The HUDDLE is where the flooring industry can get together and talk about everything! Lead by Paul Stuart from Go Carerra who is joined by Daniel and Jose Gonzalez from Preferred Flooring.

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The HUDDLE is where the flooring industry can get together and talk about everything! Lead by Paul Stuart from Go Carerra who is joined by Daniel and Jose Gonzalez from Preferred Flooring.

https://www.preferredflooringmi.com

https://www.stuartandassociates.com

what's up daniel what's up jose

how's it going what's going on brother

i'm here

sorry if it's a little loud i'm almost

to the office so i'll be there in about

two minutes

okay what's up daniel what are you doing

setting up this camera and stuff

[Laughter]

i guess welcome to this week's uh huddle

first official huddle so

a little bit about what we're doing here

is um

huddle's intended to bring just like a

huddle in in football it's intended to

bring

uh

people from the industry together

and

whether it's

you know company owners

industry leaders

installers

professionals for

uh you know that can assist

installers in taxes to legal issues uh

just industry overall

conversation

uh you know this is gonna morph into

any specialty construction uh person

whether they're a drywaller or whatever

but we're flooring guys so uh that's

where we're starting i'd like to hear a

little bit about daniel and jose so

daniel won't kick us off tell us a

little bit about you

and uh preferred flooring and what you

just you know uh you're kind of flooring

famous

at this point and snoring famous

so now that'll get started and and a

little bit about your background

okay my name is daniel gonzalez with

preferred flooring in grand rapids

michigan

been doing this for uh

23 23 years now

i started out when i was 12 years old in

high school

and as soon as i graduated i pretty much

graduated and then that following week i

started full time and been doing it ever

since

uh jose is my brother and business

partner we've been doing this it's

actually 12 years as of like a week ago

congrats

thanks uh it's been

like any other thing you know it's been

a struggle

but that's what business is all about

right it's all about the struggle and

getting out of that struggle

um

we were labor only for a number of years

up until probably three or four years

ago we started uh

trying to do the whole full service

thing and it isn't until uh recently

really that we really

kind of

started to catch traction with that and

uh

now we have a whole another set of

headaches because that's what happens

sure

well you got to track materials now

track everything you got to deal with uh

all the shipping and

freight and fuel surcharges and

material price increases all that kind

of good stuff

jose looks like he's walking into the

office we'll give him a second

i'll uh tell you

maybe introduce myself i'm paul stewart

i've been in flooring similar to daniel

i didn't quite start at 12

but

pretty much right out of high school

after graduation

maybe a year later or so i got into

flooring

i remember the date

it was february of 95

and

heck i did it just did not have dirty

hands i was busting down tires at the

time and

and uh i did it to

you know try to

i don't know make a living without being

so filthy that was my thought um so

i started started uh at a company as an

hourly employee

like i said in 95 um

a few years later that company was

getting ready to get bought out for like

the third or fourth time and so

i decided me and this other guy that

worked there decided we could do this on

our own so we started

uh a flooring company at the time which

was really a labor-only shop and

uh i installed for

about

another 10 or so years 12 years

and through that transition we did the

same thing you guys are doing daniel is

we started selling materials and

and uh wanted to take care of our

clients

material needs as well as labor you know

we found that there was a

shortage in

in

what i'd call good customer service at

the time particularly centered around

materials so

yeah so

that's kind of history you know a few

years later i bought my partner out and

started stewart associates and we're now

one of the largest flooring contractors

in the midwest

and

you know my real passion is really to

figure out how we can

you know

up the installers quality of life that's

probably the easiest way i can see it

that's my real passion is how do we do

that because i feel like if the

installer succeeds and is successful and

has a good quality of life that at the

end of the day that equates into the

flooring companies that use that

labor

or hire that labor out

makes us successful so

that's a little bit about

me and how we started go carrera

did that in 2017 launched our first

version in 2018

and our current version

is um

live since

20

uh i'd say september

2020 or so

so

it's a complete platform

built around empowering

the flooring installer

giving them the

kind of construction accounting tools at

their fingertips and allows them to work

with companies like stuart and

associates for flooring anybody anywhere

and kind of puts power in their hands so

that's my story dan daniel uh already

kind of went how about you jose you want

to tell us a little bit yeah

hey first of all thanks for bearing with

me miles in the truck and making a

transition here

um so same thing uh

do you remember your first date i

remember my first date was january 7th

1998.

i had a herman miller

furniture company here in michigan

um

started out as a two-week temporary

two weeks turned into two months two

months turned into two years

um i happened to bring my brother into

it you know during the summers and like

you said when he was 12 when he was

younger

um

on and off with uh

a couple different companies in the

beginning

um

had a couple go-arounds

starting my own business uh previously

um

so two other businesses before preferred

flooring um

then uh

it didn't really work out the recession

hit back in 2008 2009 is when i got it

with it pretty hard uh and

brought everybody with me to another

company to work uh

as employed by the hour for with other

companies that i had experience with

um from there we kind of stayed put for

a while until uh

until we felt it was necessary for us to

leave until we thought we reached the

camp um and

uh we we take pride in what we do and

like you said is uh

the idea was definitely installer base

the idea of preferred flooring was for

us to create

something for

the flooring installer to be to be great

at one thing to focus on the

installation and the education

um it wasn't as broad as it is now it

was more focused on just us and our

abilities but

um that's what we came up with the name

is everyone preferred daniel or myself

to be on their job sites so it just only

seemed fit to go preferred flooring

um

and yeah 12 years later now we've kind

of

adopted the sales a few years ago and

we're learning and you know

i don't like anybody else who's starting

out man we don't have uh there's no book

to tell us what we gotta do we're still

learning as we go you know we ask advice

from everyone that we meet

where are you guys located

grand rapids michigan

awesome so um technically we're grand

rapids we're in a suburb of grand rapids

is where our physical location is at

um so walker grand rapids

sweet

well a little bit about why the huddle

ever came to be

there's plenty of flooring podcasts out

there we're not really trying to you

know

just have guests on in flooring

overall

and

you know only talk about the appropriate

way to install sheet vinyl although

that's important and we'll definitely

get into some of that stuff but

um you know as an industry we struggle

to

bring on new talent we've struggled

uh with the labor shortage like many and

many of the specialty

construction companies uh or

construction industries do

but we kind of struggle even more than

some of those due to not having in my

opinion

uh really

i guess the best way to put it is

standardized training

so the training is real fragmented

there's good training out there but it's

real fragmented so

uh knowing which trainings are good and

which ones are not

and i i you know i think that you know

having discussions

like this uh

that you know

what is a good training what's a good

training you guys have been to

uh what's a good training that you know

some of our guys have been to what we've

been to or i've been to myself even

um so a lot of that stuff you know come

out through this

through these uh huddles i want to have

fun this is our first one so it's

obviously always starts off a little bit

choppy and

and uh getting our footing but uh

you know the the real purpose of the

huddle here is for us to come together

like football teams

and even though an offense and the

defense have two separate agendas

they're still part of the same team so

when the industry

or manufacturers come on and join us

you know

we got to remember we we're all part of

the same team we just have different

objectives so

i use a lot of football analogies i love

football and i love the what that sport

means to life and what it does

from a perspective of preparedness

proper training

all that stuff that kind of goes into

that heck if you're a great football

player and you you uh

apply some of those

those uh principles to flooring you're

gonna be a hell of a flooring guy too

so

what's

tell me

like over the last year

what is your guys's um personal

challenges uh what does that look like

uh starting to sell materials and and

deal with uh gcs i ha i happen to

believe one of our

one of our core issues is this idea that

in construction

that

you know flooring guys or any specialty

contractor but it seems like flooring

guys in particular are almost

treated as less than um

you know

maybe less than other trades but

certainly a lot of times uh you know

not as a professional so

what's your guys's uh journey been like

because you guys are to me i've gotten

to spend time with you some of the most

professional guys that i've gotten the

pleasure to get to know

our yeah thanks um our journey's been

like i said it's it's business so it's

been

a little rough uh we did realize early

on that

that is how

the flooring industry was

perceived

and we kind of wanted to to break away

from that because

when you show up on a job you know at 8

a.m and everyone else has been there

since 6 that's

still technically early for a flooring

guy which is crazy to me

they're like oh my god you're here

already we didn't know we thought you

guys would be here at like 10 and you

know you hear stories of guys getting

there at 10 and leaving at 2 and it's

like

we didn't we didn't want to have

we don't want people to look at us like

being just another

guy that's like that we wanted to to be

a legit business and

to

be looked at as professionals because um

i think early on in

in my flooring career you know they ask

a lot of people ask you know what do you

do in this

flooring installer and it's like oh i

didn't know there was professional

flooring installers out there

but yeah i mean really that that's what

it is right it's you're you're going in

there and you're

being professional and installing a

floor so

to be looked at as a professional we

wanted to

to actually look professional so we you

know

our logo actually our cousin did our

logo and it came from

you know just asking him and paying him

25

25 and it's like now it's everywhere

yeah

but we we didn't want to be looked at

like you said like we're less than so we

we strive to be

better than anyone around and that's

really

our footprint in the industry um not

even just over here but like you said

you've talked to us and people can see

that everywhere and we just want to let

people know that you know you do start

technically we're still real small i

mean we've got only 11 people in the

company

so

it's small but you you still have to

look big time in order to

to have people take you seriously

sometimes well you got to land work and

you got to have some some

stability there

but from the flooring it's interesting

to me

how

a lot of uh you know the companies that

are out there were started by flooring

installers so the thought that we're not

professional um

is a little comical to me

um

you know many of the companies that are

in

say fuse alliance or or star net a lot

of those companies were started by

you know old flooring guys so

they've ran uh multiple millions of

dollars uh a year and in business we got

a billion dollar flooring contractor

here in america you know i mean it's

it's uh it's not small time it's a

bigger industry than most people really

realize um

well it's not glorified

it's not glorified and i think that

that's the issue is that you know um

nothing against anybody else but when

they're pushing uh

trade school as plumbing electrical

and then you know hvac is falling in

there when they're pushing all of that

um

and then you start looking at

the lower spectrum where framing and

groupers

and concrete guys you know they push all

that before they push flooring

um you know i

i asked a question in a group of

100 people

um

about flooring no um who does the flying

the framework the finished carpenter

nobody really had an answer for that and

it was like yeah you gotta you gotta

bring

bring awareness that there is a niche

right it's not even really addiction

it's just an industry all its own just

like all the other ones

well the the

why do you think that is i mean do you

think it's because

the the training side of it i mean you

can teach framing and roofing and things

but flooring

there's really four

now even you know five or six distinct

disciplines in flooring you know you got

carpet

resilient

um

hardwood tile

and say polished concrete and epoxy so

because of that

like one technique doesn't flow over you

seem carpet completely different than

you seem

uh you know sheet vinyl i mean you're

not stretching sheet vinyl to match a

pattern necessarily i mean you know

there there's a lot of different

techniques so i wonder if it's not a bit

of that i mean you could be go

you know

how do i say this you go to like high

school shop class they can teach you how

to build a lamp or something that was my

that's what i've built right a lamp but

uh

they may not be able to teach you how to

be

how to actually install

uh all these multiple floorings now i

think they got some stuff out there the

fcef is doing some stuff at some of the

community colleges on a 10-week course

uh kind of introductory level but you

know

there's so many

in my opinion just to answer my own

question and then

get your opinion on this but

so many of the flooring guys in in our

industry learned from a relative

or something like that and they have no

way to prove or

um kind of i don't even want to say

proof but like

um

display or tout their abilities because

i mean how do you say like i learned

from my uncle you

know so without a person

yeah a lot a lot of guys take pride in

actually getting

learning from their uncle or their

father their grandfather

and it's hard for them to

sort of go to a class i think and

realize that they've been doing

something wrong their entire careers

and people just you need to stop looking

at it

like that and you have to start looking

at it like well if i'm doing something

wrong i want to learn how to make it

right and the only way to do that is to

actually

learn from

someone else

that knows the technique

and

kind of translate that into your

everyday but a lot of people

are are closed-minded like um

the last cfi class we we took you know

um we asked some guys to go and one of

them said why would i want to go and

have them tell me stuff that i already

know

but but they don't realize that all it

takes is that one trick man to save you

so much time

doing something so if you learn one

thing

in any any class you go to in a seminar

you know it doesn't matter it doesn't

have to be an actual certification but

um

continued education is paramount because

you learn one thing and

it just it changes your day-to-day and

makes things so much easier

yeah so how do you change the hearts and

minds of the installation community i

mean you guys are

you guys

are installers

high-quality installers i installed i've

got some people on this call that

installed

uh

how do you change your heart and minds

of

the installation community to realize

that

you may have been trained and maybe even

trained well from a from a relative

um

or or you know

a good friend but

you know

understanding that a standardized way of

doing a job

um

and being able to

kind of

have proof of that that that's what i'm

trying to get to here is like you know

you go to a doctor's office they got

their their dog on diplomas and their

their all their stuff on the walls or

any profession not that we're done

but they have their stuff on they're

proud of what they've accomplished in

training in learning not

they don't put their operations on the

wall they put their their certifications

and their diplomas and their

their achievements on the walls so

why why do we not have that type of

pride in going and learning our trade

i think there's a trickle effect you

know

and i'm i'm only you know obviously this

is my opinion and i'm going to go back

to when when i started doing flying is

everybody had a perception that the

flooring guys were the bottom of the

barrel right like they couldn't make it

in another industry so they ended up on

the floor um

and

we didn't

when i started and people i worked we

didn't do anything to make us look any

better either we weren't

the most uh presentable um face-to-face

we weren't the most articulate when it

came to

sitting in a progress meeting or holding

a conversation

um but you know that's individualized

right typically the one in charge

was the one sitting in all those

meetings but

from the top down there was never any

type of um

uh form

that we had to stick to we didn't have

any structure from the top down there

was no

you know electrician's got to be

licensed to do specific work the

plumber's got to be licensed they have

to pass inspection

there's a lot of different

things that they have to abide by and

books that they have to follow 100

in order for them to become successful

and move on to the next step they have

hours of apprenticeship hours of

training under certain levels to keep

moving up

and that right there that process just

the process alone gains respect visually

um and

for installs we don't have that we we

it might have said on an on a commercial

project it might have said uh must be

installed by a certified installer in a

particular material right

that didn't always get followed because

certified installers were very slim and

honestly they're still kind of slim

because

somebody who's been installing for 20

years

does feel like they don't

need to go get that certification right

um at one point you know daniel was like

hey

hey you got to go go get it you know

it's our talk go get a certification

then he came down uh to me and i'm like

you know what

i just kind of want to get a

certification and justify what i've been

doing for years like it's not even for

anybody else out there i bet you learned

something though you know we sent some

guys to cfi

and there's multiple other organizations

by the way but it just happens uh

we we sent some guys to cfi that had

been just that they learned from their

uncle literally and they were good

installers they did a good job and when

they got back they they literally were

like dude i was

i was going because you were kind of on

me about going but i actually learned

some stuff

and they'd been doing it for 10 or 15

years by that point and learned from

their uncle the thing is is it's kind of

it seems to me it's kind of like

the uh you know when using school and

they had to get in a circle and you tell

somebody something and by the time it

got back around to you is completely

different i think that some of the

trainings are the same way maybe

you know their uncle got certified or

somebody down the line was properly

trained and then as it gets it gets a

little bit diluted and that's why i

think the certifications are so

important and trainings in general

certifications

you know workshops that kind of stuff i

think they're important because it

re-ups what you know

uh it can reaffirm

uh what you've been taught but also

you're gonna probably pick up some some

key pieces there

and you know frankly

you can make a good living in flooring

and

um

so i'm i'm hopeful

that over time as this webinar podcast

whatever we decide to call it uh you

know as as we

come together and huddle every week and

bring in some

some uh some of the

manufacturers uh possibly some of the

training entities

uh whoever we can get to join us

that

we can start to kind of uh shift the

paradigm a bit

and open people's mind to the fact that

the installer in particular that

proper training

if you build a good foundation and then

you learn from somebody else it's always

better in my opinion so hopefully we can

kind of uh change change that

atmosphere i i don't know how else to

say it but i know the entire industry is

trying to solve this problem

but nobody else is getting together with

you know

all facets from installers i

i would love the day when the huddle has

you know five or 10 15 20 100 i don't

care installers and then the ceo of

e of uh you know shaw or somebody like

that where we're all together coming up

understanding what the big problem is in

our industry and we know what it is

labor we're not even

appropriately using all the labor we

have let alone um bringing in new new

blood so

some of those things are starting to

happen

um but

it's without input

i think that

i think without input from the

installation community

you got a lot of

ceos out there

with different training organizations

and uh industry organizations just kind

of making the call as best as they know

so maybe we could be a voice for the

installation community and

and um

i'd say the service side of the business

in general not just uh the main not the

manufacturing of the products we'll get

those guys on but the service side

and uh

so

we're gonna keep these things short each

week we'll see how they go but somewhere

around 30 minutes and um

so

each week we'll also

take some um we're in the

in the process of kind of formatting a

few things

uh that we did not have ready this week

but each week we'd like to take some uh

questions from the

uh you know from the audience

maybe answer them or just discuss them

i'm not saying i have all the answers

i'm not saying you guys have all the

answers but we can sure as hell discuss

this stuff and see what we come up with

what comes out of a good discussion is

sometimes

you know better than one guy trying to

answer every single question so yeah 100

and it's always it's always good to hear

someone else's opinion and voice

um you know if

regional uh

struggles might be different you know in

your area than my area but it's always

nice

to hear what's going on to see what's

going on and to learn because

you guys might be you know two years in

the future from where we're at or vice

versa and if if there's some scenarios

from other installers that are out there

or they've already hit some scenarios

hey

this is the place to bring it all out

let's talk about it let's let's help one

another it's about

bringing our industry to the forefront

for one another

yeah

there's too many installers that think

that every other installer is their

competition and what they don't realize

is that we're all in this together and

if we don't

start acting like that and kind of

bridging the gap with just the

installation community

we'll never do that with the retailers

and the stores and stuff like that it's

it's it's got to start somewhere and us

as installers have to realize that man

we gotta start talking to each other

not as competition but as equals and

uh

and learn from each other um that's

that's a big thing right we were talking

about classes and all this stuff and

just talking to some people i i can

learn

i have learned a lot from you know just

talking to installers

like we're talking now

and it's it's crazy the amount of

information that one person has that you

don't and then you just get feed it

right back to them on something that

they don't

know and we just have to start feeding

off each other and

start trusting each other really because

as a community we're kind of broken up

and it's it's time to come together

well how do we you know

that's a great point i mean at the end

of the day

quality of life for an installer

specifically the independent installer

right because he's not under the care of

a company he is a

independent

installation company himself or herself

with that being said like

the only way to change the industry is

for the installation community to band

together you know come together

discuss things

have some uh you know that's the only

way you're gonna get price enough if you

ask any flooring company at all the

conventions i've been at most of them

want to pay more but the reason they

don't pay more is because their

competitor down the street's not going

to pay the same and they're going to

lose out on work if they up their labor

rates well if the install community came

together under one

kind of uh roof

and made some some decisions there

where it doesn't matter which company

they're working for that their their

rates are going to start bumping up well

eventually the entire

industry

rates start going up right if i'm if i'm

paying the same

uh as the guy down the street or or the

the installers in our community are

charging the same for me as they are

down the street

then

when it bumps up a little bit and we use

you know we use go carrera a little plug

for go carreras

it keeps all of the

um

the power in the installer's hands to

negotiate their pricing and charge what

they

uh what they feel is uh appropriate for

their skill level

that being said

if they if it's if it's that way

throughout the entire install community

then you can start to bump up rates

installers can start to get paid more

companies can charge more and you don't

get this throat cutting scenario where

we if you're

you're doing you know contract work now

um so you guys know

like if you pay way more than your your

competitor down the street in in labor

i mean

as good as you guys are as good as we

are at the end of the day we're not

getting every job

uh we're not we're not you guys aren't

getting every job you bid

we've lost work because our competitor

pays

you know

i won't even name the rate but really

cheap for certain items and we just

can't compete with them we refuse to go

down that low

and uh to beat up the installers

yeah well i just think that if we come

together

um and there's a lot of companies that i

think sit in the same chair as we do and

a lot of installers out there want

want their quality of life to be um that

they don't have to work 90 hours to make

a living and um i think that as a entire

industry we have to address that and if

we can address that appropriately

and give a mechanism that allows

installers to

um you know

have the power

um

i think dealers and and retailers and

con you know flooring companies foreign

contractors

will start to uh bump up i know it's

worked for us we use go carrera

everybody's gonna be able to benefit

from it it brings uh it brings

visibility to the installers and brings

visibility to a skill set right you

don't want

you don't want a

joke or guy to

go and install

x material for you when his experience

is limited you want that to be a success

for you for the installer for the end

user

um and that's what what this is about

it's about bringing visibility to

strengths right you don't have to

exploit anybody's weakness but if you

bring their strength out in front of say

hey this is what i'm strong at there is

no question there is no no doubt um and

i think that that's why

this platform is going to be great for

for anybody it's going to benefit the

the flooring store the manufacturer the

installer

uh the commercial um property owner the

business owner the homeowner is gonna i

mean

it's

it's a great great tool

well getting the right guy on the right

on the project is is 90 of it and right

now because we don't have this

standardized

way of being able to

assess what an installer can do so

you know there's only a few trainings

out there that that

perk my eyebrows and make me say oh that

guy has to be good if he has that

certification

um

outside that there's there's

not a college there's no degree to get

and so

we had to build something that allows

you know

the the people who sell the labor

to be able to hire the labor

based on the skills and ability of that

that uh labor provider

and um i feel like

if we continue down this path it will

ultimately result in better installers

better uh industry and hopefully better

flooring companies too because we can

all get better so

with that you guys got any closing words

i'm going to close this off here and uh

sign us out

never stop learning i was once one of

those guys that like i i mentioned

earlier and when he was like well am i

going to go there so they can tell me

something that i already know

and once you do your your first

certification class you you realize that

i mean like i said

i was doing things wrong and

uh you you translate that into your

everyday and realize that you're you're

not a know-it-all and once you realize

that and figure out that

you can learn something new every day

you take that with you in in every

aspect of your life and

it'll help you out everywhere not just

the flooring industry

yeah

i agree i would say i would add to that

um or to this is that

if this is uh your career this is what

you're choosing then um you know

invest in yourself

invest in yourself you know even if it

isn't investing in a certification or

anything like that investing yourself

whether it's family time personal time

or you know you want to invest in your

business

do you want to work 90 hours a week i

understand i was there the only one who

worked 40 hours a week i understand

what's there you only want to work 20.

that's okay too but invest in your crap

because this is your career invest in

yourself

education cooling whatever just

put yourself

forward put yourself in the forefront of

your own life

yeah so put your put your knowledge in

your your uh career

uh you know at the top of your

at the top of your uh list of things

that you need to do and and your goals

right so

awesome well thanks for joining us this

week guys got off to a bit of a rocky

start but we're gonna get this thing

rolling uh we'll be in some

some good conversations down the road so

thanks for joining us and appreciate

everybody coming and we will uh we'll

chat with you guys next week