You should be very picky about where you plant your career.

On one hand, lots of folks could love this job:

High-end residential: beautiful job sites - outstanding people to serve.

Never boring: new problems to solve every day - get better every day as an artisan.

Once you master polishing concrete, consider a career in polishing people - good leadership is always something we’d like more of, and we will invest in your education and training here. 

Not just anybody can do well this job though.

Great freedom requires great self discipline. We work in small generally unsupervised teams, so we have to be able to trust that you will serve our customers at the level they expect to be. 

The standards are high here. The work can physically challenge you sometimes and will mentally challenge you more of the time. Bottom line is we have created a wonderful place to work for folks who don’t mind getting dirty to make functional art for great people. 

Here are some folks that work here talking about their experiences

Jesus's story

Why Michael Loves it Here

Aaron’s Viewpoint

How our ReFresco finish came about

Cement-based overlays were largely developed to resurface roads with a lot of help from American Concrete Paving Association . “Better living through modern chemistry” was a mantra of the middle of the 20th century, and that meant thinner overlays made strong with polymers like acrylics, styrene-acrylics, vinyl acetate ethylene (VAE), polyvinyl acetate (PVA), and styrene-butadiene resin (SBR). The cement was so improved by the polymers that rocks were removed creating polymer-modified mortars (PMMs) - that’s a class of material now used for all kinds of cool things.

PMMs are simply a mixture of cement, sand and glue (polymer is a fancy word for glue). The size of the sand grains determines how thick the material may be applied: coarser sand means it goes on thicker. The amount of glue determines the strength, cost, and finishing characteristics: less glue means cheaper, less strong, but much easier to trowel. 

Decorative concrete largely emerged in the 1970s and high-detail cement masons found that overlays could be used to create value in dozens of new ways. The were still a means to fix pavement: an overlay that didn’t cover fill in chips, spalling, and cover crack repairs was not considered a good overlay. Artisans figured out how to stamp overlays with rubber mats like concrete, spray them and knock them down like drywall, sand them and slurry them with plasters, and even carve rocks, trees and theme-park elements from PMMs.

I discovered PMMs I 2006 and loved how colors could be layered and concrete could be mimicked in novel ways to mitigate construction errors. Plumber missed the island? Install a stamped overlay that looks like barn wood installed flush to the polished concrete to create a flood-proof floor with rustic wood elements that would delight the clients in spite of that doggone plumber. 

In 2015, I had 3 projects in the same week where resurfacing would be a shame, but the surfaces were worn out. Meaning that shape of the concrete boulders, stamped patio and pavers were great, but the colors were terrible. I knew that painting concrete isn’t sustainable because all concrete passes moisture and the layer of salts that migrate out of the concrete below the concrete will ultimate cause paint to peel off. Also, any petroleum-based material will break down in color over time (water-based materials still have lots of oil derivatives that make them work). Integrally colored or acid stained cement are the only things by the mind of man that don’t break down in sunlight over time. Moreover, PMMs hand the high pH of concrete vastly better than almost any paints or resinous coatings. That’s when I came up with ReFresco™.

The idea was simple: replace most of the sand with cement and marble dust and polymerize it until it rolls on like a paint. The material cost was high, the coloring was a pain (compared to paint), but the performance was vastly better. It was true decorative concrete work, but since it went on so thin, the texture of application was no longer such an issue (installing PMMs thin without trowel marks is not easy). The texture of the substate would show right through, and the coating could have incredibly good tensile and flexural strength yet it could be integrally colored and stained like concrete. Since then, we have probably installed this material over countless paver driveways, repaired stamped concrete projects, walls, floor, you-name-it!

I am so thankful that I get to feed my family solving problems with great people using these materials. I do not think there is a more humanizing way to work. Thank you for reading about all this - we must be kindred souls. Please feel free to reach out to me at cory@element7concrete.com if you’d like to work together. 

Seth's right: stop whining

Toddlers whine. Most adults figure out how to lose the habit, because it’s toxic. And yet it persists.

Whining is a seductive package deal. When it works, it gets us attention, it lowers expectations, it gains sympathy and it forces people to identify with our pain. And it helps people feel as though they’re not responsible.

Often, the amount of whining is totally unrelated to the level of discomfort, and it seems to increase with how much privilege people perceive they deserve.

So why avoid it?

Because it changes our outlook on the world. When whining becomes a habit, we need to continue it, so we begin to interpret events as opportunities to prove that our whining is justified.

And because over time, people hate being around a whiner. The selfish desires of the habitual whiner eventually become clear. We realize that our shared reality is the world as it is, and that the whiner isn’t actually being singled out. And through practice, we learn that the best way to make things better is to work to improve them, not to demand special treatment. Reminding myself of the perils of whining is helpful indeed.

Optimists run the risk of being disappointed now and then. Whiners are always disappointing.

The text above was straight-up copied and pasted from Seth’s Blog this week. Read it here or there, but subscribe there. He’s an incredible thinker and writer (those things are like 2 pedals on a bike methinks).

Resources and best-practices for maintaining polished concrete floors.

Back in 2016, we built a shop on a road that had 10,000s of cars driving by. I thought “We need to get in the floor cleaning-products business”. So we reached out to our 1000+ customers to put together best practices. 

We found that the cheapest floor cleaners and waxes were the most popular with our customers. That wasn’t very surprising. What was surprising was how much better the cheaper stuff was. We tried it ourselves against the fancier stuff that seemed cool on amazon. The stuff from Dollar General was straight-up better. So I guess I would just encourage you to try cheap stuff or encourage you to try a lot of things yourself. 

The best wet and dry flat mops for daily cleaning are by Norwex. You may “find a consultant” to buy from with this link. 

Building up the stain-guard may make your floor more vulnerable to scuffs, scratches and efflorescence. Tt will be shinier and more stain resistant though. There are no bad polished concrete stain guards. We believe AmeriPolish is currently the best. SP is easier to apply; SR2 is probably better (though make sure to not apply it thicker than 2000sf/gal.) Ameripolish SP can be purchased with this amazon link. Ameripolish SR2 can be purchased with this amazon link. 

Both of those materials should be applied with a microfiber pad for applying finishes (flat mop equivalent of a rayon finish mop). The best one we’ve found is the 3M 55434 18" White Easy Shine Pad. Here is a link for a 2/Pack.

The process of applying stain-guard with a microfiber pad is simple. My friend Nick Dancer made a pretty sweet video showing how to do this 6 years ago. Link here. 

After applying that, it is ideal (but maybe not necessary) to go over the floor with a heavy burnisher fitted with a diamond impregnated pad. However, that equipment is frankly expensive to rent and not easy to move. Sunbelt Rentals has them though (link here).

Polished concrete flooring is the most durable, lowest-maintenance flooring option there is. Nobody (including us) has made this process super simple yet though. I hope this helps you.

Yours truly,  

Cory Hanneman 

Exciting upcoming project.

   One of the things I am most excited to design and physically make is a sensory path for The Phoenix Center in Marble Falls

A sensory path is like a game of Twister without the spinner integrated into a hallway with the intention of getting kids to slow down and think about what they are doing with their bodies. That is, there are places for specific hands and feet to touch clearly communicated in contrasting colors. The name comes from the idea of stimulating the 5 senses. By going down the path correctly, mindfulness could be increased. Balance and spatial awareness also sharpen as one hops, squats, and touches the shapes.

Anyway, preliminary designs for this have been percolating in my mind for months now, and today I find myself reading about how the USMC uses a similar methodology. (I admire our nation’s Marine Corps because I can’t think of an organization more dedicated to excellence in general. Nor can I come up with an org. that positively transforms people better.) My daily reading practice took me to USMC DP7 (PDF here) where I found the author advocating sensory paths in a backhanded way:

“Leaders of Marines must dedicate time and effort to learning, and prioritize mental fitness as much as physical fitness. For example, Marines can integrate learning activities into physical fitness training activities—stations can be set up along a run to demonstrate competence on a variety of tasks and equipment, such as using a radio, reporting specific items that are seen along the path, or demonstrating an understanding of different concepts (e.g., rules of engagement). Integrating learning activities into physical training events when Marines are both mentally and physically challenged encourages deep learning and facilitates the recall of lessons learned during combat situations.” 

Marines are known for their physical fitness. The fact that they must prioritize mental fitness as much is remarkable. Integrating the mental and physical makes sense for all human beings. That’s why I’m so driven to make a great decorative concrete company. I believe my people will be better humans for having mastered this trade. 

Love/Hate Relationship

I love this business because I love serving people directly by creating great surfaces. I love my team. I love the architects, designers and builders we get to work with. I love floors like this:

This floor used a wash of chemical staining with sodium dichromate and hydrochloric acid followed by a Black Penetrating Stain diluted 5:1 with acetone. The cream of the concrete was left intact.

I sort of hate how we are all conditioned as consumers to want what we want regardless of the rest of the world. I sort of hate not being able to recreate the same thing every time like a factory. I sort of hate folks “Appreciating imperfection, but not ____________________” We have followed this recipe dozens, maybe 100s of times by now:

Everything else truly is future-garbage by comparison. What I love about this recipe is how clearly this is concrete, yet how elevated it looks. Staining does that, and light, subtle washes do that without looking like we are working too hard to mimic other surfaces.

I love making floors that may outlast my grandchildren. I hate when people spend too much on overlays trying to make perfect concrete flooring and freak out after 2 years because all cement-based materials take on a patina. “It chipped and turned ____________ !“(insert least favorite color here: white, black, brown are optios). I wish things could be perfect, and I work as hard as I can every day with that goal. But in the words of Bill Gilliland (Marble Falls Homebuilder) “If it was perfect, it wouldn’t be cool.”

Perfectly imperfect (when done by the best team possible).

It’s been 6 years since we polished+stained the concrete floors at Jersey Mike’s in Austin. The location in Harker Heights that I just enjoyed a sandwich from looks about the same age. I was struck with what a good choice that floor is for that restaurant, but how important it is to communicate the caveats up front.

First thing I noticed was this efflorescence in the bathroom (We stopped in driving home after a wedding, so you know). I imagine the client hadn’t ever heard of efflorescence. I imagine them thinking the stain was fading. Since somebody got paid to stain and polish the concrete slab foundation into these floors, I imagine they are going to get a call to come and take a look at it. 

Seems like a reasonable request. The client may think something like “I paid you several thousands of dollars, I just want you to take a look at it, (and I sense you don’t want to do that.)” If the company that stained+polished those floors has been in business for a while, going to look at efflorescence might seem like a bad deal. They have to know there is nothing wrong with the stain and that efflorescence happens and simply removing it and applying a finish will solve the problem. They can either count that time to “customer service” or they can try to communicate the truth in a way that totally doesn’t seem like a lie. That is, clients are reasonable to suspect that their explanation is a bit of a ploy to not spend the time to look at their floor.

So we go look at the floors. And we explain what happened. And we fix it in the short term. It it will probably happen again in the future. And to the shallow-thinking reactionary, stained and polished concrete may seem like a suboptimal choice. At least provided that person doesn’t think about the big picture.

Stained+polished concrete continues to offer lower up-front cost (financially to the client and ecologically to the world at large), lower maintenance cost, and the great feeling evoked by a common material (concrete) processed to an uncommon level (mechanically flattened/ground to expose some aggregate, stained, chemically hardened, polished, and sealed like stone (no plastic).

It is just a bit of a drag of a business to run because the end product is inherently imperfect and unpredictable. Which is why you are wise to be working with the true innovators and not another copy-cat/knock-off company. We created or at least introduced dozens of unique finishes to our market. We also created a few ex-employees-cum-contractors. These guys stole what IP they could, and the market is strong enough now that it’s hard to not sell a lot of work. The most competent, most trustworthy provider of stained+polished concrete flooring is still less expensive than tile, wood, or stone. That’s element7concrete. Accept no substitute - it is truly not the same when it matters. 

One last point: ask a nutritionist how your diet could be optimized and they may encourage more animal protein or they may not. Pose the same question to a butcher and there’s no question. Given our knowledge base and processes, this bathroom would’ve gotten a better finish that would cover the ugly plumbing trench and stand up to the chemical attack of a commercial restroom better at minimal cost. In a world of proverbial butchers, our Designer/PM’s are trained like nutritionists.

Healthiest Home Possible

The older I get, the more I ask myself “What is the healthiest choice I could make right now”.

If I had to select flooring, I would say element7concrete with natural rugs cleaned periodically with water and natural cleaners. I acknowledge that we have a clear bias though. I would love to truly know that we are doing the most sustainable, healthiest thing possible.

If VOC’s in the materials of your home are something you care about, please share your research with us.

So far, we have found the Ameripolish® line of materials to be ideal both in healthfulness and durability. Stacking these 3 things

1. 3D SR2 Fully Penetrating Stain-Resistor (safety data sheet linked here) - on top of

2. 3D SP-E Semi-Penetrating/Semi-Topical Sealer (safety data sheet linked here) - on top of

3. 3D HS (3 densifiers in one product) Hybrid Silicate Densifier (safety data sheet linked here)

VOCs for those three materials are 5g/L, <5g/L, and 1g/L respectively. More important I think though is the durability and the unlikelihood of long-term outgassing.

Full disclosure, we run propane-powered equipment on the floors before and after applying all those materials, so there is some nastiness there to air out. We think this is the cleanest thing anyone could do though. And again, we are looking for your input. You are on the internet researching right now, and we are probably making floors. If you find something that we’d be better off knowing, please share it with us!

The Past ≠ The Future

This idea encourages me in two opposite ways. When I discover an area in my life that is regrettable, I know I behave completely differently and do much better. When I find myself complacently “successful”, I’m reminded that the client I’m serving this week doesn’t care about the prestigious architect I deeply impressed 10 years ago. “The Past ≠ The Future” is what I would tattoo my entire right arm with if only there were a way to not make that look cheesy. Anyone got an idea of how to say that pictorially?

Creating Unlikely Futures

Element7concrete polishes low-end materials into high-end surfaces. To that end, we polish new hires into high-level contributors. That means my job now is building out the machine that takes the gritty yet inexperienced, and trains them to make raving fans by adding massive value.

We have some beliefs that make that possible. First we believe that effectiveness is a learned behavior. I can say that because I can remember being ineffectual myself. Since I’ve been phased out of artisan work for many years now and we are finally ready to replace me in sales, the time is right to tell my origin story as a salesman. I’ll tell my origin story as an artisan later. Here goes:

3 days after graduating high school in 1995, I packed everything I owned into a little blue Ford Escort and drove from Minnesota to Los Angeles, CA. Skateboarding was >80% of my life, and LA was the epicenter. I was told that the economy was tough there and jobs were scarce, but I just knew there was some way I could eke out a life. After 3 weeks of “No.”s from every store, restaurant, and business I could see, I started to get scared. The 3 temp. agencies I worked for were getting me about 2 days of minimum-wage work/week and I was running out of savings. For the first time in my 18 years on planet earth, I was going hungry much of the time. 

My only hope for steady employment seemed to be straight-commission sales. I found an outfit that would hire almost anybody to go door-to-door and sell a card for buy-on-get-one-free deals at Stuart Anderson’s Black Angus Restaurants. The idea of doing that sickened me. I thought I was far too smart and too cool to be that guy. But I wanted to eat regularly again, and I couldn’t see any other options. So I took the gig.

Taking that job was the easy part. The hard part was getting out of my Ford Escort each time I arrived at another strip mall and walking into the countless dental offices, insurance agencies, etc. and interrupting people’s to shill f#@*ing discount cards. The other hard part was driving to another strip mall to do it again. There was no boss, no customers coming in asking for help, there was just my growling stomach. Talking to dozens of strangers every day was bad enough. Annoying the majority of those strangers was brutal for me. Then I realized every sales call was like a big skateboarding trick: I had to get my mind right first or it was hopeless.  Long story short, I got good at it. I learned that everybody was unique, but everyone was the same too: we all could connect on something within seconds if the vibe was right. We all hate getting interrupted at work, but we secretly like getting interrupted at work. We all like going to lunch. We all want to feel clever by getting a deal on something. We all want to buy, and not be sold. We all want to see ourselves and those around us as OK. We all might even want the hungry kid from Minnesota to win.

After awhile, I could hit my goal of selling 7 of those cards by noon most days and spend the rest of my time skateboarding. I could be done “working” by the time my friends were up and ready to skate. What once made me vomit became a breeze. One day, I happened upon the guys I dug ditches with through the temp agency when I was out selling. I thought “This new gig of mine isn’t really work.” But it was: the restaurant I was selling for saved their business because there were now 100s of people that felt obligated to eat there dozens of times. Those people may even grow to love that place. That sales campaign may have saved a restaurant on the brink of closing. So, yeah. The world was better off - more so than with the last ditch I dug with the guys from the temp agency. And for that value-add, I made my $70 in 2-3 hours most days. Though $23-35/hour was incredible money for an 18-year old in ’95, things were about to get bad. 

The friend I moved to LA with got hurt and moved back, so the parade of Midwestern skaters staying at our place to hit the spots from the videos stopped. I started to get cripplingly lonely. So lonely, I said “Yes.” to my mail lady’s advance to recruit me for Amway (the people at the meetings were super nice). One day, I was so depressed, I sort of blacked out out behind the wheel and totaled that little blue Ford Escort. I had to sell on foot for a couple of day to make enough money for a bus ticket home. 3 sketchy days on a Greyhound Bus later, I was home in Minnesota. The seeds were planted of reading, listening to great speeches on tape, and attending seminars to get better though. 

Back in Minnesota, I worked a bunch of terrible jobs. The crappiness of those jobs drove me to read the books on that Amway reading list voraciously though. The thoughts of Og Mandino, Brian Tracy, Andrew Carnegie, and the like were like an hour of sunshine in a prisoner yard after time in solitary confinement. I had directly experienced massive growth (painful!), and now I was reading about a world we can create with our thoughts, planning and effort. The contrast between those ideas and the reality on the floor of a beef-jerky factory in Minnesota cannot be overstated! What I am most thankful for is not the change in my direction, but the change in my acceleration that started that year. A new path is great. A new pattern of improving one’s rate of positive change is radically better. 

I’ve lead a charmed life since. But the main magic behind those charms is attitude, and my attitude was profoundly shaped by the books, audios, and functions. Truth is, I was brainwashed. Maybe we could all use some cleaning in there though. 

So what? How could my story mean anything to you? The point is to take everything in your world that seems crappy, and trust that you can change your habits, and trust that a change in habits creates a change in mindset, and trust that a change in mindset can make anything happen. Maybe you can do something 10X bigger than anything I’ve done yet without joining Amway, totaling your car, or ever riding a Greyhound Bus. 

You’ve read something positive today. Now, go get yourself a proper book or audiobook to start tomorrow. 

Aging Well and Maybe Why Nobody Cares

Change is neither good or bad in and of itself.

It truly is the only constant, and the rate of change of our world certainly seems to have increased.

This begs us to detach and become aware of our direction.

When we wake up to our world, things that sound like common sense can come off as strange. For instance, (improved technology) X (economic stability+freedom) = vastly increased choices in purchasing. A weird offshoot of this fact though is that products that age well have become a rare niche rather than the standard.

This is because consumerism rewards planned obsolescence.

Redwing Boots

As I walk through the morning dew, I can anticipate that the water, time, and regular oiling will make them better in a year than the day I bought them.

Rat-rod Harley

Bought for $5,000 on craigslist several years ago, this is aged to look as good in 10 more years as it does today.

These things bring me joy the same way our floors bring our clients joy. They were not fun purchases up front:

• New Redwings actually hurt my feet a little for a month or so until I get them broken in. Then I can usually count on them for 2-6 years.

• That Harley ran so badly when I bought it, I thought I would have to re-build the motor. Luckily it was just old gas with a lot of condensation.

It seems to be the same deal with the floors we make. Clients are conditioned to expect a lot when they purchase, and they often get what they don’t expect (this can be borderline traumatic). They nearly always grow to love the floors over time though. Having done several thousand of projects based out of a tiny town, I can tell you: our customers grow to love their floors.

We have to realize when we have been made into junkies. If we working to buy things that we know will be garbage sooner than other choices, we should stop. I know there is an endless stream of new stuff to buy though. It’s easy to be blinded by that to our meaningless earning and buying and earning and buying and filling of landfills. Only by subordinating our passing feelings to what really makes sense can we build lives that get better each year. Ironically, wise purchasing may be the best road out of consumerism.

A Repentance of Thinking of Scarcity

Our company values have been clearly defined for over a decade:

1. Stay Safe

2. Make Raving Fans

3. Create Value

Every Tuesday, I write a one-pager for our all-hands meeting with a fresh idea to help us live those out and an re-cap of how well we did the previous week. For instance, this week we encouraged artisans to tape a little package of ear-plugs to the cord of their angle grinders, hand-held polishers, and saws so they would be reminded at the right time to protect their hearing. We celebrated at the 12 new “raving fans” we made, and we shared the 4 things we plan to do better next time. We celebrated Q1, 2019 being the best quarter we’ve had in 2 years. We talked about how the ultimate skill in business is empathy: really feeling how the other person feels about our words, actions, and the intersection of their expectations and our service.

I’ve kept these papers to ourselves and written here maybe once/1-3 months out of scarcity. That is I let myself get annoyed by the bunch of competitors I created whose brand/marketing story is “I used to work for element7concrete”. I hated the idea of them still getting value from my thoughts without the accountability of doing the work well. Humans can operate with mentalities of abundance or or scarcity, and I’m not proud to say I was in the latter when choosing to not write here.

So I repent of all that. If I have an idea that may make the world better - even if our artisans ignore it and our competitors run with it, I will share it. I will write here at least weekly, and if you really want to know the soul of our company, you can dig in and find it here. It seems likely that few people will dig this. If you are one of those few, reach out: I’d love to meet you and maybe make something with you. Thank you.

From our operations manual:

In our locker room there are (3) 3-ring binders.

• Safety Data Sheets

• Artisans Training Modules & SOPs

• QR Codes and SOPs for Material and Tool Management

As we prepare to bring on a new Material and Tool Manager (MTM) next week, I find myself working on the tools and systems for that role with every hour possible. I thought copying and pasting the back cover of that binder might give you a better idea of what we are all about, so here goes:

Our mission: Better Homes | Better Jobs | Better World.

• We image Christ’s work in us when we make these high-end surfaces out of these low-end materials. 

• We brighten neighborhoods by creating rich experiences of locals making great floors, countertops and furniture for their community. 

  • Our culture of excellence, our training program, and our systems of feedback and material management create great artisan-class jobs and this helps overcome local poverty. 

  • Those on our team are made brighter as they move from apprentices, to artisans, to masters, to leaders.

People need homes and workplaces, those spaces need floors, and there are only 2 choices:

• Durable, timelessly beautiful element7concrete

• Future garbage. Except hardwood, in 30 years today’s trendy floor covering will look like stuff from 1989. Water ruins wood floors, carpet, laminate, etc.

Our values and how we live them out managing material and tools:

1. Stay safe. 

   • The MTM makes sure team members have functional PPE for every project. 

   • We grind wet even though it is much more labor intensive than grinding dry because the dust from grinding dry is unhealthful to be around. 

   • We do not install sealers and coatings where the will need be stripped years later. 

2. Make Raving Fans.

   • The MTM sets the standard for service by serving the artisans often before they even wake up for their workday. They then are inspired to serve our patrons well. 

   • Every part of our systems is orientated towards reminding ourselves of how fun it is to light up another person with great work. 

3. Create Value.

   • Every position, every day, the person filling it contributes more than they take out and there is a scoreboard reflecting their contribution. 

   • We created a company worth contributing to. 

4. Uplift. 

   • Every score is affected by the spirit of the team as reflected by the members’ scorecards

   • We leave everything and everyone better than we found them.

   • We only speak when it may help somebody.

5. Play-as-a-pro paradox.

• Championship athletes play best when having fun.

• We have the most fun in life overall when we have been the least indulgent with ourselves.

• Therefore, in going hard (rain or shine), we end up having more fun at work than anybody we know.

Thanks for reading. As always, please phone or email us if we might be able to add value to your project.

Focus and value flow from leadership principles.

Last post, I wrote about a step back we had to make in volume to ensure quality. When pointing at anything though, there’s a danger of attracting attention to the pointer rather than what you are pointing at. Downsizing is never a sustainable strategy. Pruning is just a means of facilitating growth, and proper growth after pruning feels magnificent.

Human organizations fascinate me. I define an organization as a group of individuals arranged by lines of communication and accountability such that they create more value as a group than the sum of their individual contribution could ever reach. Any group that does not do this, is just a group: if they try to compete with proper organizations in the market, they will be buried.

One of the richest sources of insight regarding organizations and leadership is military history. War is a terrible business, and I pray for the day when the proverbial lion can lay down with the lamb. Until then though, we have wars. There will never be an arena where the ability to get a group of people to work together towards a common goal has higher stakes and therefore greater performance and insight than war. So we rejoice in the keys to light that comes from such darkness.

The best commentator on combat leadership’s application to business and life right now is Jocko Willink. His favorite book of all time is About Face . In that odyssey of American Warrior, US Army Col. David Hackworth declares “Colonel Glover S. Johns was the finest senior infantry commander I’ve ever seen, or would ever see again” Hackworth summarizes Col. Johns’s farewell address with these points:

• Strive to do the small things well.

• Be a doer and a self-starter - aggressiveness and initiative and two most admired qualities in a leader - but you must also put your feet up and think.

• Strive for self-improvement through constant self-evaluation.

• Never be satisfied. Ask of any project , “How can it be better done?”

• Don’t over-inspect or over-supervise. Allow your leaders to make mistakes in training, so they can profit from errors and not make them in combat.

• Keep the troops informed; telling them “what, how, and why” builds their confidence.

• The harder the training, the more the troops will brag.

• Enthusiasm, fairness, and moral and physical courage: 4 of the most important aspects of leadership.

• Showmanship - a vital technique of leadership.

• The ability to speak and write well - 2 essential tools of leadership.

  • There is a salient difference between profanity and obscenity: while a leader employs profanity (tempered with discretion), he never uses obscenities.

• Have consideration for others.

• Understand and use judgement; know when to stop fighting for something you believe is right. Discuss and argue your point of view until a decision is made, and then support the decision wholeheartedly.

• Stay ahead of your boss.

As we strive to embody the highest ideals, our people are aimed at their objectives and inspired. Some people have more wattage or horsepower, or mana, or whatever you want to call it, but the real power comes from focus. The beauty of our organization is the players coming to work here are focused on objectives that line up with their strengths and interests. Chanel may not have the desire or ability to grind concrete that Ruben does. Ruben certainly does not have the desire or ability to estimate, bid, and answer customer questions that Chanel does. And so on across the 20 or so people that work here.

As we reflect on 2018 and plan for 2019, we could not be more excited. The truths we have arrived at have been hard won. We are not wearied by that work. We are stronger than ever. Pruned of the low-wattage types, we are left with well-aimed winners. On top of that, we are overwhelmed with thankfulness to serve you. Thank you for your interest, appreciation, and patronage. You are our people.

I, for one, am going the other way now.

“The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.” - Jesus Christ.

People requesting information and service is at an all-time high, but people able to perform good service is at an all-time low. So, I think it is time for element7concrete to shrink a little. I really don’t care about quantity of anything 1/10th as much as I care about quality.

If you are reading this, I bet you get it too. You don’t care about our gross-revenue this year either. You are relieved to hear that we are eschewing pride and ego for appreciation and development of the team we have and the architects and builders we already have relationships with. I hope we are a breath of fresh air in a crowded marketplace of what looks to me like garbage.

We may settle for a smaller market share, but we will never settle for less than 1st-class work. That’s because care more about you than we do about us. We love that you get that.

If a picture is worth 1000 words...

Than I suppose a virtual tour is worth a few million. Here’s a way to experience how clean these floors are without leaving your chair.

Click here to be transported to 113 James Circle in Horseshoe Bay, TX

The inspiration for the color was “wet sand”. The builder/owner/seller of this home had seen our work throughout Austin and knew that no other team could hit such a subtle, nuanced target as this. With our special 2-step staining process and our 5-step polishing process, we made a floor that is warm in color, cool in style, and the most neutral backdrop imaginable to furniture and art.

We are all so thankful here to make a living making mesmerizing surfaces for (and with) people we come to love.

Knock-offs are worse than generic

“When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity.” - Dale Carnegie

My passion for training people and increasing the human capital of my community is no secret. If you’ve never seen me speak on this, check out The Nobodies Show or the Marvelous Falls Podcast

I sometimes forget Carnegie’s quote above. Though we’ve built an organization that exploits zero people, I forget that men are motivated by pride and vanity. Though we are painfully generous with our people, they sometimes refuse to do the math with me and leave.

So yet again, I find myself with a new local competitor selling himself as “so-and-so from element7concrete”. Except they are no longer from element7concrete. The secret sauce that makes our builders so fiercely loyal is the consistency, quality, added value of good design ideas, and quality that only comes with a great team.

“Synergy” became a corny word in the late 80s and 90s, but that idea is real. Well structured teams like ours create more value in the world than the sum of the individual contributors because we are arranged in a way that capitalizes on strengths and makes personal weaknesses irrelevant. 1+1+1+1 = 7 here.

If I’m perfectly frank, the rejection of former employees hurts a little. They don’t believe me when I tell them how much you actually net as an owner - even with no “overhead” (no such thing: for instance if you don’t have a Material and Tool manager purchasing and repairing stuff for 6 teams you are doing it yourself, and spending more time than you expect) you don’t get to keep anywhere near most of the money that comes in. Like most construction service businesses, we eek out a 1-10% profit, depending on the month or year. They will learn the hard way, but that doesn’t always mend the relationship. Feelings are often illogical.

So what? The point of my sharing this is to share what really drives me in hopes that you get stoked to make something great, too. The most creative work I can think to do is to make unlikely futures for people who care to make beautiful things. A big “thank you” to the 100+ builders and architects who choose us every time for good reason. They know we are small enough to care deeply about their job and too big to get moody. We have clear values, a clear mission, and we just deliver. No matter what. Thank you for reading. I love you.

Video Biography

We have been putting many great tricks for installing polished concrete and industrial coatings on YouTube so that all our team leaders could educate themselves on the way to projects. I stumbled across this interview and thought if you are here, maybe you'd like to know more about me and this team. - Cory Hanneman Link here or copy to your browser -   https://youtu.be/Ddr9oc44mnE

Concrete Pavers Refinished, Reimagined

Paver Refresco

This is a revolutionary offering. Millions of pavers get thrown away every year. We make them better than when they were when originally installed. Replacing concrete pavers takes weeks, costs thousands, and is wasteful. They are seldom recycled or re-used. We can refinish them giving them new life and creating less waste.

Because pavers catch stains over time, and because they are so porous, some of those stains will never come out.

Over time they take on a patina, so though theoretically they could be exchanged for new ones, that's not how it normally works. New pavers are almost always less than a perfect match with old pavers.

There are acres and acres of pink-ish red pavers out there that no longer match the updated decor of the home they lead up to. They can be found on high-end driveways and while  Tuscan-style homes were all the rage 10-20 years ago, modern greys and muted browns are the preferred style today.

3066 on pavers with 8oz Charcoal
 

Finishing Well

In 2015, we cast this table for PWI Construction in Dripping Springs.

PWI is a nationwide builder of high-end hotels, restaurants, and retail stores - they know what they are doing when they specify something. We have installed 1000's of high-end decorative concrete projects, so us making a table for them seemed like a piece of cake in every way (metaphorically easy & delightful). Neither the builder nor us anticipated how much havoc the steel substrate would wreak on the casting in a controlled space.   

Within 8 months there were massive cracks in the table.

Cracks in concrete flooring are inherent. Cracks in a conference table like this were unacceptable to us (they were actually pretty cool about it). Re-casting was not an option (it is a  mess!). So, we cast a GFRC (glass fiber reinforced concrete) cap at our shop to just go over it. It was our first casting using a mix that allowed us to go so thin/light (0.7” = 7.7lbs./sf), and my friend Troy Lemon from Cornerstone Decorative concrete in Michigan came down to help. It turned out great, and I was frankly surprised it did not break in the 50 mile drive from our shop to their office as the piece was only 4 days old. Just as we were walking through the door, though it broke apart in our hands. 

We tested the fit of the broken piece and found we needed another 1/2” in the part of the edge covering the existing top. So, we took the hit, went back to the shop, and made another - this time without Troy’s help but with better dimensions. We also had less confidence in 4-day old concrete and more patience.

The new piece turned out awesome, and years later, it still gets compliments every week for PWI. It embodies their ethos of getting hard things done through skilled partners that never just walk away. They are successful because they choose element7concrete, the team most known for finishing well.