This week on the podcast, we sit down with Chris Cockrell, owner of Cockrell Contracting, LLC, to hear how a Mobile, Alabama native went from studying civil engineering at Auburn to finding his passion in construction through insurance restoration work.

Chris shares lessons from early mentors, why fighting insurance estimates pushed him toward home building, and what he believes new entrepreneurs need most—bulletproof contracts and a strong team (including bankers and attorneys) before problems arise.

He also talks about the importance of disconnecting from work to prioritize family, how he unwinds outdoors hunting and fishing, and gives quick favorites in a rapid-fire round. Chris closes with practical advice for would-be custom home clients: start by finding a plan online and send it in for a free proposal.

Sponsored by Blue Fish.

Transcript:

Chris: Alright. My name's Chris Cockrell. I'm owner of Cockrell Contracting, LLC.

Marcus: Awesome, man. Well, Chris, you and I have known each other for a couple of years now, but yeah, it's really good to have you on the podcast.

Chris: I appreciate it. Yeah, we're glad to be here.

Marcus: Yeah, absolutely. I'm glad you were able to. Peel yourself away.

Marcus: I Did you have something going on this morning? I saw something this morning where you were dealing with some concrete or something like that

Chris: yesterday. We're dealing with a little, yeah. I had a friend come pour some concrete. Really Just shooting. Yeah. You know what I mean? Giving him a hard time.

Marcus: Yeah.

Marcus: Yeah. Okay. I was, I wasn't sure about that,

but

Chris: there you go.

Marcus: Well, to start out, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself. Um, where are you from? Where did you go to high school? Yeah. College. Are you married? I know the answer is to all these, but they don't, so

Chris: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Um, from Mobile, Alabama, um, born and raised.

Chris: Um. All over Baldwin County Mobile my whole life, basically. Um, went to Mobil Christian for high school. Um, graduated high school out there. Went to Auburn for two years for college. Um, did a lot more playing probably than, you know what I mean, studying, and, uh, you know, came back to mobile, did a few odd and end jobs, and decided we were really interested in the home building world and, uh.

Chris: I mean, construction world in general. So that's kind of,

Marcus: did you, so what did you go to Auburn for?

Chris: Engineering.

Marcus: Engineering.

Chris: Civil engineering is what we, that was the anticipation.

Marcus: Okay. And that was what you were kind of thinking you were gonna

Chris: go into? Yep. Yep.

Marcus: And, um, you're married?

Chris: Yep. Married. Have a two kids, 1-year-old and an eight year.

Chris: Um, both awesome kids. Nice. Super blessed. Super blessed.

Marcus: Look at Awesome

Chris: too. Just, just a little bit. Just a little bit.

Marcus: Yeah, I hear that. Um, so no, that's cool. So did you have any construction experience before? Was it just

Chris: So when we got out of college, um, I came home and like I said, worked some odd and end jobs.

Chris: One of those was Aus. Um, and it was great, you know, for the first few months, but it was one of those places if you weren't really. In with all the good old boys, you know what I mean? There was no room for moving up, in my opinion. Um, it's a difficult, difficult in mind. Yeah. It's diff Exactly, exactly. Um, and it just wasn't where I was headed, I don't think.

Chris: Yeah. Um, great experience wouldn't take it back, you know what I mean? Part of the story. Um, but we, uh, we left over there and went and worked for a general contractor for four years. Um, Kay Burger Construction, doing insurance restorations. That kind of deal, you know what I mean? Um, small restore projects basically.

Chris: Yeah. But still

Marcus: giving

Chris: you a of knowledge dry. Yeah. It gave me a ton of knowledge. So we did everything from lifting houses to, you know what I mean, pulling down to studs and starting over. Brand new from flood jobs and that kind of deal. And, uh, that's, that's basically where I found my love for the trade.

Chris: I've always been one of these hands-on type guys. Um, you know. Yeah. I like to take things apart and put 'em back together as a kid and that kind of deal. So I, I guess it just kinda followed. I haven't been outta that as I got older. Exactly, exactly. I'm the same way.

Marcus: Yeah.

Chris: So, uh, just it, it fell in, fell in my lap and it was something I really enjoyed and wanted to chase.

Chris: So,

Marcus: no, that's cool because I, you know, I wasn't sure, you know, uh, I. Have some experience similar to you in, in that. Yeah. But you know, I obviously didn't choose home building, so Yeah. You know, I was just curious as to what made you go down that path.

Chris: Yep. Well, that, that is what got us there. Like I

Marcus: said, so you and I, when we first met, we had this discussion about Yeah.

Marcus: The Cockrell name and That's right. I know, I believe your uncle,

Chris: uh, grandfather had all of the, uh, Cockrell body shops here in Mobile. So we had a good mentor along the way. I didn't have my father growing up, so I had my grandfather in the place of him. Yeah. And he really, you know what I mean?

Marcus: Yeah. He's a

Chris: good man.

Chris: Push good, good businessman. And

Marcus: yeah.

Chris: You know, watching him made me grow up wanting to be a business owner, you know, and

Marcus: yeah,

Chris: it is just kind of cool to watch it play out, I guess.

Marcus: Yeah, that's, that's really cool that he was a influence on your life in that way. That's right. That's right. I've known him for, and I haven't spoken to him for years, but, you know, knew him for.

Marcus: Since probably 2005 or so.

Chris: Yep.

Marcus: And so always spoke highly of him,

Chris: but Yep, yep, yep. And he's got a great name in the community, so a good legacy for me to follow up

Marcus: on. Yeah. Better not better. Not let him down.

Chris: That's right. That's right.

Marcus: Well go back to your first job. And are there any lessons that you still remember from that?

Chris: Oh, absolutely. We had, um, some mentors, some of the best mentors in my opinion, um, with that first company that worked with K Burger Construction. Um, I mentioned a few Harvey and another guy that I worked with, Blakely super, super good folks, and really we worked as a team together to really make things happen for that company.

Chris: Um, and the only reason I left is just growth and development for myself, you know what I mean? Um, otherwise we'd probably still be working with those guys. Yeah. So appreciate those opportunities for sure. And they, uh, they opened a lot of doors for us. I mean. Heck, we were making five or $700 a week at that time, but they were allowing us to take tools that we would purchase out of our checks and you know what I mean?

Chris: Things like that to give us the ability to grow.

Marcus: Yeah.

Chris: Um, and, uh, big, big things that we appreciate from those

Marcus: guys. Yeah, that's awesome. When they don't hold you back,

Chris: hold you back. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And we try to be like that with our guys as well.

Marcus: So yeah, it's a special kind of role that a business owner plays, I think a lot of times.

Marcus: You know, people are brought into our care, you know, in a way. Oh

Chris: yeah.

Marcus: And so it's, it's important to help them and foster, you know, their growth. Yeah. Try

Chris: to push 'em any way we can on our end.

Marcus: So, yeah. Well, how did you get started? I mean, did you just go out and say, Hey, I'm gonna build a house and sell?

Chris: Well, no, not exactly. We, we started doing trim work and kinda little odd and ends, you know, I, I told myself, and me and my wife discussed it and, uh, you know, if I can make. A thousand dollars a week doing these odd and ends, I'm doing better than, you know what I mean, where I'm at now. And it's a good start for the future, you know what I'm saying?

Chris: And that was back it towards something 12, 13, you know what I mean? And uh, we ended up getting our home builders license in 14, which we probably didn't necessarily need for the projects that we were doing at the time. But again, just pushing towards that growth. So, yeah.

Marcus: No, that's awesome. Um, now do you remember the first.

Marcus: You know, time that you had that kind of aha moment where it's like, okay, maybe there's something to this.

Chris: Yeah.

Marcus: Right. So you're in, you know, you've started your business Yeah. And you're like, oh man, it's a struggle, struggle, struggle. And then you're like, okay, wait a second.

Chris: Yeah. Well, absolutely. We, uh, our first few years were mostly, like I said, odd jobs and then we kind of jumped to the insurance game.

Chris: Um, loved it because you had to like, kind of fight for your money, you know what I mean? Yeah. You had to. You had to really know your stuff, right. Um, whenever you're writing these insurance estimates, every detail counts down to the paper you put to protect the floor. You know what I mean? Yeah. To, you know what I mean?

Chris: The highest quality, whatever you can, you know what I mean? Flooring that you can buy. You had to capture all of that in these estimates. Um, and if you miss something, you know what I mean, you're leaving money on the table. And there were people that I worked with along the way that kinda. Showed me, you know what I mean?

Chris: How to, how to make that work. So it was, it was a cool experience as far as that goes. But that dealing with the insurance is really what pushed me into the home building because you know, as much as you like to fight for it and you know what I mean, it kind of gave you that thrill at the end of the day, you were having to fight for it, you know what I mean?

Chris: It gets old after a while and it gets old after a while. You know what I mean? Every job you go to, you end up having to fight for the last 10 or 15,000. With the insurance company and that kind of deal, and that, that,

Marcus: yeah,

Chris: it gets old eventually, so.

Marcus: Well, and I've been harping on this, you know, for some time now.

Marcus: Yeah. The hardest part about that is that it doesn't allow the business owner to plan on cash flow.

Chris: That's exactly right.

Marcus: You're, you're, and if you can't account on cash flow, then how do you pay your people? How do you buy supply? That's right. Do you market yourself? You can't, you know, any, yeah.

Chris: Yep, yep, yep.

Marcus: Sorry. It, it makes it really difficult.

Chris: But that, that's basically what pushed me towards the home building is having to fight so much, I guess, for those, you know what I mean? Insurance funds and that kind of deal. So.

Marcus: Um, now if you were talking to someone that wanted to get started in running their own business, what's the one bit of wisdom that you would impart to them?

Chris: Contracts, um, have bulletproof contracts from the get go. Um, have a good team and a good following around you that can push you. Um, if you don't have people that are willing to, you know, stick their neck out and push for you and help you, then, you know what I mean? It's gonna be tough to get anywhere with it.

Chris: That would be the biggest thing is just have people on your side and have your contracts in place.

Marcus: You've gotta have, you know, you've gotta have a team. It's not just, you know, I always go back to a conversation and I think it was someone in the chamber. Events or something like that where they always said, you know, you need to have a banker, an attorney, and a lawyer, you know, in your, that's exactly right.

Marcus: In your back pocket.

Chris: And that would be a great start

Marcus: before you have a need

Chris: for that, before you start rolling. That's

Marcus: right. Right. And um, and I've always kind of, I've got multiple bankers and multiple lawyers and, you know,

Chris: that's right. Same.

Marcus: Uh, so, you know, I mean, but I think it's also, I think I was reading it, maybe I'm reading too much into what you said.

Marcus: But it's a very difficult road and having people that are actually in your corner and believe in you. And

Chris: that's a hundred percent we

Marcus: kind of like,

Chris: especially when you're starting from nothing. Yeah. You know what I mean? We didn't, you know, get loans from the bank and stuff like that at 19 or 20 years old, you know what I mean?

Chris: That that wasn't gonna happen back then. So it was basically hust and make it happen or it doesn't happen, so. Right.

Marcus: Yeah. No, that's, that's really good now, um. Are there any books, podcasts, people or organizations that have been helpful in moving you forward?

Chris: Um, we listen to podcasts, I mean, pretty much daily on, uh, interest rates and, you know what I mean, real estate and to kind of keep in our group with how, you know what I mean?

Chris: We operate and what we're able to, the information we're able to give our customers and that kind of deal. So yeah, we. We, you know what I mean? Keep up with daily information and that kind of stuff.

Marcus: Anybody that's been helpful in, you know, the actual building, you know, process or, you know, being a home builder and, you know, all, all the business type aspects that you all deal with that are specific to,

Chris: well, we have tons of resources.

Chris: You have the chamber, you have the Home Builders Association, um, you have Metro Mobile Home Builders Association, and all of these are great resources for. Teaching you guys or teaching, you know what I mean? New builders the way to go and, you know what I mean? How we need to operate and even the insurances you may need in the future and that kind of stuff.

Chris: I mean, it, it all ties in together and they're really good resources for, you know what I mean? Getting you rolling. So,

Marcus: yeah. That's cool. Now, what's the most important thing that you've learned about running a business?

Chris: Um, probably the most important thing is being able to disconnect from that business.

Chris: To enjoy family life as well. You know what I mean? You, it's business, business, business, business. But at the end of the day, you have to be able to disconnect. And you can ask my wife, she's probably, uh, you know, ready to choke me over in the corner right now. But that's one of those things that you really have to, you know, separate and, and try to get.

Chris: You know, you're, um, I guess everybody happy.

Marcus: Yeah. It's like having a kid,

Chris: so That's exactly right. That's exactly

Marcus: right. And you know, I mean, at times there are times where you can't just set the kid off in the corner and

Chris: That's

Marcus: exactly, its head off. You actually have to pay attention

Chris: to it. You have to.

Chris: Yeah. You have to be on top of it. So,

Marcus: and I mean, it really does suck, but I, I would just, you know. Part of the pro. The reason why I do this is because I think there's an educational component to it that people that might be looking to go into business

Chris: Yeah.

Marcus: May not know. Yeah. They may not have anybody that that's in their life.

Marcus: Yeah. That's, you know, uh, run a business or anything. And, you know, you said something earlier about, you know, having people that believe in you when you're getting started, and I'd say having people that believe in you every step of the way, because it never gets any easier. Oh, super

Chris: important. It doesn't get any easier ever.

Chris: So it's

Marcus: Right.

Chris: Having those people and, and keeping those, uh. Communications with those people and keeping those people in your corner. Yeah, that's super, super important.

Marcus: Yeah. So I mean, just, um, you know, thinking about the idea of, um, somebody going into business and thinking that they're gonna have all this.

Marcus: You know, free time and that they're not gonna ever have the stresses that go along with it or anything like that. Like, I think it's just important that people give an honest, you know, uh, opinion of what it's like being a business owner. Yeah, a hundred percent. It's not

Chris: an easy thing. It's not an easy

Marcus: thing.

Marcus: Yeah. Well, speaking of which, my next question is how do you like to unwind?

Chris: Um, we,

Marcus: yeah,

Chris: we hunt, we fish. Yeah, we do, you know, we go out and do our, uh, Friday night date nights, that kind of stuff. Yeah. I, I guess our biggest thing would be our outdoors. You know, we, on the weekends, we're either in the woods or on the water, so that's probably our biggest unwind.

Chris: That's true. Our, uh, our kids love it. I, the wife does it all with me, so that's awesome. You know what I mean? Right. Having somebody I can. Enjoy that with, and my place I enjoy to unwind is also hers. You know what I mean? Yeah. So we can kind of, it's

Marcus: very important.

Chris: Yep, yep, yep. So it's, it's super nice.

Marcus: Yeah.

Marcus: Because otherwise taking yourself away from them would causing more

Chris: stress. It's even more, even more. That's exactly right. Doesn't work. So it all fits good for us if it's good for us.

Marcus: Well, I've got 12, uh, rapid fire questions that I've been doing with people just as Yeah. You know, kind of curiosity thing.

Marcus: 'cause these are simple things like what's your favorite type of music?

Chris: Uh, country music, probably

Marcus: Any artists specifically.

Chris: Um, we like Morgan and Cody Johnson and all of those guys. So,

Marcus: favorite type of food?

Chris: Um, I would say probably Italian.

Marcus: Favorite restaurant?

Chris: Um, Felix's. Hands down.

Marcus: Okay. Favorite favorite city outside of mobile?

Chris: Um, let's see, orange Beach probably. We enjoy the beach, so. Okay.

Marcus: And a city you want to travel to but have yet to visit? A

Chris: city we want to travel to. We would like to go to Denver. I think Denver would be a lot of fun. Um, that's probably on our list of next vacations we'll do. We've done a bunch skiing, you know what I mean?

Chris: Local? Yeah. Skiing. Skiing probably. Yeah. And just the views, you know, we want to go

Marcus: Yeah.

Chris: Experience some of that at some point. So

Marcus: I would, I can't remember the last time I was in, I mean, it's been a number of years since I was in Colorado last. Yeah. But the last time I was there, I just remember looking at the.

Marcus: Mountains off in the distance and thinking, man, those are right there. And now they're not.

Chris: No, no.

Marcus: It could be five away miles.

Chris: Exactly right. Exactly

Marcus: right. Um, what comes to mind when I say guilty Pleasure.

Chris: Guilty pleasure. Um. Um, I guess that would probably be my, uh, man. Guilty pleasure.

Marcus: I know you gotta watch it 'cause shes

Chris: right over my shoulder.

Chris: That's she, she's right behind me, man. Um, I guess our, uh, our date nights on Friday, you know, getting out.

Marcus: No, no, no, no, no. That's not a guilty pleasure. Come on. Gimme a break.

Chris: Let, let's hear yours, man. What's your guilty

Marcus: fuck? I mean, like, you know, my guilty pleasure is ice cream. You know, I ice cream cream.

Marcus: Got you, got, you got.

Chris: Oh.

Marcus: Or my guilty pleasure is, you know, like. Uh, I like, you know, like my, I love, uh, sneakers.

Chris: Yep. Yep. So, you know,

Marcus: mean

Chris: Okay. I'm a, I'm a cereal and milk guy. That's something that I do not go without in the evening, so, very

Marcus: good.

Chris: I we can, we can call that my guilty pleasure.

Marcus: Alright. Dogs, cats, or none of the above.

Chris: Um, we've got dogs. Got a little, uh, Dotson, little longhaired Dotson and a, uh, lab that I've.

Marcus: And I bet

Chris: you about

Marcus: Dotson

Chris: rules the house months ago. Oh, she is the queen. She's the queen.

Marcus: They, uh, they are one of, they think they are big dogs for

Chris: sure. That's right, that's right.

Marcus: Uh, summer or winter?

Chris: Um, summer.

Chris: Summer.

Marcus: Favorite movie or TV show?

Chris: Um, favorite movie or TV show? Well, let's see. There's tons of those. Um,

Marcus: even favorite thing,

Chris: probably Top Gun. We like. Yep, yep, yep. That was even back in the day and even now it's one, one of our favorites. So,

Marcus: favorite holiday other than Christmas?

Chris: Um, let's see, what's favorite holiday other than Christmas?

Chris: Probably Easter. We like springtime. So

Marcus: cool. Favorite color.

Chris: Blue

Marcus: and favorite cereal,

Chris: um, cinnamon Toast Crunch.

Marcus: That's a good choice. My current addiction, actually my guilty pleasure is cinnamon sugar, uh, pita chips.

Chris: Okay. I haven't had those.

Marcus: Oh my God. Are they killers? I'll eat a bag of those. It

Chris: sounds like something that Destiny, my wife would just absolutely tear up.

Marcus: Yeah. Not good for you either. So. Um, actually really odd, but if you're listening and you're into that kind of thing, cinnamon, sugar, pita chips with like, uh, uh, you know, the kind of chicken salad that has like CS in it, something like that. Oh my god, so good,

Chris: good together,

Marcus: huh? Anyway, uh, what, what are you most thankful for?

Chris: Um, probably most thankful for, um, family obviously. Um, but outside of family, um, all the people that do support us Yeah. In day in and day out, so, yeah.

Marcus: Well, um, before we close up, I wanna just go back to like, the actual process, like,

Chris: yeah.

Marcus: Is there any advice that you would give to somebody that was looking at, you know, having a, a home built or looking at, you know, a custom home or even just approaching buying a house and

Chris: Yeah,

Marcus: absolutely.

Marcus: You know, stuff like that. Any wisdom?

Chris: We can kind of run you through the beginning steps. What I would tell 90% of our customers that do not have plans, I mean, starting from step one. Get on one of these, uh, websites, you know, um, house plans.com or architectural designs.com and find a plan you like, um, send it to us.

Chris: And you know, you don't know what your budget is until you, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Find something you like and send it out. Um, and we do that free. You can send that to us. We'll look over everything, get you a proposal. If it's out of your budget, you haven't lost anything. You know what I mean?

Marcus: Yeah.

Chris: But that would be your, you know what I mean, your best starting point to get things moving.

Marcus: And oftentimes those plans have estimates as to like what the cost is, or

Chris: do they do, I wouldn't they national estimates. So I would kind of, you know, watch what you, what you see on those estimates. Okay.

Chris: Because again, they are national, um, and you're gonna have, you know, if you're over in. California, do you know? And then you come back over to Alabama, you're gonna see a huge cost difference as far as those plans go. I

Marcus: get it. I

Chris: get what you're saying. So, so, uh, you know what I mean? And the cost of living, uh, you know,

Marcus: yeah.

Chris: Over those places are gonna be substantially different. Yeah. So, yeah,

Marcus: for sure.

Chris: But yeah, we do offer those free proposals that they can, you know what I mean? Send us the plans and we can kind of go through and give you guys. A dead set number. Hey, this is, you know where you're gonna be with this house.

Marcus: Oh, you know,

Chris: that's right.

Chris: That's right. That's what we want.

Marcus: Alright. Well tell people where they can find you if they wanna get in

Chris: touch with you. Yeah, you can, uh, get on our website, cockrell contracting.com. You can find us on Google, Facebook, Instagram, all of those good things.

Marcus: Nice. Very cool. Well, I wanna thank you again for coming on the podcast.

Marcus: Wrap up. Any final thoughts or comments you'd like to make?

Chris: Um, like you said, just, uh, if you guys are interested in anything, you're more than welcome. Check us out on uh ro contracting llc.com or you can get with us on our socials. So yeah, we appreciate the opportunity to be out here with you guys.

Marcus: Absolutely. Well, Chris, I appreciate your willingness to sit with me and share your journey as a business owner and entrepreneur. It's been great talking with you man.

Chris: Great talking to you too, buddy.

Marcus: Yeah.