From Psychology to Mechanical Contracting: Wayne Enkallard's Journey to Business Mastery

Ever wondered how a journey from psychology student to a linchpin in the mechanical contracting world unfolds? Join us as we sit down with Wayne Enkallard, the New Orleans native who not only aided in his family business's post-Katrina resurgence but also carved a niche for himself by founding Enkallard Consultants. Wayne's narrative is one of adaptability, business acumen, and the relentless pursuit of growth, from steering local operations to advising international business strategies.

In today's episode, we unpack the secrets behind Wayne's mastery of time management and his approach to surmounting business challenges. He opens up about his methods for managing a diverse range of professional services, emphasizing the necessity of strategic scheduling and delegation. Discover how integrating AI tools and project management software simplifies Wayne's daily grind, enabling him to focus on vital decisions across various sales channels. His seasoned perspective is a treasure trove for anyone from budding entrepreneurs to seasoned C-suite executives.

Our conversation with Wayne rounds off with an honest look at the hurdles of directing multiple projects and teams, and he doesn't shy away from the financial and human resources intricacies involved in government and B2B contracting. Hear how Wayne keeps his business's core values intact while pushing the envelope with technological adoption. And for those looking to connect or dive deeper into Wayne's insights, find out just how accessible he and his company are through an array of online platforms, ready to inspire your next business move.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Hey everyone, welcome back to the growing Lean podcast sponsored by Lean Discovery Group, an award-winning software and app development firm based out of Virginia. This is your host, dylan Burke, also known as Deej. I'm happy to be here today with Wayne Enkallard, managing Memban, cfo of WJELLC Mechanical Contractors, principal and CEO at Enkallard Consultants and founder of Enkorp Ventures, and Wayne.

Speaker 2: 0:30

Hey, well, thank you for having me. I appreciate the time and you guys reaching out. I'm excited to be a part of the podcast.

Speaker 1: 0:38

Amazing. Yeah, thank you for your time today. So, to get us started, can you tell us a little bit about your history and background and how you ended up doing what you do today?

Speaker 2: 0:51

Sure, so I have a pretty interesting journey. You know, I come from two pretty old, pretty large families from New Orleans, louisiana, so two very old large Southeast Louisiana families. My father is a mechanical contractor by way of him being a plumber, and my grandfather was a tradesman and kind of taught my dad and his brothers my uncle goes how to do a handiwork and they kind of took that. And my grandfather was very entrepreneurial and taught skilled labor to my father and his brothers, and then my father and I. My father was a tradesman for a long time and by virtue of him going through his trade certifications, getting licensed through the state agency board, he got to the point where he had been doing it so long. He became a master plumber and at that point you're pretty much forced to incorporate as a business.

Speaker 2: 1:59

I was around 18, 19, and I was in undergrad, went to undergrad not for business, for psychology, which kind of is an interest and twist to the story. But I invested with my father and foreman WJELC and so he got that kind of out of the ground and he was leveraging his residential contracting experience from there. What? When I graduated from school I wind up coming back into the business because one of my older sisters had gotten ill with cancer and so, instead of me going into the workforce and pursuing my degree set in psychology, I came back home and it was primarily her primary caregiver, and so when I wasn't taking her to chemo, I wasn't going back and forth with her to the doctors, I would work in the business and doing very entry-level work, and she used to help out in the back office when she wasn't sick, kind of helping run doing an administrative task. Well, when she got too sick to do that, they moved me out of the field and started going into the office doing administrative work and really like prepping the books and you know, which I hadn't a real prior knowledge to. So it was, you know, drinking out of a hose pipe to a certain extent, and trial by fire, right, which I think is kind of a best experience or a best teacher's experience. Soon after that, she passed and I wound up going to business school at the University of New Orleans and getting my MBA in organizational behavior, international business.

Speaker 2: 3:47

Soon after and while I was getting my MBA, this was on the heels of Hurricane Katrina and so, with that being stated, the city had to rebuild itself. So there were plenty of opportunities and demand for residential. You know people needed homes to get back into, so you know they had more buildings that needed to be rebuilt than there were contractors to do the work. So work was plentiful Around that time 2008, 2009,. The Great Recession had hit us and the housing market went down. New Orleans was a bit isolated from that because of Katrina and the rebuilding efforts. By the time 2009, 2010 came, you know, we were everybody who had the money to rebuild their homes were in their homes and now it's time to rebuild the city's infrastructure and commercial buildings and government buildings. So we were one of the few firms that was able to transition successfully from residential contracting into full commercial and governmental contracting, and that's during the time when I was in business school. So I was critical in actually executing that growth and pivot into a very much larger and more regulated market. And that's really what started my career and what acted as the launchpad for me to move into my consulting firm, incalar Consultants, which we are growth consultants, and so it then. From there, the experience of doing growth consulting led me into venture capital, which led me to start Incorp Ventures, which I would consider myself an emerging fund manager. Right now we do small scale syndications, kind of deal by deals, as we find in companies that you know we are worth investing in and doing fundraisers for, and so with that it has been a very scaffolding career for me.

Speaker 2: 5:48

You know, when I got out of business school in May of 2012, that August I had started Incalar Consultants and I had first clients with some nonprofits that needed some work. And you know I was fresh out of business school, had a plethora of experience and construction right and in government contracting and back office administration and finance from doing a myriad of projects here in New Orleans. But really to hang my shingle in the professional service space was was different. I subsequently got connected with the US Department of State and I wound up doing consulting work for them and in two different countries, as a legislative fellow and as a professional fellow in Turkey and in India, and then prior to that I had done work throughout the European Union, from Brussels all the way to Spain, so I had quite a bit of international experience. We've done work in about seven different countries around the globe and so that took me to do technical assistance as a consultant for the Urban League of Louisiana, where I was a technical assistance and construction specialist for them for a number of years, and then that line of work took me into economic development where I became the director of Small Business Ecosystems, development and Growth for the City of New Orleans at the New Orleans Business Alliance. And so I was. I had a tenure there where I became certified in economic development, finance and in data analytics.

Speaker 2: 7:29

So I have seen business from the micro level, the individual, individual transactions level, all the way to the systems level where I developed systems and ecosystems to grow small business. And so at Incalard Consultants we consult in three different buckets. We consult in economic development, ecosystem development, workforce development, new cluster development. We also design and write business development curriculum for growth stage businesses, for accelerators, incubators, business development centers and universities.

Speaker 2: 8:04

And then we do direct business consulting for growth stage businesses, specialized in access capital, where we come in as fractional CFOs and then we help you access capital through improving your performance, your credit score, business planning, and then we help to shop and broker your deal and then, because I have relationships with lenders and the underwrite capital on both debt and equity, I can put you in front of lenders and investors to be able to get you the money that you need to help you scale and grow. So that's kind of what, the culmination of how I got started and in a position that I am. It then, in addition to all of that, I also am an adjunct professor at the University of New Orleans in the College of Business, in the Management Marketing Department, where I teach everything from entrepreneurship to human resource management, organizational design and behavior and business administration. I teach at Tulane University in their Masters of Public Administration program, where I build courses for the MPA program in economic development and I teach those courses. So I've built courses on social equity and economic development and urban transformation.

Speaker 1: 9:20

Okay, wow, that's quite the backstory. You got there. That's amazing, Wow. It's great to hear how the culmination of all your past experiences have led you to where you are today, and how do you manage your time doing running three businesses lecturing at schools. How do you do that? I'm curious.

Speaker 2: 9:45

So, yeah, yeah, a lot of people ask that On paper it sounds like a lot, but if you really think about it, I work from a knowledge-based perspective. I do the exact same thing, so I'm hyper-focused on really the exact same thing knowing how to leverage that knowledge at different scales, if you really think about what I'm saying. So if economic development, when it comes down to small business, on the systems level, is really no different because the same business principles being applied to a system versus being applied to an individual transaction inside of a business, which is still a system, I can tell you not all of these jobs happen concurrently, so they have pockets where, like right now, I'm developing two programs for two different universities, and then I also have my full-time retainer clients that I do CFO work with. That doesn't require 40 hours in each one of those buckets. It's a matter of fact, because it's professional services. They pay for a predetermined amount of hours per month, and so my calendar is extremely important. I use a combination of Google Calendar of Allen Lee, and you have to really be intentional about how you block out your time. So what's available, what's not available for people who want to get on my schedule, being very disciplined about the amount of time that you allocate out to people for activities like business development versus actual business work, where we're giving and selling information and strategy, versus blocking out time for all of the administrative tasks.

Speaker 2: 11:43

With WJE, I built that company to the point where I only have to be there to put out major fires and make major decisions. I have a back office team. I have an operations team. I employ 10 people in that company, from skilled labor all the way to office managers. They really just need me for signatures and, like I said, I'm the CFO, my father's the CEO, so we're both signatories. So I don't have to be there for every major decision. But if we make a large purchase, like equipment or machinery, or if we decide that we want to go into litigation, then obviously I'm going to determine the profitability and feasibility of those situations. If they're not ultimately make the decision on whether or not we pull the trigger on those things. That doesn't happen every day, all day Am I doing a capital expenditure? Maybe once every three, four years when it's time to renew and we want to sell off a piece of equipment or something to that effect? So when you build the company's right and you have the right people in place, it frees up your time, and that's where they demonstrate their worth as employees. If you can free up my time, for me to dedicate my time towards doing something that is more in line with what is my high value items or action items, if I'm spending my time doing administrative clerical, then at that point I'm an administrative clerical person that for me to do it is over value, and so for me it's being able to find people who are at that appropriate price point and skill level to do that work, so I can focus on the things that warrant the higher ticket items that I'm capable of delivering.

Speaker 2: 13:35

Also, ai use we use a lot of chat. Gpt and Supernormal is another AI generator. They're a startup. I met them through my VC friends. He had invested in them. They're a pretty dope AI platform. They can go into your Zoom, they can go into your other things, take notes, but they give really good recaps and they give a little bit further insight. Analytics it sounds like a cell phone plan. No, you got to buy minutes in order to use those.

Speaker 2: 14:15

Then because of construction is project management heavy and I taught a lot of project management when I was doing construction advisement at Urban League, just knowing how to manage processes and understanding the job costing components of it. So scheduling, contracts and contracting and really the financial implications of those activities really help because I use software. That project management software I use, like Asana CRM software, as like SOHOs time management software, like Toggle Track, to kind of really kind of keep track of everything that I have going on. Venture deals don't happen often. They happen when I have a deal that's worth dedicating the time to. So you know it's, but my day to day is really an Incalod. Consultants.

Speaker 1: 15:15

Okay, amazing. And what is your overall strategy for Incalod Consultants?

Speaker 2: 15:22

So we have, we have three different sales channels that we occupy. We have a direct to consumer right or direct to business right, working with growth stage businesses. Then we have more business to business, where accelerators, incubators, universities are contract out with us to, you know, either build programming for them or administer programming for them, and then we do the business to government, because most economic development agencies are inside a city government or paid through with city government. So it's really an approach of, obviously, anything that's B2C, you're going to have a faster throughput when it comes down to cash flow, right, I mean, they can make decisions a lot quicker than a purchasing department inside of a university or another business, or even on the government side. Right, those tend to be much longer lead times, but the check sizes tend to be much larger, right, so you know your average check size, you know.

Speaker 2: 16:27

But those are either competitive bids, right, where we, you know, are responding to RFPs and RFQs and negotiating, you know, hourly rates with the business to consumer, with the growth stage businesses.

Speaker 2: 16:43

You know, a lot of times they need the access to the capital, right, and so, because we're helping them access capital, we can, you know, either amortize the fees into the loan or the investment or you know, and make it more affordable that way. Or they can just pay the hourly rate, or we have some fixed packages that we sell that way. So really it's a combination of managing the amount of time that it takes to do projects the larger projects for the larger lump sums right, because those come in bigger tranches. You might get 25, $50,000 checks at a time or something like that, versus you know, two, three thousand, four thousand every month on retainer, with the number of clients right. So it's really just understanding how your money's coming in and coming out. But really we want to be able to service a multitude of growing businesses. Like I said, we're a growth consultant. If you want to grow your economy, if you want to grow your entrepreneurs or if you want to grow your business, we're a good place for you to come to.

Speaker 1: 17:51

Okay, amazing, thank you. And what have been the biggest challenges or obstacles that you faced in growing your business and how did you tackle them?

Speaker 2: 18:08

So each one of the little segments that we do business in comes with a sound set of challenges, right, if we're talking about the government contracting with the economic development organizations or we call them EDOs, or economic support organizations like business development centers, accelerators, incubators, we call those ESOs it really is going to be contingent on their funding cycle and or maybe even the political landscape. Most government agencies don't spend money like they used to during election years, right, because they don't know what the regime or who's going to be in office and things of that nature. So you kind of have to ride the tide of what that looks like until things settle up. And so really it's getting the timing together, because a lot of professional services it's like Fista Famin out here, right, like you do a heavy marketing campaign or you respond to a lot of RFPs and RFQs, which takes a long time to get bids awarded it. Then they all happen all at once. That's just how it is right.

Speaker 2: 19:21

It then the struggle of like, how do I manage four or five projects in tandem and manage different teams and get different things done, and once you get the cadence down, then the projects are pretty much over with it. Then, if you didn't kind of keep that sales cycle going. It's like, no, we got a low and not everybody went from being in. You know, we finally got the cadence right and not everybody's all set and then the work drops off right. So it's really the biggest challenge is consistency, right, and a lot of it is outside of your control, especially with government contracting and business to business contracting. So we try to just supplement with our small business retainer clients because it was a long, more long term right. So our customer acquisition costs tend to be a little bit better there, but the retention is harder because they fall victim to the broader economy and economic conditions. They're a lot less resilient than our big business and our government clients.

Speaker 1: 20:26

Yeah, 100%, 100%, and you seem like you're in a great place in terms of your business. So I want to know if we were to meet again in 12 months time and every possible thing that could have gone right has gone right for your business, what does it look like then? That's a great question. What has changed?

Speaker 2: 20:53

So in the last year, during this downturn, it was really for us because we've had a slow year in 2023. 2022 was good, but this year it's been rough. The first three quarters was really slow and I had to really take a hard look at myself and what I was doing. And so it made me think about, you know, because I didn't have all of the like. I had a lot of systems but they weren't cohesive enough. And then I thought about I made these systems kind of surrounding me, right, and it made me take a hard look at what does scale look like for me? I know what scale looks like for my clients because that's what I do all day, every day. What does scale look like for me?

Speaker 2: 21:46

And so I went in, I re-evaluated a lot of my back office systems and programs that we use to be more flexible, for the onboarding of more growth consultants here at IncalArc consultants and to really start to build out teams per each division, because the skill sets of someone who's going to grow a small business is very different than the skill sets of an economic developer.

Speaker 2: 22:16

It's very different than the skill sets of a curriculum developer, right? I just so happened to work in all three of those spaces with a deep knowledge, and so I can do all three of them. But I had to recognize that I'm a little bit of a unicorn in that sense, right, and so I'm probably not going to find many other people who have my depth and breadth of knowledge and capabilities, and if I do, they probably wouldn't want to come work for me. They'll probably just start their own business because they're extremely talented, right. So I had to develop systems that was flexible enough for me to build out each one of these teams, right. And so, if all things considered and going well, then I would have at least one or two other individuals per service segment, so one or two in economic development, in curriculum and program development and in growth stage businesses. Primarily, there will be finance professionals who really understand capital markets, okay.

Speaker 1: 23:34

Okay, amazing. And to get to that point, what does the business need to achieve? Does it need to achieve a certain amount of increase in revenue to justify the new hires?

Speaker 2: 23:48

Yeah, yeah, because I mean everybody who I would hire would be a salary position and on the business development segment we would be. Well, we sell interim executive services, so these have to be very experienced, very knowledgeable individuals. So we're looking at 100 plus thousand a year for each one of those individuals. So I'm looking at a probably annual average payroll around $600,000 by itself. So revenues will have to be spiking in the two and a half million range because with that we sell information, so we're not bound by geography.

Speaker 2: 24:28

I've got clients West Coast, east Coast, other countries, and so they have to be willing to be able to travel. A lot of folks want COVID made it more normal to be remote and do business remote, but there's still no substitute for shaking somebody's hand and being in their presence, and so obviously travel is going to be a large expense that we're going to have to cover for when we're putting proposals together and we're getting awarded jobs. So, being realistic about what that means and these are going to be seasoned professionals who really understand the depth of the work that needs to be done so it's going to have to be an increase in revenue because you have to support the systems and the individuals of that caliber, I don't think I would be able to employ anybody who didn't at least have a graduate level degree. Yeah, 100%.

Speaker 1: 25:43

I'm excited to see what the future holds. Hopefully I can check in in 12 months and you've reached this level and you're on your way, but I just looked at the time and we have gone quite a bit over. But before we end this, I wanted to ask you what advice would you like to give to other business owners looking to succeed in this ever-changing technological world?

Speaker 2: 26:18

As regards to the change in technology and the use cases of technology, I would say the basics in the beginning, when you set that mission and that vision of what it is that you're going to do business for.

Speaker 2: 26:33

But, more importantly than that, what are your core values and are you going to allow the ease of technology to cannibalize your core values and how you do business?

Speaker 2: 26:44

Right, you can get in the scope creep really easily, right, when you start chasing opportunities and not chasing purpose and mission. And so, as the climate changes, you have to always keep a very clear vision of what it is you're doing, because the vision is going to translate and it's going to keep people who work with you and for you engaged, because they have options on where they can spend their time, because they don't have to work for you, they can go work for someone else, and so they're making a conscious effort that they're going to dedicate their time towards building a larger vision that you have given them, because they want to see the change that your company can invoke in the world. So if you don't know what that is, then you'll be lost and it's very easily to get taken by the undercurrents of what's going on in technology, in business, in fall victim to trends Right. Sometimes, if you stick true to your core values, you got to go against the trend. Sometimes because you have to stand on the pillars that made your company what it is 100%.

Speaker 1: 28:06

I couldn't agree more on that and, yeah, thank you so much for your time today, wayne. What is the best way for people to reach out to Wayne and Inkelard if you've got any offers for them or if they're looking to follow your journey?

Speaker 2: 28:22

So we have we're on Instagram. Let me get that. Instagram is Inkelard E-N-C-A-L-A-R-D-E underscore consultants what an S. You can go to the website, www Inkelard E-N-C-A-L-A-R-D-E dot com. We are on LinkedIn. You can find us at Inkelard consultants on LinkedIn. Wje is also on LinkedIn and so is Incorp Ventures and also on Facebook. We have Facebook business pages for all of those businesses as well. So the easiest way to find us is if you just do keyword search in Google Inkelard consultants I'm pretty accessible. I'm pretty easy to find Profiles, all filled out phone numbers, emails. So we're pretty accessible in that way.

Speaker 1: 29:28

Amazing. Thank you so much, Wayne.

Speaker 2: 29:30

All right, thank you.