Concrete Growth: Turning Challenges Into Business Wins with Ron Nezat

In this episode of Rocket Your Business for Trade Contractors, Kathy and Tom welcome Ron Nezat, owner of CTI of Acadiana, LLC and founder of Decorative Concrete Engine, a coaching and consulting firm helping decorative concrete professionals launch and grow successful businesses. What began as a personal quest to redo his own pool deck turned into a thriving multi-business operation—and a mission to help others achieve the same success.

Ron shares how he built CTI of Acadiana from the ground up, how Estimate Rocket became a cornerstone of his systems and growth, and why understanding customer needs is the foundation of every great project. The conversation dives into practical lessons on marketing, cash flow, coaching, and accountability—along with stories from the field that every contractor can relate to. For anyone looking to scale smarter and serve better, this episode offers a masterclass in turning craftsmanship into long-term business success.

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Podcast Transcript

Ron: We started in 2003 with our dealership of CTI Vicadiana. Um, Estimate Rocket became a part of that right after that. We tried a couple of different sources, and it just didn't work out. So, Estimate Rocket was a huge benefit for us early on. I think we started in 2015 with Estimate Rocket. So, it was huge getting early on in the process.

Ron: I originally got in the decorative concrete business because I grew up in a family—I'm the baby of five, and five boys—and we kind of did everything ourselves growing up. We painted my dad's truck. We remodeled our house. We added on to our house. So, we did everything ourselves. I reached a level of success in my business career as far as I own multiple businesses. I have an insurance agency. I have a business consulting firm, a real estate development firm. And I hired someone to do my pool deck in 2012, and about six months after we paid good money to have it done, it just wasn't done to my satisfaction. So, I started researching product on how it could be done better if I just did it myself. And I found what I thought to be the best product in the business with Concrete Technologies out of Tampa, Florida. And I went to buy the product, and they said I couldn't—that I had to be an authorized dealer to use their product. So, we bought a dealership to do our pool deck. But here I am in 2025; my pool deck is still not redone because we have never had an open week. So, literally since we started in May of 2013, we have never had an open week to handle that pool deck. And my wife reminds me of that quite frequently. Every day.

Kathy: Yeah. I think I would as well. Your poor wife.

Tom: They call that the cobbler's children syndrome.

Ron: Exactly.

Kathy: They have no shoes.

Ron: Exactly.

Kathy: So, looking back to that original decision that you made, are there any keys to your success that you felt gave you that huge amount of growth? Because we've even seen how fabulous your growth is back here.

Ron: Yeah. I think one of the main things is truly meeting the need in the market and listening to customers and clients and understanding where they come from. From my business consulting and financial planning side of me—dealing with insurance and financial planning for all those years—we really got into the habit of sitting with people, understanding where they were and where they wanted to go.

Ron: Now, one of the unique things about decorative concrete is it's a three- to five-day process. All of my other businesses are lifetime goals and lifetime movement. So, it's fun to be in this and, at the end of the week, you have a finished product and you can look and say, "Wow, look what we did." So, that's one of the diversity things that I really enjoy about this business. It's drastically different than all my other lines of business, but it's because of that fun part of it and the creative side of it that gives it that enjoyment.

Ron: But as far as meeting the need of the client and truly understanding—listening to what are they trying to accomplish—we're not just throwing a coating on their back patio or their pool deck or their garage. We're truly trying to meet a need of slip resistance, or easy to clean, or the decorative aspect—that they want it to look good for their friends because they use it for football games and tailgating and, you know, all the different things that go along with that.

Tom: Yeah. Do you find that that's one of the more challenging things to impart on the folks that you're helping—educating and working with initially?

Ron: I think if you ask the right questions, it's not hard to get there. Um, most people know that down deep. They may not know how to communicate that right off the bat, but if you ask the right questions, you can get there quickly. Most of my estimates from start to finish—from greeting to asking for the check—are less than 30 minutes. That's with the measuring and showing sample photos. And so I'm not talking about dragging it out and making it into something that it's not. I'm talking about being purposed in what you're doing and walking up there with a—not an attitude—but just the way you handle yourself: professionalism, that you know what you're there for and you can solve needs. You have solutions—not just one little tool in your tool bag. You have multiple options to meet their needs, right? And then exploring those needs becomes the big part of it to make them feel comfortable that they're talking to someone who cares about them and understands what they're doing.

Kathy: Yeah, I think that's where salesmanship comes into play. As a salesman, you have to be pretty decisive and a decision-maker so that you know where to go and what to recommend and then coach them through—why it's the best option.

Ron: Right.

Tom: It's interesting because I know on my side of the coin, I'm always trying to figure out how to solve people's problems, and it's usually a lot more along—I don't know where I'm going in a lot of cases because I'm, you know, it's purely needs of what people want, but sometimes it's hard to get people to describe what they want that either doesn't exist or doesn't work the way they want it to.

Ron: I agree with you. But Tom, if you really stop and think about it, you have enough experience with enough guys using Estimate Rocket now that you know a painter, a decorative concrete guy, a drywall guy—right? You know five or six other hot-button issues that you can bring up, right? And then you can go to the little minutiae details of getting them over the finish line, right?

Tom: Very true.

Kathy: So, Ron, when you first started out, what would you say would be two or three key things that you did within your company to be able to see the rapid growth that we've seen you do over the—how many years have you been using Estimate Rocket? Is it—

Ron: I think we started in 2015 with you guys.

Tom: I'll double check.

Kathy: Ten years.

Ron: Yeah.

Ron: And I think, Kathy, the easiest thing there is you have to get off the starting line, right? Um, I work with so many guys with the consulting side with Decorative Concrete Engine. I had a meeting with one last week who—they're trying to be the expert at everything they do and trying to be the top-notch installer before they actually start their marketing. And the bottom line is, if they don't start their marketing and they don't get the phone ringing, they will be out of business before they become that great installer, right?

Ron: Um, there's something to be said about just-in-time product training. I can't tell you how many times I've sold something because I saw someone else who did it. I use their photos, I give them credit for it, and then when the customer says, "Have you done this yet?" I'm like, "No, it's the hottest, newest thing. You're going to be the first one," you know, and with a confidence that doesn't make them think, "Oh my, what am I getting into?" But that's the key: start the marketing—and start it earlier than you think. So many people want to be the best installer or best business person before they start the marketing. If the phones don't ring, they'll be out of business.

Ron: One of the issues is that most people get into business undercapitalized, and you know that. Um, they just don't have the runway they think they do. And today, with the way that things cost and the inflation and everything that we've gone through, um, you can't go 60 days, 90 days without good revenue. So, you've got to get those phones ringing.

Ron: I'll give you a little hint. So, when I bought my dealership—and CTI may be different than some other organizations out there—but there's an upfront cost to buy into the dealership that's secured by 100% of product. So, you're not buying some fake thing. You actually get a shipment of everything that you bought. But that investment upfront—that capital—is secured by product, and that locks in a territory for you for marketing purposes. I actually started my marketing about 45 to 60 days before I bought the dealership. And I paid cash for the dealership with deposits in hand to do the work. And I got the dealership going because I already had installations on the books.

Tom: Right. You're my kind of guy.

Tom: And it's always true—will never change. Cash is king.

Ron: Absolutely. Absolutely. And it's even more important today at this point, even, you know, a number of years into the business. Um, you know, we've got sealers and products that cost three times what they did 10 years ago.

Tom: Wow.

Ron: So, handling that—pricing things right, using Estimate Rocket to track our numbers and our profitability and our margins—all those things play into being able to be successful ongoing, not just upfront.

Tom: Sure. Yep. Totally agree. And that's the—almost the second wave, I think, sometimes for when people are first starting up: they're just trying to get sales, and then they quickly realize, oh, that margin thing is important too, because otherwise we're going to, you know, we're going to sell ourselves out of business.

Ron: Yeah.

Ron: We see that a lot with CTI because you have that initial investment that's secured with product. They think they're making tons of profit in the beginning because they're not setting aside marketing dollars and setting aside product cost because they have that shipment. But then they're six months down the road, and they have to reorder, and they haven't set aside the money to do it, right?

Tom: Yeah. Interesting.

Kathy: That's so—and they're not thinking of their capital investment and realizing, hey, part of that has to come out for each job.

Ron: Yep. Yeah. Lots of challenges.

Kathy: Well, and that's why I'm sure that's partly why your educational arm—the Decorative Concrete Engine—is successful and makes many, many, many people successful from what you provide them.

Ron: I mean, that's critical, right—tracking people. With Decorative Concrete Engine, I work a lot with the CTI network, the concrete network, where we include that in a lot of the packages, but it's not mandatory. So, about half of the dealers who come in actually use our coaching, and the other half don't. But the half that do end up on the leaderboard.

Tom: Oh, that's awesome.

Kathy: Yeah, it gives them a big head start. Makes a difference.

Kathy: So, Ron, you know, you adopted Estimate Rocket—we talked about five years ago—and it now runs across your operations. What's been the impact on your dealers, your customers, your group, with efficiencies, client experience, and, of course, your revenues? Tell us how that whole combination of being a team together has worked for you guys with your expansion and your growth.

Ron: Okay. I think one of the things—you have to back up a little bit and go to why did I pick Estimate Rocket to start with. Before I found Estimate Rocket—now, again, I came into this particular segment of the business; I have multiple other businesses—so I understood the business side. But I was using multiple tools to keep track of CRM, keep track of profits, keep track of sales, to do estimates, whereas Estimate Rocket did it all in one package. So, that was the first thing: being able to have everything in one place from the minute the phone rang to tracking that information all the way for us for after-the-sale resells and reseals in the future with the drip campaign. So, being able to get all that together was a huge efficiency on our part—not going from multiple databases, not going from multiple sources, not having pen and paper. Everything's electronic in the cloud—from the estimate that becomes our work order, communicating with my crews to the to-dos every day, and being able to send a—we send an email every day to the client saying, "This is what was done. This is what's next. This is what you can expect from it." That's all done in the system. Really simple automation.

Ron: Yeah. So that's from an efficiency standpoint. As far as from the client side, the professionalism of it—being able to generate a professional-looking estimate within minutes of meeting with them. Now, everybody does things different. I personally do pen and paper in front of the client, I ask for a check, and I send them the email within minutes. So, normally, I'm down the road; I type it up and I send it. They either get a detailed estimate—everything we talked about—with the confirmation because they already gave me a check, or the detailed estimate and then it starts the drip campaign, right?

Ron: As far as revenue goes, from the drip campaign perspective, every single dealer I work with increases their bottom-line closing ratio about 22%. So in the decorative concrete industry, when the closing ratio is 20 to 25%—that's the number—if I can increase that another 20 to 25%, I'm doubling their closing ratio. That's huge. So most dealers with me are in the 40 to 55% closing ratio.

Tom: Yeah. And you mentioned this before, so I just want to touch on it again: what have been the new features that we've been giving you that you feel have made a difference? Because we don't always get to talk to the customers one-on-one like this. So, what would you say, just over the last couple years, what were some of the features that we've added in that have changed your life?

Ron: I think the Stripe integration and the online payment system is huge. Um, from a client perspective, the security side of it: they're not calling us and giving us a credit card number, to where we have that number floating around our office, and we can say, "You can log on to your portal; you can pay it; you're not giving us the number; it's secured through the merchant account."

Ron: The messaging portal that allows us to send out messages—even if it's just a push notification saying, "Hey, your estimate's now there; go look at it," right? That's huge. And the new Insights report that's recently come out—we're still playing with that. We're still trying to get all our data in there correctly so that the report is what we want it to be. But I think that's going to be a good tool moving forward—being able to see more where's our market segment, where's our marketing working. And I'm interested to see how it trends out over the next couple of years, because we have a business that relies a lot on weather. So, how does that play into seasonal work and tracking that correctly?

Tom: Sure. Yeah, we've got some—I'm working on experimenting with some things that'll give you a little bit more trend-oriented information about that and help you to nail down that and understand the seasonality a little bit better in terms of the business flow.

Ron: That would be another—I'm a financial adviser by trade, so I'm a numbers—I mean, I love just tearing up the numbers and really getting to the bones of what's going on and how are we making it. So, it's kind of fun.

Tom: Yeah. Yeah. I agree with you.

Kathy: So tell me, Ron, what are some of the challenges—the significant challenges—that you are seeing in your marketplace, what your other dealers are seeing?

Ron: Yeah, I think since COVID, we live in a new world. Um, the inflation that followed COVID with the product availability issues—from inventory control issues—really changed the way you do business. And I say that from not only Decorative Concrete Engine and the consulting I do there, but my other businesses, with all the business coaching that I do and consulting I do. It has impacted every segment of the economy. So that's number one: COVID changed the way we do things, the way the products are available, the way that just-in-time shipping happened. Yeah, things changed.

Ron: But I think in the recent 24 to 36 months, specifically in the decorative concrete industry, competition has gone through the roof. We've gotten tons of people in the business. I think because the economy slowed down and this is a low cost of entry industry, tons of people got in the business thinking they could make a bunch of money and were doing things maybe they shouldn't be doing, and it's starting to show in the industry a little bit.

Ron: And then we got flooded, because some of our U.S.-based manufacturers had trouble sourcing raw materials. We got flooded with overseas, cheap product, and that changed the market. So, we saw a lot of guys in the market doing really cheap work with cheap product, and it's already showing that it's not holding up and not doing well.

Kathy: Wow.

Tom: That unfortunately tarnishes it. And inventory has been the main issue there, right?

Ron: I don't think inventory in any of the industries has popped back—come back—to the way... you know, as you said, things have changed. And I don't know—probably. I mean, we literally have restaurants that only do pickup orders now; they don't even use their dining anymore.

Tom: No.

Ron: Okay, so that has changed. I want to go every Saturday morning to get donuts—they never opened up the dining room after COVID because they don't want to hire that extra person to keep it clean.

Kathy: Yeah.

Tom: Wow. That's tough.

Kathy: Yeah, it is.

Tom: Massive changes. I mean, we've gotten pretty much back to normal in the Northeast in terms of that. But, you know, there are still some that just never came back after COVID or changed their model to just a takeout model.

Kathy: Yeah. A lot of that.

Kathy: Ron, I know you do a lot of coaching for your dealers. So, is there any one or two stories that really stick out in your mind—something that happened that was just phenomenal and you talk about it all the time?

Ron: You know, there are good stories, there are funny stories, but I think the key to coaching is understanding your investment that you're making. The biggest thing with coaching is accountability. So, you can go out there and learn the things that I put together in our Quick Start Plan. You can source all that information. You can figure it out, but our goal is to help you do it much easier and quicker, and to help you avoid the pitfalls. You asked earlier about startup and getting going quicker—that's our goal: to get someone, instead of taking 12 months to get going, we can ramp it up in 60 days, right?

Ron: But the key there is the relationship and the accountability. I'm working right now with a guy who texted me right before we went on air for this podcast, who sent me an email with an estimate and wanted me to go over it, and then I texted him a few tips on, "Hey, you're too wordy here. Hey, you're not clear enough here. Make that look better." But having that weekly contact with the coach and saying, "Hey, these were your goals. Did you make those calls? Hey, did you get those face-to-face appointments? Hey, did you spend that marketing money?" It really brings it to the next level.

Ron: So, yes, there are fun stories and exciting stories, but the day in, day out is: you need to be accountable to someone. And oftentimes we turn that to our spouse, and they don't know how to hold us accountable in business.

Kathy: No.

Tom: Nor does your spouse want to make you accountable in your business, right? That might not be a great relationship.

Ron: I mean, I have the pleasure of working alongside my spouse. Michelle is in the businesses with me. So, we started our businesses together. I started my original business in May of '97; we got married in September of '97. I don't recommend that for anyone, but for us, it's been a huge plus and a tremendous blessing.

Tom: That's great. Kathy and I have spent quite a few years together working together. In fact, pretty much right after we got married, we've been working together since then. So, yeah, it can be tremendous.

Ron: Yes. And in the lines of the coaching—along with the accountability—I'll tell you, one of my dealers last week told me that, "If I didn't have you to help me through these low times, I think I would have hung it up and gone and found somewhere else."

Kathy: Wow. That's huge, Ron.

Tom: Yeah. I've talked to a lot of other industries—and not just trades, but other, you know, business types, as you're in multiple business types—and I think that's the biggest thing for people who are entrepreneurial: you just feel alone, and whenever things go wrong, you feel like you're the only one having any problems, right? It's depressing. And you've got to have—being able to share that with people—it doesn't necessarily solve your problem, but it makes you realize, hey, suck it up. Everybody else is going through the same stuff. You've just got to power through it.

Ron: And, you know, I think the huge advantage with Decorative Concrete Engine—our coaching side—is that we're doing the work. So, I am a dealer. I'm in the industry, right? And we're coming alongside them. I can share things that I experienced with my customers last week that we're walking and working together on. So yeah, it's not just a random coach. And I say that as a business consultant—I do coaching; I have a lot of physicians who are clients on my consulting side. I'm not a physician, but I work enough with them that I understand the industry. But it's different in the decorative concrete side that I have a decorative concrete business and I'm a decorative concrete coach.

Tom: Right. You're walking the walk.

Ron: Right. Exactly.

Kathy: So, Ron, if our listeners want to find out more about what you're offering—what you're doing—how can they get in touch with you?

Ron: DecorativeConcreteEngine.com. Um, we've got a decent little website. It is simple. We focus on three main areas. We push Estimate Rocket because it simplifies things. We have our actual coaching package—which we call a Quick Start Program—that's about six hours of self‑running PowerPoint with a manual, with homework and tech tips. And then we have one-on-one coaching available if they just want to do that. We also offer free consultations if they just want to visit and see if it's a good fit. Obviously, coaching is a very personal thing, so you have to see if it's something that you and I jive on and we have common goals. I will tell you, I like working with people who understand work‑life balance—who understand investing in their families is just as important as investing in their church, in their business—and I love people who are community‑minded. So, we're very involved with church, we're very involved with a couple of nonprofits, and I like people who do that as well.

Kathy: That's awesome. That's awesome.

Kathy: Well, Ron, thank you so much for doing this podcast with us today.

Ron: You're welcome.

Kathy: Hopefully down the road we can get you on again, because it's just so jam‑packed with information. We really appreciate it.

Ron: Great. I enjoy meeting you guys, and I enjoy working side by side with Estimate Rocket.

Tom: I know it's been 10 years, Ron. That's a long time.

Ron: Likewise.

Tom: Likewise. Take care.