This is Under Pressure, a podcast where we dive into the untold stories of entrepreneurs and business owners who have conquered adversity to achieve greatness. And now here's your host, Nic Staton.

Welcome to another episode of the Under Pressure Show. I'm your host, Nic Staton. Tonight's guest is John Reel. John, if you don't mind introducing yourself and explaining to the guests a little bit about yourself.

Nic Staton

All right, so I'm John Reel. I'm the owner of Reel Construction and Concrete out here in North Texas and East Texas as well. A little bit about myself is I started entrepreneurship around Three years ago, I went to prison for a while. I got in trouble when I was around 18, 19. Went to prison. Got a 20-year sentence back when I was 19 years old. Got out in 2014. Been out ever since. Went back to the oil field, then oil field shut down in 2021. That's whenever my entrepreneurship started. That's when I started opening up my own company. I started out with a tree service. We're doing land clearing, building ponds, all type of stuff along those lines out in the country. Well, Fast forward, now we're doing concrete and construction from ground up on building houses and everything of that sort. So we focus on hardscaping, concrete, asphalt, those sorts of things. So other than that, I gave my life to Jesus Christ last year, started focusing on living for Jesus and overcoming my shortcomings.

John Reel

There you go. I can tell, you know, just in the short time that I've known you, You really have changed a lot from the first time that I met you.

Yeah, I got baptized last year, October 15th. So after that, I mean, I'd been on a journey with Jesus. I found Jesus when I was in prison and I gave my life to him there. But I really started focusing on it whenever I got out. And I knew that I needed something different. Right. And that's what when I first got out, I was still walking the line of tiptoe on either side, not knowing what I wanted. I knew that I wanted something, but I didn't know what I was missing. And the closer I got to Jesus, I'm not a Bible thump or anything like that, but I do live every day for Jesus. I'm not the perfect Christian. Uh, but I am a faithful believer in Jesus Christ, right?

No, I completely understand that myself. I just, the only thing I don't do is go to church. But other than that, uh, I definitely live for him and praise him a lot and different things. Cause if it wasn't for him, I probably wouldn't be here. He's like the only person that's actually had my back this whole entire time. Never gave up. Might have let me fall on my face a few times, but yeah, he will do that.

He'll let you go through things over and over until you learn what he's trying to teach you. That's for sure.

Oh yeah, definitely. That is definitely for sure. How did you get into construction?

I've done it since I started doing concrete the first time my first job was doing concrete. I was 14 years old. And my oldest brother was a rig manager. And he brought me on way too young and started showing me the ropes. And I knew right then that my father did it, my grandfather did it, they would do oil field and come home do construction. Whenever the oil field start popping again, they go back to the oil field. And I kind of I kind of took that same route. From the oil field, come back, I did a bunch of trades from plumbing to electrician to heating and AC. I got my license in heating and AC as well. And then finally, whenever I took off on my own, I knew that I needed something that I already knew where I could teach people what I know, and it ended up being construction.

Okay. So you, you pretty much have known construction your whole entire life. And then when you got into it, it was just nothing really for you to just start it up and kind of.

Yeah, it wasn't any, uh, it made it easy for me to just take off because, um, I had already known the ropes of it and I knew the ins and outs and all I needed to learn was how to, um, master it. Right. So that that's where, um, I decided to go all in, get some skin in the game and go all in on it.

How many years are you into it actually owning the company and having it going?

Going on three years. It'll be three years this year. How many guys you got now? Six? Six guys. Yes, sir. Nice. It's my first year in Dallas. We're 11 months in Dallas.

So you mostly just worked out there in the rock wall area.

Um, that's where we're at now. Uh, I was out in East Texas, Longview, uh, Tyler Canton. So that's down there near where the oil fields were near. No, I work the oil. Yeah. It's where the oil fields are in Louisiana and East Texas. But the oil fields that I worked at was New Mexico, West Texas, uh, that area. Oh, okay.

Yeah. You've been all over Texas from West. Yeah.

The to the middle, yeah. So now we're we just got an office up in Dallas, so we still work out and like we still do jobs in Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas, East Texas, all the way to West Texas. OK, we do a lot of work out in West Texas, Fort Worth, Weatherford and all that as well as Denton. Up all the way to Sherman Denton towards Oklahoma all the way to Longview. Uh, three port.

How long does it take you to get to Arkansas? Uh, three hours. That ain't bad at all. I've actually got three projects that are going to be popping up in Arkansas and it'd be much, much closer to go from there than from Georgia.

Who takes our can up maybe, maybe two, two and a half hours. Okay. Not far at all.

All those areas around like Arkansas, Louisiana, all that has red clay and stuff, doesn't it?

Yeah. It's red dirt. Yeah. It's easy to build on. It ain't sand.

Um, cause I see y'all are dealing with a lot of sand wherever y'all are at. Cause Blake was doing some kind of pool project and I was looking at the ground and I was like, damn, that ain't red at all.

No, it's the black play. Is that what that is? Yeah. We bring in, uh, the red dirt or cushion sand. That's what you bring in at the end. Yeah, so the concrete can sit on it and build its own foundation underneath it.

Because otherwise you can't build off of that sand stuff, can you?

You can, but I mean, it all depends on what's underneath it. on how sturdy the foundation is. OK, so yeah, there's no sand. Reelly, there's no sand in East Texas. There's some stuff called sugar sand. Right. You build deeper into the ground. You'll use beams and columns and piers. That way you put footers around it, dig deep into the ground and build a foundation.

Makes sense. What's been the hardest part so far of all of this?

Letting go. Letting go. I'm a control freak. I feel like. So man, to be honest, letting go. Letting go. Letting go of control. Yeah. That. If I could work on the business instead of in the business, then I can grow the business. And that's my hardest part, because, dude, my anxiety, if something don't go my way, like right then. and I want it to go a certain way and I feel like it's not, then I start freaking out. Yeah. And so me freaking out and not being able to say nothing because I just have to trust the process is the hardest part.

Oh, yeah. Oh, that was the biggest pill to swallow. Oh, man. When I eventually had somebody in the truck and, you know, trying to let that off. Yeah. Myself sitting there going, Nic, shut up, Nic, shut up. Just do. Because at the same time, as long as long as the long as the thing is getting done. Yeah. That's all that matters.

Yeah.

And that you're doing it good and you're doing you're not causing any problems. I don't care how you actually do it. You can do this shit blindfolded for all I care. So then myself, I just had to back myself out, go stand in the corner and kind of watch over. And then I got to a point where I was like, Nic, stop micromanaging and just fucking leave.

Oh, dude, I leave. I don't even go to job sites because I'd much rather just send them out and do that. I'll pick up a shovel. I'll start barking orders. I'll start telling, hey, this ain't this how you do it. And even though they know what they're doing, Right. Don's gonna try to step in and make and all I do is cause more of a headache. Right. I get them upset. And I now I'm dirty. And so it just it makes it easier for me not to even go. If I do go it. I like to get some footage and get out there.

I'll The only time I'm going now is basically if they have a huge project that they're just not able to like, uh, at first they weren't able to run the beast. Now I'm actually training them on the beast and stuff. Once I can actually get them trained on every single piece of equipment, I probably should not even show up at a job site. No more. Yeah.

See, I don't see, I got six salesmen, but we got 32 labors.

So y'all do y'all. That's y'all's labors or do y'all outsource that?

No, they're, uh, so we sub some things, but, uh, we have our own crews that work for us and us only that do the concrete and the, and, um, the concrete and the pools and all that stuff. They're all the same people. It's all one family. So.

So y'all pretty much just do the sales. And then they go out and they do all the actual work. Yeah.

We don't do any of the labor.

Okay.

Yeah. Uh, we, well, we, I do like to teach my man, my men to, uh, my salesman when you're on the job site, give them a hand. He's like, don't stand around. You're not their boss. You're not there to tell them what to do or how to do it. That's my job. Right. So whenever I'm not there and my guys are there, that's why you'll see some of my salesmen working because they need to put some.

They need also good to get them to know what they're actually selling to.

Yes, that's what I'm saying. They need to learn to they because I've done it right. It's more than just training.

So I had this I had the same conversation with another gentleman. I can't remember where it was, if it was on a podcast or what it was. But I said that, uh, we're in the middle of, we hired this young, young kid, uh, or young guy to work with us and he's wanting to be a salesman, but, uh, I wanted him in the field. Yeah. So that way you could actually learn what he's selling because at the end of the day, yes, you can be a good salesman. But you're not going to be the best salesman in that industry unless you know what you're selling 100% and you're confident in it. Yeah. So I was like, I got them out in the field and I, and we got them out selling or whatever too. And they were like, Oh no, you need to have these guys focusing on whatever that they're good at. And I'm like, Well, he might be good at sales, but he needs to learn whatever he needs to know what he's selling.

Yeah. How it works and not just know it by memorization.

And what made me actually learn that is because when we're starting this light company, I don't know what the hell to do with the light stuff because I don't understand it. So I've got Richard. Richard understands it. So it's much better for Richard to go to these people's houses or whatever and put in the estimates because he's kind of the designer. Plus, he can talk to them in person about it, where if I go there, I'm not really going to communicate with them that well about it. And then they're going to be like, oh, damn, this guy don't know what he's talking about. Yeah. But I can sit there and talk to them on the phone. more about it because I talked to Richard about different things that'll help me talk to them on the phone, but out in person, I wouldn't be able to do that. But now if I got out and I actually started doing the labor part and actually learning the lights and different things, then I would be able to talk to them in person. Yeah. So that's where I was wondering how y'all did with that. That's actually good that you're putting those guys into the field.

I want all of them out in the field. I want them all to get their hands dirty. I want them to learn what they're selling. Right. Oh, I get them out there. I help them. I get them to help while they're there. I get them to go pick up equipment for them whenever they need equipment. I get them to go do pick up stones or whatever, just while we're there. Right. We also buy them lunch every day. So we we take them water to every job site. We take water. We take food. We we treat them as they're a salesman as well. So we don't just put them on job sites and leave them there as labors or anything like that. We're tight-knit and we're just trying to grow now. It's growth season. We're trying to have 25 salesmen by next December. That's our goal. Right now, it looks like we'll reach it.

Y'all don't ever stop out there, do y'all? It's all year round. It's year round.

Yeah. So, um, from turf to asphalt, to concrete, to swimming pools and to see this, the thing about swimming pools is you get to do them all winter long. swimming pools? Yeah, so you can do them all winter long, concretes all year long, asphalt year-round, turfs a bit heavy into the winter as well, and then outdoor kitchens and patios and all that stuff, all the hardscaping. We got away from the from the remodels, from the simple fact that dealing with customers that live in the homes is very tough. And we just decided to stay away from that headache. We're moving away from roofing. We'll still do roofing, but we're moving away from it because it's so saturated. So we're just gonna focus on what our breadwinner right now.

Okay, that's what's up. What do you do when you find yourself under pressure?

Man, uh, under pressure whenever we're slowing down, whenever we're older, just in general, uh, pressure of, of, of, of running a business, a business.

Yeah, man.

Honestly, I like to, uh, well, I get my son every other weekend. He's six years old. So I get to, uh, turn my phone off and I, I, I enjoy my time with him. Um, And he loves working with me in the summers. I get him for the whole summer. So he goes to work with me. He gets out there. He shovels. He he knows how to run the buggy, the concrete buggy and everything. He runs the he can run a skids, a mini skidster and everything, bro. So, yeah, spending time with him, getting close to the Bible. I read lots of prayer. I go to church a lot. I I find myself in rooms with other people that have been through what I've gone through, and I just try to vent and get some education and feedback from them.

I got you. That's what's up. It's always good to let things out and not keep it all bottled in.

Yeah.

That's our biggest thing is bottling things in and coming up with our own stories in our heads.

Yeah. And I'm a little different. I don't listen to no music when I drive.

Are you listening to music on your drive?

Nothing. All quiet. I don't have the air on. No, he don't. Nothing. Straight quiet. God dog. You're silent. And that's just how. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, at the gym and stuff, I don't wear headphones or nothing. And at the house, I don't have the TV. I don't pay for a TV. It's silent in here right now. Like you can hear a pin drop.

Yeah. Amber, Amber thinks it's weird, but.

I don't know if I could not listen to music or listen to audible or something.

I do have a bunch of audibles, but most of the time it's silence. It's just me. It's just me and God.

Whatever works for you. Yeah. So. Oh, how are you managing your mindset?

getting around people who've been where I'm at. Me being so new, I like to read. I like to talk. I like to learn. And I play dumb a lot. That way I don't get asked a lot of questions. And then I have a lot of time to myself where it's just a lot of learning. I do like to ask questions. I do like to take notes. Note takers are money makers. And I'm in a program with Matt Zapala. So we do get out there and get around a lot of individuals that are way up high in the game and just learn better ways to grow our business, to scale our company and change our mindset. So being around him, he's my personal mentor at PHP and his wife is Amber's personal mentor at PHP. So it's people helping people. It's a life insurance. We sell life insurance as well. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, and it's just a, it's a, Whenever on Tuesdays and Saturdays, it's just a big old group of entrepreneurs that are. Trying to learn how to live in this crazy world and make as much money as we can and help people and and get close to God.

That's pretty cool, yeah. And one thing that I lack on is going to groups and stuff like that.

Yeah, see, we're blessed. We're truly blessed to have someone like Matt. And then Patrick bet David, he's the owner of the company. And what was he sold, but he's still in it 100%. And just to have someone like the, the high quality of Matt and Gina, your team and checking in on you and having people of that caliber that is above any caliber of person that there is out there. And just to know people like that still care about the smaller individuals, it makes it's a good feeling.

That's what's up. So I never even knew anything about none of that stuff. I swear, a lot of the things y'all have out that way, I don't even know if we even.

Oh, yeah, it's crazy.

Yeah. Like the whole thing, like, yeah, on that thing. construction app or whatever on Facebook. And next thing you know, I'm like, damn, these motherfuckers network like crazy out there. They don't do shit like this. I went and looked at the same group here and it was like dead. I was scrolling through it and they're like, I think the last time somebody said something was in 2022. Oh, wow.

Yeah. I tagged you in that for a reason. Cause I keep telling everybody Nic's coming. If I can even get your name out, like I tagged you that way you can start seeing it. And then when you're here, It'd be like, dang. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I just got to get an F two 50 in a trailer. And once I get that, then I'm coming out there and dropping it off and leaving it and flying back and forth.

I hear that trucks in Texas are cheaper here because they're, are they cheaper? Cause everybody in Texas drive trucks.

What can I get an F two 50 for?

I mean, you can get them anywhere from 10 to 25,000 for the year you're looking for. Yeah. Yeah. Huh? All day long.

I need the F two 50.

You should have bought the one I just sold. I sold it for what I owed. It was a 2015 with a brand new engine lifted eight inch lip kid on some 24s. It was a four, it was a four 50, but I sold it for what I owe. I think I owe like 25,000 bucks. Huh? It only had like, it was the Lariat with the sunroof and everything. And it was converted to the new year model. Yeah, it had the 2020 conversion kit on it.

Yeah. Yeah. Damn. Yeah. See, I thought I was going to get a flatbed and then I just told myself I was like, I'd be stupid to come out there with a flatbed and then the truck kind of break down and I not have no equipment. I need to have a truck and a trailer. So that way, if something happens to the truck, then I can still at least go get another truck and pull the trailer. Yeah.

Yeah, you might as well just come down here and get you a brand new truck, leave it here, get a storage facility or a little shop.

I'm buying it under the business name through the business credit.

Yeah, there you go. Yeah, get on a credit. I what I do is I'd get a line of credit and and come get it. Get you everything you need and then. Pay it back.

So I can just pay it back with the jobs that I get from over there.

Yeah, and then a lot of credits a lot easier. Right then alone.

And I'm waiting to see what happens with this, with this, uh, see if anything happens or whatever with interest rates or something or anything with the house market in some kind of way, uh, before I decided to just pull a plug on buying something. Cause yeah. I'm in a 3.5 and in everything 7.5 and the house payments are like in the three thousands. My house payment is 1600. I'm like, what the fuck?

I wouldn't sell. I wouldn't sell.

I ain't selling this house at all. I'm keeping this. Yeah. I'm going to rent this out and then use some of this, uh, basically just rent this out and keep on using that money just to pay for this part, uh, or this property over here.

You can come down here and get a,

Uh, a nice house, everything that what's his name sending me is like in the 700 thousands.

No, don't, don't buy rent for right now.

That's what I was thinking. I should do is rent.

Well, you don't need to buy, come down here and rent because the thing about it is they have all these brand new homes that have never been lived in out here for rent. How much is rent? It just depends on what size, but I mean, you can get a, You can get a big ass house out here for $2,500. Nice in a brand new neighborhood.

I don't know if I could do a neighborhood, though, because I got animals and stuff. That's the whole thing. Yeah.

I mean, how many are you going to bring? I mean, I don't. As long as they get both the goats and the dogs, you're going to bring some goats. Yeah. Oh, I thought you were leaving them there. Oh, no. Check this out. I just seen this brand new mobile home on three acres for seventeen hundred dollars a month and rock wall. Yeah, you got goats there.

The thing is, is with running with somebody, though, I don't know how. How that would go, because you'd bring everybody out there and then fucking Yeah, I guess it would work.

Cause I mean, yeah, if you got land, I mean, they're not going to care if they got, there's land on it. Right. Yeah.

They can always buy later.

Yeah. I would buy later anyway. I wouldn't buy now.

I probably should just rent something and leave the animals and everything here and just come back and forth. That's what I do. I've also been very tempted to get rid of all the animals and fucking. Do what I need to do with my business, because it's kind of holding me back in a way. All the goats. Yeah. Being by myself and all that and having all that, it's kind of. I need somebody that can stay around. They can actually enjoy is taking care of them. Yeah. Not depending on a neighbor up the street or somebody random. We're radically cowboy. He won't, he's going to live here because I'm going to put him in this place here and allow him to rent it. Um, I would leave him a couple of goats, but other than that, I don't know if I could, I don't know if I could leave the dogs and the goats with them. I possibly could bring the dogs. The thing is the dogs run with the goats. I'd have to get rid of the, let the dogs go to somebody else that would have more time. Okay.

Then leave them there. Yeah. When you get back,

Patron would probably be fine as long as somebody came down there and fed her and stuff like that. But at the same time, goats are kind of hard to run and they're very hard to run here. They get parasites real easily and then die. So I have to stay on top of it a whole lot. And I got a feeling if I just turn around and pass that off to somebody else that doesn't understand it, it doesn't really have a passion for it or care for it. Then once the goats start dying, then the dogs are going to get bored. Yeah. And it's kind of like weighing my options on what I should do. And another thing is my mail continues giving me problems. Dude, he's attached to the tire again. I let him off for three or four days and he was fine. Next thing you know, the neighbor calls me and it's like, Hey Nic, your dog's down here at my house. So I've been battling all kinds of different things. And I'm also, I mean, I'm very on the edge of just moving the dogs to a better place. Uh, letting Richard come move in here and then me go out there and rent a place there. And if I did that, I wouldn't need to, I wouldn't need to rent something with a bunch of land. Cause I mean, I have a farm here. I don't need another farm.

Yeah.

I just don't have time to maintain a form and period right now with running the business. And I think I need to focus more on the business and the business would probably fucking skyrocket if I did that. Yeah.

Congratulations. I'll make it in the Georgia magazine, bro. Thank you. Yeah, that's awesome.

That's back to back. Cause we actually, we got it in 2023. Okay. So then, uh, we were already candidates in it and all I did was just share it a few times off and on throughout the year. Uh, we got enough votes. There was probably 30 companies that are, were runners.

Yeah. Yeah. So what, what is it?

Uh, it's just basically best of Georgia to where people can go and vote for you, uh, being, being the, being that.

Yeah. So that's awesome. Congratulations. Me and Blake were talking about that today. That's, that's awesome, bro.

You can look that same thing up for y'all state or for, uh, yeah, for actually y'all state best of Texas. Yeah. I imagine there's probably going to be a fucking shit ton of construction companies, but you can get people just to, uh, constantly go there and vote for you. Reelly boils down to that's the same thing as what perimeter roofing did and stuff. Yeah, and that's how they blew up. Yeah. Because you can share an apex and stuff like that and get those people to. What are you excited for for, I guess, you know, 2024 is already about over, so.

Yeah, I'm excited about next year. We're going to actually dial in on hiring. like COOs and CEOs and stuff of that nature, just to focus on more of a training, more of a hiring and delegating, more of a focused on running a legit business. That way we can, whenever keeping track of all the P&Ls and everything like that, and of that nature, that way we can start looking at learning how to exit. In the future. So what we're going to start doing is building everything from building the back end next year, right? Yeah, we're going to build the back end we're going to get with we're going to start hiring the right people, putting them in the right positions. That way we could build the back end and not have to worry about running the back end and doing everything else. So we're going to basically do everything the proper way that, um, and we're going to start getting around different people, like going to Kansas to listen to Josh Steinberger and stuff like that. Uh, go to, uh, we're going to go to New Mexico and for, um, seventh level. and then basically take stuff like Ryan does and just build out the back end and do it the correct way instead of just winging it with us. And yeah, we have everything dialed in right now, but we want to dial in deeper. We want to get everything super focused. We don't want to have our hands on anything. We want to have the right people in the right positions doing it. People that have actually done it for big companies. That's where we're lacking. So next year, that's what we're gonna focus on from January 1st all the way through is growing, building the backend and actually creating a company that's worthwhile that if somebody looks at us and wants to come in and buy us. Right. Yeah.

So you're getting all your, all your SOPs, everything all.

We already have all that. We have SOPs and playbooks and, uh, trainings on, on, we got, uh, PDF for trainings for all the new hires and everything like that. We already have all that. We have it all dialed in, but we're doing it. Right.

So now you want to dial it into where you're not doing it to where somebody wanted to come and they're buying them and not y'all. Yes.

I got you. Yeah, so that that's what we're going to do next year that I'm really excited about that. I believe that it's going to take us to the next level.

Because then y'all can focus on a hell of a lot more. Yeah, we won't have somebody does come and do that. Yeah, because I don't see you don't see either of y'all pulling yourselves out even though y'all get somebody else to completely run what y'all are doing. We won't. So it'll just double or triple or quadruple.

It'll make our, our value worth more. Right. And that's what, that's what we're going, where our goal is to try to exit within the next five years.

Cause then y'all could just move over to another area.

What we'll do is, um, hopefully if we can find someone, uh, or we, we really don't care if we do or not, but we kind of want to merge, um, if we can get private equity, uh, to, um, Get up. Yeah, get come in and help us grow to such a larger scale. That's the goal. If it never happens, it never happens. We've actually already had one call us this year, but it was it was wild. We're not even ready. So we and it was such a small amount. It wasn't even worth it. But If it happens, it happens. If it don't, that's the goal, or at least be set up for something like that to happen in five years.

There you go. How can people find you? social media and stuff like that.

You can find us on TikTok. We have a TikTok under Reel Construction and Concrete. We have Instagram. You can find us on Google at realconcrete.com. You can find us on LinkedIn, Facebook. We have Reel Construction and Concrete You can find us all over. We have everyone. There's a website for it. We have one.

So then you've got several guys out there that are all over to that are blasting your stuff.

Yeah, we got we just hired a new salesman. It's a it's a young team of killers, man. Everyone's hungry. Everyone has the same vision. We take them to make sure they have the same culture we have and they want to see us grow. If they don't want the company to grow, then they can't work for us. Right. Because we need people that want to see the company grow and not just be stagnant.

Well, if there's anybody out there listening that is in the constructions in Texas, there's your shot. Yeah, yeah.

When you think about concrete or construction, you want to learn and you want to come join the team and sell. Hey, find us at 430-302-9777.

There you go, guys. Well, John, I appreciate you coming on tonight and explaining a lot about your background and how you gave your life to Christ. And I really enjoy that. I really like following you on Facebook. It was cool meeting you. How I did and. Just hearing more about your stuff is just awesome.

Yeah, man. I look forward to being on another one. And thank you for having me on.

Yes, sir. Well, I'm going to end that here. Y'all have a good night. We're going to end that piece. Yes, sir.

Thanks so much for tuning into this episode. We sure do appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you consume podcasts. This way you'll get updates as new episodes become available. And if you feel so inclined, please leave us a review. And remember, pressure doesn't break you, it makes you. Until next time, friends.