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.

FORWARD PROGRESS SCHOLARSHIP: email Ashlynn@gocarrera.com or message GoCarrera on social media to apply to be able to win a CIM Scholarship and be a part of a 3 days to CIM.

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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 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