Pricing Concrete Right: Real Costs, Profits & the Rise of Silica-Free Mixes
“If you're not charging what your mix is worth, you're not just losing money—you’re holding your business back. The shift to silica-free mixes isn’t just smart, it’s the future.”
Most concrete makers are charging too little, working too hard, and wondering why the numbers don’t add up. But what if pricing wasn’t the problem - what if the strategy was? This week on The Concrete Podcast, BG sits down with Jared Case of LC Wood & Crete, a concrete countertop and flooring company out of Wichita, KS. What started as a casual shop conversation turned into a real talk on what it takes to make concrete work - financially and sustainably.
We break down:
✔️ The pricing mistakes keeping you stuck
✔️ Concrete Costs Compared: Ultracast 360 vs. Maker Mix
✔️ The game-changing shift to Crystalline Silica Free High-Performance Concrete (CSF-HPC)
✔️ Why Kodiak Pro’s Maker Mix isn’t just a better mix - it’s a better future for your health and business
Regulations on crystalline silica are tightening. The industry is shifting. The real question is: Are you adapting? Tune in and future-proof your business before the wave hits.
🎧 Listen now & take the smarter path forward.
#ConcreteCountertops #PricingStrategy #ConcreteBusiness #MakerMix #HighPerformanceConcrete #SilicaFree #CSFHPC #ConcreteCraftsmen #SmallBusinessGrowth #EntrepreneurMindset
Enhance your concrete design skills with our upcoming workshops and events:
RammCrete Workshop
• Dates: March 29-30, 2025
• Location: Goddard, KS
• Description: Master Brandon Gore's exclusive RammCrete technique in this 1.5-day workshop. Learn mold construction, mix design, application, and finishing to create high-end concrete designs like wall panels, furniture, and sinks.
Concrete Hero's Quest
• Dates: May 6-7, 2025
• Location: Napa, CA
• Description: Join industry leaders for a 2-day hands-on workshop covering Upright Casting Techniques (UCT) and RammCrete. Gain practical experience in mixing, casting, finishing, and sealing complex concrete designs.
The Basics: Fundamental Concrete Workshop
• Dates: June 7-8, 2025
• Location: Goddard, KS
• Description: Ideal for beginners, this 1.5-day workshop led by expert artisans with over 20 years of experience covers essential skills including templating, form building, concrete mixing, casting, curing, sealing, and installation.
Kodiak Pro Demo Day
• Date: June 21, 2025
• Location: Gore Design Co. Studio, Goddard, KS
• Time: 10 AM - 2 PM
• Description: Attend the inaugural Kodiak Pro Demo Day for a hands-on experience with no limits. This free event has limited spots available.
For more details and registration, please visit the respective event pages.
TRANSCRIPT:
Hello, Jon Schuler.
Hello, Brandon Gore.
Well, we have Case here, Jared Case.
He goes by Case, goes by his last name.
Hi, Jared.
What's happening?
How are you doing?
I'm doing well.
How are you guys doing?
Good.
Well, let me get this straight.
You just told me he goes by his last name.
You say, hi, Jared.
I know.
What's up, Case?
How's it going, man?
Dude, I'm good, man.
It's good to hear your voice.
I don't want to insult you, you know, Jared.
I appreciate that.
I appreciate that.
When I hear Jared, I feel like I'm in trouble.
That's when my wife yells at me.
That's funny, man.
That's funny.
What's the name of your company?
LC Wood & Crete.
Wood & Crete or Woodcrete?
Wood & Crete.
Wood & Crete.
LC Wood & Crete.
What does LC stand for?
So back when I used to work for the previous owner, the owner was Lindell Lera, and that company was called Legendary Concepts.
And whenever he was like, man, I'm kind of getting overwhelmed.
I kind of want to sell it.
And I was like, man, I'll buy it for me.
And he's like, well, I don't think I want to sell it.
How about, what about like a partnership?
And I'm like, yeah, dude, I'll do that, man.
I'll hop over that.
And I was like, hey, he was already kind of, you know, changing the name.
He didn't change the name, but he branded all of his T-shirts LC.
You know what I mean?
And it was just short for Legendary Concepts.
And I was like, dude, let's just change the name to LC.
Lindell and Case.
Yeah, it could be Lara and Case, or it could be for Legendary Concepts.
Yeah, there you go.
So that's awesome, man.
A double entendre.
Yeah, yeah, I like it.
Yeah, so you're here in Wichita.
You're the reason I moved to Wichita.
Yeah, and that still blows my mind.
It's like, whenever you first said, yeah, dude, I'm coming.
I'm there.
I already bought the house and everything.
I was like, what?
Because you're like, too cool for Wichita.
You know what I mean?
I wouldn't say that.
But I love having you here.
Yeah, yeah, we're pretty much neighbors.
Case lives like three blocks away.
Yeah, not far away.
Yeah, there's a Argentina Empanada place over by your place.
You've been there?
What's the name of it?
Argentina Empanada.
No, no, I have not.
I've been to a lot of places, but...
It was where that little snow cone place was for a second.
Like right there on whatever that Clifton Square.
On the side, there was a little snow cone place last summer.
It was like a teenage girl opened it up.
She moved out.
Argentina Empanada went there.
And they're good.
They're really good.
That's like, dude, it's like a half block from your house.
It is.
It is.
Definitely a walk there.
I think it's on your same street.
It is.
Yeah.
So anyways, but yeah, so Case was the reason I came here, and Case does concrete, obviously, and he uses Kodiak and all that kind of good stuff.
But Case came today.
We had to load a crate.
I had to load a crate.
So Case came to help me and we made some plastic molds for his samples.
So we just got done doing that.
And yeah, so yeah, all kinds of good stuff.
But it's good to have him here.
He's actually in my shop.
He's sitting right next to me right now or right across from me.
So first time we've had somebody in the shop do a podcast, it's usually Skype that we do it.
So glad he's here.
Yeah, that's cool, man.
I'm just going back to that whole LC.
I think that's pretty small because that's your wife's name too.
Brandon and I, I was real hard about BJs are hard, but I didn't want the name of our company get confused with the restaurant.
So we shied away from BJs.
Dude, my son's name, King, King was my mother's maiden name, right?
So my son's name, we decided to name him that.
So we named his name is Falco King Gore.
We didn't realize his initials are FKG.
This kid, man, he's set for life.
Jesus, you give a name like that.
Yeah.
Anything new with you, Jon, for get cracking?
No, man, things are going great.
Nothing new, nothing.
I mean, overly exciting.
I just deal with the same stuff.
Cool.
Awesome.
Text support and so forth.
How about you guys?
You know, just living life, living life.
Let's get to it.
We got Case here.
Let's get the conversation.
So one of the things that Case hit me up on a few weeks ago was cost.
What is the cost?
And when you sent me a text and you said, what's the cost?
What were you asking like concrete cost, sealer cost, pigment cost?
What were you asking?
The whole kit and caboodle.
Like if I were to say for per square foot, what would that cost be?
So then like if you have kind of a rough number that's pretty close, you could be like, hey, I've got 10 square foot.
Well, I already know what this square foot is.
All I have to do is simple math.
Gotcha.
Jon, I talked to you a few days ago and said, hey, this is something that Case asked me.
Were you able to crunch any numbers?
I have not, but now that you got me thinking about it, it should be pretty easy, man.
Let me go to concrete materials, pallet of concrete, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, a bag.
Let's say, based on a retail price.
He gets pro and most of the customers we have these days are all pro.
I would say base it on pro pricing, pallet pricing with let's say $400 in freight.
Okay.
Yeah.
All right.
So that would be 10 bucks a bag.
Looks like about 11 bucks a square foot.
10 bucks a bag for freight?
Like you said, for, I'm just figuring 400 bucks.
Yeah, that'd be eight bucks a bag.
Less than that, seven something.
Plus or minus.
I mean, it makes a difference.
Well, it still ends up $48 a bag, right, after pro discount.
You divide that by, again, I'm taking for granted an inch of square foot somewhere in that neighborhood, three-quarters, seven-eighths, one-inch.
So it's about five square foot a bag.
Yeah.
Right.
Okay.
So there you go.
I mean, I'm figuring right there's $10, plus or minus, and then doing sealer and TBP, that's going to bring in about another $1.50 a square foot overall.
Okay.
So what's the total?
So that's $11.50 a square foot.
$11.50 a square foot materials cost.
That work?
Yeah.
That's awesome.
That's including like the fibers and everything that you're adding to that, too.
Is it including the fibers?
Let's see.
That's going to be tough because everybody uses different fibers.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But if we base them on glass.
Yeah.
I just got some from Joe.
Well, Joe's doing six bucks a pound because he's buying it, shipping it to him, and then selling small quantities.
So if you buy it from Joe, it's around six bucks a pound.
But at six bucks a pound, what are we looking at?
That's another dollar a square foot, approximately $1.25?
Yeah.
Another buck, basically.
Yeah.
Yeah.
A buck and fiber.
So let's say $12.50 a square foot with fiber.
Yeah.
I think that's a fair number.
Yeah.
Let's say $13, just to be safe.
$13 a square foot with shipping of this, shipping of that, whatever.
$13 a square foot.
So in a kitchen, that's, I don't know.
What's your average kitchen case?
You do a lot of kitchens.
Usually they're about 50 square feet.
Yeah.
I was going to say 50, usually.
50 times 13, you're looking at $650 in materials for the mix.
And if you have melamine, obviously, that is another expense.
You're casting on steel, though, right?
Yes, no.
I was, but I've switched to really just going on melamine.
That steel table, it was inexperienced is what it was.
So after going to the first, the concrete hoedown with you and Dusty and Chuck was there.
Okay.
Was it a hoedown?
I thought it was a hoedown.
It was the very first one at his old shop that was down there.
That was right in COVID.
We all had masks.
Yeah, that wasn't a hoedown.
A hoedown is a big festival party we did.
What was that one called?
It must have been just a workshop.
Yeah, it was just a Dusty Crete workshop.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah, he was the one that kind of was like, dude, the steel, you could always do it.
You could always do stuff on it.
You know, it's like, oh man, that's what I want to do.
Well, a guy that I knew that I was on the fire department with, he retired early after like 12 years on the department.
And he retired because his family owned JR Custom Metals.
And that's like one of the biggest steel fabrication places in Wichita, Kansas area.
Gotcha.
And so I went to him and I was like, hey, I'm going to build this frame.
I just want the quarter inch, you know, hot rolled steel that's eight foot by 20 foot.
And he was like, no.
And I'm like, what?
He's like, no, dude, that thing's like a limp noodle.
You're not going to be able to move it.
You're not going to be able to carry it.
You're strong, but you're not going to be able to carry it.
I'm like, no, man, like Dusty said, they use C-clamps and they had a few guys and they were able just to slide it off of the trailer onto the table.
And he's like, no, no, not going to happen.
And I'm like, dude, what, like what?
What do you mean?
And he's like, dude, just let us build this table.
We'll make it absolutely perfect for you.
And so I got talked into it by like his uncle, who runs the whole joint.
He's like, just, just trust us, trust us.
Yeah, there you go.
Okay.
Yeah.
Like, all right, man, I'll trust you.
I'll trust you.
And I was like, hey, so like my shop is somewhat temperature controlled, somewhat.
Sure.
Right.
So I've got a gas heater and I've got AC, but it's, it's not like that sucker's going to stay consistently in the seventies.
When it's cold as balls here, then it's going to be 50 degrees in the shop.
Yeah.
No matter what I do.
Unless I'd sit there and just crank that, that propane heater, you know, when it's 110 degrees, it's going to be upper eighties here, you know?
And that steel just, it expands and contracts.
And I told them, I was like, hey, it's not really temperature controlled.
Like don't tack it a lot.
Just do it a little bit.
Yeah.
And he's like, oh, yeah, yeah, wait, listen, steel is our life.
This is what we do.
Yeah.
I'm like, oh, OK, cool, man.
And so we get this table.
Huge is all get out, all steel.
Yeah, that's a big table.
Yeah, man, we had to have two skid steers lifted up off the trailer.
Pulled the trailer out.
Pulled the trailer out.
It was unreal.
And wouldn't you know it, like a couple of years later, it's like I noticed that whenever I'd be wet polishing and stuff when I used to wet polish, I'd notice I was like skipping over lines.
And I was like, hey, what is that?
Like, what's going on here?
And then I went and took a straight edge, put it on the table, and there was this, you know, a 64th of a difference, like hardly anything at all.
But you see it.
You see it when you're processing.
And so then I'm like, man, did these guys, these guys tack weld the s*** out of this?
Went underneath, it's tack welded every four inches, that whole tabletop.
And so I'm like, God dang it.
And so now I like completely refused to pour on that.
I'd rather go buy melamine, piece it together, bondo it, spray the whole form.
I'd rather do the whole, that whole thing, which adds one or two days of doing, just to make my stuff.
So I hear you.
But that's why I need to buy that or build the torques, the torsion box.
Yeah, torsion box.
Yeah, they're good.
And then I try to keep everything less than seven and a half feet.
So we talk about that in classes.
But when I do a kitchen, I'll tell the clients the longest section I'll do is seven and a half feet.
And that way it will fit on a four by eight sheet of melamine.
And then if there's like an L-shaped piece, it can go three and a half feet that direction, you know, because it can't be like six feet that way, seven feet this way, because again, the melamine is four by eight.
So that's the constraints I work in.
Customers are okay with it.
I think if you set those boundaries up front, you're okay.
But if they're not expecting it, then they get pissed off.
So yeah.
Yeah.
But then if you do melamine, what's melamine now?
50, 60 bucks a sheet for three quarter?
Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's 50 bucks.
Not even.
52, I think is the last time I bought.
Yeah.
So let's say, you know, a little over a dollar a square foot.
So add that to your cost of form.
So, and assuming more than that, because you're not going to use all the square footage of the melamine, you know.
So, but if you use five sheets of melamine to build a kitchen, that's 250 bucks, added to the, what did we say that was?
Six something, 650?
Let me pull up my calculator.
50 times 13, 650 plus another 250.
So, I mean, you're looking at 900 bucks.
And then on a 50 square foot kitchen, how are you pricing, Case?
How do you come up with your price?
Do you have a formula?
Yeah, I just have a set price.
So, when I first started, right after the class, that was one of those where it's like, I mean, I was just trying to get experience and try to break through in Wichita, because no one does any of that dusty Crete here.
They either do the GFRC, very modern looking, or they do a hand trowd with like, quick Crete.
Sure.
It looks like trash.
Yeah.
So that's, in Kansas, that's what everybody thinks.
Gotcha.
So I was like doing it for like 60 bucks a square foot.
Hey man, I charge 60 bucks a square foot, man.
I promise you it'll be worth it.
These guys are like, all right, man, y'all.
And I get it to them, they're like, man, this looks bad ass, man.
I don't know if it's worth 60 bucks.
And then you start looking around, and like, if I go and buy granite, like just black granite, no character to it at all.
You're talking 80 bucks a square foot for just that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Garbage.
And then after talking with you and Dusty, both of you guys were like, dude, you cannot do that.
You're going to get crap customers.
They're going to find the smallest things to complain about, which happened, which happened.
You know, I did this one in a cabin, which the cabin cabins are the worst things ever to try and do countertops on because none of the all of these cabinets, nothing was straight.
The cabinets were hand built.
And so my s*** was straight, which is looked awesome.
Then when you put it on their crooked s***, they're like, man, why is your s*** crooked?
My s***'s not good.
My stuff's lasered.
It looks good, you know?
And I really like it, but I mean, there's a few things that I don't really like.
What's that?
Well, I mean, you know, your overhang over here is only an inch and over here it's an inch and a half.
Hey, man, I'm not going to sit there and make a zigzaggy island for you, man.
It's going to be square.
Yeah.
You know?
But so shortly after that, like that's when I was finally like, you know what?
A hundred bucks square foot.
That's what it is.
If you want a waterfall, that's $1,500 added to it.
500 a sink, you know?
Are you still at that price point?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And you'll get people kicking back still.
Really?
Oh, yeah.
But it's one of those things where it's like, well, I don't need this job.
Sure.
Right?
I'm a fireman.
Yeah.
I do this stuff because I like to do it.
Sure.
And it pays off because I get paid for it.
So if the economy fails, if everything fails, if I lose this business, eh, sucks.
Yeah.
I'll be just fine.
Yeah.
So I'm able to be like, well, I'm not the one.
I'm not happy with you saying that, Case.
So what you're saying is, hey, man, someone's going to burn something down.
I'm going to be busy.
That's terrible.
You're going to be busy going to St.
Louis, where that whole city is on fire.
It is true.
Well, so Wichita is actually, we're ranked in the nation for structure fires.
We're ranked in like the top 25 or something like that.
We actually averaged over two structure fires every day.
Of course, the media doesn't put that on there.
Yeah.
The city doesn't want that put on there because it makes the city look bad.
Is it arson or is it just?
Yeah.
What is that?
It's both.
It's both.
You'll have bums get into vacants.
It's cold.
So they start a little fire on the floor.
You know, in those balloon-frame houses, fire gets in the walls, goes straight up to the attic, stuff like that.
Or you'll have, you know, lower income people, like they don't want to, they don't want to have a high gas bill.
And so they'll have like 10 extension cords going to like all these heaters, you know what I mean, in their house.
Can't handle it.
Or just like the bad electricity stuff.
I mean, it's everywhere.
You'll have, you know, super nice neighborhoods that houses catch fire there, too.
That's usually like grills, stuff like that, starting on the exterior, moving into the interior.
Gotcha.
Yeah, I've been worried about my house.
My house was built in 1917, I want to say, early 1900s.
And they, I think in the 70s, they did the upstairs and it has aluminum wiring, only upstairs, not downstairs.
And so I didn't know, I rewired all the outlets and switches and everything.
I didn't know there was a special nut for aluminum to copper.
And they're like five bucks each, each wire nut, but I need to go buy them and rewire that with those.
So anyways, I got to do that.
Yep, yeah, that's a trick.
Yeah.
So, yeah.
So I got a question since we're talking about all this, you know, not that I want to keep talking about nuts and fires and et cetera, et cetera.
So let's, I just want to take a step back because this, what we're talking about, or really what you're dealing with right now is what, you know, every one of us deals with is what do you charge, you know, for what you're doing and what's reasonable and even, let's just take it aside from the fact that profitable hobby or not, you know, what do you charge?
So, I mean, I just ran your number and I just, for me, it's easy number.
So if I told myself that making this kitchen, let's base it on 50 square feet is going to cost me 20 bucks a square foot, right?
Okay.
So at a hundred bucks a square foot, at least upfront, you look at that and go, you know, Hey, what is that?
$300 or $3,000 profit?
Am I doing that right?
Or $4,000 profit?
Yeah, about $4,000, $4,100.
Oh, you're right.
I should say, okay.
So four grand and like, Hey, no, I'm not with anybody to look at that and go, well, just, but, so then my next backup to that would be, has anybody now taken the time to see, because right, we're our own labor.
What, what is the time invested in this project from start to finish?
From picking up the malamine from, from not just from the first day you start forming, but all the way through.
And whatever that number is in hours, again, for an easy one, let's say, start to finish, it was, I don't know, 60 hours.
That's where the rubber hits the road, right?
Yeah.
And you start going like, okay, is this, am I a $60 employee?
And if, and if a person is, then hey, that's awesome.
There's no issues with that whatsoever.
But if at the end of the day, once you put in your, you know, your whatever, let's say you're paying your payment on the truck, your payment on your lease, your payment for power, or so forth and so on, because that's coming out of your $60 an hour.
Now where are you at?
And again, this is not a squabble conversation for anybody.
It's just finding the realization between all of us who deal with customers, and per what you said, pushback, like, oh, yeah, no, that's, that's not going to happen.
They're not going to pay this amount or.
And so there's my question too.
When you do a project, when you have whatever, Mr.
and Mr.
Jones or contractor talking to you or whatever the case may be, do you present this information in a square foot cost, or do you just present it as, hey, this kitchen would be $5,000?
No, I usually, they typically always ask, like, hey, what do you usually charge a square foot?
And I say, man, I charge $100 a square foot.
If you want an integrated sink, that's an additional $500 to that.
If you want a waterfall, that's an additional $1,500.
You know, and then if you know.
Interesting.
Like, for like, undermount sinks or whatever, there's this good mounting bracket that I found that's like $200, but that's like the fastest and easiest thing that I've been able to find.
I'll add that in there too and be like, hey, if you want me doing that, this is what I use.
Do you charge for installation?
No.
Case, case, case, case, case.
I totally should.
Yeah.
Well, you know, 100 bucks a square foot.
I mean, honestly, that was where my pricing was in Tempe, like, in the mid, like 2005, 2006.
That's about when I was 100 bucks.
I very quickly went to 95 was my price, and I was there for a long time.
My advice, and I know you listen to the past podcast, but my advice would be 135 minimum.
That's like easy project, super quick.
You know, you're not going to have a lot of time in it.
135.
And then anything else, 150 to 200, would be a realistic price, really stone fabricated.
Not the price as you see advertised Home Depot, but like when they actually send the guy out there and he measures everything and sends you the final bill, that's where it's going to come in at for all the installation and fabrication.
Oh, you want an edge?
Well, that's this.
Oh, you want a sink cutout?
It's this.
And they nickel and dime it up to 150 to 200 square foot.
So that's where I would be.
And then installation, just it's been my experience, but installation never goes to plan.
Maybe you've had a different experience than me.
Maybe every installation you do is easy breezy.
You're in and out.
There's no issues.
But it seems like everyone I went on, there was something that was not anticipated, that was a time suck.
We have to run down the Ace, get this tool, we have to go down Home Depot and get this.
We have to go back to the shop and get something because, you know, whatever.
We need a grinder, we need this, we need that.
And ultimately, I would think it's going to take us four hours to do this and we'd spend ten hours on the site.
And at that point, we just murdered any productivity for the day.
Like, you know, the day was gone.
We lost it all.
So charging for installation, I think it's reasonable.
I think it should be expected from the client's point of view that if you're a materials manufacturer, like, if you're Pella window and they order windows for their house, you made the windows, that's the cost.
They want it delivered.
Okay, well, there's the delivery fee.
You know, like, we got to charge for that.
Okay.
Can you deliver them and install them?
Well, we can, but there's a cost for that, right?
And I think consumers expect that.
I don't think it's unexpected.
I don't think many people will be like, I've never heard of people charging to deliver windows.
I've never heard them charge to install the windows.
They're like, yeah, yeah, no, I get it.
That's part of it.
So I think for us, adopting that mindset of like, I'm a manufacturer.
I'm happy to ship it to you.
Like, I ship everything.
You know, you help me load a crate, that's going to go on a truck, that's going to be shipped.
But the client expects to pay for shipping.
Even in the age of Amazon, like, you're going to pay for the shipping.
There's a cost.
And then if I were to install it, which I don't install it, but if I did install it, there would be costs for that.
And I think it would be smart to have, if you're to start charging, have a flat rate plus anything beyond, like an exceed.
So if you get to the job site and you're there for more than four hours, you're billing at 200 bucks an hour.
So you're like, we allocate four hours for installation.
That's built into this installation fee.
And then if we get to the job site, and for whatever reason, the cabinets aren't set, or there's contractors in our way or whatever, and we end up spending six hours, we're going to bill you $200 an hour for that time.
And that's in your contract.
And you're like, OK, so everybody's on their A-game.
When you show up, the contractor knows, like, hey, we need to have this place cleaned up.
We need the cabinets all cleaned off.
We need the stove set.
We need everything done when Case shows up.
So you don't show up, and they're like, oh, man, yeah, well, we'll start setting stuff.
And you're just like, mother f**ker.
You knew I was coming, and you don't value my time.
So that's my advice.
But take it.
I get that you're a firefighter, and I've had so many firefighters over the years come to the workshops, because it's a great career to have a side thing.
And you don't have to do concrete to make a living.
But that being said, you're still making beautiful pieces for customers, and customers should expect to pay for that, you know.
There should be an expectation of that.
Well, that's what I was going to say.
I mean, you know, as long as we're just willy nilly throwing out, you know, I hate to say my advice.
How about in my experience?
What I would say is this.
Number one, when that question comes up, so anybody listening, when somebody wants to do a comparison, at least quickly in their head, hey, what's your square price?
I don't give that.
That never, those numbers, it's in my head somewhere.
But right off the bat, I would say, don't, don't, don't do that to a customer.
And because right off the bat, there's a difficulty.
If they were already at whatever, Lowe's or Home Depot, or a local flooring shop, or whatever the case may be, and looking at other materials, right off the bat, although I totally understand that that's kind of the given out there.
You'll always see the little tag sitting on the sample of some sort at a square foot price.
But keep that in your head and don't throw it out there.
Instead, jump, take a look.
What kind of kitchen?
In other words, I always turn the tables back on the client.
What kind of project are we talking about?
This is, as an example, I just got done doing.
Went over there and checked it out.
Right off the bat, there were some things that were going to make it more difficult in forming and actually installing, not for me, for them.
So right off the bat, I was like, okay, I'm already running in this price range, but I never gave them a square foot on it.
Then they kept telling me along the lines.
So instead, I just stopped.
I go, okay, what are we looking for here?
Right off the bat, are we thinking colors or textures?
I mean, I start throwing it all back at the client.
Then as an example, if you end up in your head, like Brandon's saying, at 135, that's where I just bring it out.
I said, project like this, I'm really probably going to be about $6,500 to $7,000.
That forces them to go back.
I'm saying this because when another project comes in, whether that be Soapstone, Granite, whatever the case may be, and they are up front, they give you this juicy little square foot number, then that's what everybody's comparing.
And we all know at the end of the day, there's these add-ons somewhere in ultimately giving them the final price.
I would just start off with that.
That would be my suggestion.
And keep all the percentages and the square foot percentages, just keep those in your head.
But don't put them out there on the table for everybody.
It makes it too quick and too easy for someone if that's all they're thinking.
Well, I just saw this one at 18 bucks a square foot.
Why are you at 100?
But they're not thinking, well, because I didn't, you know, pigment and so forth and so on.
And at your square foot price, you're not thinking that either, you know.
But I'd say the other side of that too, the other problem with that is if they're shopping based on price, they're still not the right customer.
They don't want concrete.
They want the best deal.
They're shopping for a deal.
So if they go with Case because you said, hey, I'm 100 square foot and they already actually went to the granite place, the granite guy came out, gave them like an actual full quote and they saw, oh, it's 200.
Well, let's go with the concrete.
That's a better deal, right?
They didn't go with concrete because they thought it was the right material for their project.
So that's the other side of it.
A long time ago, it was genius what happened.
I'm going to tell you a little story.
A long time ago, my wife and I went to an Indian market in Flagstaff where there's Native American jewelers that were selling jewelry, right?
And they do these every year.
And there was this like phenomenal bolo tie.
I just wore it for a daddy daughter dance, but it was handmade by this Navajo artist, beautiful.
And he wanted, man, I'm going off memory, but I want to say it's like 2,000 bucks, right?
So I go up and look at it, and I'm like, man, it's really nice.
You know, me being me, I'm trying to get the best deal.
I'm like, well, you know, I like it.
What's the best cash price we could do on this?
And he picks up and puts it in my hands and says, you tell me what it's worth.
What am I going to say to that, right?
It was the judo flip move on me.
What am I going to say?
I'm like, damn it, 2,000 bucks.
What am I going to do?
So, it's one of those things that, like, to put it back on the customer, my wife, she used to have a really great comeback when somebody says expensive compared to what.
That was her comeback.
So she used to sell high-end tile, like crazy high-end tile, like where the tile was 200 bucks a square foot just for the tile, right?
Not installation, which installation anymore is like 20 bucks a square foot.
She would have customers come in, they were loaded, they're billionaires, and they would look at a tile and whatever, and she'd get down to like brass tacks, and they're like, what's it cost?
And she's like, well, that comes from this quarry, and it starts at 200 and goes up.
200 a square foot, that's expensive compared to what?
And they'd sit there for a minute.
And she would kind of like what Jon's saying, he throws them to do the math.
She threw that back on them to qualify what that meant.
She wouldn't try to defend that it's not expensive or defend how it arrived at the price compared to what?
But well, and they would come back with, I can go down to DalTile and get this.
And she's like, well, that's a totally different product.
So we're not comparing the same thing.
So it's expensive compared to a cheap Chinese-made product.
Absolutely.
I'd agree with that.
But it's not expensive for what it is.
So expensive compared to what?
And then the client would have to essentially walk back that statement and walk back that viewpoint, or not.
But same thing with this.
So if, as Jon's saying, if somebody says, what's your price?
You could say, yeah, a range might be a good thing.
I would estimate, just based on my experience, that this kitchen, depending on what you guys decide to go with, finished, waterfall, Integra, whatever, you're probably going to be $7,000, $8,000, is what I'd guess.
But until we actually get to take a look at it, I can't give you a hard number.
And then, yeah, you go in there, and then you give them the number.
Cool.
Yeah, and this conversation can get really wide.
I was just on one of the forums the other day, and someone was asking about sealers and the price of sealers.
Now, I know this is, to me, it's similar.
And some of the, let's say, more well-known products would keep being thrown out there.
But at the end of the day, kind of like what we're talking about right now is nobody's qualifying at all what this person's just like with these customers, what are you expecting in a project?
You know, what are you expecting out of the sealer?
Hard, scratch-resistance, low sheen.
You know, you want it shiny.
You know, can it be scratched?
Is it in a place that's never going to be used?
Does it need to be, you know, applied a certain way?
Does it have to be sprayed?
I mean, all of this gets, to me, gets thrown back, I'm saying now, back onto the customer, where the sealer is based on the installer.
So, it's the same thing.
Let them qualify it and just, I have found that tactic so much better for me is I walk in, because here's the deal, vanities, like when I do a vanity and I give them a straight cost, so let's say 3,500 bucks, right?
35, 3,600 bucks.
I'm not, I typically don't separate, oh, because, you know, there's this add in for your sink and add in for the hole in the faucet, da da da da.
And it's whatever, so it's a five foot vanity.
If someone looks at that and goes, if I stepped up and said, yes, 700 bucks a square foot, what?
So that to me is a conversation that more times than often is going to be the Titanic in the conversation, if you just put a square foot price out.
Well, the other side of that is they might come back, you might say it's 100 square foot, right?
And you're going to do your stuff and you estimate it at 60 square feet.
And they're going to come back and be like, well, I did math and it was 57.2.
You overcharged me, $200.
You're like, dude, do you know all the stuff I went through for this project?
Really?
We're going to do this?
So yeah, if you don't give them a hard square footage number, you just say it's going to be in this range.
Then you actually get after you meet with them and you learn what they want, you give them a price, then the price is the price, it's the project price.
And that might work better.
I just met with a web company a week ago and he made the mistake, he sent me a quote for What We Need Done, right?
He made the mistake of itemizing everything, which again, if you just had the project price, hey, we discussed everything, here's the project price, and gave me one number.
All the stuff could have been in that number and I wouldn't have known what it was.
Yeah, buried in, right?
Yeah, and I would have probably accepted his quote.
But instead, he itemized it and he had an itemization of $750 for onboarding and invoicing.
He was charging me six hours at 115 hour to onboard and invoice me, meaning when he has his assistant put us in the system and then put an invoice together, he's charging us to invoice me.
And he estimated six hours at 115 hour, or no, no, five hours, sorry, five hours.
Five hours at 115 hour, because it's 750 bucks.
And I'm thinking, like, this dude is insane.
You're going to charge me $750 to send me an invoice.
What mad world are we living in?
But Hattie just gave me a lump sum, because we went through all kinds of stuff.
I need this done, this done, this done, great.
Here's the number, it's 9,000 bucks.
And he'd put that in there.
I never would have known.
I would have said, sounds good, let's do it.
So that's the other thing, of not giving them a number per square foot, of just giving them a project price.
And you know what it is, and you can tell them, honestly, I don't do things by square foot.
Mine's really time-based, and I know this is going to take me this many hours, and based on that, it's going to be 7,000 bucks.
They're like, okay, yeah, that sounds good.
The other thing I'd say is, if you stick with the square footage price, you say $100 very confidently.
I'm 100 square foot.
What if you said I'm 150 square foot?
With the same confidence.
I bet you a lot of customers would say, okay.
And suddenly, you have a massive increase in profit because you already have all your fixed costs, which are fixed, but now that $50 a square foot is money in your pocket.
That's just pure profit at that point, and it might be more enjoyable to be in the shop at that point.
It might be more enjoyable to have those late nights, you know, whatever, when you're making another $50 a square foot.
So...
Well, that's the thing, Case.
At the end of the day, this is for all of us, you know, it's...
All of us have over time had to learn to be, I hate to use the word confidence, but confidence in how we present whatever it is we're presenting.
We've all been there.
I mean, we've all been there.
I've been there too.
I used to spit out the square foot price, and it took me a while to realize, you know, to get outside this little shoe that people were trying to fit you in based on other materials.
So I just went a different direction, and upon doing that, business got a lot better for me when I did not.
I mean, like I said, to calculate that in my head, no problem at all.
But like even what Brandon said, I don't even do a backtrack.
I don't give it like, well, I don't really do it that way.
I don't give any of that information.
Right off the bat, I'm like, well, you know, what is your square foot?
My instant comeback is, what project are we talking about?
Let's take a look at what you got going on.
I never discussed that square foot price again.
It never gets discussed.
Yeah, that probably comes from your background as a contractor.
You used to be a builder back in the day.
That probably comes from that time frame where somebody says, what's the addition cost?
Well, you're going to be at this.
Instead of just like, let's look at the addition and I can give you a price, you know, right?
Well, and it also comes from my days in, oh, I thought you meant me.
Yeah, I did mean you.
No, I meant you, Jon, of like, your approach of not giving a square foot price probably comes from your previous experience being a general contractor.
Well, I'm previous experience with pharmacy.
I mean, with pharmacy, I mean, which again, a whole different thing, right?
Drugs.
No, we know the game, right?
And for your medication, then, you know, the price for an insured person is 10 times more than the cash price.
So you don't tell the customer that, or, I mean, even though you'd like to like, Hey, man, if you just pay 60 bucks, it's going to be 60 bucks, but your co pays $150 and I'm billing your insurance 3,500.
So, I mean, I learned that game long ago.
And when I got into everything that I knew do now, I just wanted to separate myself, anything that I'm doing from any perception, even based on the way other materials are presented.
And square foot price is a big way of presenting things.
I mean, you could go down to a, right, to look at flooring and you're going to look at this flooring.
It's all based on six bucks a square foot, four bucks a square foot, or whatever the case may be.
And, you know, if it's based on the way I do it, and I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm just saying it's what it's worked for me, is instead you go in and that same project at 50 square feet of total tops, here it is.
And, you know, typically that's a reasonable range for a kitchen, you know, unless they're doing Formica, is, you know, most kitchens are going to come in, and they're somewhere around $5,000 to $12,000.
And so now it's just a question of what your comfort zone is based on what you're doing.
And so my comfort zone, I don't need to be the really expensive guy, but I certainly don't want to be the cheap guy.
But, you know, I want to come in and do a nice job, make some decent money to feed my family, and feel comfortable with what I'm doing and the materials that I use.
And which a lot of people look at is give myself the room financially to use the quality end of materials that I'm comfortable presenting as a product.
Now, a lot of what you're saying makes a ton of sense.
And I'm going back through, like, in my memory of, like, plenty of bids that I've gone to.
One guy, for example, he was actually, he's a captain on the fire department that I work at.
And he's like, hey, can you come over and give me a bid on doing these concrete countertops for this kitchen I made?
I'm like, yeah, sure, man.
Dude, this dude's loaded.
First off, he's a captain.
He makes good money.
His wife is like a doctor or something like that.
You know, and this guy, like, blows money on, like, the most random bullshit all the time.
That's what this dude does.
And I know it.
I've seen it personally, you know?
And so I go over there, measure it all up, and I'm like, okay, I've got the price in my head.
And he's like, all right, dude, well, you know, this is how you're going to have to do this.
He's that dude that he's watched videos and he'll tell you how you need to do it.
Yeah.
You know, and you're just like, Hey, you're doing it.
Oh, man, I got it.
Like, Jesus.
Yeah.
But anyways, he's like, all right, well, so what do you charge a square foot?
And I was like, oh, I charge a hundred bucks square foot.
I was like, fireman, I'll give you a discount.
You know what I mean?
Trying to help you out.
I understand the struggle.
Yeah.
You know, this guy goes, oh, it's made of gold.
Whoa.
God, a hundred bucks a square foot.
He's like, wow, man, I don't know if I could choke that one down.
Anyways, so we get down to that conversation and I'm like, bro, this is it.
You said to your boyfriend, that's what I said to him.
I wish I would have, that would be a good burn.
But anyways, he's like, well, you know, we get done doing everything, talking that way.
He's like, all right, well, let's go through the house and you say bye to my wife and everything like that.
And I'm like, okay, cool.
Do we get inside and this son of a bitch says, he goes, well, honey, you might want to sit down.
I know I almost fell down.
I'm like, this mother are you kidding me right now?
Like, God dang.
I just could not believe it.
I could not believe that.
But if I would have said, just like what you're saying is like, all right, well, hey, this project is this.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, that would have been a total different thing than saying square foot.
Yeah.
So that's the hard part, you guys.
I mean, again, I'm going to give an analogy of something that just happened to somebody recently.
And I think we talked about it maybe in a podcast.
But anyway, so I know somebody who used a certain sealer, right, on a project.
And a big part of using the sealer was being sold on the idea of its durability.
But also a big part is because of its cost to square foot.
And so for him, like, okay, well, that must be part of the game, right?
Like, okay, so I'm getting this material.
And he actually went to a, I don't know, institute or something even to like, to learn how to use this stuff, right?
Well, what never got built into that is two years later, when white rings were showing up on this thing, that he was going to go back and sand all of this out and then have to reseal either with the same product or a new product.
If he had gone a different direction and not focused on this material as a square foot price and instead opened up his thinking of like, what durability do I want to present this thing so that I don't have to be back here in six months, a year or two years, resealing this thing and taking time out of my day and etc, etc.
That's a whole different conversation.
And so to me, that's that's where a lot of everything we do has got lost.
And why I try to approach everything differently, you know?
And again, sorry, I put it on Sealer, but you know, what durabilites are you looking for?
What's the quality product you want to put out?
You know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And at the end of the day, I could use my, you know, five-foot vanity at 3,500 bucks.
They're just looking at this as a vanity for 3,500 bucks instead of like, oh, my God, 700 bucks a square foot.
That sounds crazy.
Well, and maybe it does.
And again, legitimately, maybe it does.
But at the end of the day, when I go to my shop, as we just said, the Melamine, and I build my form and whatever, let's say I build my form in four hours.
You know what I mean?
I cast, I cure, blah, blah, blah.
It's been sitting in my shop for five days.
Ultimately, maybe I have 25 hours into this thing.
So, okay, let's even say 20 hours.
Okay, well, 20 hours plus the materials taken out of a $3,500 vanity.
You see what I'm saying?
Before you know it, you know, okay.
I told myself I'm at 150 an hour.
But does 150 an hour legitimately cover that week's worth of shop lease, that week's worth of, you know, the payment on my truck when you take 1500 bucks?
You see what I'm saying?
Hey, something, Jon, that, you know, it's not a question I get a lot.
Like, when we first launched Kodiak, every single customer wanted to know how we compared to another product cost wise.
How do you compare to Trinic?
How do you compare to Fishstone?
How do you compare to Buddy Rhodes?
How do you compare to SureCrete?
Like, those are the questions we were getting from people, and it was nonstop.
And so the first, you know, I don't know how many podcasts, we spent so much time doing breakdowns.
Yeah, trying to focus on that, yeah.
Of, you know, and just coming from like, well, here's the cost.
It's like, you know, we're whatever, 6% more.
And on the cost of a project, that's 30 bucks.
Is it worth 30 bucks to you?
You know, but one I did hear from was a guy that's kind of a hobbyist.
He's wanting to start doing it professionally, like make this his business.
And he's currently using Fishstone.
I don't know if he's able to get it locally or he just somehow, that's what he first stumbled into when he was making these smaller things he's making.
But I went to Fishstone's website just to see what they have that's in the fully pre-blended line.
And they have a product called Ultracast 360, the ultimate 3D casting mix, which is what I assume he's using because he's casting small stuff.
And so I think that's probably what he's using.
And it's 45 pounds, not 50 pounds.
So they're what I would call pro-pricing or full-pilot price is 36.75.
While we're talking to the math, they're exactly the same price as us.
At 45 pounds, 36.75 is the same price as what we're at at 50 pounds, right?
So at that point, if you're saying they're identical in price, then you've just got to really look at the product.
What's the difference in the products?
I don't know what's in this mix, and I don't really care what's in the mix.
But what I would say is something that we announced last week, but we've been working on for over a year, is making our products silica free.
So MakerMix is now a Crystalline Silica Free High-Performance Concrete.
And this is a very, very specialized and a very boutique thing.
Not many people are doing it.
I mean, honestly, I know in Australia it's a big focus because of silicosis in Australia and the silica regulations.
But I don't know of anybody that's getting the level of quality we're getting, the level of surface quality and density and ease of use that we're getting with MakerMix.
That's a Crystalline Silica Free product.
So it's something that we've quietly been working on because it is important.
Jon's been focused on health from the very beginning with ICT 20 years ago, getting away from solvent and isothionates and all these different things that all the other sealer technologies rely on.
Yeah, and the toxicities.
It's just not worth it yet.
And then with this, again, back in the day when I was using ultra seals from Buddy Rhodes, well, there were some products and ultra seals that weren't good for your lungs to breathe.
And I knew it and I didn't like using it, but it was what it was.
But over time, Jon's been working on getting MakerMix, and RadMix has always been there, depending on what sands you used, but getting MakerMix, a crystalline silica free product, and we're there.
So then at that point, then I'd also, we're talking about like you on the scales of how you make your decision, I'd put in, what is your health worth?
What is your time worth?
What is your life worth?
Because if you use a product, which almost all the concrete products on the market that are fully pre-blended that are going to have Crystalline Silica in them in high levels, at that point, is it worth switching to a product for the health benefits?
I think that's a phenomenal thing that you guys are doing.
Look at Robert Kennedy Jr.
just got in, and he's going to be making a boom just in what we eat.
You know what I mean?
So if you're that worried about what you eat, why would you want to be inhaling or mixing s*** that's even more toxic to you?
So I'm right there with you.
I think that's phenomenal.
Well, my personal opinion is Crystalline Silica, Australia's already, they're like the Canary in the coal mine for materials.
They're the ones that are going bananas on Crystalline Silica right now.
They shut down the concrete industry, they shut down the stone industry, they shut down the pre-manufactured, or what I'm thinking of, the, like, silestone and quarrying over there because they had Crystalline Silica.
I think as of June this year or something like that, yeah, they can't even be imported anymore.
Yeah.
They're done with it.
So they're the tip of the iceberg.
This is going to cascade.
It's going to go through Europe.
It's going to come to the United States.
It's going to be to where Crystalline Silica containing products are going to be the asbestos of our time.
Mark my words.
We're maybe five years out, ten years out.
But there's going to be a time coming very soon that asbestos was a phenomenal insulation material.
And it was totally...
It actually still would be.
Yeah.
Totally inert.
Totally inert material.
Phenomenal insulation properties.
It's contained in your wall.
You're not able to breathe it.
But, brother, you buy a house of asbestos, and it's going to be a fortune to get it removed, right?
So same thing with this is Crystalline Silica in the mix.
For the maker, it's very harmful.
So you're mixing it, you're grinding it, you're polishing it, all that dust is in the air, and that's really bad for you.
But also the end user, ultimately, Crystalline Silica, anybody that has concrete countertops in their house, you can attest that there's some dusting that comes off, especially the underside.
If you don't seal those up, you open up your cabinets, and there's dust in there.
Grinding forks.
Exactly.
And chisels, everything.
Yeah, yeah.
So, Crystalline Silica in those products, when this becomes a big hot issue in the US, which is coming, if you're on the forefront, you've already future-proofed your business, you've set yourself apart from your competitors, and when you meet the client, you can tell them, I use a Crystalline Silica Free High-Performance Concrete.
We're one of the first in the world using this product, and we do it because we care about our health, and we care about your health.
We care about the longevity of this product in your home.
We care about the safety and health of your family, and that's why we use this.
And same thing with the sealer, you know, you can say like...
Because you use ICT, and you're using Fusion.
Jon called you a big scaredy cat for being scared of...
Yeah, man, what's up with that?
You're calling me out, man.
I'm not scared.
I'm not scared.
Yeah, but...
Scaredy cat.
But, you know, all the people that are using...
And I was one of the people that are using the sealers that are catalyzed with isothionates and things like that.
The sealer resellers, there's very few people actually manufacturing the sealers.
They're buying it from somebody else.
Yeah, they're downpackers.
And downpacking it, putting a label on it.
You don't know what it is, but it's toxic.
And they'll say it's food safe.
Do you have a degree in chemistry?
Do you understand cross-linking?
I don't, but Jon does.
And Jon can tell you, none of those things are truly food safe.
And there's no regulation that determines what's food safe, right?
No.
Yeah, there's no FDA.
Yeah, you're putting that stuff on a surface and you're putting it in your house or you're putting it in your buddy's house, you're putting it in your mom's house, your grandma's house, and they're preparing food on it.
And it's toxic.
And so, by able to have that conversation, I think green, the whole green thing, a lot of that was a lot of green washing.
It was all just for marketing.
But I think it was a good starting point for where we're heading, and that's a safer and healthier interior space, interior environment.
But if you can have that conversation with an architect or designer, especially an architect, designer, specifier, and explain to them, this is how our products, this is how we're different.
Not only do we make what we consider to be the best whatever, countertops, sinks, chairs, whatever, but we use the best products that are the healthiest.
And so that's equally as important.
You don't want to put a toxic material in your house.
You need to point to Australia.
You know, Australia's banned sile stone and quarry and granite and all these things because of Crystalline Silica.
And we're ahead of that.
We've adopted a product and we're ahead of it.
So that's an important thing to discuss.
Yeah, that's phenomenal.
Jon, you have any input on that?
Well, you guys just got me thinking.
And I mean, we've kind of moved through pricing and how to handle those and just some suggestions moving forward.
But I would, and absolutely, and I'm the wrong person to talk to that because I'll be the guy standing up on my soapbox all day long.
And I have since the very beginning about trying to have products that anybody uses because I don't care what, you can be a smoker, but the day you get lung cancer is when it matters.
You know what I mean?
You don't look back and be like, well, that's great.
I knew all along this was going to be awesome.
No, that's when you're like, so that's how I've always looked at that.
But what you got me thinking about is now that you just kind of a minute ago price and Ultracast 360, there's so much in my opinion that really should go into looking at various products and what a person might use.
And a big part of that's what you just said.
Yeah, I mean, who's behind these products and what is the whatever, the experience behind those products?
How are they put together?
Who represents them?
What kind of experience can I count on for tech support?
And that kind of goes back to the analogy I just gave with the sealer.
This particular person, when he called the vendor specifically, they had no answers for him.
Well, guys, listen, you call me about ICT and I will tell you every pro and con from team.
Maybe I talk you out of using it.
You know what I mean?
It won't be a quick phone call, which is I will give you it all because, you know, I have 20 years of experience.
I would have a real hard time for someone hitting me and going like, and then me going like, I don't know, man, never heard of that happening.
I'd be like, oh yeah, I know exactly what's going on there.
And this is how you avoid it moving forward, or this is how you fix it.
This is how you, you know, overcome that.
You know, anyway, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
So in this case, getting the white rings, and I know I'm bringing up the whole like what Brandon was saying about what, you know, most of these products, they say, oh, it becomes inert.
Well, the white ring, which he wasn't happy about me getting the answer to, the white ring was B was because of material in there that was not inert, which there was now, let's say, you know, coming to fruition two years later, creating white rings.
And that would have been the cross-linking technology.
In my opinion, and this is where I think honesty should rule, is that vendor should have just stepped right up and been like, hey, no, this is what's going on, and this is how you fix it.
And instead, he took a customer that could have maybe potentially continued to be his customer and instead moved that particular individual to consider him a charlatan.
Because, or maybe he's not, legitimately, because this person doesn't use the product that they're downpacking.
Maybe they realistically didn't know why it was happening.
And I'm going to say that's okay, but it's not okay when you're the one using the product and now you needed help.
Yeah.
Hey, Jon, Case has to run, buddy.
He's got business to get to.
So anyways, we got to wrap this up.
Hey, real quick, going back to like what we were talking about, pricing and everything.
I just wanted to point out, give a shout out to some dude that I think I follow him on Instagram.
It's like Neverrestin.
Oh, yeah.
Justin Burd.
Oh, yeah, Justin.
Yeah, yeah.
Super cool guy.
Yeah.
Like I've never talked to him, but he posts cool s***, but he just posted something the other day about price point.
And it's like, yeah, you're paying for the top, but you're also paying for hundreds of hours of perfection.
You know, and that rings very clear, you know.
Any man worth his weight is always going to chase perfection, knowing that it's unattainable, whether it's in health, fitness, concrete, whatever, you're always going to be chasing to be perfect, knowing it's unattainable.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's awesome.
Yeah, to be better.
No question.
Improvement.
And that's what you guys do.
I was talking to Brandon in the back about that.
It's like, that's why I like you guys so much.
It's because it's not like, oh, we have the Maker's Mix bag.
It's perfect.
Yeah, we're good.
No, man.
Like you're continually trying to fine tune everything and you'll probably fail 50 times, 100 times.
Yeah.
But when you succeed, you get what you got right now.
It's a silica free mix.
It's phenomenal.
And it'll keep going.
Well, it's taking Jon.
I mean, realistically, a lot of people don't...
People think Kodiak's only been around for four years, but Jon's been making materials for concrete for, you know, 15 years ago is when he first started with the actual materials, and he's been slowly evolving.
So it's been a series of quantum leaps again and again and again.
And if you look at Jon's advancements in materials to where we are today with MakerMix and RadMix, so that's really the pinnacle of all this past...
And sealer.
I mean, sealer today is night and day what it was, you know, X years ago.
Yeah, that's what I was talking to a guy in Oregon tonight just about that.
So, yeah, I mean, this is...
I've been talking about fusion, and I could be wrong.
I am open to someone else.
I think it's the first generation of thermal catalytic sealer technology ever brought to the market.
And there's reasons for that.
And obviously durability.
But that is, you know, it's healthy.
You can use it.
You don't have to have masks and gloves.
It's funny you brought up the mask, and you brought up about...
No, you brought it up, Jon, sorry.
You brought up about, like, a smoker.
They don't worry about smoking until the bill comes due, right?
Yep.
And I was listening to Tony Robbins yesterday.
I love Tony Robbins, and he was talking about the musts and the shoulds.
You know, I should do this or I must do this.
People know, like, let's use concrete, for example, they know that you should wear a respirator.
But how many pictures and videos and stuff do I see on TikTok and Instagram of guys mixing, and they just have a t-shirt over their nose or nothing, you know?
They know better.
They know better.
But the bill seems so far out that they don't worry about it.
They're like, yeah, that bill's 20 years.
Yeah, because it's not immediate.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, if you broke out in an instant rash or with coughing the rest of the afternoon, then you'd be like, oh yeah, I got to wear a respirator.
But since these things don't happen, and probably won't until you're into your late 50s or 60s, it just doesn't make sense.
Yeah, it's not on the must.
But same thing when we go back to the Crystalline Silica Free, is you might say, well, I'm using this product where I can get locally.
You know, I know I should be using the Crystalline Silica Free product, but I'm going to use this until the bill comes due.
And the bill could be that you made all these things that are beautiful, and that in five years the government regulates that these things are no longer allowed inside interior spaces.
That could happen, you know, just like asbestos.
I think all the builders that built these homes with asbestos never dreamed that at some point this is going to be illegal, and that it's going to be remediated, you know.
Right, like lead paint.
Lead paint, yeah, I mean all of these things.
I think crystalline silica in concrete products and in solid surface products like corian and stuff, that at some point, when people buy a house, does this have crystalline silica in it?
Oh, you know, people in hazmat seats got to come in and take it out, you know, and hose everything down with water and charge you 10,000 bucks, you know.
So anyways, I think that's on the horizon.
When that happens, I don't know, but it's coming.
And so that's the must and the should.
And a lot of people think I should.
I think you must.
I think you must make the switch to healthier products, healthier sealers.
All right, Jon, let's wrap this up.
Case got to go.
All right, Case, good talking to you as always, man.
And just letting you know, when we actually meet face to face, I won't call you a scaredy cat.
That sounds good, man.
He'll flip you upside down.
Then I got to tell the story again about you getting in the ring and, you know, winning money for the kids.
And so I'll be much nicer.
Whooping up the cops, man.
This is another day.
This is another day.
All right, buddy.
That's awesome, buddy.
All right, Jon.
Adios, amigo.
Adios.
Case.
See you later, buddy.