Your Tech Stack Needs To Start With Strategy with Dustin Stephens

Reece sits down with Dustin Stephens, CEO of Alliance Solutions Group, to talk about why contractors cannot treat AI like a shortcut around broken systems. As labor gets tighter and construction businesses get more complex, the companies that understand their tech stack, data, and back office will be in a better position to compete.

Dustin shares what he is seeing across construction ERP, cloud accounting, project management, preconstruction, AP workflows, and AI adoption. The big takeaway: start with the business problem, understand the process, then use technology to make the work faster, clearer, and more human.

https://www.alliancesg.com
email: dstephens@alliance-sg.com

Show Notes:
00:48 Meet Dustin
02:23 Field To Tech
06:21 Innovation Pressure
09:20 Where Contractors Invest
11:38 Building The Stack
13:12 Cloud Resistance
16:22 Operational Tools
17:39 Where To Start
21:36 Strategic Operations
24:26 Back Office Triggers
27:55 Faster Business Insight
30:39 AI And Critical Thinking
37:02 Contractor Advice

Find Our Hosts:
Reece Barnes
Matt Calvano

Podcast  Produced By:
Motif Media

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Do we know exactly who we are as a business, where we want to go as a business? And you know, how do we start making improvements if we're doing AI, it's got to elevate the human to human interaction, because we're a people services business. Welcome to builders, budgets and beers. I'm Reece Barnes and I started this podcast to have real conversations about money in the building industry, the wins, the mistakes and everything in between. I believe builders deserve to feel confident about their finances, and that starts by hearing from others who've been through it too. This industry can be slow to change, but the right stories and the right tools can make profitability feel possible. Let's get into it. All right, Dustin mics are hot. We're rolling Great. Glad to be here. Yeah, thanks. Thanks for jumping on. Okay, so let's go ahead and kick the episode off, just with a light introduction, and maybe you know, a little little too long. Didn't Read background on yourself. We can start there. Okay, yeah, for those of you the audience who are not aware, don't know me. My name is Dustin Stevens. I'm the CEO of Alliance Solutions Group. We're based out of Sarasota, Florida. We 20 year, you know, serving the construction industry where we, you know, implement ERPs, connect systems between operations, pre construction, post construction, HR, payroll, a variety of different things, you know that we bring in to help our client base with their tech stack. I myself, you know, I've been at this role for four months now, but before that, I was at Sage for 13 years supporting Alliance. So as this transition moving into the CEO has been fairly smooth, because I've known the team and worked with them for the past 13 years on work with them at Sage and helping them support the construction industry clients. And then as far as my background, further than that, I've been in the construction industry. I'm going to sound old now for 31 years. So, you know, 30 you're an old of that you're an old vet. I'm an old vet. So that's from carrying a tool belt working on construction job sites, you know as a working and building an envelope construction, and then moved into working for building large building materials, manufacturers, construction companies and you know, now in the tech space. Okay, cool. Okay, so you actually, you started your career bags on your Yeah, I was on a podcast one time, and I haven't really told many people this, but my first day in construction was not the funnest, you know, there they had me go up going to fly, and put up some of the flashing. And I had the wrong hammer. At the time, my very first swing of the hammer, I smashed my thumb and blood everywhere. So it was the journey. Wait. So was that the motivation to get out of the field and into more of the business side of construction? Well, yeah. Well, I got better at swinging a hammer, thankfully. But it was more probably the winters, you know, shoveling the snow off, just to get, you know, started on the on the project, and freezing all the time. Or, you know what, there's got to be another way I can stay in the construction industry. So that totally your bigger reason to move away from doing the hands on, but I still miss it. Try to do stuff every once in a while, but I think, you know, if you lose it, you lose it. But I hang my own pictures up. There you go. There you go. Wait, where are you from? Were you out of with the snows in the winter? I that was in Utah. So in Utah, Utah, Colorado, New York. Now I'm based out of Portland, Oregon. Yeah, there you go. There you go. A lot of seasons, lot of seasons for you throughout your career. Well, that's great. Okay, so then, from the construction side, I'm curious to hear more about your journey, because I think what you guys are doing over at Alliance makes a ton of sense, and certainly want to dig into that a little bit more. But just like, how did you, like, kind of piece your career together, and how did you make those moves, and what were some of the biggest, the biggest pieces that you took away from each one of those steps? Oh, I totally planned this out when I was 17. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, yeah, it's funny, because what's the saying? How do you make God laugh? Tell him your plans. Yeah, exactly. There you go. That's a good one. Yeah, I just, you know, started off, you know, I was working my way through college. Needed to pay for college, needed a job. Happen to have a, you know, my brother in law had a construction company. So that's how I got initially into construction. Like I said, you know, just after graduating, wanted to get into, you know, more of a different side of things. So went into, you know, actually, it was a company that I installed their building materials. They hired me, and, okay, being, you know, as you know, getting into sales and, it's funny that, you know, I kind of learned that, you know, I downplay, you know, when I go to these calls that I was actually a construction worker, because I didn't think anyone want to know that, and trying to get into doors. But the moment I made some comments, they're like, Oh, you actually were installed New York construction. Okay, well, I'll talk to you. But yeah, this you. Interesting to know, the respect that people get, sure, been in the trenches with them, if you so to speak. So just, yeah, just moving, you know, my career just naturally progressed. I just think, like most people were ambitious, you know, as we, you know, grow into a role, you know, we got that imposter syndrome to start. Then you start seeing some success, and then you get into where you're, like, getting some wins, and now you're a little bit bored, and what's, what's next, and you start again. Like, why did I just do this to myself? But we just learned that, hey, you always got to keep progressing. Yeah, of course, of course. Okay, cool. Well, and that's, I mean, that's a big part of the reason why I was excited to have you on the show, because I think that type of background, you know, you going from the field now you're, you know, the chief executive at, you know, Alliance solutions is, like, you've got a lot of perspective. And I think that's one of the things that I've learned over my nearly 10 years in the space, is, you know, our consumer right, the contractors, they appreciate people that have actually lived and been in their world. You called it right, being in the trenches with them. So, I mean, obviously, I mean, you had a hell of a run at Sage. You're obviously just going going at Alliance. What would you say is, like the general theme, or the message that you think there needs to be more conversation around and construction, and it could be construction, construction tech, but just over your career, what would you say that big theme would be, I would say, Yeah, especially in the world we see it now is, you just hear nothing about AI, it's just, it's innovation, you know, it's in you could argue, you know, construction now is totally different than when I first started, you know, when it comes to, you know, how we safety, how we did projects, how we construction, how do we connect the back office to the field. And those are just the hey, you need those things now just to survive. And now it's this big push for, how do we use AI, you know, because it's just, it's especially relevant in the construction phase. Because, you know, as we were talking before, earlier, for, you know, the latest steps we've seen, for every seven that retire out, we're only getting replaced by one. So you're just going to have innovation is gonna have to happen, because you just don't have enough bodies to do to do the job. And so, on top of all that you've got, especially when it comes to back office, most companies are still on 4050, year old tech. They're not even in the cloud, and we're, you know. So take AI like, Wait, we got to get into the cloud first, and then we, you know, so all the cloud across all your systems, and so you can take advantage of it. Yeah, did you say 40 or 50 year old tech? Who's the 4050 year old solution out there? Still sage timber is it really that old Timberline? Sage acquired Timberline back in 2004 but Timberline started here in Portland, Oregon, where I am, yeah, 1971 Dang. Okay, I had no and actually, that's crazy, you know, it's like, no, I mean, I'm even dating myself, and I'm a 30 year old guy, but it's like, in 1970s you know, that's 50 years ago now, which is crazy. But, yeah, hearing how they would go and just say, hey, you need, you know, this is why I can, you know, you know, you need these computer systems? This is, yeah, it was interesting listening to the veterans in that era how they had to go and start selling into this base, controlling accounting that, yeah, for sure, well, and there's still, like, I mean, there's definitely that conversation, you know, around like the construction vertical being, you know, laggards or late adopters when it comes to technology. Well, I personally don't see that being the case. And even as of recently, like, definitely, definitely seeing more of an uptick in an interest in adoption, getting cutting edge technology, like large language models, agentic AI, stuff like that applied into their business. But that was one piece, yeah, I was just gonna say, yes, you're seeing some really amazing stuff in the pre construction space, BIM, you know, that's been around for a while now, and operations now, it's now we're getting into what, you know, the back office accounting, totally, totally well. And that was, that's where I was gonna go. I think what was it was like for every seven that leaves, what is like, one, two comes to backfill them, exactly. Yeah, so it's like, there's, like, definitely the need there, but I think we're, like, the most interesting, we obviously were the most interesting areas in the business to start applying technology. You obviously mentioned, you know, the back office workflows, but you also mentioned pre con, like, what are you bullish Sean, what do you think is the big move and where contractors should be looking at applying technology? Well, you know, I could take it from, actually, what the top contractors are saying, yeah. You know, we've at Sage when, you know, put on my old sage hat. We would, we would sponsor a survey with AGC every year. I'm sure you probably did a podcast on this, but where we would interview around 1400 of the top construction firms across the US, and look at, hey, what are you seeing? Is outlook. You know, what sectors, you know, retail, energy, whatever. Where are you invest in? What are you seeing? What's the economic outlook? And also in technology? We list of all the different technologies. What do you do? Is there any that rise to the top where you're looking to reinvest or invest further in? Do. And the top five was AI, accounting, document management, estimating and project management. Those were the areas that they said that, hey, this most of them, you know, they started the project management going into the cloud first. You know, companies like Procore, they were waiting on the leading edge with that estimating. There's still, that's another one where sage is the 800 pound gorilla in estimating space. But that's a, you know, an old product, and I know they've launched their new cloud product, and they're moving, you know, that's the cloud so, but design piece with what Autodesk and others do, that's, that's where they've done some really cool stuff with AI, especially on there, on the or others, with digital takeoff. You know, what you can do, you can you can bid plans. And so, you know, it gives the company a hell of a lot better chance to win jobs. Because the more you can bid, the more bid you get out, and the more bids you get out accurately, obviously, the more you can win. And so some of the AI that they can do to to take those digital takeoffs to an estimate quicker than than normal. Totally, totally, okay. So, I mean, it's like, really, like, like, spreading the gamut, tell me, tell me a little about Alliance solutions and like, what you guys are doing, because I think on that thread of where contractors need to be looking at applying technology and just with, you know, you mentioned earlier, AI being such a big conversation. I'm hearing obviously interest in AI, but kind of the bigger conversation is, how applicable is it right? Like, what is it actually doing? Is it driving a meaningful result or driving meaningful reduction in time spend? What are you guys doing at Alliance Solutions Group? And then we can talk about some of those specific solutions that you're seeing that are driving those meaningful results. Yeah. So we, like I said, earlier, been around for over 20 years now, have about customers in the construction space. We're not like other, you know, similar companies in our space, where they, you know, hey, we're just going to do accounting systems across variety of different industries. We've, we've made a decision that we're going to be highly focused on one particular industry, and we're going to be the best of the best that we can be across the full construction life cycle. How can we help them with our tech stack across the pre construction, the buyout, the actual construction going on, post construction service work, and then all feeding into the back office, accounting, financials, HR, payroll, analytics, all that. So we want to be able to, hey, here's your entire tech stack. How can we help support you in the best, you know, obviously, when it comes to accounting, we've, we've partnered with sage. We feel like that's the best of the best as far as the accounting solution. And then how do we work with you on what's the right operational solutions, pre construction solutions, that's right for your business? That's what we help guide them through that. And one is just, you know, let's start get all of your systems in the cloud, get your systems connected, to eliminate some of these silos, or civil cherish. You're not having to get into multiple different applications. But if we can get them talking to each other operation, you know, so your project manager in the field can be in their operation solutions, solution, they can get the, you know, the whip reports and all the job costs and everything that they know progress on their specific job. And then the CFO, who's taking the stuff can be in the accounting system, and all those data, the data flow, so we help that customers in that, creating that tech stack, and how do we integrate systems for them? Totally. Okay, cool. Well. And you mentioned, like, even just something as rudimentary of, like, everything onto the cloud, right? There's a lot of chatter, you know, you mentioned, like, you know, timber scan and older products like that, you know, I mean, you know, the CFMA forums, and there's still people, you know, talking about on prem solutions versus going into the cloud. What's your general take on that? Well, it might be obvious, but, like, What's your general take? And then, do you think there's, like, any validity in terms of, you know, potential resistance for contractors won't even stay on prem, as opposed to in the cloud. Well, I probably shouldn't say this, but I have a hard time getting out of Excel on my you know. So that's right, it's, you know, I think there is that resistance. There's, you know, you look at, say, potentially timber, timber line, it's been developed for 50 years, and it's the future. Functionality is very, very rich, like, it's got more functionality for construction than anyone needs. It's just, you know, it doesn't have those latest and greatest, you know, the value get from being in the cloud and so, you know. And then there's a rush to now, with publishers trying to create that next gen cloud, but it's going to take a moment to catch up to that functionality. But I think around that corner where it's starting to catch up, and then it's just gonna be a wave of customers moving into the cloud for construction. Because right now, most of what we're seeing is there's, there was a pent up demand, you know, construction companies on QuickBooks that are 70 80 million in annual revenue. You're like, wow, that's but they're just, you know, they wanted to go to that next cloud. And so when they say, Hey, Sage is making a move. And so that's what we're seeing. A lot of people, they need to graduate into a more sophisticated construction specific accounting solution. Totally. Okay, so, like, really, that resistance is just is, you know, most simply explained is a lack of functionality and feature in these new, more modern people. Software, and that's what the contract that was in the beginning. And you're up to the point where it's, it's it's close enough where at this point it's just, hey, what's you know is it, is it resistant to change? Or I'll do it when I'm less busy. A lot of it, honestly, is I'm about to retire soon as the next person comes in, I'll let them make that move to the cloud. Or, Hey, where's, you know, there's the founders, you know, retiring, and then the new generation, their their kids, are taking over the company, and they want their own new cloud software. So that's a that's a big catalyst as well. Or a new CFO goes to another company and they want to implement something that they they're familiar with, or take the company to a new, new level. Totally. Okay. Okay, cool. Well. And so with that said is, you know, you know, next generation coming in, you know, the old, the previous owners, or the the owners that are about ready to phase out, they're kind of like, hey, like, we'll let this next generation make those decisions. There might, might even be a component of like, Hey, I don't even want to, like, vet this stuff out, right? I don't even want to just start that process. So we'll just let them do it. Obviously, at Alliance, you know, you're talking about sage, but what are some of those more, you know, cutting edge product, products that you're looking for? Because, I mean, you talked about project management, you talked about pre con, you talked about, obviously, Sage being the accounting side. But what are you seeing, being really, those compelling solutions that are, you know, peaking the interest of contractors that are solving really, really valuable problems, I would say the operations piece. You know, whether you're, you're doing new construction, the field, you need that collaboration tool for your project managers and getting the data they need to run their projects, billing and, you know, connect the back office. So that was, really, that was the start lead to charge, you know, with Procore, like I mentioned before, there's been some really cool stuff, new technology spend in the pre con space with digital payoffs and estimating solutions, and then the post operations. There's a lot of, you know, you see the build ops and the sage fold operations and, you know, service titans of the world doing some really cool stuff in operations. And it just seems to be, you know. Now it's you know. And we talk to our customers every single day like, Hey, where are you on this journey to get you know, all, all of your solutions into the cloud? And there some are like, Hey, we're bullish, and they want to start immediately. Others like, hey, maybe it's a couple years later, which is great. And we can say, hey, well, let's talk to you about a path. Is your operations in the cloud? Is this like, let's start with these solutions. And if your ultimate goal is to go here and this with this ERP in the cloud, let's make sure that as we build out these surrounding solutions that will be integrating, that you will have that integration pass so you can eliminate so we could just do you don't want to disrupt the company too much. But just like, hey, that's not worth one particular area that's critical to them, of course. Okay, well, on that, and this might be, you know, it depends type answer, but I mean, just of all the customers that you guys talk to in the conversations that you have, what would your advice be to the contractor that's feeling overwhelmed with all these new solutions, right? Potentially, looking at a very legacy tech stack, knows they need to go, hopefully they're already on the cloud, but potentially going on to the cloud or starting to apply more AI, where should they start? Like, how should they start evaluating which function or which process or which software they should start applying? Because, like you said, there's a ton of different directions you could go, yeah, and then honestly, being, you know, put yourself in their shoes and be empathetic to this is not, you know, it's not simple, and you can't be too disruptive to the business and do it all at once. And the reason I say that is I've got a dose of my own medicine now, you know, taking over a CEO at Alliance, where you know now everything, you can't turn around without hearing the word AI. And you know, what's, you know, a lot you hear the jokes when you see these different things a podcast, like, everyone's like, all right, embed AI, and then it doesn't go any further than that. Well, where? What? Exactly So, but it is critical. We got to be on the forefront of innovation, so I created a new role and organization within the team on strategic operations. So essentially, how do we overhaul our tech stack to be streamlined our operations with a heavy AI focus, you know? And we got all excited about it as well, and they come back like, hey, it's gonna cost us a million dollars. Million dollars. All right. Well, that's obviously not gonna happen. And we can't do all at once. We'll cripple a company. So, yeah, we, you know, for us, we just said, Okay, well, what are we trying to solve? And we had to get really, really good at what is our business? How do we do it? From we're out engaging, or we're out marketing in the market of like, hey, who we are. What do we do? How we help this construction industry to prospecting. We close the deal. We turn them over to implementation. We turn over to post, go live. You know, happy customers, customer advocacy. What are all the different steps involved, all the different departments involved, what are some of the break? How much are the tedious tasks? Where do we get the best gains for our money and that? So we just had to get really stood really strategic. But we started with, do we know exactly who we are as a business, where we want to go as a business, and you know, how do we start making improvements? Ultimately, that's going to improve the customer experience, our colleague experience. And then my thing is, like, if we're doing AI, it's got to elevate the human to human. Interaction, because we're, we're people services business, and we want to unlock more time with our customers, we can have these face to face consultative conversations, versus totally, you know, doing a lot of the tedious work. Totally, okay, so, and that's, and that's just specifically through the lens of what you're seeing in alliance, yes, yeah. That's, yeah, yeah. Long story short, is like, so you know that would be my advice, is to, hey, if you look where are you on this? And a lot of them are already doing it. We just had an event in San Francisco where we talked a lot of current construction companies. They know it's coming to and they're they're doing very similar things, of like, hey, what do we what do we have to do? And they're creating this, this roadmap to where they want to get to, there, where they ultimately want to get to in their tech stack, totally totally. And that's what I wanted to clarify, like, this is Alliance, because I was getting my next question. It's like, is this playbook and a perspective that could be applied into the construction world? It's really just more like, how does the business, regardless of what vertical it is or what the product is like? That's kind of how you can look at tastefully adopting AI, yeah, ultimately, when we can go back without the AI, like, Hey, here's a good tech path that, you know, we think, just because we have 4000 clients, and what we would recommend, or you can go talk to other people, they're experts in the business as well. But the AI, you know, is fairly new for everybody and everyone you know, there's, what's the best solutions, what you know? What's the risk? Do we have a when we use AI, when we wouldn't use AI, those type of things that we're even going through, and it's a huge initiative for us to become experts ourselves and adopt it. And that would be great, like, Hey, here's a better roadmap. Here's what we did, and help guide them through that. But totally, or yeah, we're definitely working on that's awesome, okay? And so obviously that's something you're working on, but you'd mentioned that you guys, you put the strategic ops person in place. Is that? Like, tell me a little bit more about that role. And is that a role that construction companies, you know, obviously depending the size of the organization? Like, does that overhead make sense? But like, is that a role that you would advise larger contractors to do? Is like, strategic ops, this person focuses on this, and they kind of start going through the mapping of their journey as a business, from prospect to advocate customer, and they can start identifying these workflows to apply AI, and they're going to really move the needle Absolutely, some of our and I just had a conversation with one of our clients last week where they're a fairly larger firm, and maybe, you know, maybe that's where they're starting. And they they can afford the investment, but hired a Chief Information Officer where they're, hey, technology is critical to us. It's not something that's just a nice to have. It's a must have to be able to compete. They thought Scott was worth the investment, and he's coming in like, Hey, what is the ultimate tech stack? What we want to do? How do you work with like us to make sure that, you know, provide them thought leadership, help out where they see potential weaknesses, fix those gaps, connect different solutions with them. And then also, they're, like, they've got contests of like, All right, here's some of the AI stuff. And like, Hey, who's going to come up with the best? And they're kind of, like, gamifying it, putting up. This is their, you know, their strategy of like, get some AI in the hands of people that are more tech savvy in the company and see what happens. And, you know, those, that was one of their strategies, totally. I mean, I'm hearing something very similar, you know, when we are talking to, you know, the C level, you know, VP level, and, you know, and from a leadership standpoint, the more forward thinking contractors are saying, we know it's coming, but we need to evaluate the market and see what it is. And then they're tasking the individuals that are going to be closer to those actual flows to go out and start evaluating. So I think even if you don't have, you know the room on, you know your your PNL for, for a strategic ops person, specifically, you know there are things that you can do, and you don't have to be to a certain point or a certain revenue benchmark as a company, to start delegating this out to your team and start getting their perspective on, okay, what is the potential with AI out there? And start looking at it more through the specifics in the business and their roles and how it gets applied. Yeah, you know, I'm the same, because I'll get requests all the time, like, hey, we want this software. We want this AI tool. And I'm like, All right, well, what's the business case? What's our and then you have to go back, like, Okay, well, can you get to, hey, here's business as usual. This is all the this is all the hours spent in this particular task we implement this. This is, you know, and but you know, that's where it gets that you have to really understand how much time you're spending on these things. What's the real cost? And what are you going to say by putting in potential expensive solution? Is it making the company better? Is it making your experience with your customers better, or your colleagues enjoying more of what they do, because they're not doing less hideous stuff and doing more fun, impactful stuff. Totally, totally and I mean, just like with the nature of this podcast, I mean, I talk a lot about, like, the financial side of things, the accounting side of things, what are, what are? You know, some of the triggers that you guys hear that would signal the contractor needs to start looking at AI for their back office, or more like their accounting, financial flows. What are some of those pain points that are like a strong indicator that they should lean in and start evaluating solutions? That's good question. It's different. Seems to be different for everybody. I. You know, it's just depends on the person. There are people that are just generally late adopters, hey, this works for me. Now I don't trust AI. This is fine. And then you have others that are, if we're not innovative, we're dying and we're you know, but it's not as easy to find those peoples. Or, how do you get that trigger? Or a new CFO comes in, who is more innovative mindset? Yeah. Or just, they've got to compete, you know, they've, they've lost some, some workforce, you know. And you know what we need to HR was never really something that they, you know, when I first started, we never really talked to HR, totally, totally. We'll make sure you get paid. But now it's become imperative. It's critical to them. Like we need to have, we need to retain our talent. We need to recruit, recruit the best talent. We have to have solutions and tools in order to do that. And that's been a space that, you know, it's been fun to see, because it wasn't something that was really discussed in the construction market before. Totally, totally well. And like even you know how you know some of the things that I'm hearing and that our team is hearing is it's, I typically, where this conversation starts is on, like, an AP side of things. And I think that's the obvious. And I would say it's the obvious, because there's been the most like, AP point solutions in place with AI Right? Like, even just 510, years ago, it was like aI was optical character reading, right? And that was just like the big play there was like saving time on data entry, right? But that's usually the pain point that we hear, especially with these larger contractors that are processing 1000s of AP documents a month, right? And that's just such, to your point, such a tedious, labor intensive task. And there, even, as you know, depending on the organization, there's a lot of cross function collaboration that needs to happen. You know, the back office gets an invoice. They need to know, like, how is this categorized? What's our percent complete? Generally, like, what the field context is. But even with it like this, really starting with AP, we do start to uncover and the conversation really develops depending on where you're at in the org chart. Having that conversation is like, yes, there's a ton of upside to automating AP processes, right and like, creating faster, more accurate understanding on cost. But then when you really start to have a conversation with these people, typically going to be more AI forward, they really start to understand that, like, okay, tracking AP and accelerating that process is nice from a call, it like an overhead reduction or reallocation conversation. But really, when you can speed up your cost understanding and speed up your income understanding your revenue, that's really starting to open up a conversation of, how do we apply AI to automate web right and cash flow reporting? And starting to get into that funnel. I don't know if that's you know, if you guys are hearing that on your end, but it's starting to turn into more of a conversation not just around, like the AP cost tracking side of things, but their eyes are starting to open. They're starting to become more creative with, if AI can do this, then we can apply it here, or this is a more holistic problem, and we're starting with just the main issue at hand. What's your take? Oh, absolutely. And if we Yeah, and if we can speed up those processes, rather than looking at your P L is that history lesson? Like, how do you get it to where it's a future? Here's where you're going and get to the point like, hey, it's not now. We're giving you insights of like, what's going to happen to your business in 12 months, and how you can make corrective actions now, versus crap we just lost, you know, after the fact, when you close out the month. Totally. So I love, I love that you did the history lesson on the P L, because that's really what it is, right? And that's, I think the best way, even just for the listeners to, like, think about AI is like, I think there's just, like, the immediate friction or concern with like, AI is going to take all of our jobs, right? But like, that's like, not really the case. I mean, if they're like, tedious tasks, then like, you might not have the business need for them. But that's not to say that like humans aren't adaptable, right? And they're not going to develop skills and impact the business in other ways. But with that said, it's when you think about AI. This is how I explain it to people. When you think about AI, it's more important to think, How can I shorten that timeline that it takes for me to understand the information and to arrive at the information that I actually want to make those business decisions exactly what you just said. It's, you know, not looking out the rear view mirror. It's looking out the windshield, right, and preparing. Hey, look, we're under billed on these projects. Hey, we need, you know, we're missing change orders on this is going to impact our, you know, our profit margin, you know, hey, if we apply AI to our billing agent, then we can get more income in the business. And we're not, you know, adding risk to the business. So innovation is going to just keep hitting us. It's not the first time we've had, you know, you know, with the cloud or with, hey, used to, I just marvel at the times. You know what, email didn't exist. You had to write letters. You had a, you know, someone's got to type this up. The stuff, the productivity gains that we've had over the last 50 years or so, it's just amazing. And I was about to embarrass maybe I will. But remember talking to my nieces and nephews about school, and they have to do these research papers, like you get one done in 30 seconds, where I've spent weeks going up to the school libraries, printing, printing stuff out, holding my source, but, yeah, anyway, but hang on, no, but that's an interesting point, because I think there's a lot of that. Like we're talking about, like, even if it's like, if we're talking AP clerks, right? Or people that are just handling, like, there's depth on that team, and they're just handling these tedious tasks. What's your take on the importance of that role being performed in an organization for future talent to be developed? Right? I guess, to round this out, to your example, talking to your nieces and nephews, right? Like they can crank out a paper using AI in minutes, right? But was it was the two week process that you and I were used to without AI. Was that the important piece of like critical thinking, getting that firm understanding and developing that skill, and are we going to be bypassing that with AI? What's your what's your take on that? Well, I could probably talk another three hours, because it's, you know, one of my, you know, not to nerd out on science fiction, but for those listeners who might, but the analogy is the same, but one of my bit, you know, and it just happens to be out there. But I don't know if you've seen the latest dune movies, but what's, I'm not a big movie guy. Well, it's a book series that started in the 1960s actually, but okay, shown if you're if you're watching the movies after you don't see computers, you don't see AI anywhere. This is, you know, 20,000 years into the future. Reason in the book, when they read it and wrote it in the 60s, the author saw this AI wave coming in the 60s, like he called a thinking machine. But basically, the theory he had was that in the book, that it's going to make us soft. Hey, I did take over the world. It got too soft. And then humanity, you know, eventually had to defy them. And then they had to evolve and get to your point, better at critical thinking, better being our own personal computer, better at, you know, just everything out there, not relying on a, I think, machines and so, but if you read the book further along the main you know, it gets to the point where you can't, you know. And they tried to stop innovation, and then, sure you can't stop innovation. You know, they're, you know. The comments was, you know, would you think in a world without birds? Mankind wouldn't invent airplanes? You know, sure, nothing. And so what we need to do is figure out a way to be better, you know, and get better ourselves, involve ourselves to be better at that critical thinking. How we do that? I don't know. I guess we're about to find out, because it's so convenient on so many different tasks that you can do totally it's impossible to ignore it, right? And that's what like. I love that like. And if this is credit to dune or just credit to Dustin, but it's like, we wouldn't have airplanes if we didn't have birds, right? It's totally doing so it'll take that view. Is it Doom or dune? It's d u, N, E, right? Doing like it, yeah, yeah. That's like, what is it like the Timothy Charlemagne movie? It wasn't you in that, yeah? Okay, yeah. See, I'm just, I'm terrible at that kind of stuff. I just, I'm not a big movie guy. I'm not a big movie guy. I'm not producing the movie or not. Yeah, it is good. Yeah, I don't know if builders budgets and beers is that big of a podcast for us to get in trouble. But totally lost my train of thought. It was about birds, airplanes, innovation. How do we still get better and better, totally because, yeah, you don't grow without struggle. Don't how do we still, yeah, I don't know the answer, other than I completely agree with you, I think we still need to need challenge. We can't have it easy all the time. I'm sure that's going to happen no matter what, but I just don't totally, and I think where I was gonna go with this, and this is just kind of like a layup, you know, association here. But it's like, like, when Henry Ford came out with, you know, the Model T, right, mass producing vehicles, it was like, you know, we were like, largely, like a horse dominated transportation, you know, world, right? And then you get access to the cars. And it started out as, like, like a luxury and, you know, less of a less less of a convenience, but more of a like, look what I can do. And then it just like that paved the way for vehicles to be such a huge part of this. But it's not like we just, like all these people that were blacksmiths, like doing horseshoes and, like, you know, stuff around supporting the horse industry, right? They just, like, disappeared. They just moved into different functions. So industries took over exactly. It created other opportunities. Now, like, I think there's a lot of paranoia about, like, AI and like, what's going to really be the need there, but I do see, you know, I had Julie Adams on the podcast we were talking about that that, like, the obvious is you need to apply AI into the business. But then, when you even take a step back and what industries are like, extremely insulated from this is AI requires a lot of construction in order for AI to be a conversation. We've all read the articles about the billions, trillions of dollars, getting dumped into data centers and all the construction related around that, the power plants and stuff like that. But that's also going to build more community, right? Like you look at these places that they're putting, the data centers, and it's impossible to ignore that they're going to create thriving communities that were probably, like, really small, like, maybe not hard to find work, but hard to find, like, high value work in those areas. So maybe this is just like the blind optimist in me, but I think, you know, with all of the you know, advancement that we're making, there's. Going to be plenty of room for humans. They're just going to be in roles that we have never even thought about. Yeah, oh, absolutely. And even in construction, when one industry might be slow, others take off. You know, it's a pretty, you know, well diversified industry that's protected in some ways outside of 2008 but, yeah, I don't know. I think about it, there's probably all a lot of doom and gloom when something innovative comes out, like, say, the printing press, people are like, yeah, no, people are gonna be, you know, the ruling people at the time, like, people are gonna be too smart, and what's that gonna do? And, you know, but look what's happening and how technology just skyrocket after we educated more of our people. So I would imagine AI is going to do the same. Totally my optimist to me as well. Yeah, exactly. I think you have to be. And, I mean, I think, like, you know, just generally, especially in the United States, like, there's a lot of, like, negativity around a lot of division, you know. And I think, you know, you just, you can find some peace and focusing on the optimistic side of things. And just like, you can't stop innovation, right? Like AI, adoption is not slowing down, it's only speeding up. So, you know, keeping a clear head on this and thinking like, okay, how can I actually make my world more efficient? Yeah, and go ahead, right? It's, it seems the division a lot is on people's phones, looking through screens, versus totally outside and just start talking to people. It's not what you're seeing in the phone. Totally, yeah, I agree, fear and gloom. Yes. Okay, cool. Well, before we wrap up, you know, I mean, you've got, you know, over a 30 year career in the space from all the way from being, you know, bags on a hammer swinger, going up into, you know, the material side of things, the tech side of things, the service side of things, if you just have, like, one piece of advice or one message, and this can be as biased as you want, no shame, like, what do you think is the most important thing for contractors to consider about their business and why they should take that into consideration. Well, one thing I, you know, I have to say is thank you, because I think they, they don't get enough credit for what this infrastructure they build that we have these nice, amazing lives that we live, and they do a very hard job. So one thank you that they've, they've got into this industry, and they're, they're helping us make a better world? But, yeah, I would say just going back to, like, dive into innovation. Don't let it scare you. You know, it's you know, be optimistic about that, as we said, and take your time. Do it strategically? Understand your business. Where do you want to go? How do we what do we want to be? What's our values, and how we adopt this new technology? Are we helping our people, our customers, and making the world a better place, and just have some roles and guidelines that you that work for you in that endeavor. Beautiful. I love it. Now I'm going to ask you to shamelessly plug and tell the listeners how they can get in contact with Alliant Solutions Group, if they're ready to or they need help navigating that journey. How can they get a hold of you guys? Where can they find you? Well, you can Google is always a great place. Alliance solutions group. You can look Google. There's all of our information. You can contact us. Watch some demos. We can get in contact with with them. Interact with our website. They can email me, Dustin. Dustin, that was my old email. Here we go. Sage email that's not going to go through, but D Stevens at Alliance. SG, calm, awesome. Love to talk to them. Yeah, beautiful, no Dustin, it was an absolute pleasure. Really appreciate you jumping on sharing your perspective and all the wisdom that you've gathered over your career. And yeah, I appreciate you jumping on the pod. Well, we'll connect soon. Appreciate thanks, Reece. you bet.