“I hated watching a lot of these smaller companies losing money, going out of business unnecessarily time and time again. They just didn’t understand how to do the contractual part of the construction game properly. You can absolutely deliver a really, really good job, do a great, fantastic piece of work for your clients, and still come out at a loss because you didn’t manage it contractually properly.”
-Cian Brennan, Managing Director at Quantum Contract Solutions
When many contractors start their companies, they come from a place of experience. They’ve built up a business from long hours on the site and a good understanding of what it takes to deliver a successful project to their clients. What they often aren’t comfortable with is deciphering the contracts that come along with those jobs.
This inflection point is where Cian Brennan and Quantum Contract Solutions step in to provide clarity and confidence in the contractual process. Cian started out working in construction himself and was inspired to be the help so many people need. Quantum offers contract reviews to subcontractors and contractors on all kinds of projects.
Listen as Cian shares wisdom on the pitfalls and potential that contracts offer to contractors everywhere.
Topics discussed in this interview:
- Cian’s inspiration to start helping smaller contractors avoid disastrous contracts
- Bringing peace of mind to the contract process
- Empowering contractors to protect themselves and their businesses
- A worst-case contract scenario
- The importance of a tight contract in the last quarter of a project
- Offering flexible services to fit contractor’s needs
- Two common traits of successful construction companies
- Excelling in your specialty
- Why does Cian feel led to help?
- Three things to negotiate in your contract
- Rapid fire questions
If you or someone you know runs a contracting business, check out Construction Secrets on YouTube for invaluable tips on navigating the ups and downs of contracting. Also, visit Cian’s website for even more free training and information.
For more Construction Disruption, listen on Apple Podcasts or YouTube
Connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn
This episode was produced by Isaiah Industries, Inc.
Intro/Outro:
:Welcome to the Construction Disruption podcast, where we uncover the future of design, building, and remodeling.
Todd Miller:
:Hi, I'm Todd Miller of Isaiah Industries. And today my co-host for Construction Disruption is Ryan Bell. Mr. Bell, how are you today?
Ryan Bell:
:Good morning, Todd. I'm doing great. How are you?
Todd Miller:
:I'm doing well also. Well. So we've been playing with something, as you know, and I'm putting you on the spot to introduce the world premiere of a very special poem that's been written about the Construction Disruption podcast. So I will have to let everyone in on it. So this was actually written by Bard, which is Google's new AI word generator, content generator or whatever you want to call it. So anyway, so we just challenged that. We said write a poem about the Construction Disruption podcast and Bard wrote a poem and it's actually kind of cool. So we well, I don't know. It's cool if you think such things are cool, but we will let Ryan read it.
Ryan Bell:
:I will do my best to read this in a poetic tone.
Todd Miller:
:I think that's important. I think Bard would intend for that to be the case.
Ryan Bell:
:Of course, that's how it was written. Here we go. Construction Disruption Podcast. We're here to listen to your thoughts on the industry's evolution. We're here to learn and to evolve from technology to design to best practices and more. We'll cover it all and then some. So sit back, relax and enjoy the ride as we explore the world of Construction Disruption together.
Todd Miller:
:That's awesome. I think we need to make you read that at the start of every episode.
Ryan Bell:
:I had a hard time not laughing when I was reading it.
Todd Miller:
:Cool stuff. Anyway, it's been fun. I was very excited when Google sent me a note and said I'd been approved to play around with Bard and it's kind of fun. It's interesting. So one of the things to let our audience know, once again, this episode we are doing what we call our challenge words. And these are words that each Ryan and I and also our guest who is soon to be introduced, have been given a word by one of the others on the show that we are challenged to work into the conversation. So we encourage the audience to kind of listen, hey, if you pick up on some crazy word we say, maybe that's the challenge word. And then at the end we will reveal what those words were and you can figure out whether you guessed them or not. So anyway, Ryan, you ready to go?
Ryan Bell:
:I'm ready.
Todd Miller:
:Cool. Well, I'm excited about today's show. So today in today's show, we're going to take a look at one of the many forms that disruption can take in our industry. Disruption in our industry is often simply a better way of doing things. Now, sometimes it may be a new product, but a lot of times it's a new practice or a new and better way of doing things. And that would be a method of doing the day to day that works better both for the client and for the provider. So today's guest is Cian Brennan of Quantum Contract Solutions, based in Perth, Australia. With advanced degrees in construction, economic and engineering manager management. Cian has extensive business experience dealing with construction contracts. He's worked for companies such as Chevron, Inpex and Turner and Townsend. It was out of those experiences that Cian started Quantum Contract Solutions to help construction businesses reduce their liability, maintain good cash flow, avoid disputes, and maintain profitability through contract management. Cian, welcome to Construction Disruption.
Cian Brennan:
:Nice to be here. I really quite enjoyed that poem. I was chuckling away as Ryan went through it. It was, they got the was it ,what they call it when you were? The rhyming couplets, I think is what they call it. When you get poetry, they write every second word or second line. It was pretty good.
Todd Miller:
:So I will have to share. I asked Bard to write a poem about a red poodle because one of the members of our family is a red poodle who is very dear to my wife's heart. And I had Bard write this poem. I sent it to my wife. I truly think it brought a tear to her eye.
Cian Brennan:
:I had one recently, actually. You'll enjoy this, Todd. I got a message from my wife on WhatsApp and it was an apology of some kind. And then later on that night she told me that ChatGPT had written it and I was like, Oh, I finally thought you got it. For once, I thought you got it. And we just had a good laugh about it.
Todd Miller:
:That's hilarious. I wonder how many people are asking AI to write random apologies these days.
Ryan Bell:
:Oh gosh.
Cian Brennan:
:I think it's pretty rife for resignation letters. Drum me up a resignation letter. You know, I think that people are doing that a lot.
Todd Miller:
:Wow, interesting. Well, we're anxious to jump into things with you here today, Cian. What you're doing seems really disruptive to me. And of course, we like that in our day to day jobs here at Isaiah Industries, We work largely with smaller residential contracts and projects. So this idea of a contractor maybe having another company help them with the administration of contracts is, you know, kind of foreign and new to us. But your earlier experience was someone who was working on behalf of clients to negotiate contracts with construction companies. I'm kind of curious, as you went through that experience, what problems in the whole process did you see that got you to thinking there has to be a better way to do this?
Cian Brennan:
:I think ultimately it ended up being that watching a lot of these smaller companies losing money, going out of business unnecessarily time and time again. And I say unnecessarily because it didn't have to happen. They just didn't understand how to do the contractual part of the construction game properly. And so I do use the term construction game because there is contracts and you've got to play. So you're going to be issued a contract that you have to sign and you don't have to sign everything that's in there. And in the post-award space, you have to submit documents that it asks you to sign. And so what we like to say to our clients is that construction really is two parts. You got to construct, you got to deliver, you got to supply the material. You got to do something, but you got to get paid for it. And so once you understand the contracting side of it, then you can understand the getting paid side of it a little bit better. You can and I have examples. You can absolutely deliver a really, really good job. Do a great, fantastic piece of work for your clients and still come out at a loss because you didn't manage it contractually properly.
Todd Miller:
:You know, as you said that it got me to thinking about, you know, the number of times that I as a business owner have signed contracts of various types and, you know, you get presented with it, it's five or six pages and initial the bottom every page and sign here at the end. And, you know, you look at it and your eyes glaze over and it just you almost feel like you've been medicated. I mean, it just none of this stuff makes any sense to you. Do you think I mean, is that one of the reasons that sometimes people kind of miss it on contracts as they simply don't even take the time to read it or really understand it?
Cian Brennan:
:Yeah, understanding is the main thing. So a lot of it in the construction issue. One of the reasons I love it, I'm third generation at this stage. It's bred into me, but a lot of the owners of offshore companies have gotten their hands dirty, like literally got their hands dirty. It's not the same in other industries. A lot of other industries, they're bring in C-suite people who are professional managers. In construction, people rise up from the bottom, and if you start a business, you've risen up from the bottom more often than not. And so that type of person, more often than not, may not have been educated at a university level and might be intimidated by this particular document. And so my challenge to all of those people and then just not bother doing it. And so my challenge all of the time is you can get a drawing that has been put together by an architect or an engineer, complex, complex drawing. You can look at it and you can understand it perfectly because of years of experience and years of understanding. In construction, there's a third document, and that document is the contract, the terms and conditions of the contract, which is another document written by a lawyer this time, but you still need to understand how to interpret it to do very well in construction. And so you don't necessarily need to understand everything in it, but you need to understand the key things that impact your company and what are the things that could ultimately, you know, lose your money, tighten up cash flow, put you in a risky position. Those particular things, if you know how to tweak those things, you can set yourself up for success in that post-award phase.
Todd Miller:
:It's very interesting. So kind of give us an overview, if you would, of what Quantum does for your clients. I mean, how do you help them? What does the process look like? How is your involvement? Just give us an overview of that, if you would.
Cian Brennan:
:Yes. So typically what would happen is if you were a larger construction company, you would ideally in the best case scenario, we'll just go with the best case. Best case scenario, if we look at a Turner of the world or one of those huge companies, right. They have teams of lawyers, teams of contracts people on their team, right, in-house. And you got to ask yourself, why did I have those people? Because they cost a lot of money and there is an ROI on that side of the business in construction. That's the reason that they have it. And one of the key things in construction is as you go down the contractual chain, as you got the principle at the top and you've got your GC, your main contractor, and then you've got your subbies. Right, it doesn't really matter how big that is, but as you go down that contractual chain, the contracts get more and more aggressive. They push the risk, then they push the risk down to push the risk down. And so the guy at the top or, you know, reasonably at the top, they've got teams of contracts, people, and they then send a worse contract down the way to subcontractors or to smaller construction companies. And so the resulting problem that they have is they have the worst contract in the whole contractual chain and they have no resources to deal with it. And they might just open it and they might just sign it as is. And they're literally putting themselves into huge problems, potentially. And what you know, what's the point in in signing a better contract in the first place? And it is essentially to protect the downside. So if you're in construction long enough. Okay, and I think you guys have been. You will see something go wrong. Something will go wrong on a project at some stage, without a doubt. And so what we're trying to do is we're trying to make that thing a little blip rather than a big down. Right, so if you're growing as a company, that bad thing that happens is just a blip and then you continue to grow. It's not the big down and then you just all of a sudden you're in trouble. You're trying to, you can't recover from that. And so that's it. You know, that's Warren Buffett's philosophy. And there's a lot of great investors out there. It's by protecting your data. So that's the whole purpose of signing a better contract. So they will negotiate hard to those big Turner companies with those teams and negotiate because they they know the benefit of that. And a lot of these companies and I'm not saying to do this is just understand the game they'll win a project at a loss or maybe break even knowing that they have the skills in the post-award phase to be able to get change orders, extensions of time and basically recoup their margin in that post-award phase. So again, those people are paying for themselves and you're getting the value from getting those changes and following the contracts in that there is value in that. So there that, you know, that's kind of the value proposition of having contracts people, contracts, managers, lawyers on your team. Now, as time has progressed over the last ten or fifteen years, the construction has changed. And I'm open to listening to your opinion on this as well. I'd love to hear it in that the relationships are not what they used to be. It used to be all about relationships, all about relationships. Now it's yeah, relationships are definitely important, but it's not the number one thing anymore. And so with that change, and I believe the reason that that has changed is technology has come in. Even smaller construction companies have pretty good corporate governance these days, which means that if you submit a change order, they'll have a box to say that they comply with the contract. Yes or no? No, they didn't. It's not getting approved. And so that now means is now that you're a subcontractor, you need to now have contracts people on your side to be able to play this game. Because again, the game is playing whether you want to be playing it or not. And so if you're a company that maybe you send it out to a lawyer to review your contracts or your view your contracts yourself before you do it, or you know how else you would do it, or in your post-award phase, you get your project managers to do all of the paperwork as a bit of a side hustle to their regular day job. Then that's kind of where we come in. And so we, our system is essentially a combination of technology and people, which is kind of leveraging people from all around the states to basically do that work remotely for you. So we will review your contracts, we'll negotiate your contracts, we will do all of the paperwork for you to make sure that all gets submitted perfectly and on time. So essentially, as a company, you can just concentrate on doing an amazing job in the construction, supplying what you need to supply, building what you need to build. And then we'll just look after the contractual stuff on your behalf. That's it in a nutshell.
Todd Miller:
:Very interesting. I'm curious. So I thought I knew the answer to this. And now I'm wondering, maybe I don't. So are your clients more often large GCs or subcontractors or sometimes even property owners or all of the above?
Cian Brennan:
:It depends on what they say. All of the above will want their contracts reviewed regardless. But our little niche that we like to work with and can help the most are larger subcontractors.
Todd Miller:
:Okay.
Cian Brennan:
:Okay. So individual civil companies, fabricators, roofing companies, guys that do one thing. And if I'm being, you know, better, my passion about it is, they're the companies that do the actual construction. So you've got your GCs. As you know, they're like a finance company, so they'll win the work. They'll get a loan from somewhere to subcontract that to work and they'll make good money on the delta. But the subcontractors, the subbies, will actually build the thing or do whatever it is. Makes sense?
Todd Miller:
:Right? Yep, sure does. And you had alluded to that earlier. Just kind of the change over the years in terms of relationships and the role relationships play and, yeah, you're right. And our company is kind of interesting. So we've been a manufacturer of building materials for over 40 years and, you know, we still have a lot of older loyal customers, 30, 35, 40-year customers that really that relationship still is what everything is based on. It means everything to them and everything to us. But you're absolutely right. As I look at our newer customers and some of the newer types of work that we're being blessed with, a lot of times it's very different. It's much more contractual and, you know, just a just a number and you got to do everything right and you got to know what you're agreeing to. So I'm curious as you look back on clients that you've worked with. Any stories come to mind of situations like, man, we really saved that guy in that situation or any any stories like that come to mind?
Cian Brennan:
:I can tell you there's plenty of stories, he says, shuffling around in his head. But I can tell you the probably the worst war story I've ever heard. We ended up like they came to us after we ended up helping, but not saving it, right. But we ended up definitely helping the situation. But I cannot tell you how badly it can go. So this was a civil company and they were it's, you know, I think it was a it was $6 or 7 million job. And they're working with the the GCs, project manager. And he said to them, Hey, guys, look, essentially. I'm paraphrasing, I don't know what he said, but I'm assuming he's saying this. He said, Look, don't bother submitting loads of little change orders. I know you're delayed. I know I've asked you to do a load of different stuff and what I want you to do is wrap it all up into one change order for me and I'll approve it. One big one, right? And so I'm trying to recall the actual value. So they go, okay, we'll do that. And so they went ahead and they did the work and they didn't submit it. And they prepared this one change order that pushed out the time. So it was an EOT change order wrapped up into one whatever, whatever it was. And it was looking for time at $1.5 million in in costs.
Todd Miller:
:Wow.
Cian Brennan:
:And the project manager approved it. And that was great. And then they invoiced against it and they got paid it, which was great. And then what a lot of these bigger companies do is they bring out what's called bring in what's called a closeout team, which is a company that comes in at the end of the project. They pull the project manager away and it's this new team that comes in and this new team is, Oh, look, we don't have any relationship with anybody. We just got to stick to the contract and you know, we're going to close out this project essentially. And do you know what payment on account is?
Todd Miller:
:Payment on account? Help me understand what that means.
Cian Brennan:
:So payment on the account is where that kind of money is, kind of goes freely between over and back so they can recoup money if they'd like to.
Todd Miller:
:Gotcha.
Cian Brennan:
:And so they said, okay. And so just, you know, this project was payment on account. And they're like, yep, sure. And so we look back and it looks like all of those variations and that time that we previously approved and previously paid was done incorrectly and you didn't comply with the contracts and therefore we shouldn't have approved it and therefore we're rescinding it. And your last payment claim is $1,000,000 and we're going to offset that against that last payment claim. We're not paying it.
Todd Miller:
:Wow, wow.
Cian Brennan:
:That was potentially the worst I have ever come across.
Ryan Bell:
:Jeez
Todd Miller:
:That's yeah, that's crazy.
Ryan Bell:
:Is that a common situation that it's handled like that or, or this is just kind of an extreme example of it?
Cian Brennan:
:I would suggest it's the, the common situation that happens, that's definitely an extreme version. But the common situation that actually does happen is and we have this phrase calls squeaky bum time. And squeaky bum time is developed by this football manager in the UK, soccer manager, you guys would say, and he was 30 years in the making. Won everything all the time. And he talks about squeaky bum time, which was the last quarter of a football game where people are shifting around in the plastic seats in the stadium squeaking, and it's that last bit that matters essentially. And so when we're talking to our clients about contract management, we say to them, look, it's all about that last quarter. In that last quarter is where everything kicks off. All you need to do is have all your paperwork in place. So when they're coming around looking to save money and recoup money because they're over budget, they look at you and go, Oh, those guys got all their paperwork in place. Let's just go somewhere else, because the game that they play is with your final accounts. The game is ready to play. Those final few payment applications that you put in invoices is where it matters. They're the real, that's when they start playing games. And so saying we're not going to pay you, they threaten you with liquidated damages and then offset against your final payment. And that's when it all happens. So while that was an extreme example, the reality is the final quarter of a construction project is where it all kicks off contractually.
Todd Miller:
:Well, you made it very obvious the stakes are high, that's for sure. And just so our audience knows, squeaky bum time is not one of our challenged words. It will be on a future episode, we promise that. So your clients, is your relationship with your client such that they usually come to you on every project to review things? Or do they just do it on certain projects? I'm curious about that.
Cian Brennan:
:So we have the two sides, we have contract reviews and then we have post award contracts administration, essentially. And so what's always happening, people are always bidding on projects, which means they're always getting contract reviews so they'll use us on retainer for that. We are you know, every time they get a contract to go, they'll send it into us, we'll get it done, we'll spit it back to them. Highlight all the risks, tell them what not to agree to, prepare a document that they can submit to their client and explaining why you're not agreeing to X, Y, and Z and what should be in there and said. And then for that post award phase, it depends on the company and the size of what they're doing. Sometimes they'll use us for a big risky one that they just like. We got to be on top of this one or maybe they don't for another project, it's up to them. And I guess the benefit of our service is unlike hiring people internally, you can just turn us on and off. You can turn off like whateve.r I'll use you for this, I won't use you for that. And it gives you our flexibility. But particularly in construction, you've got that. I mean, if you've been in the industry for for 30, 40 years and you said, you know, this is the bell curve nature of construction, It's up and it's down right. There's in between, there's peaks and troughs and in between in those troughs, you got to make decisions. Are we going to hold on to this guy? Are we going to let go of this guy? And so if you've hired someone, what are you going to do? What else? You can just go up, we'll turn you off, and then when we get another project, we'll turn your back on again. And then we obviously we only do one thing and this is one of the things I really wanted to do. When you said, you're in business so long, Todd, I wanted to ask you a question because we got some data and I want to ask you about it. But we only do one thing, so we're really good at that one thing. And so from a contracts management, contracts administration point of view, I would say, of course we're always going to do a better job than than a normal company because it's our bread and butter. We only do this whereas you hire someone in, you got to get your own systems in place, you got to do all that stuff, you got to learn, and you're also constructing or supplying or whatever happens to be. Does that makes sense?
Todd Miller:
:Yeah. No, it really does. It really does. So what's your question for us? I'm curious.
Cian Brennan:
:Yes. So over time and so we've got, we work with a lot of construction companies and we did a bit of analysis of the most successful construction companies. And one actually, unsurprisingly, was duration. The ones that have been in business longer are bigger. That's not rocket science. The other one is family-run businesses were the most successful. They were the two key traits, family-run businesses and ones that have been in business for a long period of time. And so my thesis on that, having looked at that data, was I believe that those companies make decisions based on a longer time horizon because they want to pass it on to a son or daughter that day. They've been in business. You know, they understand so that they're not making a decision on a risky project this quarter. This year they're thinking five and ten years time. And so when you've got that viewpoint, you go, Well, I'm not taking this risky job on. I'd rather wait to have a better job that is a little bit easier. It's not as much margin, but the risk is lower. And they make those decisions over time rather than these big hairy contracts. And then it goes wrong and then you go out of business. So my question to you, having been in business and having a business for that long, are those is that is my thesis reasonably accurate or is there something different?
Todd Miller:
:No, I think it's very accurate. I definitely think privately-owned businesses and I'll say privately-owned rather than necessarily family-owned, although it may be family-owned, but privately-owned businesses, definitely. You know, when you know that you don't have to answer to an outside board of directors or public shareholders, you take a different viewpoint on things you're answering to yourself, maybe a closely knit group of board of advisors, whatever that might be, maybe other family members. It's kind of interesting. So I was talking to a gentleman earlier this week who, he's involved, he invests in businesses and advises other business investors and things like that. And he said, we got onto the subject of venture capital money a little bit. And, you know, we're seeing more and more venture capital buying up construction companies here in the U.S. And he said, and I have this, the statistic blows me away, but I really have no reason to doubt him. He said that between eight and nine of the businesses that will be acquired by investment capital or some sort of outside capital, between eight and nine fail. Now, I'm not quite sure what the time span on that is. I'm not even sure what his definition of fail is. But oftentimes those are privately-held or family businesses that sold out to investment capital. And he said 8 to 9 of those ventures will fail. But the venture capitalists just keep doing it because the one or two that make it make them a lot of money. And so it was very interesting that, no, I think you're spot on. That was a very long answer to a short question.
Cian Brennan:
:There is another statistic as well that that really backs up what he said. And that is and this is this is globally accurate. More so, in I'm assuming different states, different countries depending on on various factors. But the construction industry has the highest amount of insolvencies at around the industry. So the figure I have is 26% of all insolvencies come from the construction industry.
Todd Miller:
:I've never heard that figure; does not surprise me at all. I mean, it's a little bit more of a base figure. But, you know, historically, if you look at Better Business Bureau complaints here in the U.S., you know, there are three primary things that always lead the way. Construction companies, a lot of times roofing contractors, car dealerships, and cell phone companies. And that's, you know, who gets all the complaints.
Cian Brennan:
:Sorry, there was one other thing I forgot to mention. It was that the other thing that they all had in common was that they all did one thing. They weren't, they didn't have multiple things that they did. They all did one thing.
Todd Miller:
:The successful companies.
Cian Brennan:
:The successful companies, they all were a steel fabricator, they were supplied X, Y, and Z. And sure, they might have different products, but they didn't try and overcomplicate things. They just did one thing very, very well. And I guess, you know, simple, simple scales and fancy fails.
Ryan Bell:
:Ooh, I like that. I have not heard that before. I like that.
Todd Miller:
:That is good now. And that makesm that's certainly been my, you know, observation over the years as well. I mean, the smaller or not necessarily smaller, but the privately-held companies tend to know what they're chicken sandwich is. So so the founder who was Truett Cathy of Chick fil A, always said, We have to know what our chicken sandwich is. We've got to be able to do that, because that was their mainstay. That was what everything was about. And, you know, even if you compare that to other fast food companies, a lot of them that kind of go on these trajectories of ebbs and flows and so forth, are the companies that venture into different areas. I mean, suddenly Burger King is doing chicken on, you know, fried chicken on top of saying hamburgers. But Chick fil A has always known what their chicken sandwich was and they stuck to it. And their trajectory of growth has been very continuous.
Cian Brennan:
:It's the most profitable per per store, per location of all of the fast food is Chick-Fil-A. And also the thing I respect and I think it's probably a core value culture thing, I think the rest of the country respect, regardless of creed, is that they close on a Sunday. Like how many Bain McKinsey consultants came in to their company and said, if you open one more day, you will make like a seventh more money guaranteed and that's going to equate to an extra how many millions of dollars? And they just continue to say no.
Todd Miller:
:So are there Chick-Fil-As in Australia? I don't even know.
Cian Brennan:
:No, there's no Chick-Fil-As Australia.
Todd Miller:
:Wow, interesting. I've been to Australia once and it's been probably about 15 years ago. I just, that was a really long flight Cian, I got to tell you.
Cian Brennan:
:I'm used to it. I'm used to it at this stage. So yeah, just got to do it.
Todd Miller:
:It was, it was interesting. So that was back when things were a little more lax on flights and so on my flight back to the States, to LAX, Richard Simmons was on my flight, the exercise guru, and he was exactly what you think. He was just less flamboyant. He was wearing the little silk shorts. He was up and down running all over the plane. It was entertaining, that's for sure.
Cian Brennan:
:Fantastic. It's a great story.
Todd Miller:
:So are most of the projects you're working with, I mean, are they typically larger projects or are, you know, the subbies seeing benefit to you even for smaller projects? I'm just kind of curious about the scope.
Cian Brennan:
:Yes. So size-wise, we have some smaller ones on a case by case basis based on, you know, I started good fit, but typically the revenue would need to be more than 5 million a year as a subcontractor to be a fit. So we've got guys that are around that level. We've got guys that are in the hundreds of millions as well. So it's, it really depends.
Todd Miller:
:Gotcha. Very good. So I certainly, gosh, again, you know what you're doing just is very much filling a need and saving folks from a lot of heartache and potential problems and even disaster in many cases. I mean, is this something that you're seeing continue to grow? And I'm also curious, do what what do you really enjoy about what you're doing?
Cian Brennan:
:Well, construction to start. I mean, I started driving a dumper when I was 13 years old on a construction site. And it was it like, it was a way for me to make money to go on holidays. When I was a kid, my parents used to say to me, we'll take you on holidays, but you, when we get there, you got you're spending money, you've got to earn it yourself. So they used to get me a job on a construction site and I'd essentially work my socks off. And it would that was kind of got me into it. My granddad was in it, he had a contracting firm in the west of Ireland in Galway. So construction has always been my passion. I've just been, I've been. I love adventure and that's how I got to Australia. I worked in the Middle East, I worked in Iraq, I work in Saudi, in Qatar on major projects, you know, in the middle of nowhere and any bit of adventure, I'm there. So that's my passion itself is construction. Contracts is what I'm very good at. And my other passion probably would be scaling and growing businesses, particularly in construction. So that's where that's where I jam, essentially.
Todd Miller:
:Wow, that's awesome. You kind of led into it a little bit there. But, you know, we do think a lot of our audience members are younger folks in design and construction. Any particular advice for them as they are getting started out in careers in this industry?
Cian Brennan:
:Yeah, actually I was talking about this. So there, I didn't do this and I would say it set me back ten years maybe. And it does depend on what you want to do. But I was advised to go client-side. So my, my granddad had a construction company. They said no, subcontractor or contractor-side is very hard. You got to, you know, you got to kill your own meat. So you got to you got to, you know, win your own work, all of this sort of stuff. And then it's hard, it's difficult work and go, go get a degree, go work client-side. It's more stable. You probably get paid more money as well. And that is absolutely true. That's all true. Right? Straight out of university, that is all true. And I did that, however, and it was useful for me actually, when I did start my business, because I knew how the insides of the bigger company work. So I was able to go, Right, well, this is what they're looking for. So if you do too X, Y and Z, you're going to get your change order in the door. You are going to agree to this. And that's kind of our secret sauce, I guess. And also the volume. Our volume, we've done over 2600 contract reviews. We know what to try and negotiate. So while I did that and I was client-side and that was kind of the right thing to do in theory, but I didn't get any real business exposure. So if you're actually going contractor-side you for that first ten years, you will definitely get paid less. There's no bones about it. However, your experience will be so much more because you get exposed to the money side of it. You'll get exposed to balance sheet, cash flow payments, difficult conversations and arguments in meetings where you're trying to explain your case and and all that you won't get. You won't see any of that on the client side until your way further down your career. And so the exposure that you get that side is so much more. And if you wanted to start a business, then you're just so much closer, so much quicker. So I go to I go to a mentor of mine says, you know, don't invest in the S&P 5000 or 500. Invest in the SME 500. And so by doing that, you you will get so much more experience so much quicker. And I think that's what it's about. If you've decided construction is your game, if you decide you want to start a business in construction, that would be the way I go. Go find a really good subcontractor, a good operator, and then do your best in that business for five, ten years and you'll learn everything. You'll learn everything you need to know.
Todd Miller:
:Awesome. Hey, this has been great. Very informative. So we're kind of close to wrapping up what we call the business end of things. Is there anything we haven't covered today that you'd like to get in here at the end with our audience?
Cian Brennan:
:Well, I'll just bang out hopefully some nuggets, three quick nuggets. One thing, if there's only three things you want to negotiate in your contract. You want to look at capping your overall liability. That's one thing. Look at that particular thing. Termination clause. Go scan. Just look at a contract for termination because can I get out? Just read that. A lot of times it will say all the ways that they can terminate you and you can't terminate them. And so you want to be able to be able to terminate them. So that's an important one. And the last one is consequential damages is an absolute killer. Right? So liquidated damages, let's just say you've been asked to build a hotel, liquidated damages, and you have to pay back to the client for you being late on the project, which is fair. You delayed them. They've now had to pay all these other contractors standby rates or whatever because you hadn't finished your thing, right. So fair enough. But consequential damages is having to repay the client. And the example is building a hotel, for them not being able to rent out the hotel rooms, lost their profits and their loss of profit could be bigger than your whole company.
Todd Miller:
:Yeah.
Cian Brennan:
:So be careful of that one. There are kind of three ones I would look for very quickly if you were just scanning a construction contract.
Todd Miller:
:Great advice and we'll be sure to capture those in the show notes as well. So, you know, good advice. So here we are close to closing out. And like we always ask all of our guests, I'm going to ask you if you'd like to be a participant in what we call our rapid fire questions. So Cian, these are seven questions. May be serious, may be silly. All you got to do is give a quick answer. And our audience understands that you have no idea what we're about to ask you. So are you feeling up to the challenge of rapid fire?
Cian Brennan:
:Absolutely. Let's do it.
Todd Miller:
:Here it is, late on a Friday night your time with the time difference. So thank you.
Cian Brennan:
:You're welcome.
Todd Miller:
:Okay. We will ask these, we'll alternate. Ryan, you wanna ask the first one?
Ryan Bell:
:Sure, I would love to. What product have you bought recently that has been kind of a disruptor or game changer in your life?
Cian Brennan:
:This. This, this thing, this Rode microphone thing. I used to have one that was just in front of me. But this thing is great because it rolls around and it goes down. It goes up. That is one of those things that makes my life better. I was actually talking to my wife. Is there stuff in your life where, you know, if I just spent $100, it would make my my day so much better. And this is one of those things.
Ryan Bell:
:I agree, yeah.
Todd Miller:
:Good thing. Okay. Question number two, Do you have a hidden talent? And if so, what is it?
Cian Brennan:
:Yes. I was national champion on the bike in the velodrome. So velodrome cycling, you know, they go around in circles on a wooden velodrome.
Todd Miller:
:So that really scary thing. The Dome of Death or whatever.
Cian Brennan:
:The dome of death, yeah. So, I was sprint which is just yeah, you just, you go for three laps, you race one on one, one other guy. So 2015, I was national champion in that particular discipline.
Ryan Bell:
:How fast do you go when you when you're racing like that?
Cian Brennan:
:You, the thing it's about acceleration because you start at like one and a half laps, you are trying to go as slow as possible. Like literally you're if you look at YouTube but they are going crawling about. Yeah, bang. But probably about 80, 81, 82.
Ryan Bell:
:Whoo. That's crazy.
Todd Miller:
:That is. So do you still do this or is this?
Cian Brennan:
:80 and that's kilometers an hour. Kilometers an hour. That'd be the fastest ever. And I can't remember if that was just, you know, behind a motorbike or if that was just me. But anyway.
Todd Miller:
:So is this something you still do, or does your life insurance company say absolutely not?
Cian Brennan:
:I still race bikes, but on the road, not in the velodrome anymore.
Todd Miller:
:Okay, cool. Okay.
Ryan Bell:
:Next question. If you had to eat a crayon, what color would you choose?
Cian Brennan:
:A crayon?
Ryan Bell:
:Yeah.
Cian Brennan:
:I think green, because maybe it looks like a vegetable and I kind of trick myself into it or something.
Todd Miller:
:Good answer. We like that question, and everyone has sn answer. Everyone's like, they got an answer. So it's good, okay.
Ryan Bell:
:And a reason.
Todd Miller:
:Yeah, and a reason, yep. Next question. You're trying to survive a zombie apocalypse. What one person do you definitely want on your team?
Cian Brennan:
:Oh, you know, it's so funny, though. I've had this conversation with people about exactly what I would do and just say, You know, what I would do is you go straight to the local grocery store and then take it over. That's the number one thing once you're in there, because in all of the movies and other it's the guy at the grocery store like is the guy in charge. Right. So that's the one thing to do.
Todd Miller:
:So you want the local grocer on your team maybe?
Cian Brennan:
:Yeah, the local grocer. And so is this like a movie star or someone local to me or?
Todd Miller:
:We have asked this question. We've had everything from my grandmother to Sylvester Stallone or someone like that.
Cian Brennan:
:Yeah. Yeah. I think it probably. And probably just be my wife because I think it would be less fighting and more just sitting in dark rooms, hiding and chatting. Who better?
Todd Miller:
:Cool.
Ryan Bell:
:What would you like to be remembered for?
Cian Brennan:
:Oh, I would. When my grandad died it said the man in the newspaper said, The man who built Galway. And I would like to be remembered in construction for something similar when I kick the bucket. That I made a measurable difference to the construction industry in a positive way.
Todd Miller:
:Good answer. Okay, next question. What was the first car you ever owned?
Cian Brennan:
:That's a tricky one. It was actually. Oh, no, no, no, no. It was a different one. I can't even remember it. This was a whole thing when I was a kid. You can't drive in Ireland until you're 16 or something. And even then, it's really hard to get your license. Insurance is really expensive. And then my parents said to me at the time, No, you obviously can't drive and we're not getting you a car. And so I went, I got a job and I bought a car and it was just this completely rundown thing. And I can't for the life remember what type of car it was. But my first real car was a Peugeot 206. So there was another type of car. I just can't exactly remember what it was. It was a complete banger. But the Peugeot 206 was was the first car, actual real car.
Ryan Bell:
:Alright, final question. I'm actually going to turn this into a two-part question. So part one is, what's your favorite traditional Australian food?
Cian Brennan:
:Traditional Australian food. Umm, barbecue.
Ryan Bell:
:Barbecue?
Cian Brennan:
:Yeah. Just barbecue.
Ryan Bell:
:Yeah. Just barbecue.
Cian Brennan:
:Barbecue and beer. Does beer count as food?
Ryan Bell:
:Barbecue and beer. Yeah, sure. It goes with the meal. So what's your least favorite traditional Australian food? Something, as you would say, that you would throw in the dumper.
Cian Brennan:
:Kangaroo.
Ryan Bell:
:Kangaroo?
Cian Brennan:
:Yeah.
Ryan Bell:
:Really?
Cian Brennan:
:Roo is not tasty. No, it's very, very gamey. Very gamey.
Ryan Bell:
:Is it popular?
Cian Brennan:
:Yeah. I mean, it's everywhere. I mean, there's a lot of kangaroos here, so there's a lot of kangaroo meat.
Todd Miller:
:Very interesting. I did not have kangaroo when I was there, but I was the guy who in Melbourne spotted a penguin. We're driving along the seashore and I look over and there's a penguin out there, and my host was like, No, we don't have penguins here. And sure enough, there was a penguin there. So that's my one claim to fame.
Cian Brennan:
:Sounds like an escapee from the from the zoo or something, is that.
Todd Miller:
:Everyone was pretty confused but sure enough, he was there. Well, this has been great. So our challenge words, Ryan, scraped by on the skin, by the skin of his teeth. But we were all successful. Ryan, your word was?
Ryan Bell:
:Dumper. That was my plan. I was waiting for that, so I knew I was going to sneak it in there.
Todd Miller:
:Carefully planned. I should have switched up the order of the questions and not given you that question.
Ryan Bell:
:Yeah. Oh, I was planning on you asking me to go first, so.
Todd Miller:
:Well, Cian worked in your word as well, but Cian's word was actually...
Cian Brennan:
:Socks.
Todd Miller:
:Which he worked in. And I use the word medicated, and I worked it in early. I didn't want to have to worry about it, so I got that one done.
Cian Brennan:
:I tried to show you off Ryan by also using dumper.
Ryan Bell:
:I know I heard it. So when you did that. So we haven't been releasing video, but we're going to start releasing video and we have to try not I mean, we've always kind of smiled knowing that no one's going to see the video when someone uses their word. But I realize we're all smiling here. Someone uses a word and now they're going to give it away for anyone watching on YouTube.
Todd Miller:
:That's right. Oh, wow. Interesting.
Ryan Bell:
:Oh, well.
Todd Miller:
:Well Cian, this has been great. I really enjoyed it and learned a whole lot. Thank you very much for your time here today, especially late on a Friday evening your time.
Cian Brennan:
:It's fine working, working globally, working in the States. I'm up early and I'm up late. And you just got to do what you got to do. So my my work day tends to be a funky, get up super early, take a bit of time off in the middle of the day and then go, go until late in the evening.
Todd Miller:
:Well, no doubt that this is not unusual due to work at odd hours. But thank you again. And this has been great. And I want to thank our audience for tuning into this episode of Construction Disruption with special guest Cian Brennan of Quantum Contract Solutions. We will put his contact information in the show notes. But why don't you go ahead and tell us, how can people best get in touch with you again?
Cian Brennan:
:Yes, so whoever is listening, so that the first thing I would point people to is we've got a YouTube channel called Construction Secrets on there. On there, there's a playlist. It's 16 videos showing you exactly how to negotiate your construction contract. Totally free, just go crazy. That'll give you everything you need. And if you want us to do it for you, go to quantumcontractsolutions.com.
Todd Miller:
:Awesome. Well, you are serving a great need and we thank you for that and look forward to continued success and growth of your business as well. So to our audience, please watch for future episodes of Construction Disruption. We're always blessed with great guests just like Cian today. Please don't forget to leave a review on Apple Podcasts or YouTube. Until the next time we're together, keep on disrupting. Don't forget also to have a positive impact on everyone you encounter. Make them smile, encourage them; two simple yet powerful things that we can all do to change the world. God bless and take care. This is Isaiah Industries signing off until the next episode of Construction Disruption.
Todd Miller:
:Intro/Outro: This podcast is produced by Isaiah Industries, manufacturer of specialty metal roofing and other building products.