The Huddle - Episode 16 - Growing with the Industry
This week on The Huddle Paul, Daniel and Jose talk about some resources available to you to ensure that you are able to stay up-to-date with the changes constantly happening in the industry.
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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.
okay well welcome everybody
to uh the weekly huddle where we coming
to every tuesday
to discuss maintaining forward progress
in your business and flooring career
uh today i got daniel with me
as
as always
from pf is with me
today
we're putting together a resource kind
of guide
uh
today's podcast is about
um
or the huddle here is about
you know staying in tune with the
industry staying up to date and i'm not
just talking about new products although
many of the resources we
are going to share with you
will help keep you up to date on new
tools and new products
but
also
uh keeping you up to date on industry
developments
what's up jose
uh
industry developments
it keeps you in touch with um
you know when the conventions we always
talk about whether it's convention or a
show
whether you're in tile carpet
resilient or hardwood
so we're gonna put together a resource
guide a few of them all mention on here
and we'll share that on all of our
social later today
and we'll also
uh send out emails so if you're on our
email list
uh you'll get an email
uh with some links
and
basically this is
different publications in the industry
from floor covering weekly or
um
one of the the you know pro installer or
one of those
um also
uh i've got to give a big shout out to
the ntca if you're a go carrera member
uh you get
their education package and within that
education package
i believe it's 249 a year
uh normally it's 600
so
as a go carrera member you get it for
249
but the
that comes with one of the best
resources for tile which is the tile
letter
and that really keeps you up to date
you'll get that monthly in the mail
and that really keeps you up to date on
all things style from new developments
stories
um
it's like a reader's digest for tile
basically so
um
that's a good one
obviously we've talked about cfi before
becoming a member there is very valuable
to you but also
uh you'll be on their newsletter and
kind of stay up to date with their
trainings
you'll still be able to stay up to date
with new
uh new trainings
um
not just new
or trainings in your area but when they
come out with the new training
um
they they uh they put that in their
newsletter
um there's also
various um
the nwfa is with
uh for wood flooring um nafct
does a great job for
um training and resilient and things
like that
so we'll we'll basically share a
resource guide
uh that will allow you just to go
um
and click on that resource and and go
check out the material
the big thing here is a lot of people
that are in our industry and we've ran
surveys
uh specifically on flooring installers
surveys that
just show that many of them don't have
an idea of where to go to find trainings
or find
you know stay up to date with the
industry standards new installation
methods and techniques
so we're going to share that uh
this
this uh huddle is less conversational
than previous because
i'm going to ask you guys what resources
you have ashlynn will log that down and
if we don't already have that at go
carrera as the resource we'll add that
but um what do you guys get on uh
do you are you on newsletters how do you
stay in touch with where the industries
go and you guys have such a good thumb
on the pulse of that
uh how do you actually
keep that thumb on the industry's pulse
it's
that's exactly it it's uh our inboxes
are filled up with newsletters in the
emails um you know
cfi
uh
yeah
for covering news um
magazine
from the the distributors
even stica
sends information yeah fcica is a good
one too they they they even have like uh
monthly webinars that you can join and
there's the
guys that one's a good one i'm glad you
brought that up jose because
we're both members of fcica
and uh in our flooring companies i'm
also
go career as a member
uh as
the software company um
but
you want to talk about staying up to
date and getting opportunities to jump
on webinars and learn new product i know
rdex does it a lot um
i think i've seen
yeah i've seen almost every major
manufacturer do a webinar new product
launches
it's a fast and efficient way i many
times we look at our inbox and we're
like shoot
it's hard to say for what spam and what
isn't right so you kind of have to thumb
through it a little bit um
but even if it does come through and it
gets flagged there still is some
information in there there's a lot of
links that you could click on and just
kind of move forward through you just
have to
yeah i'd recommend if you don't know
where it's coming from don't click on it
yeah
but for sure there's a lot of
information
well
mentioning the fc ica and that's they
really focus in on
you know the soft goods side of the
industry so the you know resilient and
carpet side um
and they're they're
they're webinars we've done one for goku
air on there before
but their webinars are really
informative um
i would i would suggest uh signing up
with the fcica now i'm not sure on every
resource if you have to be a member to
be
part of it or not so you'll have to
decipher through each one
we might be able to put some some more
information
ashlynn can do that
on the resource guide but
the inboxes is full of stuff and uh
what i'm saying with the webinar is
i know when you look at it it can be
like i don't have 30 minutes but to get
the same information you got to have a
rep come into your office it's going to
take two hours so the thing is is even
like when i was in the field i would put
a webinar on and i wouldn't pay
you know i wouldn't focus 100 percent of
my attention to the webinar i'd be
working over here
leave the phone wherever i can get
signal and just listen and then once i'm
like oh let me let me pay attention to
this real quick go grab the phone look
at it
but the the information is
is very valuable i mean that's um
really where
like for an example i was working
um i don't know bronton is about an hour
and 15 minutes away from here
and uh
working out there doing a brand new
hospital and the mapei was doing one on
their
uh lbt for shower system and i was like
this is sounds interesting to me so i
listened to it came back told him and
we're like let's start talking to him
and pay
uh you know and talked to sam and biando
and uh
the other guy
craig or jeffrey jeff
you know a number of people and then we
ended up getting you know some material
and boom our office has a shower in it
out of lvt
yeah
it's actually pretty sweet looking i
prefer to take a shower here at the
office and i do it
well it's um it's stuff like that i mean
who
i seen now you go to that and then you
follow up with going to surfaces where i
seen
the lvt in the shower and you kind of
can touch and feel it so it's a good
it's good supporting documents for you
to kind of know what's going on when
when you do go to convention or to um to
a show
some of the notable shows we've
mentioned in the past but
surfaces coverings surfaces is all
things flooring
aliens a little more residential
uh coverings is all hard tile all over
the world
ceramic tile of italy of spain portugal
i mean everybody who makes manufacturers
tile
is pretty much there
you got tsp which is a another ceramic
tile
called total solutions plus
that has an annual convention as well
and that is really focused on
uh education
for
the tile industry
um you got
obviously cfi convention which is really
focused on training and
installers let's see other notable ntca
which is the national tile council of
america or association
one of the two uh
then you got um so they obviously are
very focused on tile they got a great
program called five star
um
uh
contractor which you can become as a
flooring company
if you go through certain things um it's
pretty hard to get there but it's it's
pretty valuable there's some specs out
there that require five stars
uh contractors to do uh the work
the nwfa is the national wood flooring
association and that's all things
hardwood and if you ever get a chance to
go to st louis and look at their
facility and see them see some of the
stuff that they have done with hardwood
it's absolutely amazing
and then you've got uh let's see went
through the ent oh fcef everybody that
one is um their
main goal
and they could use your your support too
um their main goal is
helping us solve the labor issues so
they're doing a lot of recruiting
they're working with a lot of uh
community colleges
uh they've got a 10 week
kind of i believe
it i know it's ten weeks i don't know
what they call it a certified program or
whatever it's a training a ten week
training program
okay
um
that is being done in a lot of
a couple of community colleges at this
point i believe um
so they're awesome to be involved with
and kind of see where that's heading
um
let's see what else i know i'm missing
several here but
um
anyway we'll have it all on the resource
list to keep the the the ideas to
you know get plugged in like daniel said
you know you're going to get this into
your inbox you get the choice of whether
to watch
read or whatever and um
and uh take advantage of that
information once you sign up for some of
these things too like the fcica
it's uh
once the webinars are pushed out there
you know you can attend it live but if
you can't make it everything's recorded
and you can get in there and watch it
later too yeah good point yeah they
record every webinar so if you miss one
like daniel said you can go back and
watch it
yeah and i mean if you really look at um
i think everyone pretty much has their
own magazine out too right and
the the information in there is actually
coming from people that are living it
we've written a few articles um i
actually haven't posted on our website
so people can
kind of click through and see what we've
written but
it's a lot of valuable information there
too and then
the the best thing about those articles
is like if you read something from one
of us and then you go to one of these
conventions and you're like hey i read
your article
can we talk about this and you know
that's what happened at tfi convention
and it was awesome to to know that
one people are reading these things and
two
they do have some input and
want to pick your brain not only about
you know what you wrote but about their
thoughts on it and how
how your views of something depending on
what you're talking about maybe you know
a little off or
you know everyone's not gonna agree on
everything but if it's definitely about
an installation method or
a standard uh those are kind of set in
stone
sure but you you bring up a good point i
mean
um you guys have written articles i
think i've written
five or six articles over the years here
uh the key what i'm saying that for is
if you're tied into the to the
organization you have a chance to write
articles too they want content so if you
you get in touch with them and discuss
and you have something important you
want to say
uh to the industry
um
and you know get get your uh research
out there or whatever it is um you know
i've written articles on the labor
shortage i've written articles on using
digital tools and how flooring's a bit
behind from construction in general is a
bit behind in technology we're catching
up honestly
but uh flooring is kind of lagging even
the construction side from a technology
standpoint we had a whole podcast about
technology and stuff you know so
um
but
whatever it is you are passionate about
uh within the industry or even just
business in general you
you will find that there are
opportunities out there to write the
articles yourself and uh you know work
with whether it's scica or whomever on
uh you know getting your article
published
yeah
and it's not that they want the articles
they need the articles right like they
need the content there there's there's
um
a lot of instances where they're just
reaching out saying hey can you just
write us something on one of these 20
subjects yeah like just your views and
it's only like dangerous it's only one
view
um and we can only speak for our
experiences but man it's
it'd be nice to see some new names and
some of these articles and read it
yeah i mean that's a great opportunity
for people to go through they typically
would send out basically an excel
spreadsheet with the different
publications and the requirements for
those publications and then some titles
they're looking to fill
and if you feel like you're an expert in
that area and you've uh you're tied in
with the organization so they know
you're an expert uh you got a good
chance of being published so
yeah what else do you guys do
hands-on man just a lot of hands-on like
um you know we don't have a very big
warehouse or a shot per se but
if there's material out there or
something that is coming across the desk
and we're
not familiar with it we'll make the
phone calls we'll call the wraps we'll
try to get some material whether
it's donated or we purchase it to get
the hands-on
and then from there you start educating
yourself like this isn't working now
let's look to see what tooling is out
there to help this or we'll reach out to
the networks and say hey who's worked
with this before what are you guys using
uh why are you using that you know and
you'll get a bunch of different answers
but it's really a comfort thing and
you get a lot of people involved in the
conversation and it starts a whole
conversation about it and then
it brings to the surface some of the
answers that some other people don't
know or wouldn't even think about asking
and they're
another
opportunity for an aha moment yeah
like we're talking about you know
staying up to date the the biggest thing
is knowing who your reps are and talking
to them about stuff um because once you
it's it's never really to the point
where they're gonna start coming to you
and being like hey
you want to start talking you you
actually have to initiate the
conversation most the time and then once
you do you establish that relationship
and then
they'll start coming to you so you know
we get two manufacturers and stuff like
that they're like hey we got this new
tool coming out can you guys uh
you know check it out and let us know
your thoughts or you know we're having a
really hard time pushing this one tool
or product will you guys work with it
and kind of give us your feedback and
you know we we do we've made videos and
i mean
we've actually made videos to the points
where we're like yeah you know what
we'll record something put it on youtube
and then once we start recording
it's like hey let's let's just stop
recording this and start recording
like something just for these people so
they can know what to tweet before
like
this product
this is i can't push this product
because there's something wrong with it
we're gonna let them know and then they
we can you know
get that next prototype and move on from
there that comes from being involved
at convention everywhere like danny and
those you know with wolf or
the taylor guys or getting in touch with
the manufacturer so that they
yeah or the tool makers in this case
so that they know to even
send you something
right they even know who you are i mean
so that's getting to convention or
getting to
the different shows where
the tool manufacturers display their
stuff and they're they love doing that
so
they love the feedback right because
if they're not making something that
you're going to use
why are they even making it so if that
something can just be tweaked a little
bit like
if we just tweak this we can sell this
much more that's really the information
that they need
you know once you establish that
relationship they'll start reaching out
hey check this out and then you know we
we're notorious for giving honest
feedback
so
it's like this is this is what's wrong
with it this is what i don't like and
this is why this isn't going to be in my
toolbox like
some sometimes it's just yeah sometimes
there's a tool that
well the same thing goes with adhesives
and stuff like that i gotta he's i know
adhesives i just don't care to use you
know i'm not gonna name anybody's name
but i'm just saying you know
you you get messing with something and
you figure out the goods and bads of it
and
report back
yeah i mean look they need content they
need feedback they need all this stuff
and they just need more
daniels and jose's and paul's to be out
there talking and
and and trying their products out and if
you really look at it like when we were
at cfi convention um
mohawk was a huge part of that and alana
was like
talking to us a lot and she's like i
need to know
you know i need
installer feedback so that way we can
know that we're engineering products
that are not only going to be look good
on the floor but be installer friendly
and and perform the way they need to be
yeah and seem and they they they look
pretty and they they seem like they'd
work uh you know
in the manufacturing plant but you got
to get them out in the field to kind of
mess with them a bit see what the
dependencies are
what the problems are
you know
that kind of stuff so
i think cool yeah i thought that her off
guard too was like she has hey what
about this product
i wouldn't even put it in in my house i
wouldn't do it why not it's just
said because i live in michigan it's
just not going to perform where i'm at
yeah i know it's going to fail i
nobody's going to take care of it the
way it's supposed to i don't want it i
don't want it to fail
but that's what started that
conversation well that's nice and deep
and uh getting to know the product but
uh
for sure
well um
so another good way is
join the huddle weekly uh we're here
every tuesday at three o'clock i think
we've
we're on episode
14 or 15 or something
we haven't we've missed uh one i believe
uh maybe two but uh for the most part
we're here um
again we're trying to create a
comprehensive
resource list for you guys so
uh we're gonna publish that like i said
ashton's gonna put it on our social here
the next uh
maybe this afternoon but more than
likely over the next day or so
and um
you know provide your feedback if you
have any questions if we're missing
anything you know just just let us know
i'll reach out to these guys and and if
i don't have the answer they you know
one of us will and we'll get a resource
for you so um
outside that
the huddle was uh a little different
this week
we weren't going real in depth on uh you
know in a topic that you you drill into
but i did want to talk about some of the
ways you can keep your thumb on the
pulse these guys do it great that's why
it's so good to have them on there they
you see them everywhere they're
always at you know conventions and shows
and they're always talking with the
right people and so that's
i guess the last point would be don't be
shy when you get to the shows and
convention come up say hi to any of us
and and
certainly
we may have been pointing to other
people yeah we made it a point at the
last conventions where
if uh if we seen someone sitting by
themselves it's like
let me go sit next to this guy and just
you know talk to him for a little bit
and
you know a lot of people
it's their first time they they have no
idea what they're even walking into yeah
so in order to
be comfortable sometimes you have to
have someone to approach you and so
that's what we did last time and
breaking the ice for him is really what
it was and
i just send wayne pruitt out there and
he breaks the ice for for well he's he's
fantastic
fantastic
but then he doesn't show up yeah that's
true too
and he knows it
uh
i love you dwayne um
but anyway
that's about it for this week guys uh
it's amazing that took almost 30 minutes
just uh going through that but
um
you guys got anything signing off
uh grab that with baby sister
this is why you gotta
get into the
magazines and stuff like that
yeah that's awesome
she put a picture of me on there because
she felt bad oh yeah
both of us are on here just to
moral support yeah basically
like
yeah and you guys basically drag little
sister into uh to her first competition
and and really getting involved herself
and
and she's emerging as not only you know
being recognized as a great installer
but also a leader from
for for females in our industry i i know
i've talked to several
uh ladies who
admire her very much
and
um
so yeah you get to meet people
um
but staying in tune i know we preach a
lot about getting the convention but
that's because this is our our
only not our only method but it's a
really good method of staying in touch
with people that can make a difference
in your business
um and so we just encourage it a lot
um
and then of course
just to recap
we'll we'll uh we'll publish this
resource uh
this resource page and hopefully it
helps everybody out a little bit so if
you got any questions feel free to email
us
um support go carrera got any questions
uh for daniel and jose you guys want to
plug your email
if they if they have any uh install
questions or do you have uh you can
email either one of us uh daniel or jose
at pfmi.team
awesome
all right guys well thanks for joining
me on this short huddle and uh it's good
seeing you guys again and we will talk
to you soon all right all right next
time
next week guys