In this episode of Celebrating Small Family Businesses, hosts Connie and John spotlight Hesron and Karla Gomez of AJS Quality Construction. Originating from Mexico and Southern California, respectively, the couple embarked on their entrepreneurial journey in Central Texas in 2018.

Hesron, with his trade experience and bilingual skills, and Karla, leveraging her budgeting and legal background, successfully built their construction business focused on the apartment industry.

They share insights on managing family life and business, navigating challenges like industry changes and COVID-19, and maintaining a balance between risk and financial caution.

The episode delves into their aspirations, including hitting new financial goals and developing leadership within their company while highlighting the vital role of humility and constant learning in their success.

You can reach them here:

https://www.ajsqualityconstruction.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/hesrongomez/

00:00 Welcome to Celebrating Small Family Businesses

00:05 Meet Hezron and Karla Gomez of AJS Quality Construction

00:38 Starting the Family Business

01:22 Challenges and Growth in the Construction Industry

03:48 Balancing Family and Business

04:20 Financial Strategies and Lessons Learned

13:11 Adapting to Industry Changes

16:16 Navigating COVID-19 and Its Impact

20:20 The Remodeling Challenge

20:37 Future Goals and Aspirations

21:30 Side Business Ventures

22:01 Life Coaching and Personal Growth

22:30 The Meaning Behind AJS

23:28 Financial Goals and Team Development

23:53 Coaching and Risk Management

28:31 Faith and Humility in Business

32:32 Family and Business Balance

39:55 Final Thoughts and Contact Information

Hi, and welcome to another episode of celebrating small family businesses. Today we are celebrating Hezron and Carla Gomez of ajs quality construction. Hi, guys. How are you today?

Hello.

Good. Good.

Thank you.

Thanks for having us.

Welcome to the show.

Thanks, Connie.

Sometimes we call ourselves the John and Connie show because you never know what's going to come out of our mouths. We are here to celebrate small family businesses because that's where we both come from, and you know it. There's a soft spot in our hearts.

So you guys are working together in family business. Tell us the story.

How.

When did, how did you get started?

From Mexico. From the center of Mexico. From a state called Michoacan.

Then I eventually got into construction and learned, you know, the trade, the industry, and, you know, just to, I guess to be a little bit more specific about what we do, like, because we do have a niche, and it's basically the apartment industry. Right. So we cater to construction and remodeling work for the apartment industry here.

In this area, there's big apartment communities, unlike LA, where apartments, you know, can range from, like, 18 units. The bigger ones that I remember seeing when I grew up, there were, like 50 units here.

The smallest client that we have is somewhere, like, close to 200 doors. One of our bigger ones has close to 640 units or something like that. So they're bigger communities, therefore they need a lot more help. Right.

Obviously, my wife is from Mexico, so I'm fully bilingual. I speak, you know, fluent Spanish. And a lot of the trades that we, we use in these different businesses that I worked in, they spoke mainly Spanish.

So I was one where they would come and they would try to get help. Most of them are subcontractors, so they have other clients, and they needed help with these other people.

And eventually I left that company, and then one of these guys, one of the subcontractors, came to me, and he told me he was ready to kind of go to the next level, and he wanted to also start his own business. And we came to an agreement, and eventually I started working with him, too, started helping him out.

Unfortunately, he didn't come through with his end of the, the deal that we kind of had started with. By that time, Carla had seen me, and she's.

She kind of knew that I enjoyed all the moving parts of, like, the construction industry, which keeps me on my feet and somebody like me, that it has, like, some sort of level of add or something. Like, I need that, right? Like, I need all the moving parts.

And so she said, hey, like, you know, with the last guy, like, you basically started his business from zero. Why don't you just get started? Right.

We're getting close to that six year mark. And I, you know, I thank God, first of all, and then, like, you know, obviously, I have a big support.

Here next to me, I would say big support. Inspiration driver.

Yeah.

Were you guys married and had you been together a while before you started the business?

So we only. We have three kids. That's. That's where we stopped. And she had just been born, so it was, it was tough.

Yeah.

I mean, it's scary for her.

Like, I'm really conservative. He's like, let's do it. And I'm like, let me see the numbers first. But I think it's a good combination because he has to drive.

And I'm like, not that much. Not that much. Wait, let's. Let's see these. Let's see. Yeah. And ultimately, we just think it's God, you know, who is allowing this thing to go. And.

Yeah, it's just, we move.

So we just, you know, we just keep tugging at it. Right. And keep things keep working out. Right.

So, yeah, yeah, yeah. You try. You just keep testing, trying new things. At some point. Yeah, you made. It sounds like you made a, you know, a leap.

But your beginnings, if I heard correctly, it was very organic. Like, you saw a need. People were coming to you saying, hey, I need help with this and help with that. And we can really relate to that.

We live here in Tampa, Florida. I know you guys are in Austin, Texas. I want to say that for our listeners.

So you're not that far from the mexican border, and there's a large hispanic community in your state. Same here. Tampa is heavily, heavily hispanic.

Our whole street is.

We. Yeah, we.

We're the only ones.

We say we're the only native english speakers in the neighborhood. I don't know if that's true or not, but. But, yeah, we.

I mean, there's a guy down the street that lived here 30 years, and he speaks very little English. He doesn't need to, but it's same thing. The trades.

There are people that struggle because they don't, you know, they don't speak English, and when they need to interface or do business in English, then it becomes a challenge. So were you, Hezron, were you translating or helping them negotiate, or what kind of help was that, that you were providing?

Yeah, so a lot of the help that they started coming to me for, and this kind of started, like, a little sized business, too, for a while, was that they needed help with creating, like, formal estimates for other clients that they had a. And also for, like, invoicing and, like, more like the technical admin kind of side of business when they start growing. Right.

Because, I mean, they're really good trades, so they're really good at what they do. But when it comes to the admin stuff and the business side of things, that's where they need a lot of the help. Yeah.

So common, so common people, they do what they do. They love something. They start. And then all of a sudden, they have to start wearing ten hats. Right. And stuff they weren't trained to do. Carla, what?

You mentioned the numbers. You said, you know, show me the numbers. So what is your. Do you come from a financial background?

I actually studied law in Mexico. I'm a lawyer, and I. But being, being in Mexico in this country, that is not as. How to say it. We don't have over there.

We don't have that match all the time. Right. And I. And I grew up just, like, counting my. My pesos, my money, and. And just learning how much. Yes. And. And I always had budget everything.

And when I came and married to Hestron, he was like, let's buy this. Let's buy this. I want to do this. And I was like, do we have the money? No. We have credit cards in Mexico. I was.

I was used to, if I have the money, I buy it. If I don't have the money, I'm not buying anything because I'm not gonna create depth for luxury things that they are not. Yeah.

That they are not important, essential to live. So. Yeah. And that we've been to not fighting, but that's.

Yeah, that's. That's one of the, like, the little. Not a. It's. It's not even really a struggle. It was a learning curve for me, right? It was a learning curve for me.

But obviously I see the benefit, right?

Like, so being able to, being able to sleep every night just at peace, because, you know, we have close to, like, non existent debt other than like, you know, the mortgage on the house or whatever, one of the cars, and it's like, it's so you don't need free, you know, like, that's part of, you know, you know, being an American.

It's like, you know, freedom is a big thing and, you know, but a lot of people are bounded by debt, and so she's one of the ones that came with this mentality of not that we don't want it or it's just not priority right now, like, let's figure out how we can get to it and. Yeah, so that's, that was a good thing.

So that you going back to your question, though, like, so she doesn't come from a financial background, but that's where she best fit. So she does the books for the business.

But that was an accident too, because Heston was having this girl that was helping him and she just left or what happened, and he's like, I need help. And I. It's a small company, but it's a lot of work to run in, like, well, you know, because we are small, but, but we like to do things well.

So he, I saw him struggling with everything and I was like, okay, let me see if I can figure this out. And I'm learning. Sometimes I spent like four, five, 6 hours trying to figure out where to put my, my expenses or. But, yeah, I feel your pain.

I'm the same way.

Yeah, but that's the best learning in many cases, because, you know, when you do, you have a very sure purpose of the reason you're wanting to figure this out. And then you, you work through it, it's a struggle, but then you know it and you've, you've earned that and you, you don't forget it then, right?

Yeah, yeah. And for me, this is not that easy too, because it's another language. And what, like twelve years ago, I spoke zero, zero English.

Even though I studied university and I graduated as a lawyer, I never had the opportunity, necessity, necessary of studying English. And I came here, and in this area, nobody spoke Spanish. So I gotta learn, like, no, no.

Big surprise. Wow, that's, that's amazing. Well, so, Carla, I just, I. You're the chief financial officer. That's what I hear.

But no, those skills that you brought, that really the life skills, this is really interesting because sometimes we talk to people that they came into the business, they had one or more had a bunch of experience in the corporate world, and they brought the lessons they learned and some of the processes from the corporate into the business. In your case, you brought some powerful life skills in terms of survival, managing budget, living within your means and language difficulty.

And the business wisdom of that is you only use debt to grow the business. The debt has to generate a return. You don't borrow money for payroll or something. You borrow money for equipment. That's going to earn you more money.

Right.

It's been invaluable to have her as my business partner, and I, people talking about bootstrapping, right? Like, that's. That's what we did, basically.

Right?

Yeah. And sometimes I can see in Hessron this face still, like, but I wanna do this. And I'm like, but, okay, come here. Let's see. Look. Can we do that?

Well, no, but it's not gonna, it's not gonna. It's not gonna be a pain. We don't need it. We don't need it. And. Yeah, and it's been just learning and trusting.

Trusting in the process that if we do things good, everything's gonna be okay. And that happens all the time.

Yes, yes. Trusting each other and trusting the process.

What do you know now that you wish you had known when you started this business?

That's a hard question, that things change. Sometimes you got to be open minded to be able to pivot, even if it's not necessarily from one industry to the next.

But the way that we do things sometimes, right now, we're going through that right now because we cater to the apartment industry. Before, I used to be able to just knock on a door, arrive at a property, speak to the manager, and create some rapport.

And hopefully they give us a shot to be able to do something small for them and then work our way up.

Now it seems like the industry is changing where most of the management companies that we work with are creating what they're calling regional construction managing positions. So they're the ones that are handling all the construction needs of the apartment complexes that they manage.

So now it's not as easy as, like, knocking on the door, talking to the manager, because now it's kind of getting out of her hands, and it's all concentrated within these positions. So we don't get to meet these people and create the rapport with them and the relationships with them. Then, you know, we're missing the work.

And so that's a. It's been a little bit of a challenge, but again, it's just we're trying to see how we can grow, you know, with Disney challenge.

And are those people that are doing that management typically non local? Are they out of state?

No, no. Most of the time they're local because we work with some pretty big management companies in the area. They usually have somebody local.

We run into, like, one or two companies wherever. Yeah, they're, you know, we're in Austin. So these regional positions, they come from, like, Dallas, so that's like 3 hours away.

And they'll be here maybe once a month or something like that. Those. Those get really difficult. Right. Because when they're here, they're usually trying to do something in within their properties.

And it's like, you know, you can't invite them necessarily for lunch because they probably. They're getting pulled a million different ways. So.

Yeah, sounds like what you're having to really pivot is for the local people instead of just a local manager. Now you've got a different process or different path to get to the person that you need to be talking to and get to know them.

We are trying to figure that out.

Yeah. So just to answer Connie's question is just having an open mind of trying to figure things out, which is scary for me.

I like things like consistent.

Consistent. Yes, we do. We crave that as humans, unfortunately, life changes, and the change that happened last time is never the change.

It's almost never repeated. So, you know, we think, oh, when that happens again, I'll be ready. Well, it doesn't happen. It's a different flavor.

How did you guys manage through Covid? So you mentioned pivoting and change, and you were about two years, two plus years into your business when Covid struck.

Yeah. Yeah. So, honestly, it didn't have. It didn't hit us really hard.

So I guess, you know, thank God we were, like, in the right industry, actually, because the management company started relying heavily on vendors like us to be able to do things that they couldn't do because of policies. Right.

Like, a lot of the maintenance personnel on site couldn't go into the units because the person might have had Covid, or the maintenance guy had Covid or, you know, vice versa.

So we became really essential partners for a lot of these companies because we were being sent, you know, like, we have to have obviously, like, our coverage, workman's, workman's comp and all of that. So they were relying on us, and it was kind of like, oh, if you get sick. That's kind of on you.

But it worked out for us because, yeah, we picked up on quite a bit of work.

Wonderful. And established some relationships, I would imagine, too.

Yeah.

You know, that you became reliable in a, in a different way than they might have been thinking before.

Yeah.

Wow.

So maintenance, you mentioned on site maintenance, and that was a question in my mind about, you know, then since you specialize in apartments, and typically they will have maintenance people that will do, I guess, small stuff, you know, like changing light bulbs and, you know, tightening screws on hinges and things like that. How do you know where that line is and how do they know?

Yeah. So it's really on, on the management side, it's either because of policies, one. It's either a policy.

So, for example, a lot of the companies that we work with, the guys are not allowed to go on the roof because most of the, obviously, most apartments here are, like, at least two stories. Most of them are actually three stories, so they're not allowed to go up that high.

You know, there's, there's a couple, one stories, and most of them will go on, on the roof to go check it out at least. But they're not, they're not specialized in doing, like, roof repairs. Right.

So they can go up to at least see what's going on, but they'll call the vendor so that we can actually do the repair. But when it gets to, like, a two story, three story building, they're not even allowed to go onto that height.

So they'll call us to go inspect, and then, you know, usually we take pictures of what's going on, and then we provide a report and an estimate, and they'll choose, like, based on that. So that's one kind of way where the policies limit them to do certain things. The other would be skills.

So I don't, I don't necessarily do, like, AC work, but just to kind of give you an example, there's, there's some maintenance guys, like, especially the old school ones. They're, they're very prepared, you know, because of experience. They know how to. They could swap out, like, a whole AC unit, probably themselves.

But the newer guys, they don't have the same type of training. So they'll, they'll pass on AC work to a vendor. So they'll call in a vendor to do the AC work.

They might be able to do, like, some sort of repair, small repair, but when it gets to, like, major things, they'll pass it on to, to a vendor. So same thing with us.

You might have a guy that can do sheetrock work and he'll do a patch by himself, but then you find other guys that they don't know how to do that type of work. So they'll call vendors like us, and then the other is, like, workload, for example, that 640 unit property.

They have quite a bit of work orders that they need to handle.

So when it comes to changing out a door, the guy might know how to do it, but he's not going to do it because he has, like, 30 other little things that he needs.

To do or a little leak that it's more important.

Yeah, more important to fix now. And so he'll call us for that kind of stuff.

And then, you know, obviously, like, the remodeling, once we get into the remodeling, that's like a bigger scope. They're too tied up to, to be able to do, like, take on a remodel of the unit of. And so that's when we come in.

That's wonderful. That's wonderful. What's your goal? What's next for you guys? Where do you see the company going in five years?

That's a very interesting question.

So one of the things is, like, remember how I mentioned that the, the whole helping the subs out kind of started, like a little side business or whatever? There's no entrepreneurs in my immediate family.

I'm the first one since going on on my own, like, well, I've kind of always spoken about, like, some sort of business, and we got our feet wet with ajs, and then for me, it was like, okay, this just proved to me that, like, you've heard Carlos say many times, and this is, like, we live by. This is if. If we're doing our best in everything.

Customer service, the quality of the work, even internal stuff, like, always doing our best things are always going to work out. And so that's been our model.

And so we started a side business where we were helping other hispanic folks register their business, create their logos. Like, doing all that side of stuff.

We had to put that on pause for a little bit because, you know, we had some, some family things that we really needed to kind of get back on. Just taking care of ajs because that's the big bread provider and taking care of our family. Right.

But my mind is always kind of, like, the wheels are always spinning, right? And so, like, I got. I got certified as a life coach about almost two years ago, and that's.

That's kind of like a very heart, like a passion kind of type of business that I eventually want to start.

But as far as ajs, I want to be able to get ajs to the point where it's almost running on its own so that I can do that more like that passion kind of project. Right. And see where that can go. I don't want to let ajs go because. So just, I guess, for the record, ajs, these are the initials for kids.

I was going to ask what that was for.

Cool. So a lot of people call us AJ's. And you asked me for my name, right. Like, just to make sure you were pronouncing it right, which we were.

It's a Hezbollah. But, like, when. When people see my name, they mess it up all the time and I'm kind of already used to it.

So when people say AJ's, I don't even correct them. Like, I'm so used to, like, people getting my name wrong. Whereas, like, okay, whatever, close enough, right?

But it's actually ajs because it's our kids initials, so it's really a family project and it's a.

And it's been a blessing, such a big blessing that we want to get it to the point where hopefully we can develop other people, where they're helping us run the business, and one way or another, we're still going to be involved. So I guess as far as figures, we haven't hit that million dollars growth sales yet.

As far as figures, that's one of our immediate goals, is to be able to hit that million million dollar mark. And future goals is being able to develop a team that can basically take over.

Carla is probably at that point is going to take more of a CEO, a CFO type of slash CFO type.

Of role, and then you'll start thinking about HR, too, because you'll have people, you're developing people. And I love that you're, you know, your interest in life. Coach, of course, we're in the coaching field, coaching and consulting together.

When I hear you say that, I'm thinking, well, your coaching skills, you know, if you go back to working with those other vendors that need some help, that's going to really come in handy because you know how they think about themselves.

Just like Carla was, you know, coming from her background of making every, every penny, stretching the funds and living within a budget, that's a way of thinking, right. It's an approach to life.

And at some point, you know, if you guys are making $10 million a year in your business and there's been money flowing, and now you got to look for where to invest it. Well, that. That mindset of, you know, stretching every penny could then become, you know, not as functional as it has been up to this point.

You know, it might have to shift. And we all. In our businesses, as they grow, they have to. We have to shift and adapt to the new condition.

So, you know, you're certainly really well positioned for that.

And, you know, I've always been. Well, since I was, like, 18, I kind of started dabbling with, like, personal growth kind of material, you know?

So, like, Jim Rohn, I was like, Jim Rohn's been a huge influence in my life. You know, I was. I still got to read some zig. Ziglar's books, and, you know, that generation, and I'm still constantly trying to expand my mind.

I get to first do that with. With Carla, right, where, again, like, she's very conservative, and obviously, like, I'm open to the idea of, like, okay, why is she like that?

And what does it bring to the table? I don't want to just say no. That's weird, right? I'm not like that. So try to figure out, you know, where she's coming from.

And I see, obviously, once you sit down and you see the benefit, that's now the process that I try to also, you know, bring to her of, like, pushing her to also try to. I guess, you know, all business requires a level of risk, right? And. And she's done it. It's just. She has. She's not conscious of it. Right.

Like, just jumping on our own was a big risk. Right. But then she forgets. It's almost like, at that point, she almost might.

I don't know if this is true or not, but you might have always maybe seen it as a necessity. Okay, here you are with this guy. He's not coming through. You know, you've helped him out. You pretty much ran out.

Like, we need to do something, you know, get started. Right? So she had a lot of, obviously, like, a lot of trust in my skills, but it was also almost like, okay, this is. This is what we got to do.

So it was not like, a risk that.

That she kind of saw it as a big risk, but, you know, that I think that's probably, like, part of our next level, too, is getting more into, like, that risk.

Then. Then you're training me because he sent me all these reels and all this. Investors take the risk, blah, blah, blah.

And I'm like, now I know why he's training me.

Yes, yes. Because it's there's a shift from, if I may, there's a shift from risk avoidance. Right.

When you're kind of at a survival mode of, you know, you really have to avoid all risk because mistakes are more costly, they have bigger consequences. When you have a little more cushion, then it becomes risk management.

And taking calculated, you know, reasonable risks, it's never, it's never wise to bet the farm, as they say, but taking reasonable, calculated risks and adjusting our thinking to what is reasonable risk at this level, you know, for where we are, rather than just sticking with our, you know, our past.

This is, again, I'm here in the coaching, and I love what you did, Hezron, when you said, you know, let me check if this is correct when you were talking to Carla. That's great coaching right there.

Sometimes he's not correct.

I'm completely off base, and it's like, did I hear that right? No.

Okay, let's start this over.

That's communication. That's. Oh, it's brilliant. I love it.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, you probably heard this in the conversation when we bring up God.

So, like, you know, we're both Christian, and faith is a big part of our family and our life, right? Like, it just. We try to bring as much as we can into the business that we're allowed to have.

Part of that is doing things to the best of our ability also like that, that sense of humility, right. I don't think people see the value and humility, like, they think a big title is, I don't know, like, they like the title.

They like to see, like, flashy things, right? We might be able to have a nice vacation, and people like to see that, right? But, um.

But they don't know, like, all the other, like, the back end things, right? Like, the humility is, like, a big thing, right? Like, where it allows us to. To learn from each other, to feed off of each other, to push each other.

And I think, you know, that we got from our faith, but, yeah, I think it's invaluable, and I don't think people talk about it enough, you know? Like, I feel like I'm able to learn for my trades. If I had that, like, oh, I'm the boss.

I'm the owner of this joint or whatever, I would be losing so many learning opportunities. I'm always like, besides, I identify as a life learner. You know, that sense of, everybody has something that they could teach me, right? And. Yeah.

And it could come from anybody, right. So I'm always trying to look out for that, and I think we both have that. So that's helped us a lot.

I am confident that's helped you a lot. I think that's a major part of success. Right there is the orientation towards constant learning and constant improvement.

And, yeah, humility is important as long as it doesn't turn into putting yourself down. Cause you do have to also be able to promote yourself and confidently say, yes, I can do that, and I can do that well for you.

But, yeah, that not thinking of yourself as better than others, then, yes. What can I learn from this person?

Because a two year old is just as wise as an 80 year old.

Sometimes in listening and sometimes God. The universe, however, wants to look at it, puts somebody in front of us for a reason, a good reason. Like, you know, oh, here's a mirror.

Look at that.

You know, we might see in someone else something that irritates us about ourselves, and we see it in them where we don't see it as clearly in ourselves. And so it gives us a chance to learn that.

Yeah, wait till you have teenagers.

Your kids aren't teenagers yet, are they?

No, we have a preteen, so we're getting close.

Well, you're. Yep. You're both about to learn a lot.

Yeah, that's a whole new world.

I said, you know, when we became parents, I said, when we had teenagers, we got really stupid for a few years. Meaning they didn't think, you know, when they got to, you know, be teenagers, they thought they knew so much, and we knew so little.

And then, you know, a few years later, they, oh, okay.

And it's also fun to seeing one of ours that has children of his own to hear what we said coming out of his mouth, and we could even see his eyes rolling, going, ah.

Sure.

But that's what you heard, and that's what you're going to say.

Yes.

Oh, yes.

That's life.

That is life.

Since we talked about the kids and, you know, you said you kind of want to set the company up. I think I heard you say, correct me if I'm wrong, that you want to set the company up so that it's there for them, if they want it.

So it's there as an asset for them or what.

Yeah, eventually, you know, we've talked about this. So I didn't get to finish college. I started. I wanted to do something in psychology. Like, it just didn't, you know, didn't pan out for me. Obviously.

Carla, she already told you, she's a lawyer in Mexico, so she. She had to finish her degree. And I'm not, like, obviously, because I'm a life learner.

I'm totally not against learning, like, in any type of learning institution. So I'm all for college. I'm just not dead set on that. That's the only path. Right.

So we're trying to show them that that is an option, and it'd be a good one because there's benefits of expanding somebody's mind and learn just the experience itself.

But we've also kind of showed them that AJS has allowed us to be able to not only provide for the family as far as financial provision, but, you know, we both got up this morning and we drove all three of our kids home. So two of them are elementary. The preteen that we mentioned, she just started middle school.

So we went to go drop the elementary kids off first because they started school earlier. And then from there, we drove to the middle school, and then we got home.

And then, you know, today, she's gonna join me in the office today, and then she'll be back by the time that the first ones come home, you know, they bust it back home. So it should be there to receive them at the bus. At the bus stop. Like those things we wouldn't be able to have if we were stuck on the nine to five.

And those are the things that we're trying to show them that they can benefit from being their own boss one day. Right. Whatever that. Because that looks so different today. Right. Like entrepreneurs. Right. Where.

Yes.

They might be a solo worker. I don't know. Right. Or they might run a business or. Yeah. Who said that they wanted to run ajs?

Oh, no. Judah said, I'm gonna take over ajs.

So Judah the J. Right. He's so. Two girls, Amaris, Judah and Sophie. And Judah. One day he said he's in a tickle rage. Yes. And, you know, I told him, like, you might.

You know. So the possibility is there. And if we were to do that, John, it's not necessarily a goal, but I see it as if it gets to that point.

That means that we did something really good. Exactly.

You already have. The key word that you just said that I heard, was possibility.

In my generation, there were so many family businesses that there was a huge expectation. It hung over me like a weight, like a sentence that I, you know, it was expected, and there was pressure and there was guilt.

And for younger kids, for kids to see it as a possibility, one possibility of many, is a huge gift. And just that you've. You're already thinking that way, it's wonderful. I can't think of a better place to wrap up that.

Right there is a huge lesson for other family businesses. So, you guys, last words of wisdom?

I think it's just that one of the big benefits of being in business together is that one. It's reminding us of the purpose of the business. It's to serve our family. Right.

So we're not trying to be slaves of the business, but we're trying to do something or create something really good that can always benefit the family. Right.

And one thing, like, one thing that we were just talking about is with that possibility of even maybe one of the kids taking over, if that's what they choose. Right. It's given us the freedom of always having family as a priority. I think it should be. Right. And sometimes nine to fives, you'd want to.

I mean, what parent wouldn't want to do things with their kids and be at school whenever they want you to be there? And just sometimes it's not possible. Right.

And even in business, you know, we run across it, but one of us is always, always able to be there, which is. Which is great. As far as our relationship. This might not work for some. For us, it works perfectly where we both know where we're at, right?

Like, in business, in life, because it's kind of all interweaved, at least for us right now. And that's important for us just to have peace of mind, feel that reassurance of, you know, I know my wife is okay. She knows her husband's okay.

Like, for example, she'll know how, like, what kind of what, like, my day looks like.

You know, at that point, she can count on me for helping or being a backup for the kids. Right? So that kind of the logistical part of being parents, this. This has been, like, that part of that blessing for us, you know, huge.

Huge. Carla, any. Anything to add to that?

Just that it's. It's. It's amazing working for yourself and be able to stay with your kids. I'm a really protective mom. I want to serve them their foods that I.

Because I don't know if they eat at school, so I make sure they are eating well. I just like being with them because they're grown and having a business, it permits that. And I'm just happy because of that. Because if I.

It's what I told Hester sometimes. If it was me in Mexico in this time, I wouldn't be able to see my kids, because being a lawyer, it's a very absorbing work, and I'm.

I'm better here, and I'm grateful for that.

Outstanding.

Fabulous.

So if people want to find you, if people hear this, want to connect with you is the best way to connect with you through your website.

Yeah, that'd be probably the easiest way. They could always reach out to us through the website.

We'll put that in the show notes.

But it's ajsqualityconstruction.com, correct?

Yeah. All spelled out okay.

In Austin, Texas.

Interestingly, two interviews ago, we were talking to two cousins who have a business together, childcare, in helping the directors of child care centers get certified and how to run child care centers and all that. Very different from what you're doing. But it's very interesting to hear their story.

And we want to go see asleep at the wheel in concert one last time. We're gonna try to get to Austin soon.

Yeah. Well, give us a shout when y'all are out here, and it'd be nice to meet up.

We would love to do that. Well, again, thank you so much for spending this time with us, and we'll look forward to watching ajs grow and evolve.

Thank you.

Thank you.