The Huddle - Episode 3 - Image Isn't Everything (but it's close)
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Image Isn't Everything (but it's close)
This week Paul talks with Jose and Daniel Gonzalez from Preferred Flooring about how your image plays a role in your personal and professional success.
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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.
all right what's up everyone and welcome
to the huddle
we come to you weekly to discuss on how
to maintain forward progress in your
flooring careers
i'm paul stewart
and joining me as always today is
daniel and jose with preferred flooring
what's up guys hey how's it going
so today we're going to be discussing um
image uh title of the
of this episode is images and everything
but it's close
so
you know
there's a there's a ton of uh
there's a ton of discrepancy i believe
in what we talk about when we're talking
about image it's not uh you know we're
flooring guys so it could be
it's not having a dirty shirt or or
working uh
you know
like trying to be the best dressed it's
about how you present yourself both
professionally and from a
from an aesthetic standpoint so
you know a lot of times um
you know in my career
uh
there's been guys that come into you
know our company to
uh
apply for for a job or or try to become
a subcontractor if i don't know them
image has a huge play in my initial
assessment of them even if they
sound like they may know what they're
talking about
if they're
you know wearing a
f you the to the world
i'm sure you guys have some experiences
uh so maybe we'll share a few uh
experiences here on
one of you guys ran across in in uh
both in your in your ability to gain
work because of the way you guys present
yourselves and uh how do you guys look
at you know guys and jeans that are
ripped up to their pants pockets or
those types of deals so yeah i'll go
ahead and start off if you guys don't
mind um
so
when when i got into the industry uh i'm
not gonna lie man i was not
i was not the most uh presentable person
right i was a
cutoff sleeve shirt i wore the big baggy
jeans i was never really big on like uh
sagging right but
where i grew up everyone everyone did it
it really wasn't my style but so i wore
the oversized jeans that were cut off at
the bottom with the strings hanging
everywhere
uh holes in them
um you know and
coming in nobody really ever did say
anything
about what i was
wearing um
but i did start to notice a trend uh on
my own as far as
the companies that we did work for on
the commercial land the the the more
prestigious they were
was more visual to me than it was uh
anything else right so they started
getting on to larger projects you
started seeing people where they were
more uniform
and to me they just stood out as as more
professional
did i catch on right away and start uh
you know addressing that part no i i
didn't to be honest with you i didn't i
didn't wear
my actual first uh uniform for work
until i went and worked for a um a
company under a w-2 in a warm just a
simple shirt with a simple logo and you
know what it made me feel so much better
made me feel more professional then i
started worrying about more about my
appearance because now
now i'm a crew leader for this company
and i'm representing them and i wanted
to make sure that i was representing
them in the right manner
so i started you know
watching how much glue i got on my shirt
on my pants started watching how many
rips i had in my pants you know try to
make myself more presentable right
um and you know none of this really
resonated until later on after we
started uh preferred flooring and
we didn't have our guys uniformed and
there was a
specific incident and we were getting
blamed for it and it
really did not
it was like something out of the movies
and you know the guy said something to
me that just like right away it hit me
and he said um
my phone's going off for some reason he
said
if you're not willing to put your logo
on your employees why would i be willing
to let them work in my facility
and as soon as he said that it was just
like fireworks in the brain
and
no matter how much
we try to veer away from it
people are very visual and they're going
to judge you by your appearance when
they first meet you they have nothing
else to use the judging appearance
it might not be everything but it's the
majority of something and well
first impression wise it's pretty close
right i mean it's pretty cool you don't
know the guy and they it's the first
time you're meeting
uh
i don't know there's a there's a lot you
can judge the way they present
themselves and things like that but also
uh the the
their appearance by itself seems to
speak volumes when you first meet and i
know it does for me
yeah it did and
and you know i'm not gonna lie like
within within five days i had
you know the cheapest cotton shirts made
for the guys
um you know everybody still had their
own coats and all that because you know
it was winter time when this happened
uh but we all looked uniform within a
within a week and
after that happened
you just all of a sudden you started
noticing that uh
the respect that you were getting
your crew was getting not just you as
the leader but your crew was getting
more respect all of a sudden you know
everybody's got sleeves on everybody's
matching the obviously the jeans wasn't
working progress but
um you know it put us
it put us in a position where all of a
sudden like
maybe we can attract the people that we
are trying to work for maybe we can do
that you know and it started we started
thinking about different ways that we
could uh um improve on our appearance i
don't want to say alter our periods
right because you know people can can
wear their personality in the haircut
bald
dreads whatever they want piercings you
know that that part really doesn't
bother me at all right i know it bothers
some but
um the appearance as far as
the clothing and the aesthetics of that
really did help
bring to light it made it so people
focused on us as a group
instead of just knowing what we did you
know
it gave us a better
representation of who we were
do you see a difference
i mean you were talking there that
um
you noticed a difference have you
continued to notice a difference how
people perceive you or how
some you know a client
responds to you
because of your crew
um for example i i i have a customer
that we have
uh done a ton of different of their
facilities
and when we had a crew on that had all
of our shirts on
they were all the neon yellow
they had they all looked very
you know much there's a reason why the
military and the police forces and and
things wear uniforms and i'm not saying
you have to go full on guard uniform but
i'm just saying like a standardized look
within for you for installers
and
the difference between the way that
client perceived how that job went
versus
other jobs with guys who were
sub crews that had different shirts on
and
and they weren't even offensive shirts
it was just one had a black
uh you know t-shirt on and one had
a different colored you know whatever
it wasn't anything offensive on them it
just they looked hodgepodge you know
what i mean
there's there's a definite in my opinion
if you're a subcontractor if you're a
1099 installer
putting on the uniform on a daily basis
it could be a simple logo or it could
just be a the same colored shirt for you
and your helper
every single day um i think it goes a
long way for perception from the client
100 i agree i agree with that 100
yeah so daniel what about uh what about
you have you i mean you you've
basically grown up in flooring so i mean
you guys kind of know that to me you
know what we're talking about here image
being important but you got any personal
stories or experiences with uh either
pro or khan versus uh you know somebody
being in
you know their appearance either gaining
them work or losing them work
um
well we do a lot of commercial right so
appearances is
is everything because you go in some of
these businesses and
they have a dress code and then you go
in there and we've seen guys with
you know shorts cut off sleeve shirts
and
we're talking you know working at
colleges and stuff and it's like man
there's got to be
something that you can do to make it so
that people know what you're there for
and
at least look presentable because
i mean some of these guys man they just
well a lot of those places it's a safety
thing too they they don't know a part of
what what the
facility has you there for
um
and you look like a
you know a 40 year old dude at a college
walking around the campus right and
that's what i mean it's like something
they they don't pay any attention to
what they look like and it almost makes
it
they look like the way
some people
you know picture
us looking like and it just drags
everyone else down it's like not every
flooring guy is out there
with
cut off sleeve shirts and wearing shorts
and they don't
ever do their hair
yeah you know i'm just gonna flat-out
say it you know i'm sure we're just
trying to tiptoe around it right without
hurting feelings but
you know if i if i put myself in the
consumer shoes and i'm looking for
specific like you know if i go to a
mechanic shop i expect them to look like
a mechanic right but if i go to mechanic
shop and the guy comes in
and he's wearing a cut-off sleeve
metallica shirt like i said shorts no no
work uh safety boots
i'm probably not going to trust the guy
to work on my vehicle i mean that's the
bottom line right you got to dress the
part um you know i can only imagine what
residential guys go through because i
know that there aren't a lot of
guidelines for them to follow and they
can pretty much do what they what they
want um as well but you know
from
a customer perspective
whether
where i started doesn't is irrelevant
right how i started is irrelevant
because
i do look at that and
i know that if i am going to
go to abc company and i'm
deterred because of an appearance
you know has it happened yeah 100 might
have been the person might have been the
place but i mean it's because we're
visual right you associate
professionalism with the appearance of
the professional that's presenting
themselves to you and i'm sure we've
lost some in the past
because well let me let me
build on that just a second
this is something that you have complete
control of every single morning
what shirt you put on what jeans you put
on
and
so for you to make the decision to wear
certain things
that i think is part of why
your dress code or how you dress
is something that's important to people
when they see you in their business
you they know you chose to put that
stuff on you chose to present yourself
that way
i would i'm just trying to implore
people like give a darn about how you're
presenting yourself to the world
both
overall but you know particularly for in
our industry when we have such a
a black cloud of this assumption of how
we are
like rise above that put on genes that
either have been patched correctly we
all know we go through genes like you
know right so so i was actually in the
field today right so my shirt is all
super dusty and stuff but
my pants are
on the front are dirty because i'm
constantly wiping my stuff off but i
mean we got logos everywhere you got to
be proud of
who you work for right
yeah and your your jeans and
the dirty
dirtiness you expect we're in
construction but you don't have to have
like you said cut off sleeves and holes
in your
excessive holes in your jeans or those
kinds of things i mean customers care
man they do
um i know this seems like a pretty small
item for
to be talking about on
on this huddle but i've just watched
guys lose business over it and i've
watched them you know struggle
um
sometimes financially from not
properly presenting themselves i mean
think about this
businesses spend millions of dollars a
year
on marketing and branding themselves
trying to make themselves look as
appealing to the to the consumer as
possible
shouldn't you do the same in
in as much control as you have you don't
need to spend a bunch of money a
t-shirt's a t-shirt buy one that you
know instead of buying a metallica
t-shirt you know
toss your logo on a four dollar t-shirt
or
maybe the place doesn't allow logos
having a standardized color that you
guys can wear
on a day in day out basis or hey hit us
up at go career we'll send you a whole
buttload of t-shirts it's all good like
just wearing something that's familiar
and says
if it's going to say something i believe
i agree with you daniel if it's going to
say something it ought to say what you
do
yeah it separates you from everyone else
especially on a large project with
multiple trades there's got to be some
kind of separation right i mean
if something goes wrong or something
happens to an individual
being um easily identified is to your
benefit as well
yeah that's a good point safety
yeah
yeah i'd say another thing is
as a sub crew uh how you keep your
vehicle and your van or your truck and
how you keep your tools
all those say a lot about you um
i know
one of the guys i used to work with um
when i had to uh bluntly
back in the day
you know
he never had a trial in his bucket that
wasn't dirty
he either had patch caked on it and he'd
scrape it off before he used it or
glue all over it and he'd pick it off
before he got going i mean
instead of taking the few minutes after
he was done with
you know spreading his glue and tossing
it in a bucket and wiping it off with
the sponge and then putting it back in a
clean bucket or
you know cleaning the patch off his
trial he just let it dry and then scrape
it off with a four-inch scraper
afterwards i won't lie i did that too
when early early on in my career i
learned quickly
that wasn't that wasn't uh the preferred
method for me but you know i think that
stuff speaks volumes as well if you
tell you one thing
if you have a sub company your guys's
place there in michigan
looking to do work and you just go out
and look at their van that's going to
say a lot about them just go look at
their vehicle look at their installed
vehicle look inside look at their tools
that'll tell you a bunch about what that
guy
values what is he clean is he a clean
installer clean installers don't have
dirty tools i can tell you that like if
they're clean on the job site and they
keep their stuff picked up and they're
they spill a bag of patch they sweep it
up or whatever
those guys that do those activities
they're not the ones who have dirty
tools you know nasty dirty i'm not
saying the tools need to be looking
crystal clean but no man
you know what i'm saying like yeah
i mean i think so they don't have to
look brand new every single day but yeah
um in our
just in our meeting this morning we we
had a
talk about
you know tool upkeep it's
it's not
one's person one person's job in order
to keep that tool up it's everyone's job
because
it's part of the appearance if we're
going to have a bunch of broke down
stuff then why even have it like
and
you keep on like we keep on talking
about um
appearance and then some guys losing
jobs and stuff but
some guys are just there for those jobs
i mean
and and that's totally fine because
someone's got to do those jobs right
because
yeah i mean
it goes to those those customers that
are
looking at the bottom dollar
instead of
the value that someone provides
and i would 100 rather just
them take care of those people and me
not have to worry about it
yeah you're talking about
like people just shopping only on
cost
and
those being the crews that are willing
to to lower their
you know their car their their price to
everybody
um
you know
that's a whole nother episode
right a whole nother episode about
what are we gonna do
uh and how do you separate yourself
um in fact a little ahead of schedule
here you know next week's
uh
huddle is
directly on that is understanding your
value and how to increase your prices
well this is this is number one right
here easiest thing you can do
present yourself as a true professional
be
trained and skilled in your craft and
then
charge more
right
and stick to your guns like
i think i may have told a told this
story previously but we had a customer
or
a project that we had lost
a big job about 70 000 feet of tile i
ran into the
uh to an installer at a local emser and
um
i was like hey what are you up to and
you know just kind of chatting it up and
he used to work for us years ago and
uh
he said oh i'm doing this big you know
medical
like office building
about 60 000 feet man but the chick
she's really
she's really cheap dude and i was like
well what'd you what are you doing it
for he's like two bucks a foot tile 24
by 24
large format
large format
i i was blown away i was like
we uh we we haven't i i
don't ever remember paying two dollars a
foot for tile install uh
those types of people those people who
do that are
unfortunate i don't have really great
things to say so i won't say much it
just i really believe they
put dents
in our industry they cause other
people's um
you just can't make a living wage okay
maybe in one cafeteria that's 80 by 60
you'll make it you'll make some money
but
what about down the halls and then all
the door cuts and yeah just all this
other stuff man you know normal jobs
just aren't that big and that that that
uh you know maybe it was wide open or
something but even in that case you're
doing the work
you know understanding where you bring
value and how you bring value to the
process and not just going as low as you
can to get the work is you know what
like i said we'll address that in next
week's episode but um
i do believe image has is the easiest
way to at least
start to separate yourself as caring
about
um you know
caring about your product what you're
going to give that customer i mean
there's a lot of research out there that
says how you dress or how you care about
you is what you're going to give to your
client
and uh you know it seems to be a little
bit true
yeah it's it's directly you know
the way we're talking about the pricing
and all that it
how you present yourself is is directly
proportionate in most cases to
how they perceive you and how much
they're actually willing to pay so
you're only cutting yourself short if
you are that guy which
like i said some some guys just want to
do that and that's
totally fine but you know we're
we're trying to lift this industry so we
can do that one person at a time if one
person hears this and that they make
that jump to to go get a shirt and i
mean a lot of people think that it's
super expensive i mean if you don't have
a logo there's apps out there you can go
on fiverr have someone create you a logo
you know they'll
they'll give you a few mock-ups you
choose one you take that logo to your
local screen print shop
and they'll create a screen for it i
mean it is a one-time charge that they
do for the artwork and having to create
all that stuff but once you pay that you
can order more
and
you don't have to pay that charge again
so
it's an upfront cost but
it's worth it
because i mean
uh our shirts we don't we don't pay much
for them they're they're a different
material right so it's a dry fit
material
um that wicks moisture away because
we're always sweating right so we want
to
yeah
yeah so we don't really like the cotton
too much
but
i mean it's like
six five or six dollars a shirt and then
what a dollar fifty to put the logo on
it
it's really not much yeah so for under
10 bucks
yeah why is there a feedback
for under 10 you can have
a t-shirt with your logo on it i mean i
think the setup fee is like 150 bucks
it's not much the same thing you're a
small company and then if you
go with another small company that's
trying to build a name as well they'll
probably even give you a better deal
like hey just tell people about me
and stuff like that um
it doesn't even have to be a small
company we went with the first time
the first time we didn't want to talk
about because we didn't do it right but
after we actually started going to a
screen print company we went to one of
the bigger ones in town and that's when
we realized man we uh we're paying this
other guy that was doing it you know on
his own
this much per shirt
when we can only be paying this much and
that's when you you kind of realize like
man it's a lot
more manageable than people put it out
to be well that's a good
i think a good thing to
know
is that the
um
go with the larger guy the the larger
guy in your area typically they're
larger because they do the most they
have the most buying power on the shirts
and they can
uh you know
you're gonna
be cheaper we use the biggest in in our
area and we pay eight bucks a shirt
logoed
in and out of the door for three
different colors
and
you know
you maybe pay 10 bucks because you don't
buy them you know say a smaller company
uh but at the end of the day man
ten dollars you're not going to buy a
shirt for
ten dollars at walmart or you might in a
package of white tees or something but
right so this is pretty easy low-hanging
fruit for somebody to to do that and
then like on your vehicle if you want to
look presentable there
you i i've literally
seen guys just put professional flooring
installer they're not cf not the cfi
logo or nothing just professional
flooring star they got a magnet put it
on their the side of their truck
no logo or nothing and it feels better
than
their truck by itself when they pull up
to a job site right so if you want to
put your logo on one of those magnets
they're 100 bucks a piece
toss them on your vehicle take them off
if it's a personal vehicle that you uh
like i did in the early days crossover
from family vehicle to work vehicle
pull them on and off and you're you're
good
i don't want this to seem elementary
because it it's actually way more
important than it is hard
that's the purpose that's why i wanted
to have this talk like
the the importance of caring about this
stuff is way more is is so much higher
than than how hard it is to do it it's
simple get a get a shirt you like
whether it's a pillow or a t-shirt
even if you you uh initially start the
way you guys were talking it wasn't the
right way at least it's a step in the
right direction i would recommend go see
you know a big screen printer in your
area telling you you're gonna buy you
know
10 shirts at a time or something like
that and see what their cost is and then
later when you get you know a few
helpers or something you're buying 20 or
30 shirts at a time your costs will go
down but
these
practices are simple
and then you talk about the way you you
visually present yourself and then how
you act
that's a whole nother deal but if those
two match up
um
you know you you're going to be a lot
more successful than the guy that just
refuses because the only the only reason
i can see
with the information out there that
somebody would not put on a decent set
of clothing is because they don't care
all right they don't care um
logo or not like put on a decent shirt
some jeans and work boots and look the
part
if you don't care you're you're that's
exactly what you're telling your client
that's exactly what you're telling a
company like my flooring company when
you come in to try to
get work from me you know that was me
that was me when i started i'm not gonna
lie because i didn't care
i didn't understand the importance of it
i didn't understand the benefit of it i
i really honestly didn't care well if we
help one or two people that are
listening to this call
uh get get further than where you were
at where you're like i didn't care i
don't care because i didn't know the
importance to really realize the
importance
just so everybody knows like you guys
own a flooring company you guys hire
installers
your opinion matters in this i own a
flooring company i hire installers i'm
telling you it this stuff matters guys
so take note of what these guys are
saying
simply
wear decent clothing but go if you can
swing a few hundred bucks to go get your
logo put on a shirt do it have some
pride in what you're building
absolutely and then to touch on what you
were talking about as far as uh
you know
the way you sound and stuff you do
essentially
have to create a customer service voice
is what everyone calls it right because
you you got to kind of become a
different person that everyone can
relate to
and it's it's happened here in the
office when i'm on the phone
and then
someone that's not usually here you know
hears me talk on the phone and they were
like man you sound really good you got a
really good customer service voice and
it's like
kinda have to have that you gotta you
gotta
you you have to know what the customer
wants and then play off of that and they
don't wanna
hear your everyday sling and all that
stuff that you you usually talk about
and
yeah you kind of did the way the same
way when you take the magnet on put the
magnet on the car and take it off you
have to be able to turn that on and off
and know when to use it
yeah
another interesting aspect
i had a
um
sorry i'm getting feedback so it's a
little distracting but i had a uh a
client say that
or a
not a client i was listening to a audio
book and it's about customer service and
branding and all that and it talked
about putting on your hero uniform for
the day it was talking about
like you know all the heroes all the
batman superman everybody had a uniform
and it's like transforming yourself from
your daily
uh who you are into your
what you're presenting when you're at
work and let's face it like you can't
just
you know be homies with everybody when
you're talking to clients and and
business people i mean you and i you
guys and i hung out
i don't we don't we you can't just
you know throw all that type of language
and you know uh
the way you are in your personal life uh
you keep a piece of that but you have to
like you said have a customer service
facing attitude uh so how you present
yourself from a i guess what i was
getting at there is when you put on that
uniform if you can
visualize like that's when you need to
switch that over too when you're when
you're representing that
that
brand or yourself
you know consider changing the way that
you uh go about talking to your clients
and
and
whether you work for a store or you work
directly and you you
go out and get drum up your own business
in the retail market or
you know maybe you do a little bit of
work for gcs here and there uh
any
any of those scenarios you're still
presenting yourself and i think that it
goes a long way if you can do it in a
professional manner it does too and it's
um
it's also like a muscle right like you
know that you have to have your customer
service voice
and versus your who you are at home your
everyday
but but it's like a muscle but the more
you use it the easier it becomes and
you start finding that it does start to
transfer over because
you're becoming who you really should be
anyway you you start those practices for
work and then all of a sudden it
transfers the home you're a little bit
cleaner
vocabulary around
around the kids growing up clean your
vocabulary around people you might not
know who are
in a restaurant while you're out with
your family and friends you know you
start start realizing that uh it becomes
a lot easier to
to articulate yourself and just be
just be professional all the time you
know you know somebody's always watching
somebody's always listening um you don't
want to say or do the wrong thing in
front of the wrong people as well as
that also puts a strain on your your
business and your your persona
well you realize real quick that
perception is
is a big thing
how people perceive you is important
having a you know
where i'm not saying you you can't be
yourself
i'm just saying be the best version of
yourself there you go
there you go that's
well
all right guys well thanks for joining
me today uh again trying to keep these
between 30 to 45 minutes
uh
trying to keep them hitting hard and uh
provide as much value as possible to uh
people and hopefully
as uh
you know like i said if we help one or
two guys take a step or two ahead um
then then the goals accomplished so
again next week we're going to be
talking about understanding your value
and how to increase your prices
what
i i want to come uh with some practical
steps on how i pay
different installers higher prices than
others
and how can you be in that
higher group how does that work um i'm
sure you guys do it i've talked to
hundreds of flooring business owners
and the fact is is some guys make more
money and why is that
and how can you join that group if
you're not and if you're in that group
how can you increase your prices even
more because at the end of the day here
uh we have a little bit of ways to go
before we
uh are
where
i would say uh infla you know to even
match inflation at this point so
um how can we help these guys and and
gals out there installing working their
tails off make sure they're getting full
value for what they're providing
let's come with it hard next week with
some good ideas on how to help the
installer make more money
yeah
all right brothers
have a good one signing off we'll talk
to you next week
thanks everybody