From Bottlenecks to Breakthroughs: Bobby Neil Jackson on Systemizing Modular Construction with Syner

Quinton Comino: Hello, everyone. My guest today is Bobby Neil Jackson. He’s with Synergy Works Consulting based out of Ohio, but he has clients all throughout the United States. If you are in manufacturing—specifically modular, but really anything to do with construction and manufacturing—he provides solutions and implementation to help construction companies, manufacturing companies succeed.

Quinton Comino: Whether you have a part of your plant that’s just not running as up to speed as they need to—maybe the electrical guys, maybe the plumbing guys, maybe the tile guys, like in an example you’re gonna hear—you can go in and see, alright, where are they going wrong? How can we run a lot better? Because a lot of modular companies or manufacturing facilities specifically in construction, they can look at it just as construction underneath the roof instead of seeing it as manufacturing where you need to have processes.

Quinton Comino: So have a listen to this episode. You’re gonna learn a lot about looking under the hood of manufacturing facilities and making sure that things run efficiently so that customers can end up with a quality product in a timely fashion.

Quinton Comino: Bobby Jackson—who you’re with, the company you own, and what it is that you guys do.

Bobby Neil Jackson: I’m Bobby Neil Jackson. My company is Synergy Works Consulting. I would say that we’ve kind of pivoted from consulting to more solutions. So I don’t just sit back and help people make decisions—I don’t just provide information. I actually create the solutions and implement things that help the companies achieve their goals.

Bobby Neil Jackson: We are specializing in the modular construction space. However, it’s really any manufacturing environment—my system will work in, and we can help with. So we do quality control compliance. We help companies through certification. We help them register/license in their states. So we can help from inception of company—even just theorizing the company, doing market research—all the way through helping their leadership teams build out and understand how to lead, how to set goals, how to manage their different teams to reach success in whatever area they’re in.

Quinton Comino: Mhmm. Mhmm.

Bobby Neil Jackson: We are specializing in the modular construction space. However, it’s really any manufacturing environment my system will work in, and we can we can help with.

Quinton Comino: So you’re a consultant, but you’re providing a lot more than just verbally—you’re building solutions, which to me, that’s a ton of value because I—I like—have an aversion against consultants, and forgive me, because I’ve been burned by a lot of them, man, where they say they can provide this and that and whatever. And it’s like, well, if you’re so good at it, then go do it yourself. If you’re such a good salesperson, then go and sell—don’t be a sales consultant.

Quinton Comino: Now not all consultants are like that—some of them are actually really good. But I’ve ran into a number of them where it’s like, why am I listening to this guy? I know how to run my business better than anybody else—at least I think. So I like what you say where you’re providing solutions, and it sounds like you’re much more involved than yeah, we’ll have our weekly meeting and we’ll talk for sixty minutes.

Bobby Neil Jackson: Absolutely. So when I named the company, it was because I was hired on—I was contracted by a company to do some software implementation for them, and I was kinda helping them develop a costing software. And that’s how the company was born. So I called it Synergy Works Consulting and not really understanding how I was going to be providing help. And so it’s just kind of evolved. And I don’t wanna have to rebrand—but I do think that I need to call it Synergy Works Solutions and not Synergy Works Consulting.

Quinton Comino: I see. Yeah. Solutions—that would be great. That’s not bad. That may be—and your existing customers would understand, and then new customers—they wouldn’t know any different.

Bobby Neil Jackson: Right. Yep. Absolutely.

Quinton Comino: So what—alright. So tell me then, what makes it that you are able to provide the solutions? What sort of background do you have? Because you said manufacturing in general—also modular specific—but any manufacturing in general, that’s a big space. There’s a lot there—there could be so many different companies and facilities and operations and processes. So what makes it that, hey—Bobby Neil Jackson, he’s able to provide a solution? What sort of experience do you bring to the table or expertise do you bring to the table to be able to say that, yeah—I can help anyone in the manufacturing space?

Bobby Neil Jackson: Sure. So there’s a few different reasons. Number one is the unique and diverse background that I have.

Quinton Comino: Mhmm.

Bobby Neil Jackson: I am trained and educated in coding, but I’m also—have an extensive background in technology, and I have an extensive background in construction.

Quinton Comino: Okay.

Bobby Neil Jackson: You marry all of that with the fact that I have a fairly extensive background in manufacturing, and it really just offers this unique blend of understanding manufacturing, understanding the technical side of things. And it really kinda started—so when I got out of high school, I was trained in architectural and mechanical drafting and engineering. And then I went on to work in a manufacturing environment in a paper plant. And there I started to do leadership, and I started to do quality work and really understanding just the manufacturing process and the theory behind it.

Bobby Neil Jackson: And then I took that and started in technical work and working in more technology fields and utility work. And then I started working in construction after that. So within that ten- or fifteen-year span, I got really deep into a few companies that did each of those industries. And then taking all of that then into the construction field and then developing into a continuous-improvement and quality role—started to understand how manufacturing could then marry with construction.

Bobby Neil Jackson: Then I landed a job as a continuous-improvement developer for a modular company that did pod construction or pod manufacturing—and really started to understand how I could implement manufacturing strategies with construction. And there’s some unique stories there and some things that we achieved there—so we can get into that if you want to. But that was really where I started to understand how to blend all of this background that I had and really start to help the manufacturing process part of modular construction.

Quinton Comino: Yeah. It sounds like that was a pretty crucial point—being with that pod-manufacturing company where you started to piece things together and realize, man—I’ve got a different perspective that maybe other people don’t have, and I can bring value in a way that other people just don’t have the experience. Sounds like that was a pretty crucial point.

Bobby Neil Jackson: It was. And then there was also a time in there where I started to realize manufacturing itself—whether you’re talking about building a vehicle, you’re talking about building a bathroom, you’re talking about just machining a widget—whatever it is, it all goes through the same process of work. So it all starts out just theorizing—coming up with an idea, understanding that there’s a problem or there’s a challenge or there’s an opportunity—to then creating that solution, developing that solution, and then a plan behind it, and then implementing that plan and completing it.

Bobby Neil Jackson: So that whole process there is the phases that all work goes through. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing—you could be planning a vacation, or you could be doing modular construction. It all goes through that same process. And so if you understand where you fit into that process—then you really start to unlock the true strengths or natural abilities and how to leverage that into what you do from a career standpoint.

Bobby Neil Jackson: So what I started to understand was—as I was getting into manufacturing but then getting in these quality roles—I started to realize I’m really good at the observation part and understanding where the opportunities lie, but also being able to see the risks and how to mitigate that. And then I’m really good with the discernment portion of, hey—is this solution going to work? Are these opportunities or these problems—are they gonna be able to be taken care of with the plan that we have in place? How do I go about developing a process that works to attain the goal or achieve or overcome a challenge?

Bobby Neil Jackson: So as I started to understand that about myself, I really started to lean into that as part of my quality and continuous improvement—because that’s really what a lot of it is. It’s observing the processes and then developing the correct solutions or the right processes to make you more efficient and more productive in each of those areas.

Quinton Comino: Yeah. So you see both ends—you see, here’s the problem and, hey—here’s the solution.

Bobby Neil Jackson: Absolutely. And a lot of it is intuitive, I guess—because that’s kind of what discernment is. A lot of it is taking experience and marrying that with your—I don’t know—you could say gut feel, but I think gut feel kinda comes from the experience and the knowledge that you have and being able to put that together and how to apply that is what I would call wisdom.

Bobby Neil Jackson: So you know—that’s really where it comes from, and I was able to use that to really start to understand how to use that in the modular-construction space.

Quinton Comino: So when you think back to some of those—I bet—I would imagine to say there were some particular moments where you learned some very valuable lessons. Do you have any examples of that—maybe specifically with that pod-manufacturing company?

Bobby Neil Jackson: So there was one thing that I always look back to from that time that really helped me understand what was achievable and how crucial systems are and processes are to success in modular construction. So when you’re manufacturing, you’re taking a set of instructions, and you are producing something based on that set of instructions or that set of processes—you’re working a system to produce an outcome.

Quinton Comino: Mhmm.

Bobby Neil Jackson: Well, in modular construction and some pod construction, what you see is it’s treated like it’s more just construction under a roof rather than having a real system in place that then becomes more like manufacturing. So we had a tile department that was really behind, and they were getting a lot of poor quality out of the tile department. And a lot of it had to do with just the time demand for getting these pods through tiling—because that becomes a serious bottleneck when you have to lay a bunch of tile, especially if you’re doing hospitals. At the time we were running a lot of hospital-type jobs. And so everything in a hospital is tile because you need hard surfaces that you can wipe down.

Bobby Neil Jackson: And so we’re doing floor tile, wall tile, putting up mirrors and dividers and all that kind of stuff. And so that tile department got really behind. Well, at the time they were paying top dollar for these top professional tile teams to come in—these contractors to come in and do the tile work. But we still weren’t getting very good quality.

Bobby Neil Jackson: And so when they brought me in, they kinda pointed me to the tile department and said, just fix it—figure out what we need to do and fix it. And so I got to the tile department—I started to realize that what they were doing was just construction underneath a ceiling. It wasn’t—they didn’t have processes in place. They didn’t have it organized.

Quinton Comino: That’s so good.

Bobby Neil Jackson: Yeah. They didn’t have—they yeah. They didn’t have processes in place. They didn’t have it organized.

Quinton Comino: Manufacturing. Yeah.

Bobby Neil Jackson: Right. So what I ended up doing was—they ended up hiring some contractors. And I took this team of contractors—they were not tilers. These were Venezuelan contractors who had come at a time when their government was really bad and people were fleeing the country. And so these were teachers—there’s lawyers—I had a TV news anchor—there were some stay-at-home moms—these were everybody—ages 18 or 20 all the way up to like 55 or 60.

Bobby Neil Jackson: And so it took me about two and a half months. But in two and a half months I was able to break down the installation process and then create a system around it where we precut tile, we arranged it on a cart, had everything labeled on their diagram to match up to the parts on the cart, showed them where it goes. We had a well-developed system of mixing the thinset—this is where you do it—everything’s labeled—this is how you mix it—this is how long you mix it—this is the tool that you use.

Bobby Neil Jackson: We 5S’d—we put the processes in writing—we trained people on it. And then we did something that I thought was fairly unique for the industry—is we created straight edges that we could put down. And that way they didn’t have to be able to start a row of tile on a chalk line or on this line that they penciled out. They just went in—they put the straight edge right where it was supposed to be, locked it down, and then just put their tile right up against the straight edge and laid their tile on the straight edge.

Quinton Comino: Mhmm.

Bobby Neil Jackson: And we had a 22-foot pod with a doorway right on the long side of the tile. So if you’ve ever laid tile—and these were 11-by-22 tiles—and they went straight down that door opening all the way to the other end. So you could see 22 feet of tile straight down. And after about two months I had a tile crew that was tiling better than our professional tilers—so much so that we were able to stop using the professional tile.

Quinton Comino: No way.

Bobby Neil Jackson: We were doing the work with twice—with two times less deviations—volt deviations out of our tile department. And that was all based on just systems and training. And so it was truly taking the manufacturing mindset and applying it to construction.

Quinton Comino: And I love what you said there—people—a lot of people will take that in a modular factory or what have you and treat it like construction under a roof. That’s such a great way to put it.

Bobby Neil Jackson: Because you get a lot of people from the construction industry that are saying, oh I wanna do modular—but they’ve never been in manufacturing.

Quinton Comino: So when—

Bobby Neil Jackson: You’re thinking manufacturing—the first thing I think is Toyota. And their manufacturing system. And it’s always been one of my career goals to disrupt an industry and to create an industry standard. And to me what I want is for somebody to look at Synergy Works and say, I want a Synergy Works compliance quality system in my plant. Because I know that if I do that, I’m going to get quality work—and it’s efficient—and we have less deviations—and we have quicker turnaround times or better production.

Quinton Comino: Yeah. Yeah. So you want a Synergy Works compliant—okay. But there’s so much difference—there—well, you did say processes—whether you’re doing planning vacation or manufacturing—but there’s so many different things. Manufacturing pods—manufacturing windows—manufacturing cars—they’re so different. So is your approach and your idea for growth or what have you—building something that works across all those realms? Or do you have to be super specific with here’s how you do windows—here’s how you do cars? Is there overlap or how does that work? What do you envision?

Bobby Neil Jackson: So it’s different parts, but it’s the same principles. That’s the thing—is the principles are the same no matter where you go, no matter what you’re manufacturing. You’re going to start out with what are we building—what materials do we need—what’s our processes at each step along this path to production? And then you’re going to lay out that process, and then you’re going to train people to do it correctly. And then you’re going to have an inspection system that ensures that quality is being built into the product—but not inspecting the quality into the product.

Bobby Neil Jackson: And that’s really where the value lies in what I do and what I’ve built—is it’s systems that can make the manufacturing process repeatable. It’s breaking down the product that’s being built and then taking it and making it bite-sized standard operating procedures. And then ultimately what we would like to do is create workstation instructions so we can just build it the way you would in any well-run manufacturing environment.

Quinton Comino: And then you can repeat it—and really grow. That’s awesome. And it’s like you could even do—so alright—you choose manufacturing because that’s your specialty. But it’s your passion, I imagine, as much. Could you—you could do these things within any business. Like you know—for us I just had a meeting with our transport coordinator, and I was talking to her, and we were just discussing processes—we’re discussing how we do things and how we could do things better and how she’s put processes in place just from being more hands-on in that position than anybody else we’ve had prior.

Quinton Comino: And so you could come in and say, okay—it’s not manufacturing, but it’s processes—and I can solve for these types of—for this problem? So why don’t you expand into other industries? Is it a matter of passion? Is it a matter of you know there’s just more money simply in manufacturing? Because I would think there’s—if you went to a tech company and you’re able to—or like a financial-tech company and you’re able to iron some stuff out with them—I would imagine there’s big money in that. So yeah—just curious your thoughts on that.

Bobby Neil Jackson: Sure. So the way that I would answer that is right off the top of my head without really thinking through that.

Quinton Comino: Yeah.

Bobby Neil Jackson: So you said—is it my passion? Construction is a passion for me. When I was 12 years old, my mom and dad built—it was a you know addition onto the back of our house. At the time we had I think seven kids in a three-bedroom one-bath house—little ranch house. So we needed more square footage. And getting to see that process and getting to actually build that—to me was like instant—I fell in love with construction. Just getting to see the dirt pulled up and go from a backyard to all of a sudden we had this extra addition on our house. And I got to see it framed, and I got to help—I pulled rocks out of the holes, and I’m driving nails—and 12 years old—it fell in love with it, man.

Bobby Neil Jackson: And I didn’t know how I was gonna turn that into a career at some point, but it kept bringing me back. And ultimately that’s where I ended up. So that’s how I ended up in the industry—but I have a passion also for efficiency and productivity. And that’s really where I’ve married the two passions that I have.

Quinton Comino: Yeah.

Bobby Neil Jackson: I personally too have just looked for opportunities where I could not just marry my passions but also leverage my natural abilities.

Quinton Comino: K.

Bobby Neil Jackson: So for me—one of the reasons the name of my company is Synergy Works Consulting is because I believe in a synergy mindset where I’m trying to find a sweet spot between what I’m passionate about, what my natural abilities are, and what I can do to make the best life for my family. And so where those three overlap—that’s to me, that’s the sweet spot.

Quinton Comino: Yeah.

Bobby Neil Jackson: And so I’ve been able to identify what my natural abilities are, and I’ve been able to identify what my passions are. And then I’ve been able to find an industry where I can combine those two and create a pretty good life for my family.

Quinton Comino: Yeah. I love that.

Bobby Neil Jackson: So that’s how I ended up—yeah—that’s how I ended up with the manufacturing but also in the construction space. And I’m not saying that I wouldn’t like to go out into tech—I’ve actually dabbled in it. I actually just launched an app. And you write code—so I’ve dabbled in it, but it’s not as much of a passion for me as the other. But that’s what I try to do—is find those synergies in that sweet spot.

Quinton Comino: That’s great—find your passion, your abilities, and then hey—what makes money? At the end of the day you gotta put food on the table. So as closely aligned as those things can be—that’s what you’re going for. I love that.

Bobby Neil Jackson: Yep. And—

Quinton Comino: So how do people find you? Are you like a household name in the area you’re in—you’re in Ohio—are you a household name in manufacturing? Are you—hey, this guy really helped our tile division—you need to give him a call—I heard you’re having trouble at your plant—how does that work?

Bobby Neil Jackson: I’m getting more of a name in the modular-construction space. So what I’ve been finding recently is people have been hearing about me and calling me. It used to be when they had smaller projects that they could see they needed more efficiency and more productivity. Here recently I’ve actually been getting called when there’s much more on the line.

Quinton Comino: Oh, really?

Bobby Neil Jackson: The last few times I’ve gotten involved we’re talking millions of dollars rather than just thousands or tens of thousands. So the last few times that I’ve gotten involved with a company or client—it’s been because they’ve had millions of dollars on the line and they needed a solution. So something like—one of my clients had $4,000,000 in projects lined up, and they had just pivoted their business—but they couldn’t run it because they didn’t have a certification in the state that they needed to. And they had the state come in to do an audit, and they left saying that they weren’t ready. And so there they were—$4,000,000 worth of projects lined up and their only source of revenue—and they couldn’t run it.

Bobby Neil Jackson: So they called me—I came in—within eight weeks we had the certification, and they were able to start running their—get the revenue rolling. So that really kind of helps make the name, and then I’ve helped multiple companies since then. I’ve been involved in a lot of different projects in modular construction—I’ve been involved with a lot of different well-known companies or industries—educational places. So I’ve been developing a name and a reputation in the industry, and it really comes down to just I think because of the care and the effort that I put in—I’ve developed my own compliance system—the 3C system.

Bobby Neil Jackson: So that’s been getting some—you know a name in the industry. And I have a manual quality modular-construction that fits with any state program—it’s really easy to more accustomed to the company. And so very quickly I can get that certification process rolling and get it through to basically allowing a company to produce.

Quinton Comino: Yeah. So it sounds like two areas—what you discussed so far—two areas of expertise or just maybe what comes your way most commonly is let’s figure out the process to how to do this quicker, more efficiently, not losing money—and then let’s get you compliant.

Bobby Neil Jackson: Yes. And it’s to be more of the compliance stuff recently. What I’m starting to find out is there’s a lot of companies that get started in the industry or the business, and they don’t think about compliance until they have to. So they’re not thinking about certification until it actually comes up. Then it bites them. Yeah—and then it’s by that time they’re way behind and they can’t get it done as fast or as quickly as they need to with the efficiency that they need—or they have people who are a little bit less skilled or maybe just less knowledge, and they can’t get them through the process as quickly as they need to be through the process.

Bobby Neil Jackson: Every state is different in my job structure—so you can do one thing in one state and think oh this is no problem—I’ve already done it here—and then you go to another state, it’s complete buzzsaw because it’s different. Nothing that was true in Florida is true in Alabama. You’re finding the same thing—if you go to Texas, if you go to North Carolina, you’re gonna deal with things there that you don’t have to deal with in any other state.

Quinton Comino: Yeah. Well—so how much of the—just a great—how much of that compliance stuff is this is just red tape—you gotta do it—versus hey this is this—

Bobby Neil Jackson: I personally feel that it all has value.

Quinton Comino: Okay.

Bobby Neil Jackson: Because I believe in the end it creates a better product. All of those compliance programs were built because they were just trying to ensure that their residents were going to receive a building or a home or whatever it is that is safe—that is built with quality—that meets the building standards that were put there so that the general population who are not experts in construction will still receive a quality product.

Quinton Comino: At yeah. Yeah. I see.

Bobby Neil Jackson: And so those compliance programs are built so that the—you know ultimately what the reason for it is because you have buildings that are being built somewhere else that a local inspector wasn’t able to see what’s behind that sheathing or what’s behind the wallboard. They didn’t see the testing go on for the electric or the plumbing or the HVAC. So how are they supposed to sign off on it and feel good about giving you a certificate of occupancy and know that it’s gonna be safe if they can’t be assured that that has been tested or inspected correctly?

Bobby Neil Jackson: So that is what the goal of each compliance program is—is to ensure that you’re producing a quality product and that they can feel that their residents are going to be safe and have a valuable product when it gets there. And that’s what that compliance program does—and then they give you that label so that you get to put on that when you built it saying this has been done to the state standards—they’re confident in our ability to build a quality product.

Quinton Comino: Yeah. That’s good. I love—and that makes—you know the average person doesn’t know too much about construction—they wanna make sure that they’re living in a house that is gonna stand and what have you. So what we’re doing—what we’re trying here at Home Nation a little bit in the new-construction space—so you’ve done modular in residential it sounds like but also a ton in commercial—it sounds like a lot of it. But what we wanna do in the residential space is what we call the Mod Pod, and it’s similar to those bathroom pods you’re talking about for the hospital or you know student housing or what have you.

Quinton Comino: But it’s kinda heart of the home where you’re gonna have the bathrooms in there—you’re gonna have the electrical panels landed there—you’re gonna have the plumbing for the kitchen on the one wall so that they can be added—the HVAC is in there—it’s like a 10-by-20 pod—dimensions can change—that will keep you at 10 feet or less—it’s easy to ship down the road. So that’s kind of an idea that we have—and we have a couple prints certified in various states. And we’re just foraying into that for the new-construction space. What do you think about that—and like as far as an efficiency standpoint when you’re working with these manufacturers—is that ever a thought that comes up of like hey guys—we could build just this bit right here and then it would be the same every time? Or you would reduce the amount of variation that you have on the production line because we’re building this similar design—what do you think about that idea and is ever any sort of approach you’ve taken?

Bobby Neil Jackson: So that has actually been something that I’ve thought for a long time as far as being able to create—so one of the goals of any environment is being able to create a product that can be used across multiple functions so that you have less friction to getting the ultimate product. And if I can build a repeatable product, then I can control inventory better—I can control labor better—so that I can ultimately reduce cost for the end user. And that is what I see the pod industry or Mod Pods even as a specific product being able to create.

Bobby Neil Jackson: I see that as a solution that helps the—I had a chance to really look at your plan-to-market to understand how you’re marketing that product. But in my mind when you’re able to reduce the friction of time-to-build—getting that certificate of occupancy—when you’re able to keep all of those functions or those industries out of that same small space at one time—because when you think about a bathroom you’ve got seven different trades in that bathroom that have to do what they need to do. And they’re in a space that’s 10-by-8, 10-by-14—it’s like how do you manage that? How do you coordinate that? You can’t do that efficiently.

Bobby Neil Jackson: So if you can build that in a way that you’re doing in an assembly line—you can provide that bathroom, that kitchen in a single shot where they don’t have to have that inventory on-site—they don’t have to try to coordinate their trades coming in and out—then that’s to me provides value. And so what I’ve thought about and thought through with a similar approach is—I noticed on your website you guys focus on attainable housing.

Quinton Comino: Yeah.

Bobby Neil Jackson: And—or accessible housing might have been the word I think that you used on your website. And you know—to attainable housing to me is housing that is not necessarily what we would call affordable housing, but for the—who is looking for a nice house that they can start their family in—they can be proud of—that has some nicer finishes in—things like that—but is still achievable for them from a cost—and you can do that I think with modular construction because you can provide a space that for now works for this person—but then over time maybe it can expand by creating modules that can be added on.

Bobby Neil Jackson: You can pre-engineer the product so then these modules can be added to it—as they grow they can buy another module and just add it on. So you reduce the friction to expand that square footage—you’re also then adding value, and it’s going to cost less than if they were to try to sell that house and then move and buy something else. So that in my mind is kinda where I can see that pod industry going and how it serves the market for attainable housing—because I can spend a little bit less and buy a smaller space now, but then I can expand that as I grow and as my family grows and as my ability to pay a higher cost goes up.

Bobby Neil Jackson: So that’s where I see the advantages to pod construction—but also modular construction in pod form.

Quinton Comino: Yeah. That’s good. Now great—that we—we’re very much focused on attainable housing. Some people would just refer to it as affordable housing—that’s not state housing—that’s here’s a—that I can make a monthly payment on. I can afford that—that’s what our big focus is. And so we’re very driven to provide a product that is going to cut the costs of construction in a dramatic way—which we really—we have something with that. We just haven’t really taken it to market in the way that we want to because there’s just a lot to do—just even just you know getting a facility up and running and getting certified for all of that and then getting plans certified—I mean it’s just a lot to do. And then marketing that product and selling that product and financing that product and then building the product—there’s just a lot to it.

Quinton Comino: But we are—we have to figure it out because that’s—we feel the future for Home Nation. The future is new construction—we’ve focused mobile homes because it’s a—that works and solves a lot of needs for customers. But we feel there’s a greater need with new construction single-family, and we’re trying to fulfill that with Mod Pod. And it’s—there’s a lot to explore in it, but we do think the value is there—we just have to find out how to bring that to the customer.

Bobby Neil Jackson: Yeah. There’s a value in construction. And what you were saying—it does. It takes a lot of resources, and that’s where I see a lot of the industry gets in trouble when you’re a new manufacturer. I believe a lot of the reason that they don’t make it—and a lot of new companies don’t make it in modular construction—is because they over-leverage themselves getting into the game because the barrier to entry is so high.

Quinton Comino: Yeah.

Bobby Neil Jackson: If you’re going to get in you’re just going to start a factory—so you’re gonna put in your jigs and you’re gonna put in your cranes and the different lifts—if you’re gonna do it that way you’re gonna end up getting way over-leveraged on the front end. So if you don’t start building right away and you have any hiccups—then you’re really getting behind and you’re not able to have the revenue coming in that’s going to then pay back that money and the hole just keeps growing and growing—the bottom falls out.

Bobby Neil Jackson: There’s this—you can do it at a certain point. So you know what I believe that the best approach is—is you go out and you find the project first—but you have the groundwork laid to go ahead and get the company up and going. I was a part of a startup in Greenville, South Carolina where the CEO of that company actually went out and got the deal before he ever had the building. And we were still able to get the building started and produce 316 units—modules—in thirteen months—even with not having anything. We went from zero to 316 modules, thirteen months.

Quinton Comino: It’s really good.

Bobby Neil Jackson: It was all done because they started with everything already kind of lined up. And so day one they were building it. I was the quality manager for—

Quinton Comino: That’s awesome. Well thank you—thank you Bobby. This has been—this has been great. You have a ton of insight and a lot of expertise—I can tell very detailed and confident in what you do. So because people bring you problems and you have to solve them—big problems, complex problems—so you’ve gotta be confident when you go into that. You have to be able to say yeah I can do this—no worries—I’ve just done this before. And I can see you have that confidence, and it’s backed by results.

Bobby Neil Jackson: It—it—

Quinton Comino: Really is. Because you’re starting to make a name for yourself—and rightly so. I can imagine that there are some big manufacturers that could use someone like you when they wanna expand into a market and say hey Bobby—tell us what we need to do—we wanna be in this state, in this area—and you could go and do that for them. They just need to get your number.

Bobby Neil Jackson: Yeah. Absolutely.

Quinton Comino: I know. Yep. If people are listening and they’re interested—because we have all sorts of different people listen to the show—we have builders, developers, investors, everyday customers—where would be the best place to reach you?

Bobby Neil Jackson: You can go to synergyworksconsulting.com—so you can reach me on my site. You can also reach me at LinkedIn—I’m fairly active on LinkedIn—Bobby Neil Jackson. Synergy Works also has a page on LinkedIn. But yeah—Bobby Neil Jackson on LinkedIn probably the best place to reach me, and I’m fairly—like I said active and responsive there. I’m also Synergy Works Co is on X—so you’ll see some material from me there as well.

Quinton Comino: Awesome. And you’re largely in the Midwest—you’re specifically in Ohio.

Bobby Neil Jackson: Correct. Yeah—specifically in southwest Ohio, but I have clients in New Mexico, Georgia, South Carolina, Michigan, Ohio—so yeah I’ve got clients across United States and you know I can do my solutions—I will help implement—I will go to those places, but a lot of what I do I build systems to allow me to do what I do effectively from a remote location.

Quinton Comino: Yeah. That’s awesome. Well thank you again Bobby Neil Jackson—Synergy Works Consulting—maybe soon to be Synergy Works Solutions—who knows? Appreciate your time today, man. Thank you.

Bobby Neil Jackson: Yeah. Absolutely. I appreciate it.

Quinton Comino: We’ll see you. Bye.