Erik Perkins

Eric Girouard  0:00  

This is bucket top, a weekly podcast where people who work in the trades and construction that aren't just trying to survive, but have the ambition and desire to thrive. The opportunity to trade and construction is absolutely ridiculous right now. So if you're hungry, it's time to eat. We discuss what it takes to rise from the bottom to the top with people who are well on their way and roll up their sleeves every single day.

Jeremy Perkins  0:28  

All right, on this episode, we're with Eric Perkins of Perkins builder brothers. Welcome, Eric.

Erik Perkins  0:34  

Good morning, Jeremy. How

Jeremy Perkins  0:35  

are you? Excellent. Excellent. So So you just got back from Bristol dirt with the boys. And you guys had a good time over there?

Erik Perkins  0:44  

I did. Yeah, man. I I've never been on the inside of a NASCAR track. It was it was awesome.

Jeremy Perkins  0:52  

So they, they had such a good time with you. They're like, You need to get him on the podcast. And I was like, Oh, absolutely. So Andrew facilitated this and think, Andrew here, here we are. So before we get into some of the funny stories and some of the cool stuff you've done, I'd like to get your background where you come from, how you get your start, and just just really lay it out there for the audience. And then I hear there's some more to come.

Erik Perkins  1:19  

Okay. All right. So let's do it. So if you didn't know, my brother and I are builders, contractors, we work together, we build custom homes, and we're also creators YouTubers, is maybe how most people know us because we make videos about what we're doing at work. We put him on the internet, and people watch him. So that's kind of how we're known. Our real business is not a huge business. There's like us and for guys that work for us. We build vacation homes, custom homes, few like full time residences. But like I said, most people know us because we're the Perkins builder brothers on YouTube, been built about 20 years.

Jeremy Perkins  1:57  

Oh, that's, I mean, it's kind of funny to say that now because, yeah, so basically, I'm like, Damn, I'm gonna I've done enough work to retire.

Erik Perkins  2:09  

You would think

Jeremy Perkins  2:12  

not. That's awesome. Unfortunate. So what do you what do you mainly focus on? Well, you know, whether it's whether it's large complexes, whether it's you know, just remodels or Gods tear downs. I mean, ground up, like what do you do?

Erik Perkins  2:25  

So we've done some of everything. We mostly do new custom homes, but during like the downturn of the economy, man, we did anything we like, built chicken houses, or like demolished houses that had burned or, like just did anything to stay afloat, and most of the contractors in our area actually went out of business. During one period, we had the only building permit and the entire county pulled it was to build a garage. So we've done we've done a little bit of everything, but basically we do start to finish. We rent the excavator dig the footings, pour the concrete, lay the block, frame, the walls and floors, frame the roof, do all the siding, painting windows, doors, cabinets, flooring, trim, doorknobs like the finishing details, and walk away.

Jeremy Perkins  3:11  

That's cool. That's cool. So what's one of what's one of your most challenging things like customer wise, building wise? Yeah,

Erik Perkins  3:17  

yeah. So some of the houses we build, you know, it's for that client, where they've been thinking about this house their whole life, it's their end game is the retirement home. And so like every detail, they've been dreaming of exactly what they want for who knows how long you know what I'm saying? Then here, we are just two dudes. And all of a sudden, we're tangled up in this like, dream home kind of fiasco, we'll call it, making sure making their dream come to reality, even if they don't know exactly what it is, we have to help them figure it out. And then on top of that, really, the other challenge is all these houses are on the side of a mountain, you know, that's like, treacherous road, you can't get there. If it snows, big trucks get stuck and go off the mountain. So you know, the whole thing can be just out of hand when you put all that together.

Jeremy Perkins  4:04  

Yeah, I'm sure there's some like limitations, too. I mean, you I watched my wife work with a contractor building our first house. And you know, she came down with with the graph paper and everything was measured out. Perfect. But then But then came along like the home the home decor books, right? So you open it up and kitchen like this. And I can only imagine that there's some limitations on on a mountain, whether it be water pressure for certain things, whether it be toilets and septic and you know, just just the, you come in, you're like, I want this and they're like, it can't be done because you're on the side of a mountain and this is yeah, there's limitations. Oh, yeah.

Erik Perkins  4:44  

Like this, just the physical size of the footprint of the structure is a huge problem. Because there's no flat ground so you got this footprint. It just got to stick off the side into the air and that costs a lot of money to do any blasting. We have had Do blasting to get roads in and sites, we have to rent these, they make special hydraulic hammers that you can put on the end of a Traco arm instead of a bucket that will just demolish rock. So we had to do pretty much anything to deal with that type of stuff. And then you know, you get to the fine details like you're talking about like a homeowner opens up Pinterest and says, This is the kitchen I want. I'm like, Well, this is Yes, sir. Or ma'am. That's like a million dollar kitchen. You're showing me your budgets like 20,000. So, you know, I'm not trying to be rude here. But you know, what you're looking at the reason you love it is because it's super expensive. That's that's exactly why you love it because it's really like everything top line. So

Jeremy Perkins  5:44  

it was funny, I, the one time I finally went with my wife to do anything for the house, like, I just I wanted to stay out of it. It was already it was already getting to be too much. So she took me lighting shopping. And she was like we're gonna go pick out all the fixtures for the house. I was like, This sounds terrible. So we were there for like eight hours. It was ridiculous. At the end. We're just like this light, this light this light this light, like, I'm absolutely burnt up. And then what's amazing is is like, after living it for four years, you don't even recognize you don't even look you don't notice them anymore. And why did I spend so much time on some of these fit and finishes when it doesn't? doesn't fucking matter?

Erik Perkins  6:25  

Ya know, at the end of the day, you're right. Like the fact that you have a light that works. That's That's what matters.

Jeremy Perkins  6:34  

Yeah, oh, no, I was just I was just gonna say I mean, the ornateness that everything it just, it all blends in and you don't stop and stare and go. Oh, wow. That's a great fixture.

Erik Perkins  6:44  

Yeah. No, no, you're like, where's the fridge? I need to say

Jeremy Perkins  6:50  

yeah, oh, don't get me started on the fridge. These are these new stains. I'm one of those guys. That was what grew up. Top Freezer, bottom fridge, you can put anything you put a stack of six frickin pizzas in the damn thing. And you're fine these new these new friggin stainless things and you can't you can't you can't put a bowl of soup in there without having to re level the drawer or re level the shelves and everything. See that for

Erik Perkins  7:16  

your own good. It's for health benefits. Six pizzas, your frigerator

Jeremy Perkins  7:20  

I guess I got I remember my mom just like putting a whole pot of soup in there just like still in the pot. You can't do that nowadays.

Erik Perkins  7:29  

No, no. So everything and everything is smart. You know, you're gonna spend, you know, 10 times the money on all these smart things, which I'm not against, but you can go over the top and the in the options are like, endless. So it's super overwhelming for clients to build.

Jeremy Perkins  7:44  

Yeah, I actually I could see that. I mean, like, even home connectivity, just like thermostats and TVs and sound systems and, and a lot of it's just noise. I mean, like, do you really need it? Like, how often are you got? You got the whole house? You know, playing music like Christmastime, maybe? Yeah, like maybe that one spring cleaning day you got the windows open? Yeah.

Erik Perkins  8:10  

It can be a lot. So I mean, I tell my clients, if they start going over budget, like in the framing stage of the project, I'm like, put on a pump the brakes, guys, because, like you're saying the finishing stage, that's where you can blow the budget, like big time. So yeah, I found that if you're over during framing, you're you're in big trouble. You're screwed basically, on your budget. That is because when you get to the finish stuff, you're gonna see all this other stuff and just probably go nuts. Yeah, I tried to stop, but you know, they're gonna stop him.

Jeremy Perkins  8:42  

So and that's, that's another thing like, I kind of clue me in on on how you budget for things. I mean, do you go price per square foot based on experience? So like, if you know, it's gonna be a high end house? You're like, alright, well, yeah, just for $400 a square foot? Yeah. Does that kind of get you where you need to be?

Erik Perkins  9:01  

Not really, I mean, every house is different. I mean, just because of every detail about every detail of the finishes where it is. So we we used to do mostly, like a fixed price. So I'd actually figure all the materials, all the labor, all the everything, every, every scrap of everything it was going to take to build the house, I'll give the homeowner a price. And I'm like, this is the price unless you change something, change something I can add to the price or I'll take it off if you you know, take something off the house. But more recently, you've been doing like a cost plus type build where we give an estimate. And then we say you know we're charging X amount of dollars per hour for our crew. Plus the materials plus 15% is like our fee of all the other money we spend. Yeah and that you the problem with that if you really have to keep track of how much money you spend. Yeah, or you don't get paid. And you know, like I said the customer is definitely more liable to be be questioning what you're buying and how much and making sure you're not just, you know, going on a shopping spree at Lowe's and getting like every tool, no demand and charging them for it, you know, keeps keeps everybody honest. Yeah, you have to be, you know, liable for everything you buy. So, you know, there's drawbacks to both methods. But either way, you know, just the contracting in a building is a full time job for sure.

Jeremy Perkins  10:24  

What do you how do you feel? So my wife took a Sandler Training Class A long time ago, and she was, it was a big sales class, and there was a whole bunch of insulation guys, and, and whatever. And they had, they had a theory for the blue collar, guys, and I want to hear yours before I before I say that one. But when it comes to when it comes to quotes, do you get free quotes? Or no?

Erik Perkins  10:48  

Oh, do I get a free quotes? No. Why? Um, well, here's what I do. I'll talk to the person for a minute. If they say the word, I'm looking for the best deal, or the cheapest price, or I've talked to 10 other contractors? I tell them No thanks. Because it's going to take me like a full eight hour week to give you an accurate, quote, I can't just like, just tell you a number without doing the research. So yeah. And a lot of those people that want a bunch of quotes, literally, they're just looking for the cheapest price, and I just tell them straight up like, immediately, I'm not the cheapest price, I'm gonna do a really good job, and I can't be the cheapest price and do a good job. So that's my

Jeremy Perkins  11:33  

great, good, fast and cheap pick you.

Erik Perkins  11:37  

Yeah, that's exactly, yeah, yeah. So um, you know, back in the day, I did, you know, I was younger, people want to quote from us, you know, we're gonna go big time and just waste a bunch of time. And you hand this thing to him, and you never hear from him again. So I'm like, you know,

Jeremy Perkins  11:53  

yeah, and that was that was, that was exactly that. I mean, these guys were running around. And it was a little different when you're offering services, or when you could be in and out a little bit quicker, but like builders again, you know, it's, it's like, by the time you get, you know, basic understanding of basic design, not even not even like to the architect and getting your hands back. But just like, the amount of money that you can spend on it. I've heard a lot of contractors now say that, like, I'm gonna charge you x to get you to this stage. And then we can make a decision from there

Erik Perkins  12:23  

your art because you don't get people wasting your time.

Jeremy Perkins  12:27  

Right. And at the end of the day, you're working towards something, you know, it is connecting you and the customer. And I think it's, I think it's great. And I don't know, there's not many contractors to choose from now. So it's, I think the customer needs to start realizing that, hey, you know what, there's no more price shopping, it's just like, Hey, can I find a contractor to do it? And my timeline?

Erik Perkins  12:49  

Yeah, yeah, well, and so you wouldn't go into like a restaurant and expect a chef to like, prepare you a meal for free, and just let you look at it. And then you decide, oh, yeah, I'm gonna go with this other restaurant next door. I mean, it's the same thing. If you think about it.

Jeremy Perkins  13:04  

I got a funny word, because I'm a mechanic. So people used to come in and say, Hey, I got this starter, can you put it in for me? And my boss that asked series would say, if you brought a steak to a steak house, would they cook it for you?

Erik Perkins  13:16  

Yeah. Probably not. Probably not.

Jeremy Perkins  13:22  

And I was like, I mean, it makes sense. You know, when you boil it down, people get mad, they're like, well, that it's not the same. And it's like, well, it is just because you're you can buy it online and, and, and put it in I mean, there's there's a whole infrastructure, you know what I mean, behind it? So

Erik Perkins  13:36  

yeah, I think every trade deals with stuff differently. But that's an interesting way to put it there. I wish I was a mechanic. I wish I knew how to do me using that all the time. I would just Yeah, man, it'd be so much fun to be a mechanic.

Jeremy Perkins  13:50  

It gets it gets, it gets to be a lot. But yeah, I mean, it's good. It's weird, because like, we've had, we've had issues with customers and like the size of the bill. So now everybody wants, you know, a brake job. They want it to be 150 bucks. Well, it's not anymore. It's 500 bucks and axle. So you're looking at 1000 bucks for for pads and rotors. And so, you know, prices have gone up and people will be like, oh, you know, I don't want to pay $500 for for, for pads and rotors. But they went out and spent $500 on drinks last night. You know what I mean? So it's, it's,

Erik Perkins  14:28  

you don't really need brakes. I mean, I don't know.

Jeremy Perkins  14:32  

Well, so it's hard when you're just trying to get back to whole. I think that when people see like they're getting more like whether they're building an addition or getting an extra bathroom or whatever, that's what they want to spend their money on. They don't want to spend money on like, repairing a leak in a house or, you know, fixing a car that runs already you know what I mean? It's, it's kind of discouraging.

Erik Perkins  14:55  

It is. It's true people. They don't think about the what ifs as much is like, my parents didn't spend any money ever. Unless it was like a what F, you know? Yeah. You know, so it's definitely a generation thing where, you know, I don't want to get all into this, I guess, but you know, just the entitlement of you should have everything, even if you didn't earn it. You know, so I came from this, you know, I'm 41. So I kind of came from that generation where your parents still made you get a job when you were like, 14 and like ride your bike to work, and pay for your own car and car insurance and, you know, didn't buy you anything unless it was your birthday or Christmas. And so, you know, it's no,

Jeremy Perkins  15:37  

we won't, we won't get into it. But there is we can skim it high level. And I think this is great. Because it's, you know, it's not even going it's not even going politics, it's not going to anything, how about the sense the feeling you get when you work really hard, and you achieve a goal, right. And that new Silverado that you bought, or that new toolbox that you bought, or, or that that job that you completed on the side of the mountain where the customers happy? And it's, you know, it's a $2 million thing or that video that you shot about it? Like all that hard work is like that, that dopamine drip, you know what I mean? It's like this awesome. Yeah. And, and for those out there that, that everything gets handed to them, like you're missing out, like, this is great when you're able to, to do something work hard and fail, right? A lot of times fail, overcome, come back, get it done. And that feeling of that sense of accomplishment, and whatever. There's nothing else like it.

Erik Perkins  16:32  

I think you're onto something. Right there. Yeah. Want to go like, do another job?

Jeremy Perkins  16:42  

Yeah, I mean, it was It was wild, like I was at least i Well, I was anywhere from seven to 10 cars a day, diagnosed and repaired. And whether it was from, you know, simple brake job to, you know, well, when you get into like, engine r&r, that would take a day. But the road test, I always look forward to the road test. I was done. Everything was good. And then I had 15 minutes of just cruising in the car, pumping my ego up, just like, I did this. I put the engine in the car, everything's running smoothly. Now, sometimes it's in you had to get it to get towed back or whatever. But 99% of the time it was it was that like 15 minutes of peace and no noise. It was awesome.

Erik Perkins  17:28  

Yeah, that's a good feeling. When the thing starts and runs, and you come back, you're like, Here you go. It works now. Yeah, I don't wanna brag, but I fixed your car.

Jeremy Perkins  17:40  

So, yeah, I don't know. It was cool for me. You know, some can say I have ADD ADHD, whatever you want to call it. So for me having having 10 accomplishments a day that I get that nice Goldstar they did a good job. I mean, that was 10. That was 10 hits of like, Yeah, I did something today.

Erik Perkins  17:58  

Oh, yeah, we know all about ADHD in my house. Trust me. So but yeah, and like I said, being a builder. I tell you what, being a YouTuber, I think, you know, or a creator, or whatever you call it, I think, has even more of that dopamine kind of feel when you make a video that people really love it. And then again, you turn around and you make this video that you think is awesome. And you've spent days or weeks on it, nobody watches it, and you're like, oh my gosh, like

Jeremy Perkins  18:30  

I suck. People hate me, I

Erik Perkins  18:32  

suck. Like, there's definitely for whatever reason, doing something a little more artistic. I guess you'd call video work. putting yourself out there is a little more vulnerable. And when people don't like it or comment badly or just it doesn't go like you planned it, it just hurts a little more, it can cut a little deeper than someone not liking your trim work or something on a house.

Jeremy Perkins  18:54  

That's another thing I was watching and I couldn't even remember his name to call him out. But there's, there's a guy that probably two months ago, three months ago on Instagram that that popped up. He's like a reaction video guy and he knows enough to get like the language down for like, some bad. Like, there was one where guy used a miter saw, cut some cut some trim, and then use a coping solder to like scrape it all out. So he knew right? Yeah. So he knew all about that. Right? And, and he was like, you know, this is this is the way to do it and blah, blah, blah. And in the comments were like, you know, why are you bringing individuals down? Why are we doing it? And it goes back to it. There's some things that I've done in the automotive industry that weren't by the book, but they were necessary that time, right? They were necessary that day. The customer didn't have enough money just like hey, we need to weld these ears back onto the subframe I just need to get it home or I need a week out of it or whatever. I'll obviously keeping safety in mind. My favorite one Just like standing up standing on the top rung of a, of a ladder. I don't know how many people get caught. You know, that's, that's not OSHA safe. Tell me tell me you never stood on the top rung of a ladder. Yeah.

Erik Perkins  20:11  

Yeah, you're like, alright, I can either do this and five seconds, I got a ladder here, or it's gonna take me an hour to like scaffold this thing up and like, set up protection on the floor. And yeah, so I mean,

Jeremy Perkins  20:23  

it's just amazing. The keyboard warriors, like in your comment section that are just killing you. And we're on the same team. It's like, Bro, why are you trying to bring somebody?

Erik Perkins  20:35  

Yeah, and they're out there. I mean, I don't know if you call them trolls or whatever. But you know, when we first started, definitely, we started getting comments and views. Like, I didn't anticipate the negative side of things, you know? How could How could someone say something terrible about me reviewing my hammer, like, I didn't even see that when coming, you know, like, in meanwhile, someone's like, I want to frickin kill you, you know, like, yeah, like, what, what did I do to you? And so like, you know, I think of myself as a pretty understanding individual. So from my standpoint, I'm like, Oh, my God, what do I do this person. And it kind of put me in a bad place mentally for like, a long time. As we're growing as a YouTube channel, getting all these, and it's only like, 1% of the comments. But still, when you're getting the 1000s of comments a day, that's like, how many however many really bad comments per day. And if you read them, those are the ones that stick with you, for whatever reason, so

Jeremy Perkins  21:36  

yeah, and it's for better or for worse, that kind of thickens you up. I mean, I've gotten plenty of those myself. Oh, yeah. You go from you go from being Yeah, almost scared. Like you're going through your profile, making sure they like your addresses in there. And you're like, Should I post this picture? Yeah, it's and well, and then

Erik Perkins  21:59  

what it did to me that I hated was, I could tell in some of these videos that if I watched back from while back, I was scared in my videos to be myself. And I was scared of what we're doing, because I thought somebody else might not like how we're doing it. And like I could tell I was explaining things from like a defensive standpoint, like the reason we're doing this, you could do this or this. And at a certain point, the videos got way better because I just stopped caring, like, Alright, I know people are gonna hate on part of this, or that I'm joking around on a job site or whatever. But I was like, I don't care anymore. Because I've already been through this accident. Yeah, it freed us up to like, do some really fun stuff. That's, that's what happened.

Jeremy Perkins  22:39  

I gotta give, I gotta give Roy Scott from vintage x where I shout him out every, I don't know, six months or so because he really changed my, my view on podcasting. Because, again, you know, a middle middle career mechanic, middle career blue collar guy. And, you know, when we were doing the podcast, I'm like, am I am I am I good enough of a voice to, to talk on a podcast, right? Am I do I know enough? Am I Am I savvy enough? Anyway, so we were talking, I was talking with Roy, I had him on the podcast, and he's like, we just fucking loosen up, because you're so stiff right now. And like that, that was the first podcast that we swore like, I swore all the way through it. And he's like, it was good. It was good. It was good. And that was like the changing point for my podcast because I've tried to keep everything. I mean, keep everything PC, but like, really try to keep it PC. And all this stuff. Again, it's not not caring. It's just like, I don't give a fuck what you think anymore. This is. This is who I am. I'm gonna be respectful, but at the same time, I no longer care about what you what you think and what you say.

Erik Perkins  23:48  

You do have a beautiful radio voice to Oh, thank

Jeremy Perkins  23:52  

you. I think this is that. Sure, Mike? That is that is really amping it up. But so not to call you out. Because the boys didn't tell me what but they said that you had some pretty funny stories from from your experiences. So one or two are the most memorable one you got to? You got to share with the audience. Oh, from the

Erik Perkins  24:12  

race? Oh, yeah. Okay, well, so I've never been on a NASCAR, you know, pit area. So we're in there. We see all the qualifying. And then you know, race time we meet the driver. And then unfortunately in in the race, we went to the brunt car gets crashed out like, I'm gonna say 90 minute, they're 90 seconds into the race.

Jeremy Perkins  24:37  

Yeah, we don't. We weren't talking about that at the office.

Erik Perkins  24:41  

No, no. So but you know, everybody's super bummed out. But yeah, I'm an online person. I'm like, Dude, that was the best thing he could could have done for advertising for you guys. Unless he was to a won the whole race. Okay, he's the first crash in the race. His car is blocking the race track for like a solid minute all the radio chatter is like the brunt work where grunt work where truck brought brought brought Brunt

Jeremy Perkins  25:07  

this big orange truck heavy for.

Erik Perkins  25:11  

Yeah, so anyway, I was listening all the chatter and everybody's super bummed like, Dude, this is like, it sucks racing, you gotta go for it like, you can't not report it so you're gonna crash sometimes. So, I told the driver, I was like, man, you know, of course he knows he's a racer car driver, but it's like, man, it happens so they kind of packed up and all your all your boys down there were like, Hey, let's let's make a night out of this and go get some drinks. Like Alright, so we all jumped in like a minivan. Uber, all of them. And Uber. I

Jeremy Perkins  25:43  

heard there was only like, two down there.

Erik Perkins  25:46  

There's only two Ubers Yeah, so luckily, we got the cell phone number of one of the guys Ubers and then later we found out there was only two or something like, oh my god, this is like gold. They have this guy's phone number. But when we were driving down there, it turns out that another guy was with us Johnny Brooke. He's a he's a YouTuber crafted workshop. He was with us. And the guys actually subscribed to his channel the Uber driver so it's kind of a small world when you're when you're on YouTube, you know people you meet people oh my god, I know you like Oh, yeah. But anyway, so we went to chatters we got some painkillers, which if you don't know is, you know, it's like a limit to because it's like, you know,

Jeremy Perkins  26:28  

I don't even know what's in it, but I've definitely had Yeah, they're colorful.

Erik Perkins  26:32  

We got a couple of those. There was a guy that was determined to get some brand he saw all the your guys like Bronk workwear shirts. Yeah. And he was down there having some drinks, and this dude was like, Oh, you gotta give me some boots. I'll test them out for free for you. And you guys are like trying to play it's so cool. Like, you know, okay, you can get online and like trying for 30 days, which everybody can write. Yeah. They're like, Oh, yeah, just throw my name out there because this guy would not give up unless he was getting a deal. And he came back like four or five times. Yeah, man, you gotta give me those boots. Give me those boots. Give me those boots. And you can tell your guys after a while. We're like, Oh, man. Like, I really appreciate it. But like, You already asked us five times so cool to see you know, like said you guys. Super nice. But at a certain point, you know, they were like, Alright guy. Like, we're trying to relax here. So anyway, and I also learned that brunch only like two years old, which I didn't

Jeremy Perkins  27:26  

know we're coming up on three years. Yeah. tambor. Yeah, so I was like, Wow,

Erik Perkins  27:31  

you guys have cassava? NASSCOM? Like?

Jeremy Perkins  27:35  

It's funny. The podcast is, I think, six months older than, than the companies. Yeah.

Erik Perkins  27:41  

So I don't know what you guys are doing. Exactly. I know. You're like direct to consumer, which people like, and you make good boots. So that was Yeah, I had no idea. I just assumed you guys had been around like a decade. Just I mean, it

Jeremy Perkins  27:58  

was it was everything just just to kind of put it out there. It was kind of scary for us launching during COVID. Because, I mean, the date was that, and then COVID happened. And we're like, this is this is not a good time. And what was interesting, and this this is indicative of like, how the trades are perceived now is it for so I at the time I was working at a shop. And you know, we had a lot of guys that were 50 Plus, they go down to the hardware store and they buy jeans, they buy boots, they go to the boot store, they buy boots, yep. They don't shop online, I mean, that these guys still read the paper, you know what I mean? They don't like going online. And, and, and I said this is going to be a real hurdle and what, what COVID actually did, which was was interesting for it changed, it changed business models throughout. Right. So now we had people that the stores are closed. Now they're forced to shop online. It just so happened this, you know, direct to consumer online business. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, and, and it was wild, and it took off. And, and now I see that that a lot of trades men and women are more apt to buy online than than they did. Pre pandemic. Yeah, everyone that comes with anything learning tools to anything. Yeah,

Erik Perkins  29:25  

I am too. I'm totally in agreeance that during COVID Like, I wasn't really an online shopper. And now, like I'm like, I get this for that. I'll just order it right now. And it'll just come in the mail.

Jeremy Perkins  29:38  

And it's and it's so and you know, this is this isn't even speaking to brand this is speaking to anything else. I mean, I it opened up the world to me because like I I was waiting for that snap on tool truck to come every Thursday, so that I could figure out what the hell I was going to buy for tools. And I stopped stop doing that because I go on Amazon and buy it. It's delivered like essentially now Today, I don't know. And did

Erik Perkins  30:02  

the snap on truck quit coming. During COVID It's,

Jeremy Perkins  30:06  

ah, no, we got oh, wait, come on,

Erik Perkins  30:12  

you quit coming. Wow, that's even

Jeremy Perkins  30:15  

while I was No, this the snap on truck was because they weren't allowed in. We had like this ecosystem I was I was working for I was the old, they laid everybody off in the shop. And I was working for like a couple of months. And then they kind of rotated another guy and laid me off. And then I stayed home with the kids while my wife could work remotely. Yeah, that was, that was a challenging time. I don't back on it. And it was like, for me, it was kind of unique. I'm never gonna get that, that chance to really bond with my kids. And but yeah, it was, it was an interesting time. Let me tell you,

Erik Perkins  30:53  

yeah, being home with the kids is that's the job. But

Jeremy Perkins  30:56  

did you guys keep going through COVID. We did,

Erik Perkins  30:58  

we had to like, kind of same thing, like we had this job, then the excavation company that is supposed to do the excavation was like, we're shut down for six months. And it was it wasn't like a thing we could rent an excavator and do it was like, take off half of a mountain side, that would rock to put this side. And so we had to like find a job. And that we ended up building this little like one bedroom, like vacation getaway home that someone had like a lot clearer. They had power, they had a well or a well and septic, like all there. And it was just super lucky that this lady called us or else we would have basically been sitting home as well. And our guys, which we probably would have lost our whole crew. Because we would had no work for him. So we definitely had to bounce around. But luckily, I was like, Okay, we're super tiny house to build, we got a whole crew and I want them to get as much out of this time hours as they can, even though it's small. So I was like, I'm gonna film the entire process. And I've never done this before, because it seemed super overwhelming to film and edit, like the entire start finish of the house. So I was like, well, if I'm ever gonna try it, like this is the house, it's a small house, I want to be sort of hands off, so the guys get more hours. And we did it. And that was sort of our turning point. And like 2020 or 2021 of like our YouTube channel being very small, like 10 subscribers to like gaining hundreds or 1000s of subscribers per day, since then,

Jeremy Perkins  32:36  

that and everybody was at home with nothing to do.

Erik Perkins  32:39  

Yeah. And so, you know, we got super lucky that we had that, you know, the YouTube stuff worked out because it was like, you know, a lot of people don't know, but I worked for like two years, as hard as I'm working now on YouTube without getting paid. Because like you don't, you don't just start making money when you make videos, you have to reach a certain level of views and subscribers anyway, it was sort of a hard time for me to because I didn't make any money on that job. I still wasn't making any money on YouTube. So basically work for six whole months. No money, no pay. And I'm like, oh my god like that. That's this can happen on another job, like the month money situations. Anyway,

Jeremy Perkins  33:21  

yeah, it was it was interesting, because there were some sectors that did really well. One of one of our landscapers was that I that I repairs trucks, he was like, flat out. He's like, everybody wants that. He's like, I'm delivering mulch, deliver and, you know, play sand. I'm doing all this stuff. Because everybody wants to do that, like that outdoor DIY space because they're at home. Yeah, they have six months of not. And they want to build this like utopia for their children. Yeah, whatever. And he goes, I was driving to I was driving like, two, three hours just to get like rock for, for a certain outdoor space and whatever. And he goes, the hardest part about that was I had the work. I had the demand. I just needed to figure out where I could get the materials from because, you know, one day, you know, this place would be shut down. And so that was the hard thing was it was definitely supply chain and logistics. Oh, yeah. And all that. And yeah, man. Hopefully, hopefully we don't go through one of those again.

Erik Perkins  34:20  

No, I'm all for not doing that again.

Jeremy Perkins  34:24  

All in favor? Yeah. So that's awesome. And then I mean, to be honest with you, we're pretty much hitting the end of the show. You got you got some stuff to do. And boy, it is a nice Saturday.

Erik Perkins  34:38  

Oh, that's right. What are you going to do today?

Jeremy Perkins  34:41  

My daughter got, she plays flag football. It's crazy site he's in. She's in second grade, right. And there's an all women's league in Portland, Maine. And so we signed her up for it. And they are giants. So like Lucy's the youngest. She's in second grade. She's eight years old. And I think like the next couple of years Plopper like, you know, they're 1011 12 and then like, and then there's some there's some like high school level girls and they all play together. So it's super, it's super cool. This is gonna be playing tackle football in the spring. Wow. Sorry in the fall. If she were I'm not gonna tell her no, get for her. So, but yeah, football football today you?

Erik Perkins  35:21  

Oh, I'm just I'm actually at. I'm in Durham, North Carolina. My oldest son is 14 is the North Carolina Middle School, state champion, jazz drummer. So he plays a drum kit, like, you know, like you'd play in any band, or jazz music in middle school. And I didn't even know he was that good. Like he came from. And I I know he's in the band. I know. He listens. Yeah, he's like, I won state. I'm like, What do you mean? He's like, state like, I'm the best Middle School drummer in the whole state, all classes of schools. Everything. I'm like, no one. So now we're at this state concert. We're all the different instruments. That one state like whatever the trombone, the piano, the guitar, all the best players in the state and formed this one man to do a concert. That's so

Jeremy Perkins  36:18  

awesome. And you have no idea where he got his musical?

Erik Perkins  36:23  

Well, I did play drums in bands like growing up and guitar. And so but I just put them in front of the thing. I mean, it's not like, I taught them how to play jazz music. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. But we see what they can do. Oh,

Jeremy Perkins  36:40  

that's, that's cool. That's cool. So pretty much at the end of the show, I do want to take the time for you to talk about any avenues or any channels that you could expose people who are interested in, in life of building where they can find you get more resources information, so I'll leave okay. Yeah.

Erik Perkins  37:00  

So if you're interested in building definitely look into community colleges. First off, a lot of them have like building or contracting or construction management type programs, you don't have to get a four year degree work for someone that's a good builder. And that's the problem is knowing who's good if you're not. But working for a good builder is invaluable. Like you can learn so much. And then of course, there's all the online resources and magazines but I mean, YouTube is a big one now. You can watch us build houses start to finish at Perkins builder brothers on YouTube. It's going to be fun and information. If you want just the information. There's some other builders I'd recommend. Kyle from our buildings is great. He show you how to use all the tools build, like he does bigger structures. And then Matt Reisinger, from the build show network has all of like the newest tech and construction, stuff going on in the world, like high performance, and how all that stuff work. So if you check us and those other two out, you'll probably learn a lot and have a good time.

Jeremy Perkins  38:08  

There you go. You got Well, thank you and get back to the family and it's been a pleasure. And as a special thanks to our loyal listeners, we're giving $10 off your next purchase of $60 or more at brunch, workwear.com Use Discount Code bucket talk. And that's bucket talk. 10