The Huddle - Episode 19 - The Power of Partnerships
This week on The Huddle Paul, Daniel and Jose discuss the power of partnerships and how creating those partnerships can launch your business forward. Paul and Jose are live from the FCICA Convention, and are joined by CJ from FCICA who shares some of her knowledge as well.
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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.
what's up everybody
welcome to the Huddle we're on location
this week
as you know every week we uh we do this
uh podcast three o'clock on Tuesdays
central time and we're coming to you
every single week on the Huddle to help
you maintain forward progress in your
flooring career so Jose's with me
Daniel's back in Michigan on the fort
and uh he was just mentioning how
terrible it looks here so uh today's
podcast is about the power of
Partnerships so
um
you know speaking of Partnerships we are
um
always talking about making it to
conferences and conventions and things
like that and the value of that to
installers flooring contractors and such
so today we got CJ who's the executive
director of fcica and
yeah so she can take myself
no have a seat hi everyone so CJ's uh
the executive director for fcica which
is uh Floor Covering uh flooring
contractors Association where we come
together two times a year right mid-year
and annual and uh
got all your standard I shouldn't say
standard but all the the best suppliers
um
flooring contractors we got installers
uh everybody gets together shares best
practices what's really unique about the
fcica is uh everybody's uh willingness
to help the other the other companies I
mean in in reality a lot of times we're
competitors but we come together to help
share best practices ideas uh one of the
things that's really resonated uh at
this event has been technology not only
like
go Carrera type technology or
cloud-based technology and all that
that's here for sure in Spades in a lot
of ways but also tools so we had a great
um presentation earlier about like
modern installer tools and
um so anyway CJ puts us together
does all the hard work uh what's your
vision for the fcica and how how
bringing people together
um really creates strong lasting
Partnerships so um that's really fcica's
Vision it's uh it comes from our board
and all of our members and kind of like
what you just said everyone's
willingness to help each other out so
our mission is to help make commercial
foreign contractors successful
um and really uh one of the things that
we really try to do is partner with
every everyone in the industry so we
have a lot of Industry Partnerships
someone from wfca is here someone from
install is here
um starnet was here starnet fuse and of
course the USA all partner with us
um because we we all want to work
together to help make the boring
industry better and help everyone grow
you know together and this is uh is it a
membership do you have to be accepted
how do you go about becoming a member of
fcica
um so you can go to our website and
apply online or give us a call or send
me an email
um and we'll help walk you through the
process but for contractors it's 500 a
year
um and and you just apply online and
we'll um you know accept the membership
we also have as you said suppliers are
members and Distributors we have some
consultants and then our industry
Partners as well
so what about some of the spin-off
programs
more more specifically symptoms yeah one
you should mention that Jose is a Sim
which stands for certified installation
manager
um and that is a program that helps
provide education and certification to
our project managers
um or you know installation managers um
that you know all of our commercial
foreign contractors have
um it's an online program we also offer
an in-person program which Jose did with
us in Atlanta
um and that's three days to Sam and
that's called yep three days to send and
there are eight modules and they walk
you through
um everything from like once you receive
the estimate to
um like planning out the job all the way
to closing up
has has fcica ever considered
um
not a lower level of that but to me
there what we found with good Carrera is
there's a lot of installers that are
also getting Sim and it seems uh to me
like a no-brainer like we're going to uh
for anybody in the audience it's part of
our installer Network we're going to
start offering uh we're gonna ingest Sam
into the GoPro software and start
issuing Hammer rating on it because of
the professionalism and the the uh it's
more the mindset stuff right it may not
be a skill training with your hands but
it's it's super important for installers
to understand how to work with
contractors flooring contractors as well
as general contractors you guys are out
on out in the field you're out dealing
with superintendents and the project
managers on a daily basis and these are
this uh Sim program uh we have two sims
that Stewart and Associates as well and
the Sim program really gives you the the
skills and the the tools to be able to
deal with difficult people how to manage
job and also if you know what your
company is doing whatever shop you're
working with if they've been trained in
it too then you guys are kind of
operating in unison and you know what
the the company that you're working for
is looking to accomplish and how they're
going about things so you just work
better together so have you guys ever
considered like an installer level Sim
or a Sim it's affordable enough for
anybody but
um
has that ever come up at all
um not specifically an installer level
like creating another level but a lot of
the education that we provide so um we
do educational webinars online monthly
um and we have all of that um saved in a
learning management system that you can
access later so those are definitely
great steps and um kind of all geared
towards
teaching installation managers and it
would it's obviously applicable
applicable to installers as well gotcha
yeah I I think if if anybody in the
audience
um Ashlynn will uh we'll we'll actually
post
um some links to fcic as well as uh
maybe some direct links to the Sim
program and I would encourage any
installer it's on the uh huddle today to
uh entertain becoming a Sim uh
specifically if you run Cruise so if
you're if you're an install shop and and
you have 10 guys working for you or 100
guys working for you it's really
important that you understand how to
manage them efficiently uh Daniel or USM
as well sir no CJ keeps on bugging me
though
he will be someday so one more thing I
want to actually
sheds light on the back and from the
business right like it if it brings it
brings some of the scenarios that you
might not have had all the details for
uh up to the surface so that way you can
start paying attention to uh to bottom
lines and it it makes it so you're
dissecting your project a lot more than
just what you can see feel in touch well
and you're doing it in a way that you're
the company's been trained a lot of
there's a lot of Sims in the flooring
Contracting community and the the
company community so you're you're now
working like I said you're in unison
with them and not you don't wonder why
they do something you know why they're
doing a certain thing a certain way
because uh you've been trained as well
so I think it's great Daniel and I both
need to get simmed uh as I'm sitting
here I have some uh project managers in
the company that are Sam uh myself I am
not but uh me and Daniel ought to tackle
that together right there's actually
scholarship right huh people can apply
for the scholarship once that opens too
to try and yeah so we do thank you thank
you Neil for bringing that up we have a
scholarship
artists provides a scholarship every
year
with the scholarship winner speaking of
Partnerships that's another partnership
um yeah so you can apply for that
scholarship is that just online through
the is that the best ways like email you
yeah email us we do it um once a year so
we already selected the winner this year
but we'll do another one next year
um and for the audience's uh information
how much is this in
so if you have a discount if you're a
member of fcica so if you're a member
it's
1225 if you're a non-member it's
350 more than that and I can't do the
math it's like 15.
okay well go career is going to sponsor
uh a we'll do a um scholarship as well
oh great for next whatever the the
whether we can get it done for stocking
or not uh but uh we'll we'll offer uh a
scholarship as uh partner with uh fcica
uh Daniel and I cannot win is the Only
Rule
dang I was counting on that one so if if
there's anybody on the call that would
like to shoot a email to support a go
Carrera and we'll get you the
information
um get you hooked up with
with fcica and we'll uh offer us a uh
scholarship as well thank you thank you
you're welcome thanks for the
partnership awesome
so we're going to keep it short today uh
obviously we got like a lot going on
it's beautiful here uh but we have more
uh educational
um seminars to go to I just want to
mention once more that getting to
conferences and getting to conventions
and things like that I know it seems
like a lot but a few days out of the
year five or six days out of the year to
make it to two or three is well worth
your time and well worth your uh your
money because you you do create
Partnerships uh you know Jose was just
talking about working with wolf tools on
different stuff we've seen some awesome
really awesome
um
new tools coming out uh yeah I I want to
even present them to the go career
Community uh they're they're really uh
game changers when it comes to
installing uh specifically rolled sheet
Goods uh it's really some great stuff so
power Partnerships guys is really about
forming relationships uh to benefit us
all here in the flooring community so I
mean obviously we've got preferred
flooring we got Stuart Associates we got
scica go Carrera we're all here to try
to improve the industry so I apologize
this week is going to be shorter and
um than normal but I wanted to keep the
placeholder and and jump on here and
kind of chat through that a bit so
Daniel do you have anything to add sir
um no Jimmy other than you wish you were
here
and all that I mean it's it's 73 degrees
here today so it's not too bad it's been
pretty cold lately now it's warm as soon
as he leaves so
uh they just want to know what the email
is for the scholarship one more time
just so that way they can
support at
gocarera.com support gocareer.com or if
you either that or Ashland gocareer.com
Ashlynn either one will work and we'll
get you hooked up with the fcica to uh
figure out how we're gonna do a drawing
or however they do it we're just going
to piggyback on however they selected
the uh scholarship that I can't win
they'll put it right back in the till if
it's Daniel or I so
all right well hey everybody thank you
very much
um we appreciate you being here uh again
sorry for such a short uh huddle this
week I know we usually go 30 45 minutes
often an hour but uh this week we're
going to cut a little bit short yeah
it's it's gorgeous here but it's pretty
sticky uh outside and uh we got some
more learning to do so I want to thank
everybody once more and uh Daniel we'll
catch you thank you CJ for joining us
yeah
I appreciate being here awesome awesome
all right well thanks everybody that's
going to conclude it this week I think
that goes on record as our fastest
huddle it is 15 minutes boom I said
we're gonna try and keep the 15 minutes
and we did all right thanks everybody
and we'll catch you next week all right
have a good one bye