The Global Economy and Your Business - TRANSCRIPT

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Gene Marks of The Marks Group. You can read the interview below, listen to the podcast or watch the recording!

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Welcome to Contractor Outlook, the new podcast from Roofers Coffee Shop that really looks at what's happening, not today, but what's going to happen tomorrow. I know, we all have to get our crystal ball out, but we are bringing experts from around the industry and from outside the industry to help give us some ideas around economics, politics, weather, you name it, we're going to be talking about it and it's all to help your business. This is Heidi Ellsworth, and today with this very first podcast, I am so honored to welcome Gene Marks, a leading economic specialist with The Marks Group. Gene, welcome to the show, the very first show.

Gene Marks: Thank you so much, Heidi. I'm happy to be here. I really am not sure if I'm going to be able to talk about the weather, but we can mix stuff up. You're in Oregon, so it's raining all the time anyway. There's nothing really to talk about.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah, exactly. Or it was this morning, snowing. It's almost May.

Gene Marks: Was it snowing? My goodness.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Up in the mountains it's snowing, so ...

Gene Marks: Crazy. Crazy.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: So nuts. Well, Gene, I saw you speak at the Metal Construction Association, and I just thought I loved your presentations, I thought they were so well done. And I just really wanted to bring you on the show to give the roofing industry and the metal industry and the coatings industry, since we have all of our Coffee Shops, really that feel for what's happening out there. So we'll stick to the economy for this one, but why don't we start with an introduction. If you can introduce yourself and tell us about your company.

Gene Marks: Sure. Well, I'm CEO and president of The Marks Group PC, we're a technology consulting firm. We're on a Zoom call now, so I guess this is video, so for all the guys that can see me, if there's no ... should be no surprise. I'm also a certified public accountant, big spoiler there. And I do a lot of writing. So I write every week for The Guardian, The Hill, The Philly Enquirer, Washington Times, Chicago Daily Herald, Forbes and Entrepreneur. So I write a lot in the morning and then I get out and run my business during the day, and I cover stuff that affects people in the metal construction industry and roofers and general construction, all the stuff that's giving us headaches. That's pretty much what I write about, from workplace to inflation to technology, so ...

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That's great.

Gene Marks: I love talking about that stuff as well.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: And it all goes together in a way. It's all driving each other. And we're going to get to that. You had some great things that you were talking about with AI and really what that's going to do and how that's going to change things. So I would love to start a little bit big. You do a lot of traveling, a lot of speaking. What are you hearing about the economy from all of these folks that you are speaking to? And then just overall in general, what are you seeing?

Gene Marks: Yeah. First of all, Republican, Democrat, right, left, whatever you say, the economy has been going well. We've been experiencing growth, we had a dip in this last quarter in GDP, but unemployment has been at historic lows. The consumer is still spending. Every association I go to, and Heidi, I go outside of construction. I speak to groups in manufacturing and distribution, service industries, for the most part people are doing fine. Very tough to generalize in the US because we are a massive country. So there are roofers that might be struggling in certain regions of, I don't know, Texas or the Midwest versus others that might be doing better say in the Northeast. It's just a lot of that does depend. So it's tough, but overall, not so bad as far as activity.

However, everybody is dealing with two big issues right now. Number one is much higher costs than we have ever seen in the past couple of decades. Just since 2021 and 2022, although inflation has become a little bit more under control, all of my clients and the industries that I speak to, some of their core costs, construction materials for concrete, for lumber, for roofing materials, things like that, they're in the double digits, sometimes as much as 20%, 30%, 40% compared to they were a couple of years ago. So people are really trying to adjust to that, and that's a struggle.

And then the second big issue is labor, it always is. There's not enough people to get the work done, so everybody is struggling with that. But you know what, Heidi? You and I, man, we could be having this ... if there was a zoom during Cleopatra's time, we would be having the same conversation. And trust me, the roofers in Cleopatra's time had their problems as well, and they weren't much different than the roofers of today. So we need to all put that into a little bit of perspective. You know what I mean?

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. I have to tell you, I've been in the roofing industry now for 30 years and I've seen this up and down, all around and a lot of the topics are the same, labor, inflation, interest rates, things that we have really seen.

But it was interesting, Gene, and I'm going to go a little off script on our questions just because I just was at a meeting and I had two different economists speak at this event, and it was really interesting because I'm going to ask you a funky question, but it does seem like sometimes we're looking for the bad. We're looking for the bad, and I'm always like, "It's such a contradiction to what I'm hearing from our industry and how busy people are and everything that's going on." And then you get into these talks and you're stepping back going, "Wow. Oh-oh, what should I do for the next 12 months? Because I think we're going to go into a depression or a recession something." So how do you handle that?

Gene Marks: Well, first of all, you're so right about that. And isn't that the case with the media anyway? Everybody tells you that it's the negative stories that get the most clicks. It's just a human nature kind of thing. And then to even double down, if you're hearing ... I'm an accountant, so we are by nature gloom and doom. And then the same thing with economists. Economists are ... because they're numbers-oriented and they're more conservative generally, they tend to be gloomier, more downcast than others. And you can always find bad, and you can always find good. Because I agree with you 100%, I think what gets people's attention is the bad. If you just tell people, "Everything's fine, it's good, we're ..." whatever, then I don't know, people don't seem to remember it as much than when you hear gloom and doom.

And I actually think it's really important that you brought that up. As somebody who talks about the economy and writes about the economy a lot, you have to take what we all say with a grain of salt. We don't know what we're talking about. We didn't see the 2008 big drawback in the economy, we didn't see inflation, we didn't see higher interest, there's a lot that we missed. So as much as we think that we're smart and all of that, we're really not. We're making guesses. And I think any roofer who watches an economist should just trust but verify. Be dubious. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I think "trust but verify" is such a great way of saying it. And because I remember 2006, the president of our company, our CEO, John Altmeyer, with Carlisle at the time, put this big slide up at the beginning of the year sales meeting and it had all these thunder clouds and all these things and he says, "Things are not looking great out on the forefront." So he actually did look into a crystal ball of what was coming. But I think you're right. The last three years, all we've heard is, "It's going to be recession next year, it's going to be recession next year."

And the American economy, for I'm sure many reasons, it's not just the fact that we have just decided after COVID we're not going to go into recession, sometimes that's how I feel, that the American people have just said, "No, we're not going to do this." What are some of the things that give you, in 2024 looking forward, give you some hope that the economy's not going to crash or also what is giving you a little pause, things that we should be worried about?

Gene Marks: Well, a few points on that. First of all, the American consumer never fails to amaze me. People just love spending on stuff. On the good side, incomes are still staying ahead of inflation. So that's good news. Also on the good side for the consumer now, not necessarily for us business people, is that there are plenty of job openings and there's lots of competition for good people. So that gives help to the worker when it comes to negotiating higher pay. And again, they turn that around and they spend that.

The current administration is very pro-worker, so there's a big push for higher wages and higher benefits. And just a week before, since we're recording this, the Federal Trade Commission is now outlawing non-compete agreements and that ... to help people be more mobile. And again, you can agree or not agree, these are all ... but from a worker standpoint, that's good stuff.

And I tell you one other thing which I think will be really important for this industry is that I believe that there is a giant boom coming for construction and roofing mainly because once interest rates start coming down, I think there is this pent-up demand of people who are going to be buying and selling homes. And whenever you buy and sell a home, there's always upgrades and work that needs to be done. And I just really ... I can see that coming. I don't know when it's going to come. The Fed says that hopefully ... we all thought they were going to start decreasing interest rates this summer, it's looking less likely that's going to happen. So I'm hoping that we see that before the end of the year, it's going to take more than just a quarter point decrease. So the primary, it's at 8.5%, but if we start seeing the Fed start decreasing rates to 7%, even 6%, man, I think people are coming back and buying and selling houses and getting back to home projects that they can finance.

And so, if you're in the roofing business right now or the contracting business in general, you got to weather it out. Make sure you're socking away some cash, and I'd be preparing for a big increase in demand. I really think that's going to happen.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Man, I'm so glad to hear that because I feel the same way. And it's really interesting in the fact that I'll just say my daughter, she's a Gen Z looking at houses and her and her partner decided this year's not the year, they're going to wait and they're going to look next year because their sure interest rates will come down, housing prices will come down, which most likely they will. And so I hadn't thought about it that way. There's this pent-up demand that's going to hit as soon as everything gives just a little bit.

Gene Marks: And I also think it's even to that point is ... So, I have kids in their 20s as well, so they're lower millennials, borderline Gen Zs or maybe they are Gen ... I don't even know, but they're in their 20s. Same thing, they want to buy homes and they're holding up because it's high interest rate and housing inventory is very low and so prices are still higher. Younger people want to jump in, man and be homeowners.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: They do.

Gene Marks: They want to do live the American dream. And right now all the numbers are showing that it makes more sense to rent, so that's why people are renting more. But like everything else in this world, things will turn around. Again, I wish I had a crystal ball for your viewers and your listeners, to say, "This will happen in January of 2025." I don't know when, but it's going to happen. And I think as a business owner, again, if I was in this business, I would be socking away cash and I'd be waiting for that pent-up demand to start hitting, because it's going to come.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. Well, and what's really interesting, Gene, what we're hearing from roofing contractors, from metal construction contractors, big commercial waterproofing contractors, is they for the most part ... now there's some soft places around the country, but for the most part, they already have backlogs. And that is also being caused and affected by the weather. We are seeing such extreme weather that that's causing ... And I even heard this last weekend, that there's going to be some supply on issues with materials, again, especially around shingles, some of those. So-

Gene Marks: It surprises me that doesn't happen more often, supply chain issues, when you think how fragile the whole system is. And as far as the weather issues are concerned, we've always had weather and environmental issues. Climate change aside, and there's no denying all of that is going on, and that has an impact on weather in certain parts of the country, but humans adapt. And the roofing industry will adapt by building better roofs if there's going to be that much more weather involved, which again, creates opportunities, I think, for people that are in that industry. So I think it's a good business to be in. I really do.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. Well, it's funny that you said that because that has been one of the themes as we're doing our focus groups and stuff. One of the themes has been the growth of performance products. That there is a demand that roofs last longer and that they don't have to be switched out with every hail storm. Have you seen that in your ... Just overall when you're talking about the American consumer, it feels like there is a demand for higher quality. I'm not sure if that's true, but what are your thoughts?

Gene Marks: I can't really speak to that. I think it's so anecdotal and it really does depend on the buyer and what they're looking for. What is happening though is that there is an expectation of higher quality. I spoke at the GAF WealthBuilder Conference down in Puerto Rico just a few weeks ago. So they had a ton of roofing contractors there, and I forget the name of the guy, he's the president of GAF, gets up there and they start talking about the shingles that have thirty-year warranties to them. And you have to understand, I'm not a roofer, I'm a layman, but I'm like, "Oh my God, there are companies guaranteeing their products for 30 years." That's unbelievable. I was pretty astounded when I thought about ... I was like, "That's a pretty amazing commitment to make."

And I think that that becomes expected by the consumer, "Of course we're going to do this because we expect this to be guaranteed for that amount of time." So I don't know if it's so much of a demand, it's just an increasing expectation that there's a certain level of quality to be met. And I think that other examples that ... You look at software now. My God, you would do an upgrade of Windows and your business would be down for a week. But now for the most part, it works.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: It does it overnight.

Gene Marks: Yeah, it does it overnight while you're asleep, you don't even know that it happened. Little things like that that used to not work. Do you know as a speaker, Heidi, what a major paranoia I had every time I plugged in my laptop to a projector? You just never knew what was going to happen. You know what I mean?

Heidi J. Ellsworth: So with you, yes.

Gene Marks: Yeah. And now it's a non-issue. You plug it in, it works.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: And it works.

Gene Marks: Yeah. So I think there is this level of quality, and then if that wasn't the case, I'd be pretty annoyed. So I think quality is getting more and more expected.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: It's interesting you're talking about the GAF and the president speaking, because that is the same gentleman who back in the day predicted the downturn or the Great Recession, [inaudible 00:15:41] same gentleman. So whatever he said, listen.

Gene Marks: As smart as you are, you can also be wrong as anything. I agree.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Exactly.

Gene Marks: And it's funny that you say that as well, because when you have CEOs of large construction companies making these predictions, to their defense, they are privy to significant data that you and I don't have. They've got a lot of customer data and whatever, so they're not just shooting from the hip. They're saying, "All right. This is what we're seeing," and yet they're wrong. Even the data lies. So [inaudible 00:16:18]

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That has really happened the last couple of years too. The manufacturing community, wow, have they been put through the ringer the last couple of years, because they think just when they have everything going, then there's something else that's not available. And when we look at that larger global impact, we are seeing things happening like the disruptions in the Red Sea, all these different things that are going on. How do you see that continuing? There's just such a conversation right now, Gene, between, "Are we going to be isolationists? Are we going to ... global?" I don't want to get into politics, but it does really affect what's happening.

Gene Marks: It is definitely a political issue, there's no question about that. And there will always be an isolationist movement in this country, and political winds shift. And I can't say that they won't shift back again. There was isolationist movements in this country throughout the 17th and 18th century, 19th century. We had wars that involved ourselves around the world, and then we went back to isolationist again.

So I really, as a product of the ... I was born in 1965, so all I've seen with my own eyes are the '70s, '80s, '90s, the 2000s, where we've been living in a global economy. And I personally can't imagine another world that we would live in. We rely on products for everywhere. And I think the American consumer has such, again, an expectation not only of quality, but also of a certain level of pricing. And if they can't go to Walmart and buy what they want to buy because we've tariffed your products out of our reach, I don't know if politicians can sustain that. So I don't know.

But obviously we are very much exposed to issues that go around the world, the war in Ukraine, what's going on in the Middle East, people firing on ships in the Red Sea in the shipping lanes, that can all impact our supply chains. But those are the challenges of operating in a global economy.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That's what we're seeing. And we are seeing, "Bring manufacturing back." In fact, we've seen that with manufacturing within the construction area where maybe they were in Mexico, they brought it back into the US, because the incentives are there. And we also are seeing a lot of new plants just being built, which shows they're seeing the demand not ending.

Gene Marks: Again, it's funny that you say that because again, I don't want to be political because there's always different sides, different stories, but when governments do take charge of stuff where they do have initiatives, it does spur. So the CHIPS Act that passed a couple of years ago, which was a bipartisan bill, literally before we had this interview, I just interviewed Senator Young from Indiana, and we were talking about the Chips Act and tax reform and AI and all that with him. He's a very active senator for businesses. And we were talking about how the Chips Act has spurred so much manufacturing, the fact that it did have bipartisan support and that it creates a lot of opportunities for manufacturers around this country. And when the government spends that kind of money, over $1 trillion, it has an impact. So that's good, but there's still a ways to go for manufacturers. There's still a lot of challenges ahead.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Well, I can tell you where ... the other place we're seeing it that has really made a difference, and this is going to be more on the commercial side, but that's the infrastructure bill that passed. And we are seeing ... talk to me about any town that you go to where you don't see numerous cranes.

Gene Marks: Yeah. I agree.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: And I should say city, not town.

Gene Marks: I agree. I have to say to your listeners and to your audience, you didn't hear me talk about this when I was at that last conference, it's relatively new. But Heidi, I wrote a piece for the Philly Inquirer, and I'm going to do it again for the Chicago Daily Herald on an agency called Apex Accelerators. I don't know if you've ever heard of Apex or not?

Heidi J. Ellsworth: No.

Gene Marks: See, that fascinates me that you haven't, and this is not you. This is, too many people have not. So Apex Accelerators is a division, it's a part of the Department of Defense, but it works with all departments within the government. And I just want to make sure I get this across. We're talking about government, the infrastructure bill and the CHIPS Act. If you want to do business with the government and you've never done business with the government before, and you are very hesitant because you hear of all the red tape you got to go through, which is all true, I am telling your listeners and your viewers, go to ... google Apex Accelerators, they have about 100 locations around the country. It's the best kept secret about government work.

You literally go to them and for free, they will match up your company, the industry that you're in, with every government contract that's available for your industry, as well as the general contractors that are already working on existing contracts, because they have a quota to get out to small businesses like small roofing companies or small manufacturers. And they will not only match you up and say, "Okay, you should apply for all these contracts," but in addition, if you run into any problems, any challenges, you call them and they walk you through it. You're trying to fill out the application, do whatever and of course it's the government so you're like, "I don't understand this or that," they jump right in and they help you with it as well, all for free.

I interviewed five businesses in the Philadelphia area, manufacturers, most of them, never done business with the government before. Now they each have multiple contracts, government contracts, both federal and state, because of this little known organization. So if anything, I would love people to walk away with that awareness. And just another topic for another time, but interviewing somebody from Apex, Heidi would be, you would find it fascinating what they do. It's really cool.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: You're reading my mind. That's exactly what I was thinking. We need to get them on here, and also write some articles. So we'll be sourcing your articles and bringing those so people can find them. See, that's the kind of stuff too, that can really take not just small businesses, but minority businesses-

Gene Marks: Oh, 100%.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: And we have a lot of women-owned, veteran-owned, minority-owned businesses within the roofing industry who want to get into it. But you're right, sometimes it just seems too far.

Gene Marks: It's overwhelming.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: It's really hard.

Gene Marks: And the one bit of warning I give to people is that, say you're a woman-owned business and you're like, "Okay, I do want to work, get government contracts. Where do I go? Where do I start?" You start with Apex. They will point you in the right direction. You still have to do the legwork, you still have to ... they're not going to do that for you. But if you run into issues, and you will, instead of just banging your head against the wall, you can call Apex and they will literally walk you through and help you resolve it. They're really amazing.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: So it's not one-time, it's an ongoing relationship.

Gene Marks: It's not one-time. No, it's an ongoing thing, ongoing thing.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I love it.

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Heidi J. Ellsworth: I love it. Okay. Well, one of the things you talked about so eloquently when I saw you was technology. So how do you see the world of AI, technology overall, really influencing the construction industries and the economics around that?

Gene Marks: So, a couple of things on AI. I do full-blown just specific presentations now in AI, because I write about it for Forbes six to seven times a month. So I'm learning a lot myself as a business owner. So a few things on AI. First of all, for most people in the construction industry, don't spend any money on AI this year. Don't do it. You need to spend ... AI is not ready yet. It is very early days. Microsoft released their copilot, it ain't great. I know where it's going. But then again, who buys anything Microsoft makes version 1.0. AI is in 1.0 right now, so no one should be ... at least at our size, medium-sized companies shouldn't be spending yet.

You should be preparing for what's coming. And what's coming will be a lot of AI-enabled automation and workflows that will really help you increase productivity and save time and not ... alleviate some of your employee issues. So in 2024, my advice is you want to be talking to your software vendors. So I don't know what software, your construction software, your accounting software, your CRM software, your HR software, this is the year you need to be calling them up and saying to them, "Hey man, you're the ones that are spending money on AI. Show me what you're doing that makes sense for my business." And when you spend the time to do that, you will find the one or two software vendors where you'll be like, "I love what these guys are doing, and once it's ready for prime time, probably next year, I could really see my business really taking advantage of this."

And then for the rest of this year, clean up your data, because if you're going to double down on an AI-based application, that one of your vendors is doing, it ain't going to work very well if your data is not good.

The final point that I have on AI this year, and I just wrote about this for Forbes last week, the only place where I'm really seeing AI provide real life return on investment right now is customer service, chatbots. Chatbots. That's where the money's at. For this industry, it's a little tough because it's not like a consumer-driven or consumer-facing industry for the most part. The people that are making money off it are the companies that are investing millions building chatbots so consumers can go on their website or call up their help desk and they're talking to a robot and that robot is smart enough to help them solve problems. And that's really showing some ROI now. There are some applications that are providing this like Zendesk and Salesforce and ServiceNow, so things to consider. But for the most part, 2024 is the year of the chatbot. But next year and the year after and the year after that, we're going to be seeing a lot more AI in the construction world, particularly in office automation.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah, systems and processes.

Gene Marks: Correct. Correct.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: And you know where we have seen the rise of chatbots, specifically in roofing, obviously residential roofing, much more? In areas that are prone, circling back, to bad weather. So there is a hurricane, there is no way these contractors can handle all the calls that are coming in, but if they have the right technology in place, at least makes the customer experience people not wanting to pull their hair out.

Gene Marks: But you have to admit, Heidi, that the typical contractor, no offense, they're not going to build an AI application to do this.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: No, they're buying it.

Gene Marks: Who's got the money? The big guys are spending millions doing it, but for us ... But more and more it's getting commoditized, and it's starting to filter its way down to the rest of us. And there are some CRM companies that are now making this available to us, their customers and they will get trained and better and better. That will be the solution as a business. I can see going to Salesforce and saying, "We need to build a chatbot solution for when there's bad weather to handle the kinds of calls that come in and give people answers." And companies like Salesforce and many others like them will have the infrastructure to do that for a company. And that's, again, you talk to your CRM vendor and say, "What do you guys got?"

Heidi J. Ellsworth: It has been interesting. There's a lot of presentations that are going on out there about AI, and they're basically just rehashing what's out there. To your point, they haven't implemented it into the software that's already in the industry. They're still trying to figure out how to do that.

Gene Marks: Yeah, it's a lot of hype right now, and they're talking about the future, "AI is going to change our lives and it's going to serve us dinner and it's going to plan our weddings and it's going to do ..." And it's fine. It probably is going to do all of that stuff among some very scary stuff. But most of my clients and my audience, they're like, "Tell me now, what do I need to know now that I should be investing in?" And so now you shouldn't be investing.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. I have to tell you, I did do ChatGPT and I did after hearing your talk. I did pull a couple articles through there, but I was ... Later on as I'm writing, I'm like, "Now I get the difference. That's great for maybe a start or an idea or something, but they can't do the creative that's coming out of my mind." Probably a lot of people can't do that, but it's ...

Gene Marks: I love that you say that because listen, when I'm writing articles, I go to ChatGPT all the time, asking it questions about things I'm writing about. It gives me some facts back with citations that I can check, which is fine, but they can't be really me. And I think people do want to hear from humans, not robots, for a lot of insights. So I don't think we have to be worried about being eliminated just yet.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: No, I don't think so either.

Gene Marks: I'll tell you what, so recently ... We have a rental unit and somebody was going to rent it out from us, and we had to give a rental agreement to them, a lease agreement. And before, I guess I would've gone on LegalZoom and paid to get a sample. I just went to ChatGPT and said, "Create a lease agreement, here are the facts," and it just did it. And then I had to do some tweaks to it, but it was awesome.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: It works. I know. I've seen the same thing. Okay, we talked a little bit about interest rates earlier, probably not going to come down this year. We'll see. Just any thoughts on what we're seeing with the stock market? I think it's been really interesting, some really high days and then all of a sudden, "Oh gee, the gross revenue for the country didn't come back the right way." So tell us your thoughts.

Gene Marks: Yeah. Listen, the market ... I have definite thoughts about the market because I've had definite bad experiences in the market. Again, unless you're a financial manager or this is what you do for a living and you have the time to really spend, and even then it's not always the best answer. Stocks, long term, are always the best long-term return. History has shown us that. And what I've learned over the years is that if you put your money, you pay the fees like you pay for anything else, but you put it with a good mutual fund or a good investment fund that tracks the S&P 500 or the overall Dow, and you have a 20-year outlook, you'll do better than pretty much everything else. And you weather the good and the bad, you weather the storms.

The other thing I've learned is that when the market drops significantly, that's the time to buy. And I learned that in 2009. Do you remember ... I think the market was at 14,000, then it dropped to 6,500 and people were freaking out, including me, but then it was at 6,500 and now it's at 30,000. When it gets there, even if it falls back again, it's going to get back to it at some point. So you buy when it's low, it's an opportunity, it's not a reason to panic or get upset. So that's another thing I've learned about the market itself.

And individual stocks, if you want to buy them, the other thing I've learned is you buy the stocks that you know and you use. So I do own a few individual stocks. Big surprise, I'm a stock holder of American Airlines and Marriott.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I love it. I would do the same.

Gene Marks: Yeah. I use them and so I experience their product all the time, and I'm satisfied with their products. I don't need anybody roasting American Airlines. I think for the most part they do a good job. Listen, I could be wrong. Maybe for all I know, God, they're going to go bankrupt next year, but my experience has been good with them. I feel comfortable investing with companies that I just know, I understand. I stay away from companies I don't understand or I've never experienced before.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I have the same thing. So, well, I love this conversation so much, Gene, this has been so much fun. So I've got to end it and let's end it on a little bit of a funky note. But so let's end it with politics, because we're in an election year and we know that ... I have to tell you, after 30 years, I hate election years. Election years is like, "Oh, we'll put this business on pause till we see what happens. Oh, we'll do this." And I'm like, "It's going to happen one way or the other. Whatever happens, happens." But what are you seeing for business overall as we work through this crazy election year?

Gene Marks: So, it's funny because I'm speaking on this next week. We're going to have an evenly divided Congress again, big surprise, that is almost guaranteed. You put aside social issues when it comes to your business, when you're voting. It's important to some people, abortion or LGBTQ rights or things like that, so I get that, but I put those aside when I talk to business owners because that's not so much business related as much.

And then I try to put aside personalities. Biden is ancient and too old for the job, and Trump is crazy, so you have both sides of the coin. And anybody that I meet that supports Trump all admit that he's crazy as well, there's not ... And I meet a lot of Trump supporters out there, really good people that support Trump. Everybody has their reasons.

So I think generally what you can expect is that if Trump is elected, it will be more pro-business. He's going to push to extend the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act from 2017 to continue lower taxes. He's not going to cut spending anywhere because he didn't show any evidence of doing that. But he's also going to suspend a lot of regulations and workplace rules that the Biden administration has initiated. Rules for classifying contractors, rules for overtime, the FTC rules on non-compete. These are all just regulations that a new president can just stop. And I believe that Trump, if elected from a business standpoint, will do that.

Biden on the other side, if he is reelected, he's very pro-worker and pro-union so he is going to continue on and probably double down on some of those regulations.

My only hope, regardless of who becomes president, is that we do find a way to have some type of bipartisan immigration reform. And I hoped that four years ago, but I know people disagree over the specifics, but everybody in the business world that I talk to wants to see some type of immigration reform. They're desperate for people. So there's ... I'm hoping that regardless of who gets elected, we'll be seeing that. So, those are my general takes.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: It's a truly bipartisan topic.

Gene Marks: It's very much of a bipartisan topic, and I get it. Trump is more extreme, he wants to build the wall, he wants to limit people from coming in. Biden is more, "Path to citizenship," all of that. Whatever happens with immigration, somebody's going to get treated unfairly. We know that. It's not going to make everybody happy, I get it. But again, when I talk to business owners and they talk about different issues, believe it or not, immigration is a very, very important topic to a lot of people and they're looking for some clarity on that. So we'll see if Congress and a new president can do something about it.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Well, we were just in Washington DC two weeks ago for Roofing Day and immigration was our top topic. So there you go. And CTE.

Gene Marks: CTE as well. Those are-

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That's what there. Okay, I said that was going to be the last one, but last one, any last comments or advice for contractors as they're working their way through 2024 and looking to 2025?

Gene Marks: Yeah, stick your cash away. Save. That is my advice. I'm telling you that as busy as you are, there's a potential to be a lot busier and you want to be in a position when jobs come up in the next few years, to be able to bid on them and be able to buy the materials for them.

And secondly, you want to be in a position when it comes time to hire that person that you love, but they're more than you expected to pay, you want to have the cash in the bank to say, "I don't care. I'm going to hire that person because we can really make the business ..."

So for most people in the construction industry, again, like you talked about at the beginning of this conversation, things have not been so bad this year, so try and stick that money away and you will have so many more options when more opportunities come in the next couple of years.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That's great. That's great. Gene, thank you for being on this very first Contractor Outlook podcast.

Gene Marks: Thank you for having me, Heidi. It was a lot of fun. Let's do this again.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: We will do it again, and I'm looking forward to seeing you, I'm sure, at one of the shows that we'll be at the same time, with you speaking.

Gene Marks: You probably will, and you better come up and say hi.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I will. I definitely will. And thank you all for listening. This is, like I said, the first, but definitely not the last. We're going to have Gene back another time. We're going to be bringing different experts from inside and outside the industry to really talk about some of these awesome issues out there and get a lot of different perspectives. So join us for the next Contractor Outlook podcast, and be sure to subscribe and set those notifications so you don't miss a single episode. We'll be seeing you next time on Contractor Outlook.

Outro: Thanks for tuning in to The Coffee Shops Contractor Outlook newscast. Learn more at thecoffeeshops.online and subscribe to get notified when the next episode launches on the first Wednesday of every month.