Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Blayde Becksted. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Blayde, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.

Our business is different from the industry because we provide an option for sand and gravel placement with our stone slinger trucks. This truck i equipped with a 2 speed conveyor belt, remote control, a 24cy gravel box and the best part is that you can drive the truck with the remote control on the jobsites.

The construction industry has been struggling with a labor shortage and that is where a company like Blayde Corporation can really help you! We reduce your labor costs by 40% when using our stone slinger trucks to haul and place your sand, gravel, pea gravel, decorative rock, road base, compost, topsoil and wood chips.

Our stone slingers can place up to 300 tons per hour with a single operator! Now that’s what we call savings!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Blayde Corporation started as a stone slinger & sand and gravel company in January 2016 after the owner finished college and worked in the industry for 6 years in another state. Given the quickly growing housing market, commercial, industrial, and oil field, markets, and diversity of opportunities across industries in Colorado, Blayde thought it would be beneficial to start a stone slinger business in Colorado.

Blayde Becksted chose to establish Blayde Corporation in Fort Collins, Colorado-his home town. He attended Poudre High School and played football, where he then went on to play at Montana State University. He was able to scale and diversify the business over seven years to employ 14 individuals whose jobs range from office staff to drivers and an excavation crew. The fleet includes eight trucks consisting of five super dump trucks, four stone slingers, and four pieces of heavy equipment.

For those unfamiliar, a stone slinger is a truck that can haul and place sand/gravel/topsoil, via a conveyor system, by shooting the material up to 90 feet. Using this system, these trucks can quickly access and unload material into hard-to-reach areas, often inaccessible to other heavy equipment. They also eliminate steps in the construction process by being able to place the hauled material directly into its final location as opposed to dumping it in a pile and moving it with other equipment or manpower, thus reducing time and labor.

Currently, Blayde Corporation is active across many construction industries. They began most of their business hauling and placing material for residential buildings working for both custom home builders and large national builders. As they grew, they entered the industrial construction industry where they completed jobs ranging from oilfield and pipeline work to land reclamation, municipal jobs, gas station and tank installation, landscaping and playground work, to wind/solar farms and road construction. The majority of jobs are on the Front Range of Colorado and Wyoming but the company has completed several jobs in South Dakota, Nebraska, Idaho, Utah, Texas, Louisiana, and New Mexico.

Since the beginning Blayde has worked tirelessly to start, maintain, and expand the business performing all roles within the business. Through continuous growth, he has been able to remove himself from most of the roles by replacing himself with staff. His current roles and responsibilities are that of a personnel manager helping to facilitate training new employees and coach existing employees through problems as they arise, performing financial analysis to make the best decisions to help the company grow, seeking new opportunities within existing markets, and working to develop relationships with new companies for continued growth. If the need arises, he can step in to support employees where needed.

Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?

When your in a niche business like we are, sometimes people don’t see the benefit, until the job is complete and the invoice is sent. Here is a story that is often shared in our weekly meetings, as we continue to market our services to new customers.

In the beginning, we only had one truck, and so often times a customer may view this as inadequate to handle such a large job. I pulled up to a jobsite in my car to make a sale to a customer who was placing rock with a skid -steer. This was for a large commercial slab and the customer was driving 5 skid-steers all the way to the stockpile and then all the way back to the building and then spreading the rock. I immediately saw opportunity for my stone slinger. As I finally found the project manager, I told him about our stone slinger truck and how it could be beneficial to him. I showed him some videos and pictures of previous jobs wed completed.

At the end of the conversation I asked him if he thought our stone slinger would be beneficial? He replied, naah kid, this is how we’ve always done it and works just fine. Then I asked him a bold question-What If I can place this material faster than all 5 of your skid steers and save you 5 days on your build schedule? He then said, go get your truck and prove it! If you can beat the skid steers, Ill pay you for you time.

So, naturally, I came back 2 hours later with our stone slinger, I proceeded to place the rock 10x faster than the skid steers and in 1 day, I was finished with this under slab rock project! Since then, this customer has used us for placing his rock and refuses to use a skid steer. This is how our company revolutionized the material placement industry in Colorado and the surrounding states.

Any advice for managing a team?

The true story is that business is difficult, and managing employees is even more difficult at times. As a manager or a business owner, you have to show your team unconditional compassion and love to everyone because ultimately, they are out there working for you. Every day waking up at 4am or earlier, just to get into that truck or to be at that jobsite by 6am. Showing your employees gratitude and appreciation every day, is what matters the most. As new team members join us, we welcome them with open arms as if they are part of our family. I don’t just care about the employee showing up to work and doing a good job for the team. I care about the personal life of that employee and ask about their family, future goals and home life.

This is the potion I often use to keep their motivation and moral at the highest possible. And in turn, their moral spreads to the jobsites and customers that we help on a daily basis.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.blaydecorp.com
• Instagram: blayde_slingers
• Facebook: Blayde Corporation
• Youtube: Blayde Corporation