S3E2: Customer-obsessed leadership with Tungco's Cliff Nance

In today's episode, I’m joined by Cliff Nance.

Owner and CEO of Tungco Inc. Companies. Not only is Tungco Inc a global leader in the tungsten recycling industry. They have a world-class culture and are customer-obsessed.

It's no secret that Cliff likes to work hard and play hard. He even has his own gastropub, The Crowded House 🍻 And he plays the guitar and drums too!

In today’s episode we talk about:

👉 Creating a team culture
👉 Building competitors
👉 Mastering your craft
👉 Just saying yes
👉 Cybersecurity
👉 And more!

Listen to the full episode. Wherever you stream your podcasts.

Born Scrappy. Brought to you by Buddy.
The only marketplace and trade OS built for scrappies, by scrappies.

https://www.tradebuddy.io/
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WHO IS STU KAGAN ANYWAYS?

25 years in the metal recycling game and still learning and growing...

I learnt from the best and worked my way up from yard labourer to Executive Director of Trading and Operations for the largest metal recycler in sub-Saharan Africa. Responsible for 4,500 employees, 85 sites, and the overall profitability of a multi-billion dollar operation.

I brought my breadth and depth of knowledge to bear and co-founded the fastest growing, most-loved, and most awarded metal recycling company in New Zealand. No small feat in a country where people are outnumbered 4:1 by sheep (spoiler alert: sheep don’t produce much metal waste).

I thought it was time that tech worked for our industry, so I took all of my experience as an operator and trader and leveraged that to build THE killer scrap app, Buddy. That’s right - built for scrappies, by scrappies.

Father of two crazy-awesome boys. Husband to Lisa. Under 9 rugby coach. YPO member. Lifelong learner. Mentee. Mentor. Chief dog walker. Committed Stoic. Undefeated dance-off champion.

COME SAY HI ON LINKEDIN

https://www.linkedin.com/in/stukagan/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/born-scrappy/

Transcript

0:00

Hi, I'm Stu Kagan and welcome to Born Scrappy, the podcast for scrap metal exporters and traders. Join me in conversation with some of the most experienced traders and operators that have helped shape this incredible industry. In today's episode, I'm chatting to Cliff Nance. Cliff is the owner and CEO of Tungco Incorporated companies. This includes Tungco, Tungco Powder Procurement, Tungco GmbH, 74 alloys and more. Also, there's the crowded house, the gastro pub I have to visit. Cliff is an incredible leader and truly understands the importance of a team culture in the workplace. In today's episode, we talk about solutions for your customers, business like team sports, mastering your craft, cybersecurity, and so much more. Now let's jump into it with Cliff. But first, intro. You Hey Cliff, how are you? I'm well, how are you doing today? Yeah, having a fantastic morning, um, had a great Labor Day weekend, so, um, chomping at the bit to get going for this week, so Tuesday morning now, and uh, yeah, positive, how are you doing? Doing well, I've rested this weekend. Didn't party too hard. So, um, I'm ready to go as well. Based on your, some of your posts, partying seems to be a thing, right? There's a lot of music. There's a lot of restaurants and booze. Tell me a little bit about that. Well, I mean, we would say living, not party. Uh, we try to keep it, uh, to a minimum every once in a while, you know, you talk one on a little bit too hard, but yeah, I mean, it's, it's a, it's a As far as our culture goes, it's celebrating and celebrating, uh, the success, the wins, the loss, even the losses sometimes is, is good to share that. And we want to share that as a team. Not just individually. So you'll see a lot of people on our LinkedIn posts and other things, whether it's suppliers, customers, team members from the floor, from admin, from around the world, we just feel like, uh, celebrating is something that sometimes we really don't do enough of. So we work hard and we play hard. Yeah, absolutely. That comes across. Do you own a restaurant as well? I do. Yeah. And do you play a musical instrument? I do. I play guitar and drums. I thought I saw, I thought I saw a bit of that. It's funny how you get to know somebody, right? Yeah. On social media. Yeah. Yeah. So I, I have a gastro pub here in our small community at Madisonville. We try to bring a little bit of restaurant flair to a small community. We only have about 18, 000 people here and um So we bring a little bit of that gastro pub, uh, good wines good beer Uh bourbon, of course being in kentucky. We have about 70 bourbons at all times uh for you to pick from So yeah again party art Are we um, are you going to be in Louisville or scrap expo? You Uh, I do not know now our team is going to be there whether I'm going to make that or not I'm, not sure because that's butting up to Uh another show you may not be familiar with called imts Which is the machine tooling. Uh, that's a big, big show for us. Um, so we're, we're there like budding right up to that, to those two together. I was just thinking, cause it's Kentucky and there is a bourbon tasting as well. Uh, which made me think about that. I know. Cause I'm also speaking at, I think it's eight or eight 30 the morning after the bourbon tasting. So it's kind of how many people are going to rock up and if they do, it's kind of like Mayan. Vegas time when I was speaking on a panel there and everybody just said just come with sunglasses on Yeah, like if you're tired from the night before still come and listen. Yeah. Well, uh, I highly recommend Getting the IV treatment the day before And uh, it really does work. I've had it done a couple times Yeah, completely agree. I used to get a monthly in New Zealand, um, fill up with all the vitamins before any sort of event. And then I was traveling a lot back and forth. And then by the time I got back, I was fully depleted and hitting another round. But yeah, I don't know if that's what everybody came in to listen to, but, um, it started off fun. Yeah. Tell us Cliff, how did you get into the metal industry? Obviously we talk more tungsten, but how did you get into the metal and the recycling world? Yeah. So. Thompson was our primary focus for a long time, uh, and that was driven by being in the heart of the coal field. A lot of the tooling that is used in underground mining has Thompson carbide tips on it. So that's how we got there. Uh, but as our company grew, One of the things that we discovered was a lot of our supply chain had other metals that they really had trouble getting rid of. Maybe they were a higher value. So, like, for example, somebody might be very involved in copper, stainless, something of this nature. But because they were into commercial scraps, they would pick up high speed steel, tool steels. Uh, cobalt bearing materials that just kind of was in their supply chain, but it wasn't what their customers were buying. So they would need an outlet for that. So we just had a lot of our suppliers asking us questions like, Hey, can you take this stuff? Because we don't have an outlet for it. So trying to be supplier of such, we just started looking, taking, taking a little bit of risk because we're buying alloys that we really know nothing about. Um, and. Uh, for, for your listeners, if they've seen any of our 74 alloys videos, um, Adam Rubin, who is our president there, uh, we brought him on as kind of like our commercial scrap expert that to deal with a lot of these alloys that none of us, I mean, we knew they existed, but we didn't know anything about them. And that's, that's the short story about we, we got into the metals business outside of them. It's quite interesting. It reminds me of, um, the idea of when somebody asks if you can do something, you just say, yes, put your hand up and learn how that's what, that's what entrepreneurs do that you should be doing as a customer service person with a client. They're like, Oh, can you look after me? Absolutely. We can look after you quickly, go jump on YouTube and find out how we do it. But it should be yes. And then find out how. Yeah. Yeah. Nobody ever wants to hear no. Um, and it's not often that your suppliers or customers will say, Hey, I need help here. So when they do, we want to be supplier and customer obsessed and do whatever we can do to try to help out. Yeah. I love that customer obsessed. That that's awesome. Um, Cliff, can you run me through an experience you've had previously in a trade or a transaction that has been extremely difficult to manage and something it's kind of like Molded you or given you great lessons to work with in the future. Yeah. So one thing I would say right now, that's really critical for all of us, no matter what, uh, metals that you are in is, uh, fraud and especially when it revolves around cyber security. So over the last decade, we've worked really hard to try to increase that. And even with due diligence, it seems like every quarter to six months, we're having to update our policies. And, um, these criminals, uh, work really diligently to, uh, get around the various things that you've set in place. And even recently we had a, uh, customer oversee, their email was. And by that email being breached, they were sending financial information to the criminal thinking they were sending it to us. We were never receiving it. Um, then when they went to pay us for the material that they had already received, they didn't pay us, they paid the criminal. And then they called us and was like, hey, What are we supposed to do now? And we were like, well, we don't have money or our materials. So somehow we have to get compensated, you know, and, um, it didn't get nasty, but my chief legal officer had to get involved. And so I would say from a lesson that 10 years ago, I think scrap guy. If somebody would have said, Hey, you need to be aware of cybersecurity out of their mind, dude, we're a scrappy hard drive, come on. So I think that's something right now that whether you're a startup or a hundred year old company, I think, uh, there is a lot of risk there that we all need to be doing due diligence on that can, uh, I mean, it's a threat to your business, uh, very much. Yeah, absolutely. I remember if I go back, I think maybe it might be 10 years ago, maybe 12 years ago, the first time, um, we had changed our banking instruction. So we changed to a new bank. This was when we were in South Africa and we sent it out to our buyers. And I started getting phone calls confirming, and I remember going, why are you phoning me? I emailed you. I've told you my new bank, and they would read it back to me and confirm. And then it made so much sense at the time. It didn't, but now looking back and when I had my company in New Zealand, we wouldn't change any banking information list. It was a confirmation on a phone call that matched the email exactly. But even then, I've even heard that people can fake the phone calls now as well. So you have to really make sure there's got to be like. Three, if somebody changes banking details, you need to check in three different ways, right? You can confirm on WhatsApp, email, and a phone call. Yeah. Yeah. So the ability to do voice with AI now is, is that's adding another layer of threat in there, uh, that we have to watch out for. So yeah, you're correct. It really needs to be probably three verifications, um, to, to really change any banking information. And I think for anybody listening. That means that your team need to follow that. One thing, if you, as the owner know, Oh, well, I'm only going to, but sometimes your administrator gets an email and says, Hey, when you want to make payments, she has my new banking details. And they automatically go into the system and just update it. Yeah. You have to train your people that you can't just accept an email. Yeah. Yeah. And we're very fortunate in that, that based on our revenue size, we have a very small finance department. Um, so that, that keeps a lot of that close to the best. Okay. Yeah, yeah. That's great. And what about some tough decisions? I love some of your posts, I love all of them, but some of your posts talk about, um, learning from mistakes and, you know, that failure, you know, isn't the end and it's about getting back up. And, and I see a lot of that coming through in your social media, but there must've been when growing this business, it must've been some tough decisions that you've had to make over this time. Can you tell us anything like that or anything you've experienced in that way? Yeah, so I can give you a couple from, from the supply side of things. A big lesson that we learned several years ago was trying to, what is the balance between being a good customer to your supplier and also not growing a competitor? That's, that was like a really hard lesson that we had to learn because what happens over a period of time is if you're going to have a solid business, you're going to have solid relationships. I mean, relationships are one of our 10 truths. We really believe in that. But, but at some time, you know, sometimes decisions have to be made and a lot of times in business that revolve around, and we've had a couple of suppliers that like, frankly, we grew them into a competitive business. Uh, because we just got comfortable. Uh, they were a good supplier. They made our lives a little bit easier. They were always giving us quality scrap. But they weren't a generator. They were a middle person. And so we grew that middle person into a competitor. And trying to come back from that? It's pretty much impossible. You know, at that point, you're just going to war. And that's not fun. Like, nobody likes that. I mean, you're going against one of your 10 troops to be able to do that, or at least, at least we, um, so that was a big, that was a really big lesson learned that we try to be aware of, um, and keep, keep it arm's length. And it can be delicate, because when you got a supplier that really wants to grow, um, you know, sometimes you have to make some difficult decisions, but. When you're in it at the level that we are, it's, it's a balancing act and you have to be willing to take that risk sometime. Oh, I want to ask a question on that because a lot of metal recyclers have the same pain. So you might think of, um, a large, um, Metal recycler, who's supporting the other smaller metal recyclers, going out there and buying directly from source they're buying from the street down the road, um, and actually the bigger they grow and the more you support them, the more they can compete with you. And the next thing they're actually cutting you out and they're going directly to the mill or they're not exporting directly because they're doing enough volume and you might find it. We had this in South Africa. You sometimes actually are giving them cash as well up front. So you're helping them. You're bankrolling them. You're saying, here's money, go buy it and supply it to me. And you grow them and you grow them and you grow them until they leave the nest and now are buying against you. How do you now manage that? Because it's not an easy situation to manage. Yeah. So the way we looked at that and what we call advances, giving them money. Uh, ahead of receiving the material, like some people who aren't in the scrap industry that may come across this will be like, why would you do that? But that's just kind of how the industry works. No matter if you're in tungsten, copper, stainless, wherever you find yourself. And, uh, a lot of these mid level smaller are sometimes strapped for cash. And some of this material is expensive. So we do that as a way to, to keep the supply chain moving. Um, one of the things that we look out for is what our customers. So our customers have a minimum that they need. So one of the ways that we look at that is we are not going to grow a supplier past those minimums. Yeah, we'll finance you up to that minimum, but past that, if you can make it work on your own, that's fine, but I'm not going to bankroll you into being a competitor, which is exactly what we did with a few people, let's say 10 years ago. And again, it's not, you know, the person in procurement who was responsible for handling that account was not really happy or our internal person. Yeah. And I said, well, look, I'm not happy that they're selling to my customer. And so there, there's gotta be some middle ground here. And, you know, I'm not telling them they can't grow their company. What I'm telling them is that they can't use my money to grow their company and then compete against like, I will help you grow your company, but not to compete against like, and one of my favorite shows in high school was Scarface. I don't know if you've ever seen that. Yeah, that's great. And uh, one of the famous scenes at the end is when, whenever the Colombian guy that he was dealing with, he was like, Hey Tony, I told you don't ever F me. Just don't ever F me. And that's what he did and he got himself killed. And I mean, that's kind of the way we feel about it. Like, if we have a partnership, have a relationship, that's fine, but don't ever F me. You know, like. Yeah, yeah. That's just I mean, we, we try not to do that. Um, and even like, with our customers, if I have something that I feel like is even close. Going to be in cross purposes, but what what they're doing. I go to them 1st, and I'm just like, hey, look, this is what we're looking at. We want to make sure that that's not getting sideways with you guys. Um, I just feel like that's my responsibility to that relationship. Not every entrepreneur or owner feels that way, uh, especially in a capitalistic society, but, uh, that's, that's how we feel and that that's how we try to operate. Yeah. Yeah. Transparency. Absolutely. Key. Um, sorry, I jumped in though, and you were telling us some, some decisions you've had to make and, uh, and what you've learned through them. Yeah. So the other one, the other example I would say is from a sales perspective, is pushing for better contracts, um, so that you don't just operate your sales from a wild, wild west perspective. Um, we've been burned several times by customers and it doesn't feel good. And a lot of times when you're getting burned, it's because the market is thinking. Um, so what you're left with is you had primary customers cancel orders on you and then you're left holding the bag in a market where nothing's moving. Um, that's not good practice on their part and we told them that. Um, so what we try to do is reach an agreement. We're a big tungsten volume mover. Now, the volumes that I moved compared to what's moved in stainless and copper, it's like nothing. Um, but from a tungsten world, we're, we're a pretty, pretty large number. And so we've said, Hey, look, if you want so much, you're Let's get on a hard agreement on some of it. It doesn't have to be everything, but we can't treat everything just like it's spot. We can't, we can't do that. That puts too much risk for us. Um, so that's probably a little bit more common in some of the other metals. Um, but for our world, because it is so niche, If that's not really been a practice. So we've tried to break the ceiling on that just a little bit and say, Hey, give us a little bit of security. When I have a hundred percent, we'll take some risks as well, but I'll give us a little bit. What do you do though? Because your industry is smaller than what we're used to. Maybe on the stainless and the copper side, there will be less buyers out there, less reputable and buyers out there. If somebody does mess you around because the market crashes, Tell them you're upset and tell them this doesn't work. You're out of pocket. Um, you then plan to do agreements better in the future, but do you still supply them going forward? Because you may be restricted. Uh, well, that's a good question. Um, it's kind of like a marriage. I mean, you can divorce, um, but you're not going to have anything after it's all over. So. Um, it feels good for a second, maybe, but, um, you're talking about in the tungsten world when we're talking global perspective outside of China, major processors, less than six. Yeah, it makes things hard. Definitely, definitely no more than eight. And, um, so, you know, there has to be a lot of trust in there. Um, and I would also say one of the things that we try to do is because of that is be flexible and agile. Um, so that means you have to be whatever you're, you have to be very aware of what your inventory risk is. Um, and ensure that you're not taking more than what you can carry if all of a sudden they have to cut that out. Um, and we understand from a customer perspective that sometimes they do. Um, But that's a, that's a risk that we just have to manage permanently. Everything can't be on their shoulders. You know, some of it we have to own as well. Yeah, it is common in the other markets as well. Um, in the other metals, however, we have the ability to stop supplying a certain buyer if that's how they perform. But in 2008, you know, most of the market performed in that way with the markets crashing. Um, but a year later, we kind of all ended up going back to them. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And you know, again, going back to relationships, it's for us, it's just, we're kind of all in our niche side of things, we're kind of all up against the same wall. And, um, historically, so I'm not for sure if you're familiar with the new 301 tariffs that are coming. Um, but historically, uh, China has been able to put a lot of pressure. on tungsten in general. So whether you were in a virgin ore situation or what we would call an intermediate or even a finished powder or a finished product They've been able to really kind of move that wherever they felt like it best for them Um, these 301 tariffs are basically putting uh, I think it's don't quote me on this because i'm not the expert in my company On it, but I think it's around a 25 percent tax on pretty much everything Except round tools, uh, coming into the United States. So that really does help, uh, like who would be our customers that we would call the consumers. Because the Chinese have had a lot of tools in their bag that they could pull from to make it really difficult for US or let's just say Western world consumers to be able to produce a powder or a tool that is, is definitely competitive in terms of performance, but competitive In terms of growth. Okay. And what about collaboration? Like, how have you relied on collaboration to help you make better decisions or to build the business that you have today? Internal or external. Whichever you prefer. Collaboration to me is such an important word. It means working together, choosing a partner. Um, so whether it's internal or external, how have you collaborated over the years? Yeah. So internally. We use the example of a team for our internal business, and there is no room for siloing for us. Um, now when I say siloing us, I'm using that in a negative perspective because I do think having specialists is important, but your specialist when you're out doing your thing and there's a time when your thing is gonna run sideways with what the mission that I've got right here is. based on what the market's doing. And when you, when that happens, I need you to work like a team player. If all of a sudden you duck and cover, and it's just like, Hey, CYA, I'm covering my own ass and that's all I'm worried about. That's, that's not. Um, so that's where we kind of come in a war room and we're like, okay, we're not leaving until we get this answered because it doesn't take very long for those seeds of frustration to start sprouting. And then you're like, what's, what's going on, like, what's this internal tension that I feel. So that's a, that's an example of how we do that internally. Yeah. The, um, the specialization is vital, right? You can't expect the guys that are on the road to doing the same thing as they're doing that as the guys in the yard are doing. So it's like a sports team. Your quarterback's got a different role to the wide receiver, but they're on the same team and they have to be. Yeah. Everybody has to be going in the same direction. So when something goes wrong for the team, everybody needs to get together and want the same outcome. It's exactly what you say. You can't have a player who goes, oh, well, that's not my role. I'm not really interested because i'm doing my role really well. We might lose every game if you have that attitude, but you might think you're the superstar. That doesn't help the team. You need the team that worries about winning and themselves second. Yeah, so one of our themes is, uh, building a champion's culture. You And our guys are tired of me playing that, uh, one about the Chicago Bulls from Netflix. I think it's called the last dance. I play that all the time, like clips from that over and over and over again, just because, you know, the extremes that that covers from, you know, the early eighties, mid eighties, all the way through 1998, it just. They pretty much saw every challenge that you could see, both internal and external. And lo and behold, the thing that blew the whole thing up was engine oil. It wasn't even external force, right? Uh, one of the guys that we follow a lot, you should check him out sometime. His name is Ranjay Gulati. He's a chaired professor at Harvard. He has a book out called Deep Purpose, and he's, he's come to a couple of our stakeholder meetings and been our keynote speaker. But one of the things that he says, and I don't know if it's original, but, um, he says that companies are suicidal, not homicidal. And he gives example after example, like the Netflix Blockbuster deal. Um, he just goes through that and he's like, Netflix did not kill Blockbuster. They shot themselves. Like, yeah, they were so convinced that late fees were Going to be forever. They couldn't even see that videos, videotape was not even going to be around less than 10 years. Um, so that's one of the things that we try to watch out for is, you know, a lot of people are like worried about their competitors. I'm not worried about my competitors as much as I'm worried about me shooting myself in the foot, not because my competitors aren't a threat. I mean, they, they are, but it's more likely that I'm going to do something stupid. Then, and shoot myself in the foot and they're going to pull up and then they're going to be all right. So that's, that's a big, that's a big threat that we, we're constantly on the lookout for. I mean, I could speak to this for days. This is one of my favorite topics, right? It's the internal issues that sync businesses. Absolutely. You can worry about your competitors all you want, but they're not going to be what beats you. You're going to lose. And, um, There's a great saying, which is, um, what, what sinks ships isn't the water on the outside. It's the water that gets in the ship that sinks the ship. Um, and that's a great way of looking at it, right? It's all these people around you fighting against you, but it's actually going to be your team on the boat with you. Yeah. That's going to take you down or take you to the finish line. Yeah. A hundred percent. Um, I love that. It's a great, great illustration. Um. Let's talk a little bit more about, um, trading strategies. We've gone into it a little bit, but how, if you could recommend to listeners, well, some ideas, if you can give them some tips on how to optimize their trading strategy, what would, what would it be? Well, I'll go to one of my heroes, Warren Buffett. He says that there is no risk when you know what you're doing. Very good. And I think a lot of times we are not masters. At our craft, I think we know a little bit, but we haven't really mastered it. And so that brings in a ton of risk because we don't really know. We think we know and that's even worse if you some people are like, you know, I don't really know and they're okay saying that other people don't really know and they're not okay saying that they think they're Buffett and every everybody else in the room knows they're not buffet except themselves Um, so what we try to do, man, is really just look at what is influencing the price. What is influencing the volume? What is influencing our customers? Like when they miss forecast, why did they miss forecast? Like what were they looking at that made them feel like we were going to have a soft landing and didn't? Uh, you know, were we just watching CNBC for all of our stuff or were we like taking some initiative and really digging down into it? Not that the information that they're giving is not real or that it's fake news or any of that. But, but those people are on those channels because they're an expert. How much time are we spending? To really dive in and see what is generating that so that we can like if I don't realize it until it's on the news I'm probably late. I'm late. It's already like I want to know before it becomes a headline Um, so that's kind of one of the ways that we're pushing that. I mean warren munger He's not with us anymore. But those guys read at least six hours a day and You You know, to, to get mastery, it takes about, it takes about five years really to achieve mastery full time, five years to achieve mastery on something. And so, mastery again, that's another one of our ten truths. And, uh, actually this next year we're going to start introduce, introducing, uh, measurement tools. Uh, based on time and testing that says, Hey, have you achieved mastery? And when you do, you get like a, like a new stripe on your uniform. Um, and, um, and even, even a raise, uh, for that, uh, just, just to kind of create not only, uh, internal desire, but monetary desire to be like, Hey, it, it pays us. We need to pay you for that. We really want to get everybody up to that mastery level in their, in their craft. So you're looking at incentivizing it as well. That's fantastic. Yeah. I like the saying, um, if you think, you know, everything, you can learn nothing. That's right. Right. And that's exactly what you're saying. I mean, it's just, you go into a meeting knowing all the answers. You're absolutely wasting your time. You have to be. You have to be willing to learn. You have to be willing to listen. You have to be vulnerable as well and be willing to say, I don't know the answer. Let's try and get there together. Um, it's, it's exactly what you say. If you think, you know, everything, well, you know, you can do nothing. So for the, um, for the suppliers out there, How do you recommend they deal with finding a new buyer? I realize you're saying there's six to eight big buyers in your industry, but you would've gone through the process of trying to find the right buyers for you. And, um, how do you then become a preferred supplier or receive preferential pricing? Ooh, might be getting into my trade secrets now. Um. I mean, currently recycling is like the sexiest thing. Unfortunately, we're not getting any funding for it from the governments yet. Um, and I don't know that we will. That's another thing that's on my hit list that maybe we can add to the Q& A before we're finished. Um, but for us, I would say that it goes back to being customer obsessed. Trying to figure out, I mean, we're all in scrap. So what's the difference in my scrap and your scrap and the other guy's scrap, the other lady's scrap? I mean, it's scrap. So one of the things that we try to do to get into that preferred supplier is really figure out solutions for the customer that says, Oh, okay, maybe they have thought about that way. It could be a material handling issue. Uh, it could be a inventory issue. Maybe they're a little tight on cash and I can provide consignment for that. So, it, it really revolves less around the scrap itself because Six four is six four. I mean, I can't really do much to it. You know, if it's good scrap, good scrap But what I can do is I can change the service that i'm providing, you know to that customer and we feel like that Helps lay the foundation. It's not fast. I mean, you're not just going to do one thing And the customer will be like, oh, well, let's make tungco preferred supplier. We have to prove ourselves um You know, over years that we're going to do what we say we're going to do and think creatively and out of the box and help them find a solution. So I would, that would be my best advice outside of getting into some of my real deep secrets. I'd like to, uh, yeah, I'd have to kill you if I tell you everything. You'd have to kill everybody that listens. Everybody. So, yeah, I hear you. It's not just about the metal and a lot of people consider just the metal. I need to make a cleaner grade or I need to, which obviously is important, but there are ways to look outside that. And, you know, what else can you supply? What else can you offer? Whether it's payment terms or whatever it might be. Um, yeah, it's a good way, a good way to look at it and a good way to build that relationship. And then be considered a preferential customer supply. Yeah. And another thing to add to that is also in the difficult times, like we touched on that a little bit, like, you know, are you going to be the guy that in difficult times just throws a fit because you're not, you're not getting paid or they had to cancel an order. I mean. You know, most of the times, none of these major, none of these major customers or consumers are doing this just because they woke up one day and they're like, hey, we don't like Tunco. We're just going to cancel their orders. Like that doesn't happen. So that whoever had to make that phone call was not happy that they had to make that phone call. So that's one of the moments where you can be like, okay, how can we, how can we find a winnable solution for us both? Um, that's another good opportunity, I think, to do that. Yeah. Yeah. Also, if you just recognize that it's not the person on the phone who's made that decision necessarily, immediately that helps you deal with it better. Yeah. Yeah. It came from the top. Yeah. Now, I wanted to ask you questions about how you've seen the landscape evolve and the recycling world change in the time since you got started, but you also touched on something that you said, maybe what we need to try and get is funding. Did you want to speak a bit more about that as well? Yeah, I can, I can kind of tie those two together, I think. Um, so one, What has really changed for us now, I cannot speak for guys in the stainless and the copper and just the straight steel industry, but what we have seen is a drastic improvement in tungsten performance. And what that has done is that has created less available scrap out on the market. So even in like, so when we say performance, we're not only talking about the ability for the finished part to perform, but in manufacturing of the part. So a lot of scrap is made when a part is manufactured. They have drastically reduced how much scrap is being made, which is good. I mean, it's, it's, it's the right way to do things. But if you're in scrap, it makes it a little bit more challenging. It's So, um, that has probably been the biggest change that we've seen on that. Not a lot of technology has dropped to increase, um, the recycling efficiency because tungsten itself, the way it's recycled, they're pretty much capturing everything. I mean, the loss is in the single They're not really losing a lot if it makes it into the smelter. But then I think one of the frustrating things on my part in terms of government initiatives, uh, our friend Jennifer Betts, um, she and I have been studying something out that there's, so in the metals world, it's not considered waste, right? We're considered recycling for government. Well, because we have a mature market and the technology is proven, there's not a lot of money out there. We're trying to improve that because it's been mature. I mean, in the steel industry, you're talking about probably a hundred years, getting close to that. So the, that is frustrating because there is technology that I think, uh, especially green technology that could increase how we are processing it, but there could also be funding there to increase how the materials are being, uh, consolidate. So, for example, in the waste industry, they may focus on a recycling program like paper, plastics, even aluminum, because so much of our household items are in that arena. But a lot of these municipalities and cities who run recycling programs, they don't, they don't pick everything. They're not doing everything. They may pick plastic, they may pick aluminum cans, they may pick cardboard, but then everything else just goes to landfill. Thank you. So we still have primary recyclable metal that are making it to the landfill, but a lot of people, because they see these recycling bins in airports, feel like we've got it all figured out. And sometimes all of that shit's going to the same place. If we segregate it when we put it in the bins, and then it goes through the waste industry, and it just depends on what they want to do with it. And there's millions of dollars right now available. I mean, five minute Google search, you'll see how many millions of dollars are available by state and for the federal in the waste industry. And you have to hunt for it on the recycling side. And one other thing I would say, they could at least You don't want to give us money, that's fine. But you could at least give us some level of carbon credit for what we're doing. I mean, we've been recycling before recycling was sexy. So, we've been doing our bit, so why not at least give us credit for it? That's the frustrating thing for me. Um, yeah. Yeah, it's um, Yeah, it's all around the world. I mean, Europe's having a huge fight at the moment, um, to manage their situation that they're in and, um, America, yeah, there's, there's issues everywhere at the moment and we just don't get the credit for what we do. And that's why more people to speak up and your new podcast, which will come out soon will hopefully also, um, shine a light on what we do in the industry. Um, and the more we, we mention it and the more we speak up, hopefully the more it'll get seen, I think that's really the objective out there. Cliff, who is, um, who do you keep an eye on? Who's pushing the boundaries in our industry? Who's doing things a bit differently? Um, you know, and, and I guess also who would you like to hear next on Born Scrappy? Hmm. That's a good question. Um, so full disclosure, I don't really follow a lot of people in our industry. Um, not because I don't think people in our industry are relevant. Um, it's, um, just because. I'm in it every day, all day. So like when I have time to put new data in between these years, like I'm all in podcast is one of my favorite podcasts. I'm going to their, uh, all in summit in LA. I actually leave Friday for that. Super stoked to be a part of that. Um, so yeah, I'm, I'm kind of outside of, of the scrap industry. Um, when, um, outside of your podcast. That's podcast and, um, Brett or John Brett. Yeah. He's going to kill me for forgetting his name. Like I just went completely blank. Um, so I do listen to their podcast. Yeah. Yeah, cool. Okay, so they've already been on the show. So nobody knew on Bourne Scrappy. I'll go find it myself. Thanks for nothing, Cliff. Well, uh, you could get Buffett on. I'd like to see Buffett on. Maybe if you could just make that intro. Hey, I'll work on it. He does own a tungsten company, Bob. Okay. So you guys are basically like brothers. I'll see. I'll see if we can send the G4 to get you. Yeah. Thanks. Um, okay, mate, before we go, cliff, I just want to end with, so people can get to know you a little bit better. Quick questions, favorite TV series or movie scar face. Good one. Favorite place to visit Spain. Um, uh, every good endeavor, Tim Keller. Okay. I haven't read it. What's it about? Um, it's kind of about taking your workplace calling to the next level. Like seeing it, not just as a place where we come in and clock in and clock out. Um, but seeing it more as a calling, if you will. Um, and how we, how we work with those around us. Cool. Um, lastly, have you got a favorite quote? Hmm. Probably not. I thought there's one in the wall behind you. Yeah, well, that's our mission, but I would say if you, if you made me pick one out, it would be Buffett. And it would be that rule number one is don't lose money. Rule number two, don't forget rule number one. Awesome. Cliff, on that note, um, thanks so much for being a part of Born Scrappy. This has been lots of fun, man. Hey, thanks for having me. It was an honor to be here. Appreciate it. Yeah. Cheers. Cheers.