Should you outsource your CAD work as a surveying and mapping organization?
In this video, Landon considers the pros and cons of outsourcing CAD work. He discusses the implications of this for surveying organizations, and how the calculus might be different for a design company (like an architect and civil engineer). He also talks about why a licensed professional has to carefully consider this step when working for a larger organization, and the potential impacts outsourcing has on recruitment and training.
Should you outsource your CAD work as a surveying and mapping organization?
In this video, Landon considers the pros and cons of outsourcing CAD work. He discusses the implications of this for surveying organizations, and how the calculus might be different for a design company (like an architect and civil engineer). He also talks about why a licensed professional has to carefully consider this step when working for a larger organization, and the potential impacts outsourcing has on recruitment and training.
The title of this episode is should you outsource your CAD drafting? So if you're a surveying or mapping or civil engineering company could even be another type of design company like architectural or structural. Should you outsource your CAD drafting? So I would say, probably twice a week, maybe three times a week, I'm contacted either directly via email or over LinkedIn, with an offer to outsource my company's CAD drafting. This request typically comes from a company overseas. And it's always the same sales pitch. Our first project we do for you is free. It's going to be the fraction of the cost of your in house drafting. We'll price it by the acre by the linear foot. So it's always kind of the same sales pitch. And it's what I call spammy sales or spammy outreach. What do I mean by that? The person that's reaching out to me with this offer doesn't know anything about me personally, or professionally, they don't know anything about my business. The only value proposition they have is basically low cost. And I know that they sent the same message to at least 10,000 other people, it is the worst way to do sales. That's why people hate sales. They hate doing sales, and they hate being salespeople. Because this is kind of the worst way you can do sales. That's a topic for another podcast episode. But I don't just get this, I don't just get this offer for for CAD drafting services. I also get it for BIM Building Information Model, aerial mapping, UAV mapping and also GIS services. So I'm going to talk in in this episode about about CAD drafting services specifically. But I think that the principles we're going to discuss talk about offshoring, other similar types of services, you know, being or GIS or, or other types of services, aerial mapping services. So what are we going to cover in the episode today, I've got seven, seven main points that we're going to go over number one, I'm just going to give you kind of my disclaimer. I have some biases here. So I want to put those on the table. Number two, we'll talk about why is this an important question? You know, why did I think it deserved its own podcast episode? Number three, we're going to talk about what are these companies actually trying to sell you like, what, what is the product? What is the bundle? Number four, we'll talk about why would professionals like me even entertain this idea? And I'm not saying they shouldn't I think there's a very limited set of circumstances in which this might make sense. So we'll discuss that. Number five, we're going to talk about what are the problems with this kind of business model? If you're thinking about doing this, what are some some challenges? And then number six, all go into that very limited scenario in which I think this might, this might be a good idea. I don't think it is most of the time, but but there's some limited circumstances in which it might be. And then the seventh main point, is kind of what happens next. In the surveying and mapping profession, given the existence of the service providers, you know, where do I think I should say, where I said, How should, how might this business model or the presence of these of these service providers, change our industry over, let's say, the next five to 10 to 15 years. So we'll wrap up with that kind of more of a big picture. So I'm going to start with the first main point, which is my disclaimers. So I have never outsourced my CAD work, I just want to be upfront about that. So this is not something I've tried and learned the hard way doesn't work. A few years ago, I don't know maybe 1010 years ago, I guess I should say several, several years ago, I did outs trying to outsource some of my UAV mapping. And that was not offshore, but it was to a low cost provider here in California. They did UAV aerial mapping, they they're still in business. I did three projects for them. I did three, excuse me, did three projects with them. So they did the aerial mapping on three of my projects, and I had a horrible experience. All three projects had bad results. So they didn't cover the map. And when it's adequately, I got delivered product that was in the wrong coordinate reference system, you know, map projection zone. They were late. They didn't they didn't meet their delivery deadlines. So I just, it was about as bad of an experience as I could have imagined. And so after the, I don't know, second or third time I went through that with them. I didn't do business with them anymore. So I have had some limited experience with a low cost provider. are hearing here in California. The other thing I just want to say up front is I understand that part of the reason this service offering exists in the first place is that there are people in developing countries that can be desperately poor, and are looking to improve their lives. So I just want to put that on the table. I understand that. You know, it's a sad thing that, that so many people in the world are desperately poor like that. And I understand that for many of those people, in those places, getting some contract work for a US company is by by far the best option they have available. So I understand why so many companies are doing it and why they fill my inbox with spam messages, I get it. The other the last part of the disclaimer is, and I mentioned this, I'm not a fan of this. I don't think it's a good idea. Most of the time, we'll talk at the very end about the one situation in which it might be but I don't think this works as a general rule. And I think it's a bad idea. If you're a licensed professional engineer, surveyor, I think it's a bad idea. I think it's a bad idea for you as a licensed professional, I also don't think it makes a lot of business sense. We'll talk about why. Now, I am primarily talking about service providers that are offshore, but the same principles could apply to low wage parts of the United States. So this isn't about me having an issue with people in a foreign country. There are companies in places like Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, that offer extremely low cost. You know, zoning reports, CAD drafting, because they have very low wages in those places. Now, I think you have to deal with that, as a business owner, if you're in a in a high wage location like me, I think you have to deal with that reality. And that's okay. You know, I am in a, in a high wage state, I am a in a relatively low cost, part of a high wage state, which, which we use as an advantage. So I don't I don't fault the guys in Mississippi or Texas that are running this model. I would say one thing that sets us apart from most of those folks that I run into is we focus on providing good service and a quality product. And a lot of those low wage, even the providers in the low wage parts of the United States tend to not provide a quality product. And I can, I can say that from experience, because I've dealt with with their product on some projects. So this isn't about, you know, keeping jobs in the US, that's not the axe I'm trying to grind here. The service providers work in low wage parts of the United States, just like they work in, in foreign countries. So the same principles apply. Okay, so that's my disclaimer. All right. So second main point of this episode is why are we talking about this? Why is this important issue for you, as a licensed professional or business owner? The first reason is, it can have a huge impact on your business. That's why it's important. So if you try and do this, and it's not done well, it can have a major impact on your reputation. So you can damage your reputation did have a major impact on your professional liability? I think if you pursue this model, it's going to have some impacts on the way you train, train entry level folks in your organization, I think it can also impact your performance as a service provider, it can certainly drive your costs down. But it can also affect things like your ability to deliver on time and your ability to deliver a quality product. So it is really important for all those reasons. The second kind of main reason it's important is your competitors are doing this. Whether you realize it or not. Now, I don't think this is something that your competitors typically broadcast on something like LinkedIn or YouTube. So it's almost like a dirty little secret. So there are companies that are doing this. But that is not something you know, most of those folks don't want to tell their clients that they're outsourcing CAD work to, you know, the to India or the Philippines or to Texas, even that doesn't make, you know, that's not necessarily a great sales pitch. Now, how do I know this, that this is actually happening? Well, I know of at least two large civil firms I've run into in the last five to 10 years that have admitted to me privately that they run this business model. So one was a transportation civil engineering firm here in California, that outsource 90% of their CAD work offshore. And you could tell some of the worst civil engineering plans I've ever worked with in my career and they I was I was on the phone with a large, you know, across the nation, big, big civil firm that did more work on on the land development and commercial real estate side. And I was on the phone with one of their engineers, higher level engineer, project manager, and he told me that they offshore basic drafting work to Mexico. And that allows them to offer clients free site plans. And they basically use site plans as a loss leader to try and get civil engineering engineering work. Yeah, you know, if you're a land surveyor trying to run a business, you need to know that right? Like site plans are are one of the one of my paid service offerings, right. So I know for a fact there's a large civil engineering firm that does work in my part of California, that will give you a free site plan as a loss leader, you know, they've outsourced that work to Mexico, and they'll give it away for free. That's how cheap it is. So yeah, your competitors are doing this. So you need to be aware of it at least. So the third, the third point that I wanted to cover today was what are these companies that connect with me? What are they actually selling? You know, what's the service bundle? What's the product? So here's the typical process, that I've been able to kind of ferret out or route out just based on some limited conversations with these folks. So you give them some slightly processed raw data. Okay, so it's typically just a point file, if you're a surveyor, but it might be raw UAV images and some aerial target coordinates, as an example, doesn't get much more processed than that the data you provide is usually pretty raw. So you're not typically you know, given them a finished Digital Elevation Model, or, or 10, or linework, you usually get a fairly raw data. They take that. And a couple of weeks later, a couple months later, you get back finished in air quotes, finished, either drawings or PDFs. And sometimes those folks will work on your CAD standards in your templates. Sometimes they won't, sometimes they'll tell you, they will, and then you get back some mixed results. But it could go either way, depending on the company. So that's kind of the process, right? You give them the raw data, you get back, usually finished cap product, in theory finished. You do a little bit of QA QC shipped to the client. So really, what what if you think about that business model, what that what you're doing is you're taking, you're taking a huge chunk of the mapping process that you do in the office, and you're just moving that out offshore. So you're surgically removing that from your company. Now. Let's stop for a minute, just talk about why might that make a little more sense for a design firm than it does for a company like mine that's in the surveying and mapping business? Well, if you're a design firm, you still have a large part of the process where you can provide value to the client. And that's in the design process. If you're a company like mind, and the mapping is the is how you typically provide the value. This model also presents some really important questions like if you're outsourcing 90% of the normal process in which you provide value, how are you providing value in the rest of the process? Now, let's say that you can't do that. Maybe your value is in the field data collection, maybe it's in the QA QC. And my business has been thinking a lot more about how we add value on the front end and the back end, and and not as much in the middle. But you know, the way I've seen this work, there isn't a lot of quality work done on the front end, and there's almost no QA QC on the back end. So if that's what you're doing, why not just offshore the entire thing? Like I just don't understand how much is left at that point. And maybe that's a topic for a follow up episode. So that's, that's how the process works. You're outsourcing 90% of the of the mapping process. So given what we've just talked about, the fourth main point is a Why do professionals entertain this idea? You know, if you're a licensed land surveyor, or you own a GIS mapping business, or maybe you're in the utility mapping business? Why would you even think about this? If you're a civil engineer, why would you think about it? And the main reason why is the service is cheap. And like that's an understatement. When I say cheap, I mean, incredibly cheap really cheap. So typically the way I've seen these services priced is what The below minimum wage, not only my state minimum wage, but way below federal minimum wage, like I can't even get close to competing with the wages these these companies are paying. So it's, I would say, as a general rule, the wages they pay are one quarter to 1/5 of the typical wage, we pay a good good cat person with, let's say, two or three years of experience. So, you know, and I don't mind, let you know, you know, the typical wage in my shop, for a cat person with two to three years experience is going to be somewhere between 25 and $30 an hour. So these guys are, these companies are paying a fraction of that. And so that allows them to drastically reduce the price. So when you drastically reduce the price, what does that mean? Well, it means you can capture greater market share. And big design firms can use mapping as a loss leader, because it's that inexpensive. So that's why companies do this. It's not about quality. It's not about speed. It's not about specialization, it's not about any of the other things that that oftentimes in a capitalist economy, are good reasons to outsource or to, or to, you know, seek a seek an outside service provider. So there's good reasons to do that. I just mentioned some of them, right? speed, quality, specialization. You know, resiliency, those are all good reasons. Those are all good reasons to work with outside partners. Getting super, super, super, super cheap. Service, I don't think is oftentimes a great reason to do that. But that's why people do it. So the fifth point I wanted to cover in this episode was, you know, what do I think is wrong with this model? You know, I told you guys, I'm not a big fan. So why is that? You know, one of the things my parents taught me at a pretty young age is, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. I've learned that the hard way, right, I talked about some of my experiences with that UAV mapping company in California. So one of the things you got to remember is your coordination here is going to eat up a chunk of the theoretical savings. Right? So I think companies forget that, you got to understand how you're going to line the line these people out, communicate things like the mapping limits your CAD standards, you know, you're gonna have challenges because these folks are in a different timezone, significantly different timezone. There's oftentimes language barriers, there's cultural differences. And then there's just the issue of just, you know, they're not next door, they're on a different continent, oftentimes, or in a, in a whole different part of the United States. So all of those things, create coordination challenges. I've mentioned this earlier in the episode, but there's, I think there's major issues with quality when you do this. And you can you risk severe, and unrepairable damage to your reputation. And it doesn't take very many serious mistakes in my line of work before people no longer call you. So I think there's a huge downside risk here. Now, we got to be honest, it's up, it's, it's offset by huge upside. difference in price. So you got to weigh that out. And I also think it can expose you to major liability, you know, and that's something I don't know that I don't even know that individual, licensed professionals inside larger organizations really stop and really carefully consider that what that means. You know that that liability that comes when you outsource a huge chunk of your mapping process, that liability doesn't just belong with the organization you work for. It also belongs with you personally, as a licensed professional. And I'll give you just a quick, quick story that happened to me a few years ago, I went to work at a new company, as a licensed land surveyor was running their mapping department. And the the one of the principals came to me, and I had worked with the same photogrammetrists for probably 15 years. New super well. He did absolutely amazing work at a fantastic price. I was always telling him to tell him the guy needed to raise his prices. But I just ultimate confidence in his work. I think in 15 years, I'd had only had one minor problem on one aerial mapping project they did with me, and it was immediately rectified. And so that was the only company I ever went to for aerial mapping. So I got to my new gig and and needed aerial mapping on a project and reached out to my company and the principal came to me my boss and said, Hey, I want you to call at least two other companies and get competing bids for the aerial mapping work. And I said, why would you want to do that? And he says, Well, I think we can get this 10% cheaper. And I told him, I said, I'm not going to do that. And he said, Well, you mean, you're not going to do that? I like I'm your boss. I just told you to do that. And I said, Well, I understand that. But like, we need to have a conversation about this. I said, who's signing the work product? The aerial mapping, who's going to be in responsible charge? He said, Well, you are, that's why I hired you. I said, All right, well, if I'm going to be responsible, then I'm going to hire the company I know, and we're have worked with for 15 years, I'm not going to put my license at risk. So your client can save 10%. Especially when I knew that, that my service provider was always was already given a really good value. Now, my boss didn't like that. But I'd made it super simple for him, I was like, no problem. I'll call and shop around, we can get bids. But you're gonna take responsible charge of that mapping product. And if you don't know, I'll just let you know that almost all the photographs that we were here, work with here in California are not licensed under our state licensing laws. So most of the time, the licensed surveyors is taken responsible charge of that work. So I don't I don't know that licensed professionals always think that through, right, just because your boss tells you you should outsource your drafting to some company in Mississippi or the Philippines doesn't mean it's good idea for you as a licensed professional. So I think you need to give that some, some thought. The other thing that that companies, I think fail to think about is this, when you do this, when you outsource your entry level drafting, you're shutting off an entry point into your organization in your profession. You know, one of the ways you start at my company, as a technical person, you either start as a Robin on the field crew, or an entry level drafter. And in most cases at my company, you're doing both. So yeah, if you if you outsource, you know, 99% of your lower level, drafting and mapping, you got to rethink about how you're going to get people started in your organization. Right now, I understand that's less of a problem for other organizations than it is for mine, because I tend not to hire people coming out of a four year degree program. I'm hiring people with good moral values, and hard work ethic. And I don't really care what letters they have behind their name. So we run a little different model here. But you need to think about that as an organization. You know, surveyors have already done this, we did this 10 years ago, maybe more than that now, maybe 15 years ago, we did this with one man field crews. And then we moved to one man field crews, we cut off the the entry point for field surveyors into the profession. And that's had a huge impact on us. There's not enough good party chiefs, or younger licensed surveyors now, because we cut off a potential entry path into the profession. So you need to think about that. That's one of the reasons why I don't run one man field crews here at my company, we only run to me and field crews, because I want to provide that, I think that experience in the field is really critical for folks as they move up in my organization. The other the other reason I have a problem with this business model is I think it deprives your team members with a good opportunity to build core skills. So if you're in a surveying and mapping organization, you know, understanding how basic CAD works is really important. Even if a person isn't always going to do basic CAD work. You know, it's fundamental and critically important knowledge that I think people need to have. So if you're not going to support that type of work inside of your organization, you have to think about how else are you going to get people that that really core skill that comes with, you know, just basic cat mapping work. And then the last reason why I don't think this is a good business model is you know, no matter what you try and do, no matter what kind of guardrails you try and design here, you are going to lose some control over the ultimate result that you deliver to your client under this model. And, you know, I think we've seen some reversal of this. In the last few years, you know, companies are starting to nearshore their manufacturing and critical parts of their supply chains because they realize there is a cost. There's a you know, there's short term cost savings when you offshore, but there are long term, long term costs. And so this is something to some extent, this is a battle between the short term thinking and the long term thinking. And so you got to think about you know, what are the ultimate consequences to your ability to control things like delivery schedule and quality when you've got your work you know, a huge chunk of your your work being done on the other side of of a continent by people that don't the other side of the planet by people that don't work for you. I think you've got to really think that through. Alright, so the last or almost second to the last point I wanted to cover number six because this is does it ever make sense to do this? So I told you guys, I'm not a huge fan of this model. But I have to be honest, I do think there's a limited set of circumstances where this might make sense. So what scenario am I talking about? So if you are a solo practitioner, in other words, you're your surveyor and you run a one man shop, or maybe you only have two or three people, you have no desire to really run a team. So you don't want to hire employees, or you know, you don't want anybody you know, you just want, you know, you and a Robin, and you got your wife doing your books. You don't want to hire a team, I understand there are headaches that come with having a team, I know I have a team. So if you run a small shop, you don't want a team. Sometimes this makes sense. Why? Why would I say that? Well, you're going to bill out at, I don't know, 150 to $250 an hour, if you're a licensed surveyor, it gets really hard to compete if you're doing all your CAD work and, and at that rate. You know, I bill my entry level drafters out at somewhere around 70 to $100. So, if you're trying to do all your own CAD work as an LS, you have two choices, you're going to bill out at your full rate and be double my cost. Or you are going to work at a fraction of your value, because you're going to have to discount your rate to your client, right. And whether you realize it or not, there's, there's an opportunity cost to doing that, right, you can be focused on your highest value work, if you're doing your own drafting, you're losing, you're not capturing your full value. Now, what I would tell you is instead of working with the spammy folks that flooded your LinkedIn, Miss message inbox, what I would tell you, what you might consider as an alternative is finding a professional drafter. And building a long term relationship with Him somebody based, you know, in the US, maybe even in your state. And you can find those folks now on sites like Upwork, right. So they're there folks now, especially after COVID-19 pandemic, that have set up a shop and will work for you as a 1099. contractor doing CAD work. Now, I think you got to be careful there, make sure you don't break the law. So especially in a place like California, the government has made it a lot harder to classify somebody as a, as a contractor versus an employee. So I think you want to make sure that person is doing work for other folks, that might be a model that works for you in this very, very limited set of circumstances. So the last thing I wanted to talk about the last main point in this episode number seven was, you know what happens next? We've got this model that's kind of been introduced, it's gotten more prevalent, I think, after COVID-19. So what's going to happen over the next five to 15 years in our industry with this model? And how do you respond to that as a business owner, if you're in the mapping business? So how does this pan out? Well, I think there's a couple two or three ways that two or three ways this can go. And part of what I base this prediction on is I've seen, I saw I saw this happen in the land title industry the last 15 years. So this this exact process has borne itself out in in land title industry. So what happens? So here's one possible scenario that can play out all the low level drafting and a good portion of the mid level drafting and mapping tasks get offshored. So we just lose that work forever. Potentially, that's what's happened in the title industry. So all of that low level title work has been offshored. They don't do it in the states anymore. The consequence of that is that the quality of the product tends to permanently suffer. And if you've done work with land title companies or their products in the last 15 years, as a surveyor, you know exactly what I'm talking about, than a drastic reduction in quality. It gets so frustrated with the land title industry almost on a weekly basis. And that's a consequence of of their decision to offshore. And then another consequence of that is there are a few remaining experts, right. So when you offshore, all of that work, you know, you stopped developing those skills in your local workforce. And pretty soon, the few people left that know how to do that get to charge a premium, you know, they hold folks for ransom. And so we've seen that, again in the title industry. So as an example. I now provide specialized title services to my clients that used to be provided by a title company. And I charge an exorbitant, you know, an exorbitant amount of money for those services because I'm the only guy In Central California that I know that does that and does it reliably quickly. So if you apply that same lesson, you know, as, as more and more companies offshore, this type of mapping work, there will be a small place in the market for expert providers that that retain these capabilities in house. And I think you got to really think through about how you can make that a viable business model. But I think there's an opportunity there. And so what happens, in essence is the the market bifurcates or splits into. So you can think of it like an inverted bell curve. And the mass of the service providers are on the low end of the market, competing solely on price, with usually poor quality and poor service. That's what we call red ocean. And then you have a few expert service providers on the other end of the market that are working in high prices for large profit margins. So we may see that happen. Here's another possible scenario. So we could see a combination of rising wages offshore, and the cost of coordination and quality issues, basically negate the benefits of this model. And so if the model stops being sustainable, I don't know which way it's gonna go could go either way. You know, could go, it could go in that direction, where we completely offshore, everything like happened with the title industry, or, you know, we could see some of what we're seeing in, in high end manufacturing, where the rising labor costs and in the coordination, quality issues mean, companies start to change their mind about this. So could go that way, too. I don't know, maybe both things happen. You know, maybe we do the first one for a few years. And then as wages rise in those other countries, and different things happen, we slowly transition to that other model. But so it could go either way. But I think those are the two scenarios. So how do you respond as a small business owner, especially if you're in the mapping business? Well, I think you automate wherever possible, I have some videos up on the redefine horizons YouTube learning channel where I talk to things about, like field to finish. So I think you automate where you can, wherever you can, you can't afford to pay humans to do what you can get a computer to do, I think, you know, the ability to use your in house, the ability to use the built in automation tools in your existing software, and to develop your own custom software, I think is going to be more and more important. So that's things like feel to finish scripting plugins, that you have to relentlessly train and improve your people. So if you're gonna stay in this business, you got to think about how to be excellent in all aspects of it, or you won't be able to compete, that's something I give a lot of thought to, you need to develop, you know, drafting and mapping systems that are hard to replicate. And I and I think we've done a pretty good job of that here redefined horizons, you know, we have a very unique system that we use, to structure our drawings that that afforded some advantages that I don't think a lot of a lot of other companies have, and I'm super, I'm very proud of that something that we've developed with their people. And when you do that, when you develop the systems, and you're gonna see opportunities to integrate and optimize that these other offshore companies aren't going to see because they don't, they don't have the picture of the whole process, right. So you're gonna be able to do things during your field work or during your data processing, or during the QA QC, that are going to allow you to optimize and integrate these other companies aren't gonna have an opportunity to do that, because they're only seeing one part of the process. So I need to, you need to think about that. You know, one thing you can do is, as a business owner tos, you got to really start to think about when it makes sense to avoid low margin cat work. And I'll just give you an example. This, I've had two companies come to me in the last two years, and want to know if we would just take contract CAD work. So one was a civil engineering company, in the San Francisco Bay Area, and one was a local utility service provider that we do other work for. And in both those situations, we said, No, we turn the work down. And that was what they were just going to hand this. So why don't why, you know, why would we? Why would we do that? I understand that that's not really how my team provides value. You know, if you need low wage drafting work, there's other places to find it, we're not going to provide a real benefit there. And in the long run, I don't, I don't want to have that be my company's focus. You know, you can go on Upwork and find that if you really want it, or you can hire one of these companies. I mean, there's got to be 50 Companies in California that offer that service. So what we told these folks, both both these potential clients, one of them was an existing client, one of them was a potential clients, we tell them, hey, we manage projects. If you want to hand us projects, not just drafting of an individual part of a project, but you want to hand this entire projects, then we can really provide you some value right because then we have the job opportunities to optimize and integrate, like I was talking about, if you just want to send us a point file and have us do, you know, some.to dot and a little bit of some contouring, we're not going to, we're not going to provide good value there, right part of how we provide value on the mapping side is our entire system from start to finish, right. And so if you just break out one little piece of that hard for us to provide value, so I think you need to think about that may not make sense to just do a low margin contract drafting work, if you're not in that business. And then you know, one of the things you want to do is upskill, and cross train your cat techs. I mean, we've been starting to have some conversations with our, with our cat techs about this at my company, and we can tell them like look, you need to know how to do more than just run cat. It's important for your future that you'd be able you need, you need to be able to do things like read a tax assessor map, understand what's in the D review, you review, land title report, be able to work with GIS data in QGIS, you know, know something about zoning, or Sequa. You know, have your UAV pilot certification, know how to run our photogrammetry software. So you know, the days of just being able to make a good living, because you know how to draw lines in CAD, those days might be old. And so we really have started to focus on helping our CAD techs here at my company redefine in our company refund horizons, cross train and upskill. There you go. There's the episode all seven points. So in review, what do we talk about? So number one, we reviewed why the decision to outsource CAD work is important for your business. Number two, we talked about why or what the what the product is, what are these offshore companies selling? What are they trying to sell you? Number three, I gave you some reasons why companies entertain this idea. Primarily, it's because it's super cheap, the service is super, super cheap. The fourth thing we talked about is some some problems I have with this business model why I don't think it works. And I think you need to be concerned about it either as a business owner or a licensed professional. In a large organization. I did give a little a little I tried to be objective. So the fifth thing we talked about was a limited circumstance in which this might make sense. You know, if you're a small shop. And then we also talked about, you know, what happens next with this model, potentially, as we move into the future, how this might play out in our, in our industry and in our professions. So what are we going to talk about next? Let's see next episode number, I think it'll be episode number six, is going to be evaluating the performance of teams small and large. And that's gonna that's some doing some a little bit different here. I'm going to try to to record an episode that was inspired by an article in The Economist magazine. And so I may try and rotate those in here on a pretty regular basis. So when I read an article in The Economist or The Wall Street Journal or the Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan those those business publications or book or read lots of business books, too. I may talk about, you know, what I think the key principles are and how it might apply to your, your surveying and mapping business. So we're going to make an attempt. I haven't done that yet. We're gonna try that out episode number six. Talk about how you evaluate the performance of teams all share that article from The Economist with you. So hope you guys enjoyed today's episode, and we'll talk to you in episode six.