This week Paul talks with Jose and Daniel Gonzalez from Preferred Flooring about the ways to go about raising your prices, when to do it, and how to understand your value in order to do so.

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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 guys welcome to the huddle

where we discuss maintaining forward

progress in your flooring career

i'm paul stewart and joining with me

today is jose

and

jose's with preferred flooring in

michigan

um

we appreciate everybody joining us and

uh

just a quick housekeeping a couple

things got any questions click the q a

button and chat your questions and we'll

address those as we go

so

today's episode 4 and we're going to be

discussing understanding your value and

how to increase your prices

um

jose welcome how's it been going brother

hey another week in the life of jose so

it's uh it's been going pretty good uh

we're

busy

busy busy busy right now you know

everybody's uh

a little bit behind

of course is uh you know

the whole shipping issues are putting

everyone in a bad spot and then yeah

lack of uh

lack of trained

um

help is is also putting everyone in a

bad spot but we're pushing through man

well discussing that i mean one of the

things um

you know

when you're trying to increase prices or

um you know i think the first step is

understanding your value and having the

confidence to increase your prices

well where does confidence come from

you know it comes from training

and it comes from

uh certifications and it comes from

experience

right 100

airline pilots the more time they spend

in a simulator the better they perform

as a pilot

so their training

makes them better and more confident

pilots right it's a repetition

that's right so

training and certifications i've heard a

lot of guys say well i don't make any

more money because of that well

if you'll if you'll consider the amount

of confidence that it breeds

because you are properly trained

and you add that with some experience

and now you have a good recipe for

confidence where you have the ability

to you know ask for more

and negotiate you know i took down

i mean i took a few uh

wrote down a few points here that you

know negotiating your prices whether

you're within goku or not

um in the go career network or or you're

not the key here is that you have the

confidence so what are you bringing to

the table that other installers are not

right that's where that's where that

confidence would come from so what's

your take on some of those things

um well the take is that you know

regardless of if you're going to get

certifications or not if you are well

versed in a specific material for the

insult

you you get better right your systems

your operations you get more efficient

faster you you have the tendency to not

accidentally skip steps or intentionally

skip steps because you know the outcome

um so it it leads to a more successful

install

um

everything is very systematic in what we

do and

the

the more you do it the more repetition

you get the more efficient which means

the more valuable you are not to only

um the client and either the flooring

house or your own company but to

yourself

what you're doing is you're putting

yourself in a position

to be aware of the material limitations

uh expectations

um and also

give time back to both uh the client to

yourself you know something that used to

take five days

takes four days now

now should you

you can charge the same amount but

you're done a day early you should

charge the same amount in fact it's more

valuable to most companies

if you're able to do the same amount of

flooring

in a shorter period of time than

somebody else now i know there's

you know there's been times where i've

had clients say

and i'm sure you have two where it's

like well it only took you five hours to

do this we expected it to take two days

uh can i get a discount my my

exact answer is no you're not paying me

for

and this may sound cliche but this is

the truth you're not paying me just to

do the job you're paying me for the 25

years of experience to get this job done

in five hours and not two days yeah and

i've been able to i in because of that

i'm able to turn over your project

quicker with higher quality

and uh better guarantees so

you know

those are ways

if you if you can lower your time frame

and increase your prices that's

compounding that's like compounding

interest so now you spent five hours

instead of 14

you got paid five dollars a foot instead

of four

and you've compounded your your your uh

pay your your total um

i guess you'd call it like your hourly

rate if you wanted to bring it down into

an hourly rate you're you're increasing

that so

i'm sorry

you mentioned

you know knowing the product and whether

you're trained or certified but that

knowing the product

um

and having experience as being a key

piece would you say that training and

certifications though are a shortcut to

that um

you know what nothing is more of a

shortcut than actually getting your

hands

dirty right like diving in and getting

elbow deep

however

certifications and additional training

can only

speed up the process you know what it

does is it it brings

to light certain scenarios that you

might not have known about

or if

say you've been working with the

material for you know five years six

years and then all of a sudden you

decide to go take a certification class

you might have a aha moment and and you

know it's not you might you will have an

aha moment there are going to be about a

dozen projects in your head that pop in

and you say if i would have known that

prior to this day right here i could

have avoided these issues i could have

saved this much time i i would have had

that in my toolbox that mental tool box

is very important

when it comes to creating any efficient

systems

of insulation whether it's yourself or

with a crew it's super important to have

that

yeah

well what i found um in my experience is

those aha moments like you said always

happen

uh we've sent guys to certifications

that have been doing it for 15 20 years

and they're like

i didn't think i was going to learn

anything i was checking a box and

i learned a ton i learned

two or three you know things that equal

a ton meaning there are very important

pieces

that they learned in that training or

that certification that can save them

ample time and and effort and make them

more money so

um

you know you never know what nugget

you're gonna pick up that could save you

um you know a lot of time a lot of

effort get better quality

all

with uh moving for the effort i mean

everybody in flooring would like to make

more money so at the end of the day

if that's

like one of the goals is how do we get

paid our values worth

then how do we get there and in in my

experience

having the training the certification

mixed with the experience is

that's like the secret recipe now i know

that you know there's a lot of guys that

have a lot of experience but they just

don't know what they don't know when

they argue that they don't need a

training so anyway i've beat that up

enough i mean i just believe in being

trained per industry standards not to

mention if something goes wrong

and you have a failure

and it's not

a and we'll get into this in another

episode but working with uh you know

inspectors and such oh yeah you know

i'll tell you what

being certified and trained certainly

helps you

if um

if you get into one of those scenarios

and you will get into one of those

scenarios

do you understand acclimation and why

do you understand proper adhesive trials

and flashing times and all that and why

do you understand thermoplastic

materials and lvts and dimensional

stability and all of that stuff that

that's the kind of thing you learn in

trainings that you don't learn you might

learn how to lay something out and put

things together to where when it's done

it looks good but what are we talking

about we're talking about getting

giving a product that's going to last

the consumer

and in our case it's commercial in your

case commercial um

end user

for the the length of time that they

expect which is 10 to 15 years right not

not

when you walk away it looked good so a

lot of these things

that i just spoke of are the things you

learn in the certifications and

trainings that you just will not learn

from your uncle you may learn the proper

technique on how to trial

how to

square up lines how to lay out

those things you might learn but you

probably will not learn how the products

manufactured what makes one lvt

just to pick on lvt because there's a

thousand of them yeah

what makes one lvt better than another

what is it they look the same

in school instructions

why does one give you a different

performance than the other

you know and the key is understanding

those met those things so

i'll give you a quick example i we had a

claim

on about 700 foot of lvt and it was

blamed on

uh

improper adhesive transfer

right

well

the transfer was

well documented in the in many many

pictures and so we were able to um deal

with that but because the lou

uh who produces the commercial floor

report

uh one of the things that came out was

look lvt ought to lay there by itself

with no adhesive without gapping

or curling it should be dimensionally

stable you learn those kinds of things

through these reports and as well you

learn those if you go and get certified

in different uh you know flooring

products so

that's my take on um

you know having the confidence to go and

ask uh or negotiate your pricing another

thing is um

you know

believing

that and i wrote this down is believing

enough to be clear on the front side

that look i'm probably not the cheapest

person so if you're coming to me

to be the cheapest installer i'm

probably not your guy

and being okay losing some of that type

of work i know you guys have taken that

tact before we take that attack yep

i just did minutes before we got on the

phone you know

it's just it's what you have to do and

it's

you know it's a confidence thing too

right we when you know what you bring to

the table it's kind of hard to try to

match what everyone else is doing right

you don't

it's it's different

the value

that you the value you see yourself is

always going to be different from what

everyone else sees

no matter what but if you can back it up

and you have a track record of backing

it up then then why not exercise that

muscle why not implement um a program

like that because

it's it's for you you know well it's

your job it's your job to then

convey that information and convey why

you're worth more

so i had written down you know

marketing to these efforts

look you're paying me just like i said

earlier you're paying me for 25 years of

experience and training

you're not paying me for the five hours

of doing your job like you are but

really what you're purchasing is all

this experience training and

certifications that are installers or

back in the day i was certified um you

know

you're that's what you're purchasing so

i

i feel like there's been a

a big uptick in that i know that um

as you know i i created go carrera back

in 2018 and

one of the things we're working on right

now is working with architects to set

minimum hammer ratings well

for those you don't know a hammer rating

is a skill score you you get that's

simply a mix between your years of

experience your certifications and your

trainings

and when you got each one of those

there's a complicated algorithm that

that

that

makes or creates the hammer rating based

on those things but here's my point

architects want some some way to

understand that the installer is

minimally

viable to do their job and so we're

helping helping with that well where

does all that drive from the drives from

your certification trainings and

education

and your experience but it also derives

from your ability to market to those

things so when somebody says

that

look you're too high say i understand

not not as many people and i've used

this before um i get it look

the other company uh or other people

they don't value the the proper training

that the way that steward associates

does so

um

you know proceed at your own risk i

appreciate the opportunity and we'll get

you on the next one maybe but

just as a note we're very rarely going

to be the cheapest person in the room

now

sometimes we are because of purchasing

power um but outside that like i really

want to be hired because our systems and

our our quality is higher than other

people

that's why i want people to see the

value you want to see the overall value

you know the upper cost

it's hard to market yourself when a lot

of people nowadays are looking at

cost and it's not just nowadays it's

been for for ever

um and if you can market yourself with

confidence and

and have them see the value that you

offer

that is not in the numbers up front that

is in the long term value um a lot of

people

actually don't even think twice about

that that's

not even really an issue

well that's an interesting point

and the reason i say that is

you installed back when bct was probably

king of the vinyl world as well right

like i mean i've installed myself

hundreds of thousands of feet of ect

vct is the most affordable product up

front

oh yeah yeah

what the lvt industry and the low

maintenance flooring industry

uh sheet vinyls and such have been able

to do

is life cycle cost so the life cycle

cost of keeping a vct looking good

through waxing

stripping and waxing every year that

kind of thing

and the fact that there's so much filler

in vct that it shrinks and doesn't look

great

they have been able to sell on my cycle

cost

why can't an installer do the same thing

like

you know if we could come up with a

metric of life cycle costs for a

certified installer versus non-certified

or you know highly trained install

installer versus a non-highly trained

like how how quickly do products fail or

yeah how long do your products last i

mean i've never done a study like that

but it'd be interesting i guarantee that

would be almost guarantee you that

the highly trained person's

life cycle cost is lower you're not

replacing that floor because it looks

like

crap

uh in two years or three years and we've

done that we've walked we've went in and

replaced floors behind people just a

couple years old it's supposed to be a

15-year floor but it wasn't installed

properly

bonding issues

wasn't rolled

things like this that caused the product

to fail

and the other company or the other

installer

you know

nowhere to be found and um that leads me

to my third point

stay around

don't change your phone number yeah mark

it to yourself to your phone number to

your

to your brand if it's

jose flooring and not preferred flooring

you're you're an installer and it's jose

gonzalez professional floor

installations

that's awesome but

it

the way you can the only way you market

to something is if something's

consistent so keep yourself consistent

with the naming consistent with your

phone don't change your phone number

every six weeks

keep your phone number same

be consistent and reliable and that goes

a long way with

you know uh being able to raise your

prices as well

right and then um you know i like to add

to that too is uh

um hold yourself accountable right if

you are you know everybody has a

learning curve right everybody goes

through that phase they're still

learning about a product they're really

interested they are putting in the time

and the effort

and things go wrong

hold yourself accountable to that learn

from that it's only a failure if you

don't learn

um you know hopefully it's something

small hopefully you're not

you're your first time getting your feet

wet with a product you're not jumping

into a 25 000 square foot

uh you know lvt job and you know nothing

about it because all you've done is you

know commercial lbt all you've done is

stretch carpet your whole life um but

learn from it take the information that

you gather little bits and pieces and

use it if something goes wrong

go tear it apart while you're removing

it and replacing it

yeah it sucks to have to bite the bullet

and

figuring out why right yeah but but

you're reverse engineering it you're

trying to find out why and what it does

is it it sparks your interests right if

you're like me you want to know you want

to learn so you start reading you start

doing more on the back end when you

should have been on the front end but

then it's those aha moments um you know

and you do it for yourself

um and most of the time

the replacement of it is

you'll gain that back

um either from the client uh

giving you future work or from the store

giving you future work because

you just owned it right hey you know

what i did mess that up i'm sorry uh

we'll make it right let's do what we can

to make it right if it costs you a

couple bucks it does

you know in the past we've had stores

give me the product that they pay for

the product i provide the labor

um you know and i was learning and you

know or something else went wrong

and it's okay it's okay to not be

perfect because you're gonna learn

um

but those are the stores that trust

me a lot now because i was

very honest and said you know what yep

whether it was my fault or not when they

first came up to me and said it i would

just say i am so sorry

let's go check it out and see what we

can do to fix it

that's it i didn't blame anybody else

yeah be there for your client being

there in their hard times when their

floors uh fail i mean they need you

right they don't know what to do they

need you so don't run don't get too

defensive over the deal

yeah i agree with you kind of have that

learner

um kind of mentality let's see what

happened

investigate and then defend yourself if

you're in the right and if you're if

you're not fess up and fix it and learn

yeah

and just so everybody knows man science

doesn't lie so

they will call somebody and they they

will take a very uh neutral approach and

and use science

to to figure out what happened yeah and

by all means use

use uh don't be scared and we'll get

into this another podcast i don't want

to get off into it but you know don't be

scared to hire your own

uh in

inspector uh in fact i think every

installer ought to go through inspection

course

i think that

we're gonna start pushing that at go

carrera we're gonna try to get every

installer to go through an inspection

course

and learn what they're learning so that

you know what to do uh in the cases that

you're you're you know

um having to deal with one so my final

point

uh and

you probably have some too but expand

you know as far as uh being paid more

making yourself more values expand your

offering you know if you're uh if you're

a carpet guy

learn cheap on them or if you're a tile

guy learn large panel you know gauge

porcelain panels

um there's a lot of good training out

there you can reach out to go carrera

support at go carrera and ask

where

to go and and get a certain training

we're in the middle of

developing that full feature where

you'll be able to

at a click of a button right out of the

app go to local trainings in your area

but i would say expanding your offering

we'll

go a long way and doing it in the um

in the

flooring products that are not so

typical we all love big lvt jobs or big

carpetil jobs but i'll tell you what

some of the guys make the best money are

the guys who

really dug down into patterned goods

woven uh wools and sisals and

sea grass and really went and got all

those

certifications and trainings to be able

to like do the theaters and the the

casinos and the

the you know

different really high-end

hospitality work

in sheet vinyl it's one of the highest

demand products with healthcare and

probably has the the biggest demand from

a

from a needs standpoint but the lowest

uh

in supply from installers like high high

quality

flash sheet vinyl guys are hard to come

by

so it's very intimidating

yeah which is very intimidating that's

always well you mess up a piece of vct

you're messing up a nine by thirty six

or six by three whatever its size is you

mess up a piece of

200 yard woven wool carpet you're you're

you could destroy a whole drop so i

understand but that's also because of

that risk is why you're paid a little

bit more uh or a lot a bit more in many

cases so i would say expand your

offering it'll help you stay busy

utilizing those hours that you have um

you know maybe you don't have maybe you

are a sheet vinyl expert

be

learn learn some some tile or learn some

carpet

anything

you can fill your schedule up thus

utilizing your your workable time

uh and you know

fill in work um one of the benefits of

maps in go carrera is if a job cancels

on you or something get on maps and hunt

maybe you know get on there and hunt

around for work

in your area or other areas maybe you

can find a job a couple hours away to

fill your schedule but the key here is

maximize your time

and

and you get there by expanding your

offering

maximize your your experience

um through trainings i mean you can't

buy more years of experience but what

you can do is buy

you can kind of shortcut it with

training and certification so yeah

we're big on that i believe in the the

cfis and the the manufacturers

uh the ntca you know manufacturers put

on a lot of their own trainings like

nora protect all forbo

these companies they have high

high quality trainings

cfi has good trainings they're expanding

their offerings

the ntca and the ntca university

even online you can learn some tricks um

but there's hands-on at cti which is

ctef to be uh cti certified um

i mean there's there's multiple training

entities out there so there's a lot get

getting trained and then getting on go

career to get your trainings aggregated

so you get a good hammer reading and

then get awarded work based on your

hammer rating we've proven one thing in

three years we've been in business

uh and really

you know

just a couple of years with the new

version

is higher hammer rating and higher kudos

equals higher pay it's been proven uh we

have millions of dollars that have been

paid out through the app to date and

with that

date comes data and that data shows that

if you're higher trained you're getting

paid better on that

on in the go career network for sure and

i believe that if you market yourself

even if you're not on the go career

network and that's fine

but

if you're not

market you got to market yourself that's

what goku does is market that that

your hammer rating for you to the

flooring contractors that have

subscribed to our to our platform so if

you're outside

you still need to learn how to market

like these preferred flooring

daniel and jose have done a wonderful

job marketing themselves you have to do

that if you're going to be outside go

carrera and if you if you can get both

like daniel and jose i think the future

is very very bright for you but

um you know what's some other keys to

increasing your pay we got about uh five

minutes or so here left so

um

i think we touched based on some of that

last week with as far as the image and

all that you know

you want to increase your pay you have

to

do what

you can to attract the right demographic

um you know if

it was a dress for the part you want

yeah right so so you gotta kind of do

that and that's not

saying anything

bad about what you're wearing i'm just

you know using that very loosely in just

the term um

that's one dress for success i mean it

doesn't it doesn't mean you wear a suit

to go install floors but i did see

um

sorry to interrupt you but no go ahead

gentlemen at the ntca showed a picture

one time of old installers back in like

the 30s or 40s

and they wore

like suspenders and a dress kind of a

dressier shirt and a tie and they tucked

it into their shirt i mean they were

like

and they were revered on job sites

it's funny when you talk to some people

that's how we want to be treated when we

get on the job sites the only way we can

do it is band together

have a

like you just said image

image right and skill set so

um consistency you know

you're not going to hit the top of a

page in a year or two years of

experience

um you know if

if you stay

if you stay in the industry long enough

you're going to create a

a following so to speak once you create

a following and you know instead of five

companies or five people knowing who you

are five

contractors you know now you have 20 and

then on top of 20 then you have 30. the

more people that know you and what

you're capable of doing

the more people that want you to come

and do their work and when they want you

to come and do their work you have a

little bit of a negotiating power there

right because it's like

you can kind of pick and choose am i

going left or am i going right today you

know or for this month you know

the most profitable project 100

like if you

have to choose at least you can pick the

most profitable one for

the best of your ability

and most profitable isn't always the

largest project it isn't always the

biggest one the most profitable one is

the one that where you can maximize

your

your time and effort

um and

when i say time and efforts maximize

your time on site how much time are you

getting back with your family your free

time as well what is that worth to you

you know value comes in all shapes and

forms and i think that uh

[Music]

that's one to consider as well depending

on if you're an individual installer

versus a company versus someone who's

trying to get

to a specific milestone with employees

or whatnot like

know which which one you're after and

which one you want to go for so so that

way you understand

what direction you should be

concentrating on going

yeah

well i

you know we will get into more like

planning your business and and and doing

some of that stuff

um

but certainly the things that are easy

enough to do that are in your power to

do

is

get trained

um

you know you are in control of what you

put on in the mornings and what you buy

to wear

and

you know

once you're trained you you can utilize

a lot of tactics to increase your your

pay

um be courageous in negotiating your

your your amounts with your stores

and they may or may not be able to do it

we all work on budgets i own a

flooring company and it's not always

that i can

you know afford to pay out a negotiated

amount however

if not

and i can't work with that guy

immediately

sometimes it it it puts a

you know

a little kick in the rear for for our

estimators or our project managers to

kind of look at the numbers and see if

we can squeeze a little bit more

on the next bid to be able to afford to

pay some more so

i want to work with the flooring

industry overall but you know the

installers

of the

the installation community in general

um from a store standpoint from a

flooring contractor you know a

full-fledged or full-service flooring

provider

how do we do this together guys and you

know i create a go career to help the

installers band together in one spot

tout their trainings and their

certifications and

and get hammer rated and and move that

into more money um i'm i'm open ears

when you guys uh have questions please

participate ask questions

jose daniel's uh not wasn't able to join

us today but uh you know he's usually on

and

one of us can at least uh take a stab at

your question

and uh hopefully get you some answers

help you be more successful in your

flooring career so that's our goal

that's our goal with the huddle um

forward progress man like

moving your your career forward and

that's my goal with

go carrera that's my goal with with my

flooring company is just how do we how

do we maintain a long-term

uh

high quality career well to me

what what's good for the installer is

good for the industry and we got to

figure that piece out um and you know

you still got to win bids and you still

got to beat other flooring companies

that don't care about this stuff and i

you know it's something that i know

preferred beats their head up against

the wall doing and sometimes we do too

we do it a lot is fighting

uh companies that don't value the

installation community as as we do

and um so we do our very best

and uh we're open for suggestions and

we're definitely open for any questions

if we can help so jose again thanks for

joining me today dude thanks for your

input yeah any closing thoughts thanks

for having us

um

a couple closing things actually i just

want to kind of piggyback off of what

you said and you had uh mentioned uh get

trained so

thinking outside the box maybe maybe

it's more get educated right just

educate yourself you don't have to

get trained i mean that kind of puts

like a label over you but for the guys

that don't like to be told what to do

because i'll admit that i was one of

them a very long time ago you know very

stubborn

but

um

i didn't necessarily want to get trained

on anything but

if somebody would have came to me you

know 18 years ago and say it and said

get educated

that probably would have changed my

mindset a little bit and just get

educated man uh um educate yourself uh

you know

try to hold a presence

right whether it's

with uh your appearance uh how you

articulate yourself hold that presence

and then confidence will fall into place

once the confidence falls into place

everything else will just start making a

lot more sense

yeah

i i must say

that when you

if you look back on your career though

when when you started to embrace

trainings and certifications it appears

to me from our previous conversations

that that's kind of when it started to

turn though because you got yourself

around people that thought differently

yeah there's there's a lot to that too

just being around people who

think differently than than

you know just the bare minimum sometimes

yeah

you are that's just my two thoughts my

two cents um i believe i i agree with

you getting educated but i i don't think

like we go to school and we go get

every other trade goes and has

trainings and continued education and

those things to to help you

become better i'm not saying it's

required to be a flooring contractor or

a flooring installer i'm just saying it

can help a two-year guy kind of has an

idea what he's doing if he goes and gets

a few trainings and certifications under

his belt and then goes out and applies

more

experience to that

it just seems to me and through our

experience with uh working with hundreds

and hundreds of installers

that that's a pretty good

not recipe

not like 100

every i'm not saying every certified guy

is better than every uncertified guy

that's not true

i'm just

in general if we took a population

versus population

our experience going nationwide doing

flooring projects all over

when we've dealt with certified guys

especially sight unseen like not knowing

them

they we just had a better experience

it's a different thought process and

like you said you um that curve right

like that that tipping point is

um the the old saying you you're a

product of your environment

so

you surround yourself by

uh or with people who are like-minded

it starts to resonate a little bit more

um you know the

through

networking and certifications it did

open

up other doors for us um as a company as

individuals and i'm very grateful for

that but had we

had we never stepped outside of our

comfort zone and thought outside of the

box that was kind of uh

i want to say was built by what everyone

around us was already saying and what

they believed in um we we might not be

having this conversation today so

it's just one of those things like

there's a lot more out there put

yourself in a position to learn from

somebody else who

is certified who is factory trained who

has been around

um

don't discount the information that they

have

because you feel like you know

everything it could put you in a

position for

much better and much faster success

yeah be a learner

well

i'm going to close this thing out thanks

for joining us and

episode 4 here and um you know to your

guys's continued success everybody on

the on the webinar here and jose and

preferred flooring

uh much success to you guys and we'll

see you next week

you