdaughter a three-year-old so i had some i had some more skin in the game yeah before that and i just like was in my 20s and i’ve always been a good employee i know i didn’t give it my all sometimes you know yeah but i started to learn the business and i didn’t even know that i didn’t know that world existed i didn’t even think about it ever like i never like was in that world i know you could get money for cans yeah but back then man like copper prices were crazy and kind of like there right now you know copper prices were really good things were really good we were handing out some serious money yeah we’re going we had that was our main facility at the time and we were going through you know 100 customers across you know the main scale and uh you know a freaking you know 100 customers recycling center a day like a day and it was just it was it was a pretty bananas market at the time for sure and um and basically i saw i

was like god there’s a lot and i liked it i liked working with you i liked working with guy pilot i liked working with a lot of those people and it just made me i i had this almost moment of like clarity like i remember the day that i was running cans i’m like like it like i don’t need to work anywhere else i’ll just stay here yeah and i’ll just keep working i gotta keep working i’ll keep learning and i can start to ask guy like hey can you teach me more jimmy johnson jimmy can you teach me more sam can you teach me more just learn little steps at a time yeah you know then you came and asked me hey we’re going to open boise would you be interested in helping open it and i was like hell yeah i would love that opportunity you know i remember that conversation i remember like just trying to decide when we were going to open and who was going to run it like i remember you know the who i remember my mom and brian having um an office over here you know

and having you in the recycling center and how you know i mean i remember all those steps of getting this facility open and how deciding who was going to run it and who we trusted to do it and all that time that you put in on the front end of the caldwell recycling center is what gave you the opportunity to you know be a part of you know the our biggest non-ferrous yard and at the time you know it was like you said four customers a day like it was it was a pretty slow bleed it was like five minutes like in the like what does that tell you like i don’t give a what job you’re in like what take a if you need a job or if you there’s an industry that you’re interested in or something you want to learn you can start the lowest rung of the totem pole and if you just want to learn bust your ass put your time in yada yada ya i mean i don’t know how many times i’ve said it but i’ll keep saying it like you’ll get opportunity if the company’s

worth of if your boss is worth the and they’re willing to pay attention they’re willing to notice like you’ll get opportunity as long as you’re not want to be the facility manager after six months yeah and that’s how you hear that a lot i don’t and that’s always probably been the case that’s what’s funny about people like blaming like the kids now yeah that’s right always been going on you know you’re gonna have some people that realize it and when i was in the caldwell recycle center working my ass off running from customer to customer just learning as much as i can i had no you never talked to me about boise like i wasn’t doing it because i knew boise was there no because like you know in if i would have been a shitty employee and not been busting my ass i guarantee i would have never got that opportunity so you know everyone that i talk to i mean i tell that’s why i tell them that story like the opportunity when it comes up if you’re a good employee you’ll be the next in line you know dude it’s like

a it’s like a sports analogy here’s the deal it’s if you bust your ass at practice and but there’s a guy that’s starting over you and i don’t care what sport it is whatever football baseball basketball anything lacrosse if there’s a guy in front of you it’s playing the same position and he’s good he’s better than you he’s been there longer he understands the offense the defense the whatever right but you sit there and you consistently bust your ass and you learn the plays you learn what’s going on at some point either you’ll decide you’re better to go to a different school and play or the guy in front of you or will break your leg or get hurt or you’ll just show up to practice one day and you’ll know exactly what’s going on you’ll know what to do and you’ll just outshine them but that doesn’t happen by just showing up one day and but and half ass working and half-assed doing stuff like but when it’s your time to shine and you show up and you like have put in the work that’s how things happen and that’s and hopefully

like when you’re telling that story to the you know whether it’s the guy in the yard or the office or whatever and you’re saying hey like you don’t know what’s brewing behind the scenes right like especially a company like ours which we we were wanting to grow we needed to grow like we were we were ambitious and just like we are and like today we want to do big things but we don’t really communicate that all the time with everybody in the company we just brew on it in the background and look at options and all of a sudden it’s like i think this guy or i think this girl could do this job if we can put this deal together but we you have to put yourself in the position if you put it out there where people know that opportunity’s there you’re not gonna see that real person you’re not because they’re after that yeah so then when they get there they might turn into their their real self you know so i think you gotta keep it in the in the background you know and we’re working you know and then

we’ll hopefully identify the next person because there is so many so much potential anyone that follows us you know we got the reclaimed divisions we got you know the pipe companies we got medals like like we’re trucking you know hauling yeah you know there’s so much we got more stuff coming online that we haven’t even put out there yet you know yeah and it’s all under the same umbrella and that’s where i just feel i’ve never been the guy that thinks like i don’t believe in luck i don’t believe in chance i don’t believe in any of that do you believe in like serendipity like do you believe in like hard work like puts you in the position where if the chips fall they kind of fall your way yes they do okay i think i think that like i think i was supposed to work at united metals as crazy as that might sound as some people like i think the path that led me there yeah you go and that’s when people go through their their maybe a rough patch or something like just keep your head up because and then the

next spot you land at maybe learn from some you up on or some mistakes you did and take a hard look in the mirror be like how could i be better and then like you said if you’re with a company that’s worth the they’re going to identify it if you’re busting your ass you truly are and they’re not identifying it get out of there like yeah get out like you know but you also have to give it time yeah like you can’t bust your ass for a month no like you can’t be kind of a half asser really then then going to really go hard for like a month or two and see if they notice well what about all the months you decide yeah you’re like mailing it in like they don’t know if you’re just like if you’ve been drinking more coffee in the morning or if you’re just you know you got to figure out how to how to really make it you like you make it like you’re doing it because it’s who you are it’s not fake you know and and then you know there’s always going to be

shitty employees there’s always going to be shitty managers there’s always going to be shitty companies oh yeah and but like but when you’re in a situation working if you’re there why not just be positive and work your hardest and then if you find like it’s not the right spot for you move on to the next but give it time give it like when you’re younger a year sounds like a long time yeah but when you get older it’s not as well it doesn’t feel as long it’s not long a year goes by like boom you know well and like you going back to what you said um like you’re probably one of the most positive people i know right like i know you said your wife says that do a lot too but like my wife i mean my grandpa i loved him to death but he was a pessimist like that guy it could be raining you know it could be sun shining there might be a sliver of a cloud and he’d be like yep rain’s coming like there’s this yeah and i’d be like god lee or he would just be

like yeah like i remember when the city of caldwell was you know trying to to trying to clean up and like do the indian creek and get it all all done you’re like i don’t know why you want to clean up that and that’s where he was from you know like instead of saying well you know they’re trying like they’re trying to make it nice and i just remember that and i remember my dad was so um like my dad was a very like he was the opposite my dad was um always smiling always happy and i was not that i didn’t screw up but he was just in general people knew him as a happy go lucky jokester you know like you could lay the biggest pile of in front of him he’d be like i’ve seen bigger you know like yeah that’s all you got you know and he and trust me like over the course of 30 years in business like you’ve had some pretty big pile laid in front of you that you got to deal with you know and i think that you know i got i like to

think like initially like that you know um i got a little bit of my grandpa and me and a lot of my dad and me um but i’ve al i’ve also just tried to get rid of all that negativity crap that my grandpa might have left in me you know and took the entrepreneurial side of him because he was a big entrepreneur he wanted to build businesses and want to do stuff um but i think because of his negativity he never attracted enough people around him to really build all these ideas out because people didn’t want to be around him because he had kind of a negative outlook on stuff even though he had maybe a good idea yeah in a good business you know venture he could never really build it because you couldn’t put enough good people around him to actually like finish it you know because only one person can only do so much you know i mean and i think that my dad he was able because he was much more of a personable person and much more of a positive person he was able to attract enough help enough

people to help him build out you know take the next step you know the next step in business so when it became my turn and my dad was like i’m done but even before he said i’m done i wanted to be the type of person that would attract people to help build the business and you don’t get that way by being an and you don’t get that way by you know being you know poor me the world’s coming to an end all day every day you be it but you get it by being positive and i think that that going back to like where i was going with that is you being so positive i think is why so many people are willing to take your opinion and listen to you when you have something to say and you know give you honest feedback you know because you’re you you they want they don’t mind giving you honest feedback because it’s not like you’re going to be like oh that’s great you know we just lost 10 grand good job but you’re gonna you’re not going to just tell them that the world’s coming

to an end you’re going to tell them why they made the mistake what the mistake was and you’re going to say hey here’s the deal and i think but you’re going to find a way to spin it in a positive way just because of your natural positive personality and that’s a big thing man that’s that’s why why people want to be around you that’s why i want to be around you well i appreciate that and and a lot of i’ve had people ask me or usually ask my wife is he always like this she’s like yes and so it’s not a facade it’s so tiring you know yeah because sometimes about um what she used to work at costco she’d been about it i’d be like and i would just like be like you should do this and then i kind of learned like some people just want to be listened to you know but my positivity i try to pass it to my children i think i got it from my mom i know i did my mom is like that always positive yeah she’s so positive in a situation like she’ll watch

it like a game before watching like a good football game or or like say that ucla gonzaga game that was awesome yeah they watched it i said oh did you guys watch that game oh yeah oh i just didn’t want anyone to lose that game my mom’s it’s important to try to find the good things in a bad situation man i’ve been in situations where we made a buy that cost the company five grand you know yeah that sucks man yeah you know but we take that you don’t hide in a corner as much as you freaking want to just hide that from everyone and move on yeah you take it you build it from it and you share it and you you just share the hell out of it you say hey don’t make the same mistake i did you know that’s what i did you know you own it oh yeah you know you i still think i hold the record i think i still made the worst bite for the radiation yeah yeah as much as i like just like that’s one record that you don’t want to hold like no

i still feel like i win that contest and it i think you put it well one time with me like when you’re in the fire is hot yes you know it’s hot it’s all you can think of and it’s it’s consuming and don’t get me wrong man i have my bad days we have days where like we lose an account or like something happen in the yard or we’re short a thousand dollars we can’t figure it out then you get all these things creeping up into your mind and you know we’re all human you start to like just ask yourself things and and but if you can just actively try to be positive because sometimes it’s not natural no no like if you you like you honestly coming from someone who i i from myself like speaking from my own personal experience like there’s there’s times when it’s it’s a zillion times easier potentially just to be like uh like and go the dirt road like it it can but the reality of it is like it’s such a mindset deal you like there’s times when you kind of have to like i’ve like

we were saying before i go away macro and say absolutely like okay yeah i had a bad day i lost some money today or i should have sold that load of copper yesterday it’s down 20 cents like i just pissed away 20 grand type of day you know and then you have to say okay but what would happen if you know my mom got sick what would happen if my wife you know got sick or i lost one of my kids like and then you just be like ah like it is what it is like like it makes your whole day be like yeah i’m going to fight another day like it’s not as long as you’re you’re not you know as long as you have the ability to fight another day it makes it like it’s where you can convince yourself it’s not that big of a deal and i’ve been doing that for years and it’s cool to hear um gary vee been actually talking about it a lot but i’ve been like anytime i have like um a day like that where you’re like you know when you’re driving home you’re

like i’m still driving home let’s start there yeah driving i have a home yeah you know be i’m driving home to my wife well see you know i got my two kids are healthy thank god and gary v takes it to the next extreme though like if you listen to him talk about it he just goes straight hyper macro yeah i just think like one of my kids died yeah she’s scary yeah that’s you guys but like it really puts you’re like oh geez like it could be significantly worse and dude and i always call it like first world problems like oh yeah because in america we’re so spoiled oh yeah and then i’m like dude oh go travel like go see some stuff like you didn’t get out of town for a while go see i mean you don’t have to leave the united states to go see some real holes then if you really want to see some rough living leave the united states and go go really travel and you can see some stuff to where like i mean and then you come back and you’re like oh okay like i

can i can stomach oh i can stuck stomach a financial loss i can stomach some of the little things that go on that you know that didn’t really go my way with a customer or whatever and i’m more speaking from a business side but you know on a personal side or whatever i can stomach it because i feel like i can get my mind wrapped around how bad it could be and once you can do that dude it’s like it’s game over oh yeah once you can center yourself i was having this conversation with me and sal went out to qna to look at it at a job and i was like man how are you doing he’s like oh i just feel overwhelmed you know yeah i’m like oh i know how you feel trust me and then i just told him like you gotta figure out how to find your balance like you gotta find a balance and however everybody’s different everybody needs a different way to find that balance you know it’s only for me like i gotta i gotta stay organized because it doesn’t come naturally for me i gotta

like put in my counter i gotta stay organized then i come to work the next day i’m just prepared yeah i’m ready like i’m not behind the eight ball like i’m not like playing catch up all day or my god what am i forgetting you know so take those steps and then create an environment around you where people are willing to tell you the truth yeah because if you’re like nasty about things or someone that they can’t approach best believe they’re gonna hide all the important from you yeah and you’ll probably find it but it’ll be too it’s too late to fix it so make an environment make a culture around you that is positive but hold people accountable so so give me the steps because like sometimes when you’re just like in the middle of business and building a business like we’ve been like when you when you came to boise yard and to run a recycling center there’s like a gap in my memory or whatever to to get to where you’re just running the recycling center in boise to becoming kind of an outside buyer and kind of managing a lot

of the purchasing like to me it just happened like like like over like sometimes it feels like that like but i’m i’m just curious like in your mind like what was the steps like how did that transpire because i don’t really like i couldn’t really to be honest i don’t really remember so it was 2012 because i remember we had her second daughter she was born in february i took a week off spent with you know my family is one of the best weeks of my life i recommend that just take that week and spend it with that newborn if you’re ever in that situation i came back you it’s when you were right over here um because i had moved my office here in jay’s office right now but uh you were right there and you called me in and you asked if i wanted to do um the purchasing oversee the purchasing that was 2012. so then i started there so i was just communicating with other yards sending price sheets out because i just started making another price sheet you got a lot on your plate yeah i started making a

price sheet without asking you permission for it yeah and i started emailing it to you and i remember you’re like who the gonna send the price you know me or you you know like oh and then either like that’s kind of a ballsy move okay which is why yeah and hopefully you know that about me like i’m like hey and you want to do like do it like one thing i love about you man like i know like sometimes in a work environment you’re like god what’s he thinking is he like what’s up like is my job okay like if you ain’t okay brett you’ll know i’ll tell you you’ll know it right there he doesn’t hold anything back no that’s nothing you gotta worry about no i don’t want you to have to worry like i try and give like pretty good feedback honest feedback but no anyways then he asked me that after eden and then i started doing that more you took me started taking the other yards because i hadn’t even been to some of the yards you know what that time was gooding um and then we were talking

about twin sorry see what ten when did we open twin and fourteen twin yeah we bought in thirteen opened in fourteen so i thought yeah so by 12 then i went over bucks and opened it but once we got the other people in place to take over him yeah i started working with them getting them schooled up um and then the outside buyer part honestly came kind of because we had to let someone go yeah we had to let someone go and then we had to pick up i took a lot of his accounts over you know so like and that just kind of was like a natural progression just naturally yeah there was a few accounts i got just from the phone and i was answering the phones you know and that’s when i really realized the phones are like our best friend yeah those phone calls those leads that’s why i get so worked up and i talk to all the artists like how are you answering the phone like i get upset when they’re like united medals yeah who is this who am i talking to like yeah i’m like a

stickler for like i’m like united metals this is nick you know like put make it personal because we might have spent twenty dollars on that phone call in the market spectrum you know um so the phone calls started coming in and we’d go look at accounts and then and like i said earlier like you know we lost one of our employees who did a lot of that so i took on that role and then i just started learning like i started learning by like ken ken bowl even mm-hmm um like in you like how to quote jobs how to like how to do it like in how to get them the container how to do that and i remember some of it wasn’t that that easy sometimes like to learn it because and that’s where like when i come in and try to teach someone i want to make it like more of a protocol you’re like more of a structured learner i am yeah i noticed like yeah you’re like is there a structured way now how you quote this or a structured way to i learned a lot yeah you’re just

like well you’re throwing the air like well i think there’s 300 ton right there and i didn’t know long enough like i got a good pulse on the market like which is crazy like because i send the price sheets to everyone and everyone looks at them which i appreciate that i love it i have a bad habit of never ever looking at my price sheets i just know where the price should be yeah and that’s because i see it every day i look at the market first thing i do every single morning yeah of my life i opened kick comment and i opened that cme for that copper comex app i opened both oh okay down two that sounds about right like that’s how i decide if i’m gonna put creamer in my coffee so which one’s which when it’s good i put cream out okay that’s what i figured yeah if it’s black i’m like you don’t deserve you know i’m playing bailey and there is black here okay that’s good no there is days when you’re like you wish you would have uh put baileys in it but back then before all

this i remember this is right before like the 12th crash yeah because there was a day copper went out like 30. oh yeah started it i remember it i texted you it was like six in the morning that way i’m really like hey what the yeah i said i’m just heads up good morning and like and that’s where like it’s just ingrained in me like to check like check those markets you know and then push it push out the information but also not i’ve learned to not overreact and because what you don’t like it’s hard if you what you don’t want to do man is as the guy that organized the pricing the purchasing and all that and scrap industry or any other industry you don’t want to get the people that are out there doing that on a daily basis for you with you to you don’t want to make them nervous because not everybody’s built like you are like me like there’s a lot of people out there that aren’t that aren’t as positive or that are a little they’re just built different so the last thing you want to do is

get them like where they’re scared to buy anything or scared to do anything so you have to kind of like hey this is what the number looks like call me if there’s what’s going on like you know if people are out there shopping shopping around because the other recycling companies are just are just whacking them off at the head then like let’s talk because it might be a game time decision where if somebody’s just whacking the price or whatever and you feel like there’s a balance or you feel like there’s some upside you’d be like i’ll take a flyer on that like all right i’ll buy it down 15 when it’s down 30. down five when it’s down 30. i feel good when i feel good on the market like okay i ain’t going to touch our price sheets yeah touch them that feels good that’s a lot of the communication on your ears and that’s where i get it that’s where i’ll talk every day see what exactly like let’s see what we can do let’s see like are we are we in are we in a good spot to buy a really

good good spot to hold and then just walk through it so how does a guy go from total change but how does a guy go from running cans every day with two spit and baby diapers and whatever condoms dead animals and the reason i know this i’ve done that job yeah a lot yeah right like like as a kid as an adult i did that job and so i not only do have a respect for it but i also kind of wish everybody in our company kind of had to do that job for even like a week yeah because it sucks but it gets the foundation kind of of how it was built right so how does a guy go from that job to your job today which is i mean the everything from marketing to managing all the purchasing that goes on to the outside buying to i mean is there anything that in the in any of our businesses that you haven’t done or touched or whatever i guess you haven’t drove a truck no and i don’t want to but i mean like i haven’t even and i haven’t run the

machines very much a little bit and that’s in 10 years yeah like i think it all boils down to just working hard 12 years yeah working hard and just working hard and being positive and just letting you know there’s an expression out there you know the cream of the crop will rise to the top yeah it just takes time you know takes time put in the time and and like anyone out there listening that feels like they’re in a shitty position maybe you’ve seen it work a little harder yeah i know so now i get that question a lot from everyone i meet like casey our new guy i don’t even know his title you know but the guy that helps brian out yeah he’s our banker that we because he has to be like what do you do yeah i think because he’s like i’ve been talking to him a lot more like oh man that’s so hard yeah when people ask me that your business card be like when people ask me that when i like hanging out with like my wife’s friends what do you do like i just crush cans

yeah do i tell them now it’s so much easier but you know i tell them you know i handle purchasing and i’ll receive most of marketing yeah um and that’s what i do and how i got there is way back when in 2010 i had that one day where i was like this sucks yeah i said but why like why am i like quit being a little like just get out there and work i see the potential here i like the people i’m working with yeah i’ve been here three months you know yeah just put your head down and i made a decision and timing a lot of that i really needed a job so i could marry the girl i met and take care of my stepdaughter so i needed a man of myself but people need to find a way to not think of it as work yeah that’s where i am today i don’t i don’t go to work i haven’t gone to work in years yeah i never go to work i wake this is my life i wake up you know and i get going you know i go

through my steps i’m a pretty routine guy oh god i’m the worst i’m know i know that really yeah it’s not a routine and i just go through my steps and i never feel like i’m working like i take calls all day every day and i email all day every day saturday sunday and at one point i like i was like you know i’m not gonna do any work on the weekend but i that made it worse for me then i’d get there monday like god i wish i would have done this on the weekend you know yeah i could just like so if you can i think you have to find that sweet spot for yourself though you got to say yeah i’m burnt like notice that you’re burnt and because i’m a lot the same way but there are times when i’m like i’m burnt i’m good like you know i i need like a day or i need an hour or i need two days or whatever that is like you at some point like and everybody like finds their their their their sweet spot to where it’s like okay i

need to i need to do something different for a couple days and just take a break but if it’s not if it’s if it’s not a uh if it’s not a burden to you and if it’s not like like my wife’s like like i was showing her my screen time the other days like jesus christ and i was like and uh and she’s like oh that’s weird that is ridiculous 12 hours yes yep on my phone like screen time and she’s like 12 and i saw it like when i was on vacation he goes congratulations your screen time is down 70 percent and i was like all right like that’s awesome i turned those notifications off i don’t want to know like telling me how much i’m on my phone i find it more interesting i’m like oh okay and so like and i so i i tried to make a conscious effort because when we went on vacation here a few weeks ago like i wanted to be like i just wanted a see if i could do it but b i just wanted to like maybe give my maybe i didn’t know

i needed a break i just wanted to try it you know and even then i mean we had one guy put us two weeks in we had you know a couple of riddles that we had to solve while we were on vacation and even then like if one if duty calls like it gets the question gets answered like i’m not gonna be like well i’m sorry i’m on vacation i’ll call you in a week like it just doesn’t work like that a because i really like it like i like a good challenge like i like a shitty scrap market dude i feel like i enjoy this market because decent but it’s not as like it’s fun it’s fun because you can make money and it’s not as hard but like dude i think like the real like your business gets built like the real bricks get laid when it’s dude when it’s shitty and nobody wants to be in it well no one’s got the ball to do a lot of things like you know they don’t want to do it man and i and that’s when for me when i’m just like i

lick my chops because i know like the deals are gonna get good it’s gonna be fun it’s a challenge if you can’t make money right now in the scrap business you should not be in the scrap business and i think there’s i think that it’s gonna get better i really think that the markets are going to get better moving forward but if you can’t then there’s something inherently wrong with your business right now because the margin should be decent the flow is okay but there’s there’s maybe you’re just not in the right business or you need to tweak something right so i i don’t know like this it’s okay right now but i feel like when it gets shitty is like when we as a company when because we kind of find a way to like grind well we have a lot of guys like i feel like i’ve always done my best work when i my back backs against the wall yeah i feel like i’m like okay i really shine like when i i have to get this done or this or this happen now what do we do you know yeah

you pivot and do it this way and there’s like you said this market i love this market i haven’t seen copper this height i think it’s going to keep i think i wouldn’t be shocked if we got to like a 450 475 copper this year you know i wouldn’t be shocked one one bit and uh so that part is fun because it hasn’t we haven’t seen that for a long time but like you said i think it’s a lot more fun to go to war when the when things are just like and like it was it reminds me of like i played sports in school you played sports in school team sports like like when it’s crap like when when you’re doing double days and it’s shitty like some of the like funnest like you know like you had like some of the best stories and some of the you know like the locker room is always just wild and fun because people are just like you’re out there every day and it sucks and it’s hot but you’re like you’re just out there like grinding together yeah and then when the game comes

like it’s fun and like that’s what you built built to go like we feel like we’re in the game right now and it’s it’s really good but some part of you always itches like every once in awhile you missed those double dates yeah as much as you hated good memories and you’re happy to have them behind you like i’m happy to see 2020 in the rear view i’m happy to see 20 15 16 in the rear view 20 2009 like i’m happy to see those things like be gone you know but there is some fond memories of you know we built we built our business and a lot of those years we put facilities in in those years so it is what it is but my thing is is i’ve always i’ve always said like there’s a lot of opportunity in any business if you’re willing to put in the time and the patience you know and i think that’s what you’ve kind of what you’ve done yeah yeah well you gave me the opportunity though you know like you gave yourself the opportunity like at the end of the day like you give

yourself the opportunity by working going to work every day yeah so on scrap in i mean this is a scrap life and not i mean as much it’s kind of just a business that that we’ve built over the years and i’ve been lucky enough to work with a lot of my friends and a lot of you know great people that i’ve met in school or high school now in college and and everything else but i was i have like some of the one of the funniest stories when we talk about copper and the price of scrap and you just reminded me of it like a month or two ago so we started doing podcasts we start our first podcast was uh for our pipe company it wasn’t he had anything to do with scrap reline unknown yeah we did re-line unknown and we had bought a pipe company that was in indiana and uh so and we were and i was kind of starting to get on the marketing train i’m like all right like we’re going to build this business i’m going to we’re going to get in the in the build

out this nationwide dealers everywhere business then we better like be able to market nationwide um so we we uh we’re on like our i don’t know our third fourth podcast and we were in yeah we’re at a uh we were at a um pipe convention right and uh underground realign convention and we were interviewing rompton who’s a by the way like i know he won’t listen to this podcast because he has nothing to do with scrap business a phenomenally smart guy that might be the smartest guy i’ve ever met like he’s a i you’re pretty smart anyways long story short like we toured the their testing facility and yadda yadda for good with our phones on airplane mode yeah for what two or three hours three hours because the podcast itself was like two hours yeah and then another hour you had that just like a one more thing that you you added to your skill that you were the video are you the greatest at it but i tried to do that we did yeah we did it right i mean for what it was yeah now we have sage shout out to

sage but uh um and and so go ahead i do i love this story well we get out of there we just we’re in the middle of like quoting i don’t know a hundred thousand two hundred how much was it it was like two hundred thousand two hundred thousand pounds it yeah and we get out of there we get out of our podcast we both turn our phones back off like bret copper’s down 25 cents or whatever it was yeah that day it was that day but we just got the bid yeah we just got it like oh god so we’re over here act like we’re just the next joe rogan you know panning each other on the back and then like oh we just lost a lot of money yeah you know and uh that just shows you like you can pat yourself on the back all day long uh-huh but you better be ready to deal with those punches man because and you know what man like so that was that’s february february we we did that we got the and that’s at this time copper was like three it was

right before the corona 350 it was 30. it was like a good number yeah we were like we’re like all jacked that we got that quote and got the bid and they were gonna go with us it was february we were um flying back and we were like ah it’s all right like it is what it is the market’s coming off and then i remember it wasn’t that long later like i had flown to denver right after that and i got this this big uh a windmill bid windmill job and i was like yeah like i’ve hit like two good ones in a row and then dude the market just cratered yeah like copper cratered iron crater like everything was just like in the dumps and we were like oh man here we go this is uh let’s get this party started and dude it was end duty and i will say this so this is february mark with march we were in denver we come back and i had been talking about buying another wire chopper because we just bought that casa valdez building and i and this is what kind of made

the decision for me i’m like well if the market’s this up i’m like if if we’re going to go big i’m like we might as well buy another wired chopper now and copper was at two dollars and i was like here we go yeah yeah for a minute yeah we had all that wire coming in we had ordered we ordered another wire chopper it was i was trying to get it in and get it set up and i just remember that oh my god good job nick yeah all this copper that is pr you know 40 cents over you know market you know before we even chop it before we even pick it up you know we just gotta go get it but we paid we paid him what we quoted him yep we stuck we had to stick by the hands and we just held onto the material yeah they came back yeah you know and luckily we’re at a point in our company where we can sit on something like that there’s some people like that would just be a moral like wound yeah to your company well and i think if

it’s that tight you’ve got a hedge like if you don’t have the ability to ride that storm then call pete thomas get your hedging set up right like that’s the reality of it yeah for sure if you but if you have the stomach and you have the uh and you’ve got the ability the cash cap you know the cash flow the capital whatever in-house when you ride you see those big big downturns like that if you can write it out i think you know i think you’re gonna get you’re in a good position and luckily it goes back to like building a foundation put all that work in ahead of time building your business building your assets building your cash flow to where that storm didn’t just wreck the ship you know and the reason we bought that copper goes back to like my same philosophy on everything i do if it’s even with the employee or customer you know just treat them right that owner of that company worked for a different company three four years ago and sold me some batteries yeah i actually had his number in my phone still

and he called me again you know and because we did him good on like that little load and i didn’t just brush him off like he was like a nobody yeah you know he turned around made his own company that only does demo on data centers throughout the nation and those data centers if you know anything about them they have a lot of copper in them a lot of scrap in them yeah to keep them functional and that just circles back to where he just like dealing with us because we’re willing to take the time to talk to him and just do the right thing just be a good person you know oh for sure 100 percent so i get like i’m going to give you the last word i mean it’s a scrap life it’s a my podcast but the only reason my podcast exists because of you so today it’s your podcast and dude i just you get the last word today and then it’s friday we’re going to go coach some flag football we’re going to go have fun with our families this weekend before we do that we’ll say whatever

you want one you know i’ve had some things happen to me this year where people have passed away and then so have you i want people to just take this opportunity like take this life and make the most of it man like don’t be down and out don’t be negative and i know that’s easy to say especially if you’re suffering some from some real like clinical depression it’s a little different but if you’re just being negative to be negative like get that out of your head most the most you can and you know the people that i know that passed passed away this year i guarantee they would do anything to do things over so i don’t want to be in that situation in my life where i look back i want to do it over so do it right the first time you know you always hear that expression or used to this really shows how old i am because uh yolo because i just like learned what it meant a few years ago yeah you know people say that like oh like screw it do whatever you want i’d look at that

expression completely different you only get one life so make the most of it like you know do the most you can at work do the most with your family make it all one thing where you don’t look at work like work and you hate monday like celebrate your mondays as much as your fridays you know and embrace both of them enjoy your time with your family and you know and find somewhere where you can go and grow people ask me why i go so hard like at everything and i say i don’t know any other speed um and because of that you know just like what you just said i don’t know another speed other than i love hard i lose heart i win hard i got business life smiles whatever it is like i just i only know so just like you said you only get one crack at it so don’t leave any meat on the bone there you go i guarantee we’re gonna have smells in our future oh yeah but we’re gonna have some w’s too and you know you just make those w’s out as long as you speak

by the winning record and get into the playoffs yeah i’m good yeah all right thanks cheers appreciate you nick