hmm welcome to a scrap life a podcast solely focus on the hustlers grinders operators and business owners who live and breed the scrap metal industry every day we are the original recyclers no suits required just guts and hard work here is your host brett eckhart all right so another episode of a scrap life this one was kind of like an impromptu episode i didn’t even let you plan for it so which means guess what you’re now on uh podcast number 1452 i mean not really that many but uh no i’m sitting here with my buddy uh jake bronstein who owns merrillville metal recycling and uh he was kind enough to come out and and visit us in the great state of idaho from indiana so uh we appreciate it man again it’s good to be here man thanks for having me absolutely so uh i don’t really have any set things to talk about and which is like sometimes those are my best podcasts when it’s like just sit down and shoot the as friends um but the one big thing i wanted to kind of let everybody know is you know how

does a guy from idaho meet someone from indiana and how do we become friends and how do we end up doing some business and how do we do what we do and it’s like really about just networking you know and like putting yourself out there and being willing to like say hey i don’t know the answers right or i don’t i want to know a better way to do because i know all the stuff that i’ve learned and there’s still so much more to learn has been like by going visiting places and seeing what’s going on so give everybody a little bit of background just kind of how you got into the scrap business in general yeah so um so when i was 13 i actually spent the day at a scrap yard and with my dad and uh for some crazy reason i thought i would be good as an owner operator i remember sitting in the material handler and feeding cars going into the shredder conveyor feed belt for for shredder in chicago and uh because you grew up in chicago yeah so i grew up in chicago and i remember thinking

to myself like i would be good at this for for some reason i just i had this stupid thought that i would be good good at this and this naivety kind of moved with me for the rest of my life it’s always something that i wanted to segment into my my dad has a background in in commodities so he traded futures and so growing up like there was always this this i had an idea about commodities and supply chains and like tangible products and so just the way that i learned like i i didn’t want to trade paper like i wanted to trade a actual physical good right a real physical product a real physical commodity and uh so real quick just to back up because you told me the story and you said basically it was like a fundraiser auction right yeah like your dad bought basically a day or an experience yeah at the scrap yard yeah right yeah and that’s and that’s how we got it simple it is like to get somebody that’s young interested yeah in the scrap business it’s as simple as buying at a charity auction a

day at the scrap yard yeah and that was the that’s yeah that was the turning point and it like changed the trajectory of my life and actually i’m still friends with that with the owner operator of that facility that i went to when i was 13. we’re still very close and we talked to and we do business together and it’s just funny how life comes full circle and i think that’s the great part about our business and that it is an over-the-counter business that relationships do matter yeah and you know kind of especially like out here and through israel and all these different things it’s awesome as owner operators connect with owner operators around the country to learn about what we’re doing to get some market insight and to um and to grow together and uh and to find the solutions uh you know in a collective manner so um but yeah that’s that’s that’s how i got into it i and i ended up working for a small scrap yard you know kind of reta retail based heavy in chicago yeah right outside chicago heavy like non-ferrous uh we didn’t

do really too much ferrous i mean i think it was maybe seven percent of our business and i worked for a guy named bobby katz bobby katz was a key well guy so came from a stainless background a little bit a little bit you know uh he wasn’t uh your atypical operator he was uh outside the lines that’s that’s put it that way but it was an awesome learning learning experience working for a smaller company because i got all this proprietary information and exposure different facets of the business yeah and that exposure working 14 15 hour days with him because he was a workaholic so he he liked to stay laid and screw around and be in the warehouse and so i was i was a young guy and i was like you know what i’m going to stay late too and i’m going to just build this relationship is learn as much as i can so uh you know i just uh it was really a hands-on position and he gave me a lot of latitude to go out and learn and make mistakes and you’re not going to get that at

a larger company right if you go to a publicly listed company your your job’s your job like you’re not don’t worry about what the net person’s next she’s doing just go do what you have to do and it’s it’s basically tunnel vision but you go to a smaller company it’s more entrepreneurial and you’re figuring things out and you’re picking because you’re doing a little bit of everything oh yeah all the time like and maybe maybe if you’re if you’re just working there you may maybe you you handle say non-ferrous right right so but you’re handling all grades of non-ferrous you’re not just the copper you know sort guy or the wire chopping line guy or the aluminum pucking you know processing guy like if you’re working the retail scale or if you’re on the processing side like smaller operations i mean you’re going to do a lot more than just you know at a big corporation yeah and you know what in it especially for a young person i was always intrigued i i was you know i’m creative i want to participate and basically like my work portfolio was given to

me because i just asked for more right and i just i took on more and more responsibility uh and i think that’s like a great way for new people coming into the business like don’t go work for well you know the the publicly traded companies go work for united metals and and go learn something because they’re going to encourage you to get different exposure like of your verticals and be familiar with different types of products and different types of supply chains and how to market that material and process it you know everything that goes into it so i think that’s like the best way to do it man so how do you go from working at you know a day at the scrap yard to working at a scrap yard to to the to the headaches and and the in the grind of all right i got to own my own yeah yard you know what i and i think it’s still that naivety unfortunately that carried with me from when i was 13 just ignorance is bliss i know i know that feeling all too well so i i actually unfortunately in 2018

i i left maine scrap and i wanted to go work at another company and i was only there for like two weeks it just like didn’t wasn’t didn’t fit yeah it wasn’t gonna work out and so i when i was like really in the position i was like i gotta create my own job like i gotta create my own opportunity and that’s when i decided to write a business plan and i went out and uh sought to do a capital raise and you know selected a market underwrote that market as we were going through it and we actually started so i got an initial investment started the raise we didn’t even own the real estate yet like we weren’t sure whether or not we were going to get the approvals be able to rezone it get the conditional use and we went through it so we had like enormous upfront costs in terms of like legal and architectural fees and site engineering and we put together you know a full plan for building this recycling facility and we weren’t like it was a complete gamble i’ve never done it before so i’m doing this

capital raise i’m managing a construction project and when i’m going through the legal process of rezoning it to allow it to for us to you know conduct the commercial activities that you know a scrap recycler does on a daily basis so it was like doing all these you know these things for the first time so we started in i think it was april of of 2020 right is when i got my first commitment the you know we did the entire raise rezoned it or whatever when we opened up our doors in march of 2020 and the height and the height of cobit right and so and then i was like you know what like uh it’s it’s you know it i was like i just lost all these people all this funny like we were going under uh you know and it was like bleak i mean i think our you know our first our first month in business we did uh 40 000 bucks and i was like yeah this is not going to cut it so but you know like we had a handful of employees man and just like anyone else

we kind of just grew into our operation um you know there’s you know many times i would drive yeah i’d drive i’d drive the copper and not in ferris make sure everyone got paid and yeah and make sure it was moved um you know it it just uh you kind of grow into it and uh but yeah that’s how that’s how i started there’s so much man like one thing i love like and it’s not just our industry it’s just there’s there’s people out there that that if they they they put their mind in something they’re gonna make it work like they’re just kind of committed they’re pot committed because there’s nothing really worse to me than someone that’s like kind of one foot in one foot out like i’m either like because i’ve always been either you’re all the way in or you’re all the way out but i just can’t do the halfway you know like if you want to go let’s go if you don’t then stay home right yeah i’ve always just kind of i’ve always been attracted to uh people like that you know because there’s more similar to

my mentality and and i remember um when you when you first came over to idaho you and i met on linkedin and uh and you and i was like because and go going back like i remember how many people allowed my young ass to walk through their scrap yard and ask a zillion questions and i want to walk through your retail center i want to walk through all your stuff and ask you questions and ask this and ask that i mean even to this day i still love doing it right but i remember all the people that allowed me to do that as a young kid no i always knew what i was going to do i mean i’m different in that fact i’m a third generation and you’re first generation in the scrap business but maybe say second generation on the commodities trading side but i so i when you reached out to me and said hey i want to like come out and check out the operation talk to your guys like all it took me was just to remember how people did it for me and i’m like let’s go like

come see you know right and if you learn something great if someone something i can help you out with great um but it was more just me trying to give back to all the people that did it for me and someday you’re gonna do it for them right and i get the question a lot of how how do you start a scrap company right i don’t know that i’m the best person to answer how do you start a scrap company i can tell you how i run one i can tell you how to recruit people to help you run one i could tell you why i do certain things i do but if you want to know how to start one like i would more say go talk to go talk to jake like how do you start from yeah bare bones like yeah i don’t own a piece of equipment i don’t have i don’t even have a piece of dirt picked out right like that to me feels like a more suitable question for you you know but i i do know that when you came over here you were still in

the construction process oh yeah like you were just still building the building yeah and uh and then covet hit and i remember like a lot of conversations on the phone with you like just keep grinding you know like it ain’t gonna you know it’s just we’re here like you’re committed you’re pot committed and uh but if you can make it through that like i i don’t i don’t i don’t feel like there’s much that’s gonna that’s gonna hurt your cause you know yeah you know it was um it was really our you know the first year uh the first couple of months it’s it’s uh taxing and you’re questioning yourself but if i think you know the biggest thing is remember the sequencing remember to do the next right thing keep moving forward you know you don’t have to in terms of like your actionable items don’t put 20 on the list you know pick you know three per day that you really want to hit that you need to get done and work through it and you start to feel better about yourself it just becomes more manageable you grow into your operation

and the the thing that i always remember is i i see larger operators around me all the time right yeah but that’s four generations that’s four generations that’s a hundred years of hard work you know every day someone’s getting their nuts kicked in figuratively yeah and and it just doesn’t happen like you you just don’t go into a multi-million dollar business overnight and it’s not an easy business um it’s something that you have to grow into and there’s a special nuance to it and unfortunately the best you know probably fortunately the best lessons learned is is just through a little bit of pain because you don’t want to repeat that that type of pain because when you make mistake here it is costly um and so that would be my advice is just you know stick to it believe in yourself it’s a starting point and it’s really you know it’s really easy to get sidetracked because it becomes overwhelming it’s almost like a like a project given to you in school right you have a syllabus and you’re like where do i start you just have to pick somewhere and just start

yeah just starting and if you continuously stay in action it’s a lot easier because you have momentum just don’t stop the old saying like how do you eat a whale like one bite at a time like yeah you’re not gonna eat sit down and eat the whole thing like right now but it’s the biggest thing is just trying to be able to piece by piece like little by little and then while you’re trying to eat it help recruit other people to come help you eat it yeah right which because you’re not eat the whole thing by yourself and you’re trying to surround yourself with you know other good people that will help you eat it you know yeah and to teach them and to pass that knowledge base down and you want people that buy into your program that believe in what you’re doing and that it’s gonna increase their quality of life as well and the best way to do that is just through education and and in dedicating a lot of time to your to your team members and and making them feel a part of something working together right and that

there’s a unity but it’s a unity-based culture because if you know we all have a role to play and we we’ve all started somewhere in life we’re all and we weren’t none of this was you know proprietary information that we were born with it’s learned and that’s what we have to remember right so it has to be passed on and so i i want people to be better than than i am and to tell me how to do things and and to make corrections and so we can make iterations and get better well i want people to ask me a question right that i’m like i don’t know the answer to that question because then it’s going to make me feel like well i need to go figure that one out right right because if if you if you don’t have people there asking you questions you know i always say like the the some the person that knows the subject the best they say that’s why it’s so hard to become a teacher right because you got to know the material inside out backwards and forwards like to be a student is

one thing yeah but to be a teacher it means you you better know your because somebody’s gonna ask you a question and you better be able to get them to answer right and so if you’re teaching people you’re also getting better you’re also getting smarter you’re also picking up those lessons and saying when somebody asks you a question why do you do it this way and you know i always said the worst thing you can say is because that’s the way we’ve always did it right like there needs to be a reason why you do it that way it’s not well it’s i don’t know it’s just the way it’s done you know like well no like is there a better way to do it you know we’re in the commodities business like i’ll transition a little bit but like we’re in the commodities business commodities have been around for hundreds of years thousands of years depend on the commodity you know the processes have changed a little bit but you’re still in the commodities business yeah sure you’re still buying and selling right trading commodities and one thing i’ve always appreciated about that

industry whether you’re a farmer trading you know your corn your wheat or your scrap guy trading you know iron or stainless is it such a handshake old-school business yeah where relationships are important yeah you know and that’s probably my biggest passion about scrap is i love scrap i love made of metal like i like the next guy like probably the biggest thing that i like is just being able to like network and and just get to know people that you may have never ever met you never would have met him any other way you know so you want people to be bought into your into your operation and want to support you and i think the best thing to do is talk to other operators see how they market materials see how they handle it and when with your mill buyers or your own consumer relationships talk to them see what’s what what are they looking for what products are they manufacturing what do they take how many items can you fit on a truck how do you want its size yeah start thinking about it and when you start to think about

what comes in through your yard and you reverse engineer it so i you know the relationship part is critical because you never know when you’re gonna need help right you never know you don’t want to burn any bridges and so you want to cut you know basically uh contract with people that you that you trust they’re going to take care of you are going to treat you right and just like you there’s some companies that don’t treat us right so we don’t do business with them there’s some that do and we really appreciate the relationship and we’re there for them yeah we’re going to continue to you know to sell for them for you know future you know in the future yeah it’s it’s all about setting up you know long-term business right because i was talking to my dad you know years ago and my dad my dad you know he’s done it his whole life and he told me he goes he goes the worst he goes you know i was telling him um because in 2008 right august of 08 it’s like super easy for me to remember the market

just took a like it was terrible right right yeah it went from you know six seven hundred dollars a ton to 90 or you know it was terrible if you could even sell it and i told my dad i’m like man this is terrible it’s like this sucks he goes he goes will you still shipping scrap and i’m like yeah i mean i got you know i still have a few outlets and he goes oh you’re in good shape then i’m like yeah but we we were selling it for this he goes oh son he’s like i remember him saying he’s like that is what it is like you know everybody’s selling it for a similar price you know it is what it goes but where you don’t want to be at is where you don’t have a home for your scrap exactly you want that liquidity and the only way you are able to achieve that is to take care of people on the upside right so like i might have to give up a little bit of margin or maybe i’m not getting that max price because i’ve built a relationship or

vice versa right i’ve built those really inherent relationships i’ve spent years and years building them networking controlling them and and controlling the fact that i’m gonna ship you material no matter what right because i i meant in intense anticipation of the flip side because it’s going to come right and that’s all relationship like you said but with it when when he told me that the light bulb kind of went off on my head and i’m like that’s what we’re doing like we’re protecting ourselves from the ship market when you can’t move anything and yeah you know you only get paid you know you don’t get paid for metal sitting on the ground and you need that liquidity you need those market outlets uh and the ship a good quality product i mean stand behind it i mean i understand it’s crap and you know you make your blends and there’s upgrades and there’s certain things that you can get away with but you know stand behind it you know you might hit a home run on one transaction but for me i would rather hit singles you know there you know in the course

of the duration of my career yeah and and just to be steady with it because at the same time too right you could get away with making a lot of money on one load or one transaction or whatever yeah but if it comes down the pipeline you get balanced right that limits your liquidity where you’re going to go for it london’s going to come harder for you and it becomes a reputational issue and len also too they’re going to go back to you and say you know what we know we know the product that you make you don’t stand behind it it’ll offer you less money when all of a sudden you can’t compete at the scale yep which is a good point i mean your your ability especially in a competitive market place your ability to compete price wise um is important it’s not the only thing that you know that comes into play but if you don’t have good outlets for your material then you’re up creek before you even start you know but you can’t even because now you’ve you really limited your margin you’ve limited your ability to buy certain

items because you don’t have a good home for them versus somebody else who’s taking care of their their consumer so i think i think that’s a huge huge thing so give me uh if you could do it all over again if you could uh you know rewrite the history book would you do anything different on when you opened up your new yard and the reason i asked this question because i get the question a lot is i want to i want to get in the scrap business i want to open a yard you know what you know what can you do like what kind of advice can you give me and i feel like there’s like i said before there’s probably some advice that you could give somebody you know it’s even better than i would you do it differently would you focus differently or are you happy with the way you know that it rolled out timing aside yeah yeah timing aside and i wasn’t the best timing you know what actually the timing was great because when it was all this money hit you know hit the real economy and prices went

through the roof so it drove volume um you know i think it’s just the sales cycles in scrap when you get an industrial account it’s not quick yeah you know you’re talking 60 90 120 maybe six months for a big account if they’re underwriting you so you’re saying basically you need you need more liquidity than you think you need i would say too you know it’s just i you know i think i under anticipated the ramp up period of like how much working capital i i would need and our equipment needs because when i went into it you know the the particularly the trucking situation in terms of outside operators it wasn’t that bad right prior to 2020 i mean there was some slack like you could you could get trucks people to show up on time you know outside haulers to haul your shred all your your cut grades to the mill you know drive and work now it’s a it’s you know it’s a crap shoot that and and i over estimated my ability to depend on third-party logistics okay and so that screwed us in terms of our ability to

control our cash flow and create liquidity okay because it wasn’t that i wasn’t buying it right because i couldn’t move it and once you can’t move it when you’re not in control of your supply chain and your own destiny and furthermore we couldn’t really service industrial accounts so it was a necessary transition to invest in transportation assets and all the different trailer configurations because it wasn’t reliable i had a partner that went to me and it’s like yeah but you know the shredder’s offering you a discount well on freight well it doesn’t mean anything if they come to me once a week right i need you to come to me twice a day six times a week yeah you know to disservice me and so that that was the a huge thing that i over i overestimated and also the labor market like i thought it was just it was really hard i think we went through like 16 or 17 you know as a small yeah just just a turnover and re-teaching people um that was really difficult as well so it’s uh it’s it’s hard to to plan around it and

i think in those skill sets um but i think as you go you have to have some type of flexibility to invest in the equipment based upon what what’s coming through right what’s coming through the door and how can i create a higher value commodity than my competitor at a lower cost and then you start the future plan and build you know critical scale and invest upon it and when you get more into the marketing and so i would you know i would say pick a product or pick a commodity that you’re really you know passionate about that you’re interested in that you think has future demand and growth and and really focus your energies upon you know building that out and i think i mean essentially like capital working capital whether you’re opening an ice cream store or a restaurant is you know you see all these businesses and i think that they they come out like they get all the nice you know they set the store up right they got all the and then they they they’re three months later they’re closing up they’re they’re closing their doors right because they

don’t anticipate how long it takes to actually generate enough revenue to cover overhead yeah well add on top of you’re buying commodities and piling them and sorting them and then you’ve got say mills that you’re dealing with that are 30 45 day pays you’ve got um you know other consumers that are willing to buy but at a discount to get paid this week you know and and you start combining all those factors i i do i do i have said this in the past if you want to get in the scrap business you better bring a checkbook right yeah because it’s a it’s especially if you got 4.50 copper you got today you know crazy buck 50 aluminum you got you know 10 11 nickel i mean if you really want to get in the game right like it’s very cash intense and i think it takes a long time to get over that hump and like a real quick story and just to kind of you know similar to what you’re saying is when we put this yard in boise i was like yeah we’re going to go mill direct like we’re

going to build you know one two item packages and we’re we’re gonna for non-ferrous and we’re gonna go for it right it literally took us six seven years to like get comfortable and cash flow all the inventory that we could take in build right because we had a bigger facility you know more acreage to stack more acres to store and we’re sitting here trying to build out these you know single you know two commodity you know packages loads and dude that liquidity tightening and crunch that it put on us as a company was hard like to get over that hump yeah so even as a first-time operator owner you know you know you know standing something up whether you’re buying the real estate or leasing a piece of property like be prepared yeah it’s going to take more than you think it’s going to take 100 you’re going to have cost overruns uh you know and and especially as you’re building your business you’re not going to be sure of what your cash drought on cash drawdowns are going to be yeah i mean there’s you know especially in this market i

mean there’s days you spend 40 50 000 a day in cash yeah and yeah that’s great because you need metal and make money but you also have to turn it because you’re going to hit your your bank lines there’s only so much credit yeah and but i you know also too i would say get someone involved that’s done it before i that i think that was a mistake that i made and just having a more diverse board um have good corporate governance have people challenge you along the way um and and they can help you achieve your end goals faster and provide some valuable input but you know you’re you’re right i mean it is really capital intensive to put together a strategic marketing platform where you’re sending singles you know single item commodities in in truckloads and waiting upon that receivables and also too it’s like you’re gonna learn that some some end consumers aren’t that you know aren’t that dependable in terms of when to expect your ar so you’re trying to line up your ar if your liabilities and that’s not coming in i mean you just have to be kind

of flexible and and stay afloat and have a plan in in in this on the scrap side too you mentioned this is logistically yeah have a plan to move your yeah and if and if you’ve got if you’re going to rely on outside transportation then you better figure out a way to lock it down and get some commitments or something to be able to do it but it’s hard to do when you’re starting out because you’re not sure that that volume base so the guy that’s willing to haul it for you for for 20 or you know 25 bucks a ton he’s not gonna he’s not you know if you’re only doing 100 200 tons yeah that’s not paying his bills so it’s it’s it’s a difficult spot to be in it really it really is so you’re better off i mean ultimately to plan on doing it yourself oh 100 that way if if you can get to the point where let’s say you’ve got more than you can do yourself because you’re in you’re able to get your cash flow rolling now all of a sudden you got a little more you

can go pay that 25 a ton maybe over pay to get the truck at least initially while you build into it because you actually are generating capital to go okay if the market’s 20 i’ll pay you 25 because i’m over and above what i can actually move today you actually got a fighting chance to get the moved realistically you know so it’s yeah it’s uh you know i i think and also too the lead time on equipment yeah i mean that’s that’s it’s a challenge right now and a big challenge yeah inflation um you know it’s critical as i mean as we grow and i think most most operators are doing pretty well you know we have certain capacity constraints and and it happens with equipment but also you need operators and so you know it’s this is all this could be a whole another pot yeah you’re but i think you hit the nail on the head and then as far as the two biggest concerns or like at least equipment is is a whole another thing i tell people all the time you know if you can go out today and buy

you can buy all the best equipment you can buy the newest sena bogan the bear you can buy you know a brand new sierra shear you can buy you know a if you can get it computer built truck or you can go buy the best best trailers light it all up right and have it sitting there but if you can’t get anybody to run it yeah you can’t get anybody to drive the truck you can’t get anybody that can make a decent package to put in the trailer like it doesn’t do you any good to have all that equipment but it does do you good to have liquidity to get things rolling it does do you good to have logistic the ability to handle your material in in and out you know and it does do you a good to have like you said maybe somebody with a little bit of ex prior experience that lends something to the operations that says okay like let’s figure out you know i in my past you know i’ve done it this way this way this way and whether you stick with that method or not as

you get going at least it gives you a base starting yeah a baseline and also too i i would i also add marketing so really focus upon marketing yourself across social media platforms you know creating your brand search engine optimization key keyword research you never know what type of volume is i think a lot of older operators don’t do it because they’ve already had enough market share but yeah i think you’d be really surprised about how far out of market you could you could pull from if they’re just aware of what you represent and if your brand aligns with your customers interest right with their values and so i i would say that too like i would i would i would really encourage new people to think about that would you brand ahead of time would you start it or would you kind of wait till your doors open i would think well what’s your core value i mean what’s going to drive what are you going to do differently than the guy down the street right yeah think about how you want to handle it and what equipment you have and what do

you bring to the table that’s different so you need to calculate that into your startup cost too yeah we spent a lot of money on marketing um but it also helped you get going quicker oh it helped me get going quicker i mean for sure and we were doing you know some some decent volume after after the lockdown occurred yeah um people underestimate you know you people are starting to realize it now but you’re starting to see people put more emphasis on their marketing their branding yeah and i feel like i’m pretty proud of the fact that you know of our marketing team you know like i mean nick has really drove that yeah that’s fantastic and it’s really be but we’ve been pop committed for a long time right like we we’ve spent the money and we realized like if we don’t spend the money somebody else will yeah and and and because branding is so important to what we do and and to our business we just said let’s commit xyz amount and and and it’s hard to prove out some roi on you know building your brand until you need it

yeah but how many first-time customers right and you never you never know and that’s what i’m saying is is is is just get familiar with it get your feet wet you know try it for a little bit um uh and then really i would also say like focus on your key words like what think is like as a peddler as an account what are they searching like how is it how does relate your business industry you know geographic location and i would put some emphasis on that too and then also create a vendor list when you start up who’s going to service your baler who you know who’s who’s a really good welder right who’s who’s a good fabricator that can make you parts for for your equipment especially right now in this in the supply chain so like who are some of those local guys around you um develop a uh you know a vendor list and and it’s critical too is you know have a good relationship with your vendors oh yeah people want to take care of their customers right 100 which is great but they’ll they’ll put their vendors

you know behind their customer when the reality of it is like there’s a lot of times when your vendor is the only one that gives you the ability to service your customer yeah so if you can’t even get to your customer if you can’t get a part or you can’t get certain things done you know so that’s a good that’s a that’s a good point and also truck drivers you’re in favor of respect you know if they’re an outside hauler invite them into your office ask them how their day is going give them you know give them water give them a coffee because you know you never know if that person especially in this type of labor market is unhappy in their current situation and in anyone in the scrap business right now what’s the position that you need most right now truck drivers yeah what are you doing yeah so you never know where that relationship’s going to come from you don’t want to obviously poach but uh it’s always good to just have a good reputation and be hospitable yeah and just in general like to have a good reputation people want

to come do business with you yeah no matter what they i think that’s that goes back to you know building your brand and doing all that is make people want to you know do business with you network with you talk to you and and help you right like create opportunities for yourself by doing the right thing and financials i would also say it’s someone too like like an account or a bookkeeper because you’re going to want to have a ledger just to understand what your costs are and when where your costs go you’re going to look at your labor costs on a per unit basis you’re going to look at your transportation costs on a per unit basis and when you’re going to start you know hopefully developing a plan for investment to start you know cutting that down what do i need to do to get more more efficient what piece of equipment’s going to change that how am i going to reduce my cost on a per ton or per pound basis and that should dictate how you grow your company so again that bookkeeper that might be you know four or

five hundred bucks per month it’s going to help you and just i know it’s i hate doing it myself i i don’t think you’re an accountant either i i hate it but you sit down there and just like wow we’re spending that much in this like this needs to stop this is stupid yeah why the are we doing that 100 yeah but if you’re not willing to sit down and look at it or if you don’t have someone with a keen eye yeah to keep track of it then you know it’s like you know the big hole doesn’t sink the ship and it’s all the pin holes it starts to give makes you really take on water you know if you can’t stop all the pin holes eventually that becomes the big hole and it’s a wrap well i appreciate you sitting down man i i you know i’ve i’ve known your story obviously since you met and and that’s it’s the power of you know linkedin it’s the power of networking it’s the power of you know what i feel it is it’s the power of being willing to be humble enough to

put yourself out there and say i don’t know everything yeah like that’s like if you have that ability you know to to do that you know and i think that’s like for me like what’s what i’ve been successful at on you know on the social side is is being willing to say like i don’t know everything i but here’s how i’m doing and if i’m doing it wrong then so be it but i but i’m willing to like put myself out there and try and connect with other operators and hopefully you know they’ll teach me something and vice versa you know for you i mean that’s obviously how we met so i can’t basically over i can’t overestimate underestimate whatever that is like the power of just being willing to connect with other people yeah i mean it’s such a great shared reality too because the the the trials and tribulations of this business there’s such a shared commonality and we’ve all been at one point right we’ve all conquered four dollars it’s for you it’s four dollars for me right if copper is a dollar for you it’s a dollar for me yeah

and we’re fighting the same battle like yeah it’s the same pain points and we’ve all been there i mean maybe more you know it’s more magnified at certain scales but yeah that’s why i love it you know you can talk to anyone around the country any owner operator anyone that’s within the business and they’ve all been in the same place that you’ve been and you’ve been where they have been and so it’s a really great bond and like i i love sitting here i like i like this business and especially as as it changes it’s really important that we innovate and grow together 100 go look him up guys um go connect with jake he’s got a lot to offer he’s got a lot of knowledge and i think you know if you’ve got something you’ve got an idea i know him or myself would uh love to hear it absolutely thanks man appreciate it