Every contractor who’s tried to roll out new software knows the look: the skeptical foreman, the crew member who insists “the old way works just fine.”
Resistance to technology (or change) isn’t unique to construction. Even at Knowify, a tech company, change takes work. When new tools or workflows are introduced, the same anxieties show up: fear of losing control, discomfort with learning something new, and skepticism about whether it’s worth it.
Here’s how contractors can apply the same playbook Knowify uses internally.
Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Cost Code Show, a new podcast from Knowify where we cut through the noise and bring you practical ideas for running a more profitable, efficient construction business. I'm your host, Ryan Gilmore. Today, I'm joined by Mark Descent. Mark is the cofounder and CEO of Knowify, but that's just scratching the surface. How are doing today, Mark? Pretty good. How are you, Ryan? Doing well. Doing well. Mark's gonna talk to us about a few big picture topics, so his evolution from his legal background to running a software company, leadership lessons he's learned along the way from growing the company, company vision and turning strategy into daily ops, and, creating accountability and transparency in the company. So before we get started, I do wanna touch on one thing. Our goal with this show is to be a little bit different from some of the podcasts you might be familiar with. It's not gonna be an hour or two of folks waxing poetic. We wanna make it as practical and actionable as we can. So we're gonna try to keep it short and to the point, and we're also gonna make sure we always include a valuable resource to help you run your business more efficiently. So in today's show notes, we're gonna include our contractor assessment and action plan. This is a free downloadable tool. It allows you to score your business along a few different criteria like internal processes, financial management, your use of technology. And then based on that score, we're gonna make some concrete recommendations for how you can improve. So with that out of the way, let's get rolling. Mark, why don't you just get started by telling us a bit about your background and how you got into the software business? Absolutely. So I started in software pretty early. Like, as a kid, I always enjoyed, like, coding and learning new languages. That brought me to engineering school where I specialized in, you know, in computer engineering. That was the early days of the Internet and the early days of, like, software as we know it today. So that was, like, pretty good times to be, like, learning and then trying to build the first products. Then I took a very long break. I went to law school and practiced law for a few years. And it was like as I was practicing law and and working with all those big client and big corporations, when I realized that what I really enjoyed was, like, you know, all these business challenges, all these business problems that they were trying to solve. Right? With me, they were trying to solve them from a legal stand standpoint, but they also had all sorts of other issues that they were trying to fix. And I realized that, realistically, I actually wanted to be the client, not the lawyer. Right? So that that brought me to the US, and, eventually, I met I met Dan, and we both started Noify with this idea of, like, you know, running a small business is not easy. Right? It's full of challenges. It's full of problem. It's full of things that you're always wishing, you know, wish it was better. And our idea with Notify was let's at least create this foundation for a business. Right? Let's create all these workflows, all these ways of running your business that then they can grow with you. Right? It's not just everything in your head or everything in paper or everything in spreadsheets, but everything in one single place for you to run your business. Nice. So jumping off of that, so what were some of the early challenges that you and Dan experienced, you know, in shaping the company vision, And how do you guys kinda over overcome those? I think the early challenges were, like, the challenges that we all know about the construction industry. Right? Sometimes this hesitation about using and leveraging technology I mean, if you think about how technology has helped the construction industry and we try to go back in time, since the beginning of the Internet, the construction industry has seen their productivity growth decline, you know, like, which is which is crazy. Right? You will think that something so transformational for everybody like Internet would actually help the construction industry, but, apparently, it didn't actually leverage that, you know, in the same way other industries did. Right? So I said the the challenge that we've that we have run into in the early days were these kind of, like, mistrust or this kind of, like, not really believing the technology can help my business. Right? And I think that, honestly, part of the problem was on us software providers. Maybe we actually never build the tools that actually made a difference for these for these business owners. Right? And it was on us to prove the value and the return on the investment of you using technology, you spending time actually embracing this technology in the early days. You know? Like, starting with something new, it's never easy. It's nothing out out of the box. You have to go and change your processes. And I see that the the the the challenges that we face were the challenges of the industry. Can we can we adopt technology in a way that makes sense for our business? Nice. So from what I understand as well, when you when you started at NoFi, you weren't actually the CEO. So you were kind of more of an employee, you transitioned into a CEO, which I think for a lot of our clients is a very familiar kind of path. They start in a trade. They they then wanna start a business, or they kinda grow from, like, a senior maybe a foreman into, you know, running a business. Maybe so maybe you could talk about that transition. Yeah. I think in my case, it's like as you just said, like, it's like the case of that foreman or that, like, PM that grows inside the business. Right? In our case, it was the fact that I was joining as an employee and the business didn't even exist. And so I joined way before we had any customers. As we were building it, I think that it was obvious to Dan and myself that I would do a good job, like, you know, being in charge of the business, leading the business with my background in both technology, law, and also in general, like, business management. I come from a family of, like, small business owners. So I had this connection with both the, you know, the the phases, the challenges that we were facing, the way that we were trying to solve them, and that's how we ended up in this position. I said it's, you know, lessons learned from that. Right? I said, Dan and I having an honest conversation about what's what makes the most sense for the business. You know, I said, obviously, it tells when you have someone building the business with you that is open to having this type of conversation, right, that actually acknowledges, like, the, you know, like, virtues and weaknesses of, like, whoever is building it with you, understanding who's gonna be in a better position to, you know, to do what it takes to be the CEO and and lead the business. So that was kind of, like, one of the early lessons. So first that someone, like, you know, coming from somewhere else can eventually become the CEO of the business, and also the fact that partnering with the right people. Right? In my case, partnering with Dan, that we were able to work together so well. Yeah. That's awesome. I and I think and I wanna jump off that because you're talking a lot about, I think, people and and personalities and finding your right role in a company. So maybe you could talk a little bit about, you know, Nullify has obviously grown from the from the two of you into a to a larger company. Still probably small in the grand scheme of things, but but much larger than it was. So how, how did you kind of how do you kind of approach hiring and figuring out, like, these are the needs and these are the right people that can fill those needs? Because I think in construction, talent is always a, you know, a tough thing to to find great talent. So we'd love to hear your thoughts about that. And Leon will realize that it's both, you know, talent and and and, honestly, like, this quality of, like, being a good human being. It's like and I said it's it's about finding the right balance. I said that sometimes everybody talks about, like, leveling up the talent of your company, right, and bringing more talent than people. But I said sometimes we we we we kind of, like, mix two concepts here. One is, like, bringing people that are gonna fit for your company. Right? And then the other layer is talent. Right? And maybe it's part of their talent. Right? Like, you being a good fit for the company. But yet since the early days, I don't know if I and we've done that very in a very intentional way and very seriously internally. We try to hire the people that we believe are gonna be the best fit position. And so not it's not necessarily, like, the most talented people applying for that position, but it's a it's a mix of both. Right? Like, you having, you know, at the right stage in your career, having the right mentality, being a good fit for our business stage. Right? We are growing. It's a little bit more chaotic, expecting to have a job where everything is under control. This is not the right job. Right? There's gonna be a bunch of things that you will have to do that you didn't expect doing, and your job description will very likely not be what you're gonna end up doing here. I know if I but for us, like, bringing honestly the right people, like, good people. And sometimes even sometimes, like, sacrificing that extra little bit, like, extra inch of talent to make sure that we would have the right person and we would actually be able to work. That's awesome. And, again, I I think it leads me to another question I would say is once you got the right people in place, how do you kinda keep them there? How do you retain your, you know, retain your folks? Because one of the cool things about Noify, at least from my experience, is that there's very little turnover. Like, people I think we do a great job of finding the right people, and people seem very happy here. So, obviously, you're doing something right. Maybe you could talk a little bit about about that as well. I feel that just to pretty much not repeating the same answer, but, realistically, if you've hired the right people, the odds of you retaining them are much higher. Right? If you hire the wrong people, chances are you're gonna have to let them go or they're gonna leave, honestly, because they will also see that they're good fit. For us, step number one, pick the right people. Right? If we've always been and we've probably talked about this a bit later. We've always been very efficient in the things that we do. Right? So we are we are actually trying to convince our users and customers to be more efficient in their business, right, to use technology to be more efficient. We are also trying to, you know, to do the same, to actually lead by example and trying to be super efficient. So when we bring people to the company, we want to make sure they are the right people, and we also know how disruptive it is to be switching some of these people. Right? So we try to avoid it as much as we can. It's a combination of, like, right hiring, right onboarding, and expectation setting. Right? Like, I think that if I tell you before joining Notify that this is gonna be a very straightforward, quiet, and not intense position, I would be lying. Right? Because at least you're gonna have to do things that you don't even know. And if you are unsure and comfortable about that, yeah, I'm gonna be setting you up for failure. So I try to avoid that early on. Right? We try to set the expectations right. So we hire the right people. We set the right expectations, and then we try to be in how we give feedback and how we help people make progress. We always work with the assumption that we hire the right person. Right? That's always an assumption notify, and we start there. From that point on, if things are not working as well as we would have hoped, we first look at ourselves and try to see what where have we failed. You know? Like, is are we are we not setting this person up for success? Right? Are we the tasks are too confusing. The instructions are not clear. The environment is not correct. The resource is not enough. Right? And we try to go through that before just, like, blaming the person that just Right? That's realistically, very likely that person has little to do with with the challenge that you might find, you know, beyond. And I said by by all this combination of things and always, like, being transparent about how we how we perform, how we do, I think that makes a And I think that and you've seen it. Right? I see that we try to be honest about how are we tracking. Right? Both company and and and person wise. Right? I see that at the company level, we are pretty transparent. This is where we are. Right? Revenue wise and and and goals wise. And if we are behind, we just say so. If we are behind, right, then how can we catch up? With each person at the company, we try to do the same. We try to understand, have we made the progress that we thought that we would make? Yes or no? If we have excellent, let's see if we can even aim higher and, you know, and help you even do more. If we haven't, let's understand together why not. Right? Let's come up with a plan on how to improve. Yeah. The focus on transparency, I think, is a big one. So maybe we could transition a little bit more to, like, accountability and kind of managing, like, processes day to day, things like that. So, yeah, let's just talk about, accountability or transparency. So, like, what kind of tactics do you guys kind of implement to help maintain transparency and create a sense of alignment, I guess, through all the different teams at Knowify and make sure everyone's informed and bought into the the vision and knows what's going on and things like that. I feel that at the company level, a little bit what I just described. Right? So we try to literally share how we are doing. Right? There is no, like, you know, like, part that we show you or part that we really show you, we don't tell you that the exist are notified. Right? I mean, sometimes people, I'd be, like, shocked on how transparent we are. Even sometimes we might share, like, how much cash we have left. Right? Or or or or what is, like, or how much we are behind in terms of that's sometimes, like, strange to some people. I I think that it's important for everybody. If you're trying to do your job, you have on the same call the companies. And so you cannot do either your job in a vacuum. I mean, your job in a vacuum actually doesn't matter, basically. Right? So your job has to make sense in the in the overall strategy of the company. If the company is well behind, you should probably be thinking yourself, what else can I do? Right? By you knowing that we are behind, they likely are gonna be rethinking about how you are seeing your day to day, your tasks, your own goals. Are these goals helping the business? Because if they are not, you very likely want to go to talk to someone else in your team and say, hey. Should we be doing something different? You know, I see that for instance, if you work in marketing, right, then marketing is usually about, you know, both branding and lead generation and all these things that happen in the market. Right? If we are behind in something like, say, revenue, are we are we getting enough leads? All the things that I am doing are actually it's actually contributing to me to the business getting more leads. Yes or no? Right? I said that first, like, first step by transparency that sometimes even it's a bit shocking. And I know that some people feel and some business leaders feel very uncomfortable about sharing some of these. I mean, I've seen this with conversations with, you know, business owners in the construction industry that some of them, they share actually their financials. They go and share their financials with most of the team. Right? So I feel that's and and they explained as if, like, we are in this together. Right? So it's like, I know that I am the owner. Very likely, I have a share in the benefits of the business, but you're an employee that wants to grow, that you're you want your site to go up, you want to be successful. We are both on in this together. Right? So if you don't know the goal to the company and you don't know how the company is doing, you will not be able to help the business. So that's that's step number one. Right? Like, this this transparency almost like willingness to share goals and how we are tracking. The second part would be on more on the on the employee side that at least empowering the employee to to make the employee feel that that that she's in control actually of of of their own goals. Right? I said there is nothing worse than setting goals that you know that you cannot achieve by yourself. Right? That this is like it's totally out of your reach. And then you feel that you're working, but whatever you're trying to achieve depends on many other things that you have not controlled. Right? I yet can notify to the best of our ability. We try to help everybody in the team be in control of their own folks. Right? We also expect those goals to be almost, like, set by the employee. One of the things that we do at Notify is that, you know, like, in a few in a few weeks, we're gonna be sitting down with some people in the team and think, okay. Where do we want to go next year? Right? How will we get there? And every everybody will go back to their teams and try to figure out internally what else can we do, how much higher we can aim. And I think it's gonna be almost, like, from the bottom up. Right? I said there's many companies where the CEO or the board, like, sets the goals, right, for the year, and then we just have to go to these goals. Now if I it's usually the the opposite. Most of the goals actually come from the bottom. Right? They actually like, hey. These are all the many things that we want to do, and we believe they're gonna contribute this way to our numbers. And then we kind of, like, bring them up. Obviously, it will be my job to seem you know, to summarize them, like, put them in big themes, come up with, like, three, four things that we guide us throughout the year. But most of these ideas are, like, literally, like, things that come from other teams. Right? So I said they just one thing that shocked some of our people. Well, you know, when we when we started, like, growing really fast, like, three, four years ago, and we were bringing more people and more leaders to the team, some of them, they were very shocked when I would not go and tell them what's my revenue goal for next year. Right? They would ask them, what is your revenue goal for next year? And what what can we do for next year? And they will be like, well, we are not really used at being told that at being asked, you know, what is what revenue goal for next year? It's more than being told. We have to hit this number. And everybody knows that the number is impossible, but we have to aim very high. Right? Because in case we miss, at least we are missing, you know, as high as we can. We try to operate in a very different way. But I think that transparency brings clarity on what you are trying to achieve, and then accountability is also achieved by, like, really empowering people in your team to achieve their goals. And I said that's what makes us unique, and that's why I believe that it makes us unique, but it shouldn't. That's that's a model that you can replicate in a software business like ours, in a construction business like the one that our customers have, or pretty much in any other industry. Yeah. You're talking a lot about, I think, like, wherever it comes from, but developing a sense of vision for your company and where you wanna go. So maybe you could talk a little bit about how that's kinda helped like, why that's important and how that's helped nullify through the years, I mean, how that could apply to to a trade contractor or to a construction business? At the end of my case, it's unique in the sense that I was not a contractor. Right? And I I built a business to help contractors succeed without me being a contact. I feel that being an outsider helped me see the biz the industry in a slightly different way. But it also forced me to listen to our customers at Universe. Right? They didn't know what their real problem was. So I had to talk to them and really listen. And they would give me a bunch of answer, right, or a bunch of potential solutions. And I would have to put them together, understand what can brings us you know, what can bring you to the actual we better finding your business. Right? The vision has evolved over the years, but the core of the vision has always been the same, like, plan a better business. Like, and plan a better business, by the way, it means sometimes different things for everybody. Right? Right? Like, you might be running a business that you don't really want to grow, but you want it to be easier. You just want to go home earlier. Right? You just want for your employees to have a better life. There is there are ways that technology can help you with that. There's ways that you can act business. Other people have much more ambitious goals. They just want to grow their pieces much as they can. They just want to increase revenue, get more customers. For those, it's also important that, you know, like, that the vision of Noify evolves and tries to, you know, like, almost, like, fit for both for both scenarios. Yeah. The vision of Noify has evolved as the market has evolved, as construction business owners have evolved, as technology has evolved. I just said that a few years ago, we were just thinking about building screens and buttons and helping you see data and simplify certain tasks. For tomorrow, we are thinking about, can we help you? Can we do those tasks for you? Right? Like, can we actually do it for you? Right? So it's, like, almost, like, out to your business and autopilot, and we will get there. And that's why that was not the original vision, but it's the vision that transforms as as the world transforms. I said in the next coming years, the vision will continue to change, but the current vision would remain the same. You know? Let's let's let's just run a better business. Nice. I love that. And I also want to take that high level vision and then maybe make it a little bit more bring it into the more practical day to day stuff. So for business owners that are kind of on this journey of developing their vision, what would you kinda give what kind of advice would you give to them for ones that are trying to balance this high level vision or longer term planning, let's say, and the day to day operations? So making you know, staying on top of what's happening, you know, in the minutiae of the day to day. How can they kinda balance those things, or what lessons have you learned trying to balance that big picture thinking and the day to day, you know, realities of running a business? I think lesson number one would be that you have to acknowledge that those are two different they are connected, but they are two different things. Right? Like, the big like, the high level, very strategic vision is is one thing that has to guide you in your decisions. But then everything everything else that happens on a daily basis, it just has almost like a a distant connection to that patient. Right? And sometimes for you, it's difficult to see when you are, like, in the middle of something very annoying that you can just have to look how that relates to the patient. Right? So for you first, acknowledging that those are, like, two different things. Right? Step number one. Step number two, have a you really have to have the clear vision. Right? If you have a somehow clear vision and then you're trying to go through your day to day tasks, If the vision is not clear, the task can annoy you. You're gonna suffer. Right? You're gonna see how you know, just everything starts, like, shaking a little bit. Like, you can see almost, like, the foundation of your business shake. And the the the the less clear the vision is, the more everything shakes. Right? I said that a good example is, you know, you can have this vision of, like, I want to I remember actually talking about vision. Example from one of our early customers. Right? We would we would, you know, we would call him, and we would be discussing things that we were changing in our schedule. And he would be like, but, Marek, you know what? I would really love it if I could run the business from the beach. Right? I I spent all my time in the office. I just skated here. I wish I could spend all my time at the beach and just run it from there. That was his vision. Like, his vision was, like, can I run my business from I say the beach, but anywhere? Right? In a in a more relaxed way. Okay. That's the vision. How do I achieve that? Chances are that you cannot you cannot run a super, like, fast growing business from the beach, right? So it's probably already telling you that you're probably thinking more about a lifestyle business, right? So if that is the case, now you have the vision and you kind of like you understand your own vision, how do you translate that into day to day? It means that very likely you cannot take any job that comes your way. I just have to be more selective in the type of jobs that you want to take. Maybe you have to always work for the same types of customers and just have repeat customers in a way that you know what to expect. Right? When you are bringing new customers and new new projects for those customers, every single one of them is gonna be slightly different. And some of them are gonna be extremely different. If you're always working for the same people, it's gonna very likely be kind of like a repeat. Know? And you just have to make sure you are repeating well. Right? That you will get really good at the repetition. You can understand that at in your day to day because you clearly understand your vision of, like, I want to run this business from the beach. Right? So it has to be right in a very particular just not way. Some other people will have a very different vision, and that will actually also inform your day to day operation. Right? I said sometimes we have this disconnect of, like, I really want to I want to build the largest business because I've existed, but then your day to day is, like, really bothering you and you don't really want to do it. Right? I think is a disconnect there. Right? So because you have a very, very, very, very ambitious goal, you have to be ready for, like, a very demanding and very challenging day to day operation. I think that's you being able to first understand your vision and two, seeing how that vision relates to your day to day operations and how you make it so that those day to day operations make sense to you. I think that's that's kind of, like, at least the foundation to be successful at this. And I wanna circle back to something you said earlier and also where that story, you know, generated from, which was customer feedback. So maybe we can start to move into talking a little bit about, you know, the product development at Noify a little bit. And so how how has customer feedback shaped product development at Nullify? Because construction is a very unique industry, and, I think without the feedback from customers, it's really tough to build something that, you know, is gonna satisfy them or meet the needs that they have. Look. Everybody building software says the same. Right? Like, everything here is built based on customer feedback. It's very, very, very unusual for that to be a hundred percent true. I think that no. If I guess, we want to do things in a certain way. We have existing users that give us constant feedback, and we are obsessed. That is the reality. That comes from the early days of Notify, Dan, and myself not coming from the industry. Right? So this almost like this insecurity of what's coming from the industry forced us to actually listen to everybody in the industry. Right? Over the years, we developed our vision, and we developed our own understanding of where the industry should go in and how you should be running your business. Now the feedback that comes to Notify from our user is not the same that used to come to Notify in the early days. Right? In the early days, like, we were less mature, less build, less opinionated. Today, we're really more opinionated. Right? So instead the feedback that comes to notify today is actually processing a way that doesn't fit the vision. Right? Does it actually make sense in what we are trying to achieve? The customer is right. Of course, they are trying they're giving me feedback based on their own process, own experience, their own pain point. Right? I said our job that actually is satisfy, like, the whole audit, right, all of our customers in in in a way, in a broader way, the whole industry. Right? Is that piece of feedback does this piece of feedback make sense? And we don't just base these on on intuition or or just pure data number. Right? It's not that, oh, a hundred people are asking for this. It must be important. If it doesn't fit our vision, it will not be done. Right? That is the reality. But you might have one single piece of feedback from one single user that makes so much sense. You just have to do it either because it really fits the vision or you really see that that's actually a brilliant piece of feedback you just have to go and implement. And we've had a bunch of those by years. I see. I said there's been things that they have been done just because one single user pointed out is like, wouldn't it be better if this was on this way? And we were like, yes. It worked. Right? And those are the things that we will usually expedite, then it's gonna jump through steps of, like, plug development and get to production as soon as possible. Because honestly, I also get very excited when someone gives you a very awesome piece of feedback, and I want to see it myself in the product. Right? I see that both Dan and myself, we are product people. Right? And we one of the things that we enjoy the most is seeing what the product actually delivers value to the user. Right? It's just like that is the that is the key of everything. That is, like, what's solves for everything. When the user is actually using the product, that it's actually getting to the place where where he wanted to go. Like, you see, one of our early customers and I've I've I've talked about this anecdote, like, many times in the past, but I think it's a very, very relevant anecdote. Right? So he's he runs a a a commercial subcontracting business that does a bunch of work for different disease. And a bunch of the that work is usually involves, like, a very large change orders. Right? And those change orders, they they tend to be pretty large in in size, especially dollar size. Right? You're missing one of those change orders, one that didn't get signed and then it didn't get invoiced, it can be thousands and thousands of dollars. And that user from the early days, he would tell us, you guys help me catch all these many mistakes in my change. Right? That this this is worth everything. And the fact that just like a simple software that where you put your schedule of values, you create change order, you you log in and you see the changes you have there. Did they get accepted? Yes or no. Did they invoice them? Yes or no. It sounds silly and simple, but that is transformational for people that didn't have a system in place to track that. And I said that's that's what we are trying to do with with this customer fee. Right? And I said that's that's the piece that we try to bring to the operation. We want to hear how the customer thinks about our software, and we want to see the value that we are delivering. Right? We bring those, and and and we use it, honestly, internally to to make our product. I think it touches on you know, it's I just start to say it's awesome that we're able to develop that kind of value to someone so, you know, so quickly. So for those business owners but but we know there's, like, resistance to change, you know, adopting technology. I don't wanna say especially in construction, but that does seem like kind of a prevalent theme. There's a lot of data points to support that. So what kind of advice would you give to a business owner that's seeking to modernize their operations, whether it's through something like Nullify or maybe some other tool or combination of tools, but their team is kinda facing pushback or, sorry, their team is giving them pushback. Like, what kind of advice would you give to them to kinda overcome that? Be transparent about what we are trying to achieve. I think there's a ton of insecurity when you bring a new software tool to the business. Right? Especially if it's a software tool, like, toify that it touches many areas of the business. Right? And it will likely change the way that you operate. Be transparent. Tell your team why you're doing this. Right? Be also, like, honest about the effort that's required. And I tell this everybody, you will never hear from me starting with Notify is easy. Right? This is not a thing, we'll say. I know it's a it's a thing that marketing might say and some other people might try to say, I you will never hear it from me because, first, I don't I don't really know how easy it's gonna be for you. Right? I don't really know how entrenched you are with your own processes. Maybe you've been doing the exact same thing for forty five years, and it's so ingrained in your in your in your brain that you cannot change it, right, regardless of how easy the software is. Right? So I thought these are, like, things that it depends on everybody, but be transparent with your team. Tell them, you know, we are bringing these new piece of technology because these are that. For instance, one reason could be, I want everybody to go home earlier every day. Right? To achieve that, we have to spend less time doing admin work. To do less admin work, I believe that we need technology, you know, to achieve that goal. These technologies are bringing today here. I'm bringing it because friend of mine recommended it or our accountant is recommending it or I've seen it in actually another business and it was awesome. Right? What by you being transparent with the goal of why you're even doing this, the team should be able to understand at least the goal. Right? You will still find resistance. Right? Because people don't really enjoy changing their task. You know? What I was telling you before, will notify that the you have to expect the video is gonna be slightly different. Some people are not comfortable. Some people are very comfortable doing the same thing for as many years as possible. Bringing new technology will change that thing. That is a hundred percent guaranteed. Be honest with them. Try to explain what the change involves. And and and, honestly, in some cases, I have to have some tough conversation with some people that were relying on very old processes. And almost they were like the guardian of that process. Right? And they know that the second that you bring a software, like, no. If I you know, they may lose a little bit of, like, the, you know, power in the organization. That is also important to be honestly upfront and and transparent about it. And if you cannot be, you have to think it very well how you're gonna succeed because those those people are gonna be against change. That's you know, I've heard more often than not someone stopped using Notify. Right? And we call them and ask why, and they will tell us, look. Guys in the field, they want to use it, period. And I couldn't convince them. And, obviously, it's very difficult to hire people. It's not like we could just go and fire them. Right? So it that is not a thing. At the same time, many years ago, Sunday night, when we were getting started, I had one of our customers, still a customer today, send me an email Sunday night telling me, Mark, fired everybody in the office that was against notified. Can you guys call me tomorrow morning onboard new people? I was like, sure. We can. Crazy in a way. Right? But that is the type of leadership that you might need for your business. Right? If you really believe that you're stuck in your business because your existing process aren't holding you back, you might have to make some tough decisions. Right? That is not just bringing us over, like, five. That's might be the easiest decision. Right? It's gonna be everything else that happens around the software. So we're getting we're getting closer to the end of our our time, our interview time. So I wanted to ask two questions. The first one is gonna be more of a personal type of question, I would say. As a business owner, business leader, talking to other business owners, business leaders, I think we all know it's it's very stressful. So maybe you could just talk about some tips that you have for how you kind of avoid burnout or managing burnout, managing that part of your life while you're, you know, trying to grow, trying to trying to deliver on this vision and and build a business that, you know, is delivering live providing a livelihood for a lot of, you know, of your employees and things like that. I used to be pretty bad at this. Obviously, I've been somewhat easily overworked and lose track of time, and we just spend days and nights and weekends and holidays this, only because I like it. But over time, you realize that what you like is not necessarily good for your health. Right? So I said one of the pieces of advice is just, like, be really conscious about the effort that you're putting in into your job. Right? I said, there has to be a balance. Even if you don't want to, even if you don't really like the balance, there has to be a balance. Right? You're have to find it somehow. That would be piece of advice number one. Piece of advice number two, always find someone that you can talk. It's that's you know, I got lucky with Dan, obviously, as a cofounder. But beyond that, I have other people that advise or people in the board that is, people that I I I can go to and talk to, but I am worried. I mean, I'm worried about a thousand things, right, on a daily basis. Right? And I see that's and that's the reality of running a business. Like, anything could go wrong at any time. Right? And everything is like usually, people don't call you to give you good news. They usually call you to you know, because there is a problem that you have to solve. And that is fine. You have to be comfortable with that. If you're not comfortable with this, you might not want to be the CEO of of a leader of your business. Right? And but even if you are comfortable, you might not enjoy it. Right? And that may be, like, consuming you internally. So you finding the balance, having people to talk to, and just being really conscious about what's going on. Right? So that's that's the best advice that I can give. Sometimes when I have struggled the most is when I was just going through the motions and not really thinking about what's really going on. I I did I didn't stop and to just, like, reflect for a second. What are we doing? Is it like, we we have all this fire? What what are we exactly doing? What is this? Sometimes the easiest the most difficult thing is actually to stop yourself. Right? And because you think that you have to be doing things. And more problems you have, the more stuff you have to do, and that is not usually the case. Like I said, for me, it's very easy to get, like, in that motion. I have to remind always myself and not and so that would be, you know, some advice that I can that I can give. Nice. I think that's great. So last question. In the spirit of the show of keeping it kind of super actionable, what's, like, one concrete action item or piece of advice you would give to our listeners that they could implement, you know, in the short term to to improve their business, whatever that may mean for for them? I mean, look. We talk a lot about vision and goals. If you don't have a baby if you cannot tell me your vision for your business in one sentence immediately, you have to go tomorrow and just, like, take the day, the week, come up with a vision. If you cannot find it, by the way, you might want to rethink what you're doing. You know? You may want to think about doing other things. Maybe you are not the right person to the business. I mean, you would be better off if you sell the business, do something else. But we'll define the vision if you don't have it clear. If you have it clear, then try to define the goals that bring you to that vision. Right? That is almost like a sequential thing. Right? So I have the vision, then I come up with the goals. And once I have the goals, I try to go and and define the small things that we bring with those goals. Right? But, again, let's start from the step number one. Right? Do I have a vision? Yes or no? Do I want do I know where we are going? Yes or no? If I do, do I know how I'm gonna get there? Yes or no? And sometimes, the thing that you would ask Chad GPT today, like, problem would be, like, come up, the vision for my business. Honestly, there is technology out there that can help me today do it. So if you don't have it, just take the day tomorrow and start working on that. Nice. I think that's a great I think that's a great note to end on. Mark, thank you for joining us. To everyone who's watching and listening, thanks for tuning in. Remember to check the show notes for your free contractor business assessment tool. And if you're looking for help managing projects and finances for your construction business, check out Nullify at nullify dot com. We'll be back with another episode soon. Cheers.
At Knowify, leadership doesn’t just announce changes; they explain why they matter. For example, how a new system will make things faster, more accurate, or easier for the team.
Contractors should do the same. Don’t just say “we’re using new project software.” Say, “This tool will help us track hours more accurately so you get paid on time.”
When people see personal benefit, resistance fades.
Even software teams resist software. The goal isn’t to eliminate pushback but to plan for it. At Knowify, rollout plans always include space for frustration, feedback, and retraining.
Contractors can mirror that approach by identifying who might resist most strongly and bringing them into the process early.
Once a new system is in place, highlight the first success story. Maybe time tracking improved payroll accuracy, or project updates saved a trip to the jobsite.
Celebrating quick wins turns skeptics into advocates.
Technology doesn’t replace people. It supports them. Contractors who lead with empathy and clarity when introducing change will always have an easier time bringing their teams along.
