My biggest success have come from my biggest failures.
Story time for anyone that cares to read.
Have you heard that saying. I’ll admit my 29 year old self rolled his eyes at this. It was old people jibberish.
I actually have a small sign in my office now that says that. If my grandpa is looking down, he has a shit eating grin. I promise.
It was around 2010 and there has been a small to medium sized earthquake in the LA area. Not devastating but enough to mess a few things up.
There was this pretty sizable cold storage facility owned by a major food distributor. This particular building held frozen chicken. Lots and lots of frozen chicken.
Whole, quarters, breast’s , nuggets and all kinds.
This was about 120,000 square feet and had 50’ ceilings.
What happened was the earthquake dominoes 75% of the racks holding boxes of chicken.
10,000+ boxes.
We were hired to clear the rubble, cut/ move the racks and salvage whatever product we could.
Broken boxes, toss. Boxes intact, keep. Stack, take to dock where we loaded in reefers trailers to transport out.
Straight forward yea?
The storage area was intact and maintaining temps.
Like -30 temps.
We were briefed by the client and built a plan.
We did a full assessment, JHA and action plan.
Proper attire was sourced and equipment we needed was delivered.
Scissors lifts, forklifts, power tools, pallet jacks, etc.
we even sourced a shrink wrap machine.
Man. We were set. I had a great crew, some good supplemental labor and the place to ourselves.
Shift one (day and night) started and about 3-4 hours in, the wheels started to fall off. Nah. I won’t say it was that bad, but things went south.
We had a timeline. We felt it was achievable…..but what we had not was the effect the cold had on our equipment and tools.
The motors and hydraulic fluid was gelling up and going dead.
The job came to a halt.
When I say we agreed to a deadline I mean 2.5 days. Max.
We made the adjustments and got multiple sets of everything.
But guess what. The client didn’t see our lack of prep in the scope to be a financial expense they had to absorb.
This was T&M with a ROM.
We beat out several other companies with our scope and ROM.
So the job got behind, we loaded up on more equip, more people (supers and staff) and got it done.
We broke even (maybe less) on our billing.
But we got the job done in 2 days. A half day early.
That saved them enormous money and effort. They ended up negotiating a slight change order that probably helped me keep my position.
It was my fault. I was in charge. I didn’t fully see the curve. I didn’t predict the challenges. I’m the pro.
It fell on me.
I kept my position and lived to do it again.
Where is the success?
I became the “frozen” Director.
Does this happen enough to have a “guy” for that? You would be surprised how much frozen storage there is around to feed this frozen food country.
Fires, collapses and all kinds of weird things.
The VP of that chicken company ended up filming a video of how much he valued our company for being adaptive and putting him first, we became the go to in that industry. They are a small niche like we are.
So what was looking like a huge black eye, I went on with that disaster company and then my own probably doing 8-10 million solely from those events.
So my failure turned into a success.
Don’t be afraid to fail. Avoid it of course, but play hard, take chances then be fanatical about correcting it. Fall on the sword.
Because it might end up turning out in your favor.
If you read this far…you are rare but I hope the message inspires you to not crush when you fail.
I love sharing my experiences because you might be in that position one day and maybe you will recall this and have a different reaction to failure.
I’m here, in this group, in this time to help you be more successful.
Consider contacting our firm to help guide you through some of the next ceilings to get where you can smile while you share your stories.
Www.restorationadvisers.com
Cheers
Story time for anyone that cares to read.
Have you heard that saying. I’ll admit my 29 year old self rolled his eyes at this. It was old people jibberish.
I actually have a small sign in my office now that says that. If my grandpa is looking down, he has a shit eating grin. I promise.
It was around 2010 and there has been a small to medium sized earthquake in the LA area. Not devastating but enough to mess a few things up.
There was this pretty sizable cold storage facility owned by a major food distributor. This particular building held frozen chicken. Lots and lots of frozen chicken.
Whole, quarters, breast’s , nuggets and all kinds.
This was about 120,000 square feet and had 50’ ceilings.
What happened was the earthquake dominoes 75% of the racks holding boxes of chicken.
10,000+ boxes.
We were hired to clear the rubble, cut/ move the racks and salvage whatever product we could.
Broken boxes, toss. Boxes intact, keep. Stack, take to dock where we loaded in reefers trailers to transport out.
Straight forward yea?
The storage area was intact and maintaining temps.
Like -30 temps.
We were briefed by the client and built a plan.
We did a full assessment, JHA and action plan.
Proper attire was sourced and equipment we needed was delivered.
Scissors lifts, forklifts, power tools, pallet jacks, etc.
we even sourced a shrink wrap machine.
Man. We were set. I had a great crew, some good supplemental labor and the place to ourselves.
Shift one (day and night) started and about 3-4 hours in, the wheels started to fall off. Nah. I won’t say it was that bad, but things went south.
We had a timeline. We felt it was achievable…..but what we had not was the effect the cold had on our equipment and tools.
The motors and hydraulic fluid was gelling up and going dead.
The job came to a halt.
When I say we agreed to a deadline I mean 2.5 days. Max.
We made the adjustments and got multiple sets of everything.
But guess what. The client didn’t see our lack of prep in the scope to be a financial expense they had to absorb.
This was T&M with a ROM.
We beat out several other companies with our scope and ROM.
So the job got behind, we loaded up on more equip, more people (supers and staff) and got it done.
We broke even (maybe less) on our billing.
But we got the job done in 2 days. A half day early.
That saved them enormous money and effort. They ended up negotiating a slight change order that probably helped me keep my position.
It was my fault. I was in charge. I didn’t fully see the curve. I didn’t predict the challenges. I’m the pro.
It fell on me.
I kept my position and lived to do it again.
Where is the success?
I became the “frozen” Director.
Does this happen enough to have a “guy” for that? You would be surprised how much frozen storage there is around to feed this frozen food country.
Fires, collapses and all kinds of weird things.
The VP of that chicken company ended up filming a video of how much he valued our company for being adaptive and putting him first, we became the go to in that industry. They are a small niche like we are.
So what was looking like a huge black eye, I went on with that disaster company and then my own probably doing 8-10 million solely from those events.
So my failure turned into a success.
Don’t be afraid to fail. Avoid it of course, but play hard, take chances then be fanatical about correcting it. Fall on the sword.
Because it might end up turning out in your favor.
If you read this far…you are rare but I hope the message inspires you to not crush when you fail.
I love sharing my experiences because you might be in that position one day and maybe you will recall this and have a different reaction to failure.
I’m here, in this group, in this time to help you be more successful.
Consider contacting our firm to help guide you through some of the next ceilings to get where you can smile while you share your stories.
Www.restorationadvisers.com
Cheers