1st Media Consulting Group, Inc. Podcast
Welcome to the Business Chronicles, where we dive deep into the stories behind the businesses that shape our communities. We bring you conversations with inspiring entrepreneurs who share their journeys, challenges, and the unique value they bring to their customers.
In this podcast, we explore the passion and vision behind successful businesses, uncovering the secrets to their success and learning about the innovative products and services they offer. Whether you're a fellow entrepreneur looking for insights or simply curious about the businesses in your area, this podcast is your go-to source for inspiration and practical advice.
So, sit back, relax, and join us as we explore the dynamic world of business, one story at a time."
1st Media Consulting Group, Inc. Podcast
Building Success: Sergio's Journey in Landscaping and Remodeling with Casa Mia Services Inc
Curious about the secrets behind a successful contracting business? Join us for an inspiring conversation with Sergio from Casa Mia Services Inc. as we explore his journey from a teenage entrepreneur to a top contractor in Florida. Sergio shares his wealth of experience in the landscaping and remodeling industry, underscoring the necessity of continuous learning and effective problem-solving. He also highlights the range of services his company offers, including ADUs, home additions, and structural repairs, emphasizing the importance of hiring licensed contractors to ensure superior quality and compliance.
Discover how prioritizing processes over profit can transform your business operations. Sergio reveals the importance of having a structured system in place to ensure smoother operations and higher client satisfaction. We delve into the specific challenges contractors face, such as supply chain issues, inflation, and dealing with unlicensed work. Sergio offers invaluable advice for aspiring entrepreneurs, stressing the importance of adaptability, perseverance, and the necessity of maintaining rigorous processes both on-site and administratively.
Financial preparation is key to any business success. In this episode, Sergio shares practical tips on partnering with reliable financial resources, maintaining a good credit score, and securing a substantial emergency fund. We discuss the difference between operational accounts and emergency funds and why having a year's worth of money in the bank is crucial. Sergio also highlights the availability of trade training programs and mentorship opportunities, providing a roadmap for those looking to enter various trades. Tune in to gain motivational insights and practical advice that can help you navigate the path to business growth and personal development.
Welcome to the First Media Consulting Podcast, the Business Chronicles, where we dive deep into the stories of successful business owners. Here's your host, Didi and Nicholas. Thanks for joining today. Let's talk.
Speaker 2:Welcome everyone to our podcast. I'm so excited to introduce to you Sergio with Casa Mia Services Inc. And just excited for him to share his successes, his inspirational stories of how he got to where he's at, and also give our listeners, those that are looking to start a business, inspiration on how to go about some of the things to look for in reference to becoming an entrepreneur. Sergio, how are you doing, buddy? I'm doing great. How about yourself? I can't complain, man. So let's dive in a little bit. Let's, you know, give us a little bit of your background, if you don't mind.
Speaker 3:Absolutely yeah. We started Casamia probably over 18 years ago. We started as a landscaping company. I've been a remodeler for quite some time.
Speaker 3:As a kid had my first business at 16, hired my classmates to paint houses, and then we ended up working under a contractor for the required actually above the required time. Usually it's four years, one year as a foreman. We ended up with our contractor for about six years running his company, running mine and learning the business, which is a real testament to what the process is. For Florida. There was a time where contractors would pay for their experience and hopefully those times are long gone.
Speaker 3:Being a contractor is not knowledge, but it's where to find the correct knowledge, and you never stop learning in this business. You know it's like any other business. It has a cycle. It's about eight months out of the year, so for four months we'll either have overwork that we had scheduled for before or we continue having new work during these slow times as well. It's a great business. I think those that are in it are in it for life and those that wanted to get into it. It's a great startup because florida we have a lot of factors that keep our business going, but it's been a really great experience thus far, not only starting the company way back then, but also everything that we've learned throughout the process.
Speaker 2:I love that man and it's like you have. You know, I always talk to a lot of business owners and there's always a story to tell from where they're at you know where they started to where they're at today, and those stories actually make you a better person over time. So I know you know you guys offer so many different services, whether it's ADUs or home additions and new builds and remodeling. You're a general contractor and you do it all correct.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we do. We've been into a couple of niche markets which has made us stand out. We go online and we find ourselves in the top 5% of contractors for Florida, which is absolutely exciting. We've also done a lot of work for the municipalities for structural work. I give a lot of testament to my mentor, who has been deceased for quite some time. His name is Don Callow. Don actually showed the old school way we were drafting pencil and paper, no CAD. We were also doing structural repairs from a consultant that we get hired to go worldwide to solve other people's problems. So we kind of learned the business from the problem side and how to solve those, which makes us more firefighters than anything else we're putting out other people's fires successfully and has given us the reputation that we have today. Yeah, we can build a new house absolutely. There's a lot of great new home builders that are out there. Most of them don't do remodeling A lot of times. For us, most of our work is remodeling. We work with national investors, the big groups, and we've also worked with smaller investors doing those type of works, but our excitement is always in solving problems. Currently we have about seven structural jobs that we are repairing homes. Long-term repairs, not temporary fixes. These are long-term engineer plan repairs that do take some time, but once the work is done it's a bucker At the end of the day. That's what keeps our industry flowing as well.
Speaker 3:A lot of the information that we put out in the field. The DBPR also uses it for testing. They send us emails, we provide sample questions and things like that. They sent us emails, you know, we provide sample questions and things like that. Uh, it appears that my contractor license is going to be, uh, split into other licenses again, which is great because there's a lot of trade industries like retention walls, that there's a lot of companies out there that that's all they do and and they should have their own license. Uh, you know there's other licenses that are absolutely insane, which is tile name. I know of two counties in the entire state of Florida that have a tile name license. Not sure what that's all about, but the code is enhanced by the municipalities, it's created by the state and always hire a contractor.
Speaker 3:I think a lot of times people's perceptions are to hire a handyman, hire someone that's not licensed. The license protects the consumers. If your guy walks away with your money, you have to take him to court. If contractors walk away with your money, we go in front of the DBPR. We can lose our license, we can lose our livelihoods and it's a good insurance for homeowners. You're not necessarily saving money. Handyman and contractors have creamed up at the same price points at this time. The skill is the difference. Right, we are the only license that can sub to the trades. Handyman cannot sub to the trades. So if you're doing plumbing work let's say you're changing out your granite countertop, right, well, your granite countertop has a valve, has a faucet, correct. So at that point you need a plumber. You touch that pipe and you are not a plumber that is crying in the state of florida for unlicensed contract.
Speaker 3:so a lot of times you get what you pay for. Uh, and knowing that the number one issue for homes flooding are usually through the pipes right pipe burst, bad connection, uh, something behind the wall, which is what we run into a lot now, we've had the opportunity to do and fix code enforcement violations prior to us. We've been a great consultant, we have great clients in that aspect as well and we're doing about 12 or 13 of those jobs right now where other people's work either. People walked away. They never closed the permit or what was done improperly.
Speaker 3:So they'll hire us, we'll come in, we'll make sure everything passes, inspections passes code is done properly and then those permits are closed, which you need right it. It doesn't make sense until you try to sell the property. That's when the scrambler comes in, where people see open permits. You have to have permits, you have to pull permits to be able to do a lot of the construction work.
Speaker 2:That's a lot of great information, very good information, man, and I appreciate you kind of sharing that with our listeners. Let's dive into a little bit about what has made you successful dive into a little bit about what has made you successful.
Speaker 3:A few pointers. I think we never focus on the money. I think that's you talk to a lot of millionaires, trillionaires, billionaires. I don't know where it's at now. I think Elon is going to make the trillion, the first trillionaire, but I think the biggest thing is is not to focus on the money.
Speaker 3:We focus on the job at hand, not to focus on the money. We focus on the job at hand. Uh, we do uh you know 30 day forecast. We do 60 day forecast. I happen to do six months to 12 month forecast and we align our work properly. We are aligned to be able to meet the current uh employee base that we have or subcontractor base that we have. We take on only the work that we can handle.
Speaker 3:I think a lot of times when you focus just on the money, sometimes you get into a little bit of a jam, taking more than you can handle, and then you're having to struggle to please all of your clients, and what a lot of contractors do is they throw a little grain of salt in each one on a weekly basis just to keep the clients happy that somebody was there. Well, we actually just take on the work. We put that on the schedule. We have a little bit more of a of a system in place which processes are huge. So one would be not focus on the money. Two would be you have to be a process company.
Speaker 3:No matter what you do, you can sell widgets you can sell real estate, you can do construction, you can sell furniture, it doesn't matter. You have to have a process. Our processes are not just for the field but also for the back of the house. We have admins that are really the the heart of the business, that are collecting our money, making sure permits are closed, um, and making sure that that our jobs are running uh forward in the way that we do.
Speaker 3:I say conveyor belt. We can bring in painters, we can bring in uh demo people first, we can bring in painters, next then the handyman, then quality control, etc. Etc. So at any point in that in that chain somebody says hey, I want to, I want to paint a house, no problem, we just put you in our conveyor belt and when the painters free up from that one, they go to yours and they keep going. So we have a lot of flexibility in the volume of business that we can take. So processes is the second part and the third. The third part to any business is you can't never give up.
Speaker 2:You can never absolutely, I, I agree, I agree with that 100, and it seems like that's a trend among a lot of the business owners that I'm talking to. That is the thing Never give up. So let's talk about a few challenges, if you will, sergio.
Speaker 3:Do you have a couple of challenges out there that you guys are faced with? Yeah, I mean, I think, 2008,. We had supply chain issues that really taught us a lot. At the, I was doing a big business with uh and I was doing contractor work, work for one of the big box stores and I think that taught us a lot. We sought refuge we all did from the construction industry just because the banks that collapsed. You know a lot of the the things that we deal with in florida and we seem to be ground zero for a lot of the financial collapses not necessarily real estate or construction, but when the banks close up, our industry gets trashed and right now in the last, you know, three and a half years, we've had to deal with inflation.
Speaker 3:We've had to deal with unlicensed work. We've had to deal with a lot of people coming into our market that think that they know what they're doing and they are doing really, really, really shoddy work.
Speaker 3:So I feel bad for homeowners that now have to double pay, triple pay for the work to get done properly and you know you don't find those out until you're ready to to move on and it's forced a lot of people to sell their homes. So the challenges really are self-inflicted. If we stay the course and use licensed contractors, then we should not be in that situation where the work is shoddy or the work is not properly done.
Speaker 3:Of course, there's going to be exceptions to those and there's investigators from the state for that. There's a process for you to get your money back if it's gone, and we always encourage people to go to the DBPR. It's where our license is held. We have zero claims for a reason. We just have to be good diligence of what we have been given and communicating with people and doing the right thing.
Speaker 2:Very nice man, very nice, and this is just great information for our listeners to. You know, at least get some advice, you know, from professionals such as yourself. So what you know, we have listeners that are wanting to be aspiring entrepreneurs or want to own their own business. Can you give us one or two tips on, or give them one or two tips on, some of the things that you look for or that you've come across in terms of, you know, trying to be that business owner?
Speaker 3:Well, it's just like Robert Kiyosaki said you know who moved my cheese right at the end of the day? Uh, we have to move as the market moves. Right right now, it looks like new builds are going to come back this coming year because the bank system we're hoping is more solid this coming year. What what I would say is is make sure you partner up with your resources before you jump in. Make sure you have a good banker, make sure you qualify for a credit line, make sure you have money. It takes money to make money.
Speaker 3:I built businesses with zero money, which meant every day I had to shuffle between credit cards and cash and get out of those holes. But you have to have have to have a year's worth of money in your bank. If you want to be in business, you have to have that money to back you up. If you don't have it, then it's just a hobby. Right, there's a lot of hobbies out there. There's nothing wrong with it. I tell my children you have your set job, but if you want the extras, then you get a secondary job where you do side work or you do other things to generate income.
Speaker 3:You have to have that base If it's two of you in a home, then I would suggest that one keep a job, one takes the plunge and that way you create that safety net for your families. But the biggest hurdle in this is always cash. You have to be diligent. If you have $100,000 in cash and you owe $200,000, how much money do you have? Correct, I would say zero, right. You owe the $100,000 and you still owe another $100,000.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:So even today that $100,000 in the bank is not yours. Sometimes we have to pay bills, sometimes things pop up out of nowhere that we have to pay for, and those are understandable. That's an emergency fund. That's completely different from an operational account. So cash is key, credit lines are key. Good credit is key. For a lot of licenses in the state of Florida you have to have good credit and you have to have a certain amount of money in the bank. But don't get discouraged because at some point you get there.
Speaker 3:Some people say oh how am I going to save money? I don't make any money. Well, if you're eating out your meals five to seven times a week, that's where your money is going, absolutely If you have other places and you like to go out and have a good time, that's where your money is going.
Speaker 3:There's a lot of sacrifice in business and if you talk to most people, they die still sacrificing for their businesses the big, successful people that make it overnight just because there was an opportunity that they seized. The moment. It's almost like the parable goes right we are sent different ways to get out of a hole, but we ignore those different ways because we have our own way of getting out of that hole.
Speaker 3:Well, sometimes you got to let go and you got to be driven into what the solution needs to be the solution is always work hard and don't give up.
Speaker 2:Well, that's well stated, man. Just again, some great advice. So, as we wrap up here, can you give our listeners a phone number as well as a website to get a hold of you?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. We just got our website done. It looks absolutely amazing. That's wwwkasaniaservicescom. I'm really proud of the way it turned out. It was awesome. And also you can always call me directly at 407-921-9020. We do have an office number, which we did not use. We just used it for the state and for different agencies to call us. Through that number you can always reach me directly. We're always looking for people to mentor into our business. We're always looking for people to start in our business.
Speaker 3:So we do have trade training programs. If you wanted to get into the trades, you can come in and work for us and learn the different trades and go with our trade partners, if that's what you decide. So if you wanted to be a plumber, my plumber is hiring. If you want to be an electrician, my electrician is hiring. Those are great trades that there are schools for in Central Florida that you can get educated and get it done. But definitely there's resources out there. So the.
Speaker 3:American dream is still alive for those that are willing to sacrifice.
Speaker 2:Wow, man, it's been a pleasure having you, and you know, giving your inspirational thoughts to our listeners about your business, and it's just a lot to really take in and you've provided such great information. Well, I want to thank you so much and hopefully we can have you back in the near future. Sounds like a plan.
Speaker 3:It was a pleasure being here always.
Speaker 1:You're welcome. Thank you for tuning in to First Media Consulting Podcast. If you enjoyed the podcast, subscribe today To nominate a business you would like to recommend to be on our show. Go to firstmediaconsultingcom or call. Thank you for listening.