The Huddle - Episode 6 - Set Yourself Ahead; Get Trained

This week Paul talks with Jose and Daniel Gonzalez from Preferred Flooring go into detail about how important it is to get trained and certified. They discuss how it can set you apart from other installers in the hiring process, and how it puts you ahead in your business.

Create your FREE Installer profile at https://gocarrera.com and become part of the future of the industry TODAY!

GET TRAINED! Find a list of training dates here: https://gocarrera.com/resources/training/

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

as usual what's up everybody

and welcome to the huddle

where we come into weekly to discuss

forward progress and maintaining that in

your flooring career today we're going

to be talking um about trainings we hit

on it every week we're going to do kind

of a deep dive in the importance of that

so

we encourage

questions we'll have q a so you can chat

your question

and

we'll do our best to address that during

q a

so

without further ado joined with me as

usual is jose and daniel of preferred

flooring

and

they are probably

one of the

biggest proponents of training

we certainly are as well but

out there in the industry i think that

it's pretty clear where they stand and

so maybe

maybe we can start with

was there a clear difference because i

know you guys um

got started and and was uh installing

for a while and then you you just you

got some certifications or some

different trainings was there a clear

difference before and after from

like did you learn something that

moved the pendulum for you or was it a

gradual deal

i think

so if if we start like even even before

we started getting certifications um i

was kind of one of those people that i

was that was always like why do i need

to get trained in this i do this every

day

and then it wasn't until you actually go

to your first training or certification

where you're like

damn i kind of been doing that wrong the

entire time

and it wasn't

like i was like well this is bs because

i don't want to admit that i'm wrong

it's i guess i got some things to work

on and it's just that one thing that

that you take away

so once uh we went through the trainings

it was kind of like all right we've been

doing this uh

not necessarily

like completely wrong but there was

steps to it that we were missing so i

was like all right let's

back everything up start doing things

the way they're supposed to be done and

then implementing that moving forward

and and not doing it how we used to

yeah

definitely um definitely a change in

perception right you

[Music]

you don't know that

you might not know everything until you

learn something new because that's all

you know uh and

dale you don't know what you don't know

yeah yeah like daniel said you

you go into these classes uh if you go

in there thinking you're gonna you know

everything you're

completely out of your element you're

putting yourself in a bad spot

um you know humble yourself going there

and be prepared to learn from the newest

guy and the oldest guy in there in that

class

but going in and learning something like

danny i went through a lot a lot more

certifications than i have right even

though

um i had my first cert involved

20 plus years ago

armstrong but um and i think i took a

mohawk certification class on accident

um but um

you got to be the first guy

yeah

and course on accident yeah

you come back with a little bit more

information and you have those ah-ha

moments

so you start thinking back about

past projects that you've done and

you've had issues or if you didn't have

a shortcut or something failed or if

something just wasn't working right then

you're like

[Music]

i know what that is now i know exactly

what that is now

did that help you um

one of the

um

i think big benefits

is just understanding

you have a leg to stand on when you do

have a claim did you do you find that

helpful

if you've ever had a claim i got a story

about that myself but

when

you have a claim but you've been fully

certified and you can

you know kind of prove that you did it

the the manufacturers

um

per the manufacturer's instructions and

for industry training did that have you

ever leaned on that during a claim or

anything

yeah 100 i mean if you're in the

flooring industry and you say you've

never had something go wrong or you've

never had to

uh bite the bullet and say you've made a

mistake or

go back and rethink of what you rethink

of the process uh and put it down on

paper and say you know what i did do

everything right um

if you say you've never had any one of

those two then

you're just not telling the truth or

nobody told you well i mean there's some

guys that

never been trained and

and um

you know i think there's a clear

difference in vernacular of what you say

uh in a claim

uh when you're dealing with a you know

an independent inspector you're dealing

with claims department at a mill

there's there's a difference in what

you

you know if you don't know you didn't do

it right

we had a claim long time ago pre

probably

you know

15 years ago and we've had other issues

but i'm just in this particular thing

uh our installer was not certified at

all he'd been taught well he was he had

good hand skills but he was never

certified never trained

and

he clearly

made some comments to the inspector

and the inspector put that in his report

that

he didn't do it

the per the instructions

part of it's because he probably didn't

he wasn't trained properly

but the other part is years down the

road we've won claims because we were

able to not only show the guys

certified

but in addition to that

uh

he he was able to recite the methods or

the

uh you know the process he took in

installation

and

pretty much those those types of things

are what uh save that particular claim

was that

he was able to

line by line talk about what he did

and what processes he used

and it made a big difference like it

turned the whole thing around

right and then we've been on

you know

a claim or two where the actual

manufacturer

was like well this is your fault and

then you're like whoa whoa whoa but i'm

certified and then they're like oh hold

on then let us take a look back all

right we're going to cover it now

yeah isn't that amazing

well a lot of that is they're going to

try to get away with and not to get too

deep into the claims we i would like to

address that in a future episode like i

believe

man if installers could get

you know the inspection training as well

to know

the angles that are taken

uh there's a benefit there but

in just being trained on the flooring

itself

it's almost as if on claims they they go

with

you know

denying the claim and seeing if you take

it

you know but if you know what you're

doing and you've been properly trained

you can sure get yourself out of those

and rightfully so look it was

i'm not making it like our guy was able

to talk his way out of it it was not a

installation error it was a

manufacturer's defect

and we were just able to get there

by them not

blaming the easiest way which is just to

blame the installer

right and it's not only the

manufacturers it's uh we've been in to

some spots where

the actual people you're doing work for

so the store that you're working for is

like hey this is what's wrong with it

you guys got to go and fix it and it's

like

no it's not our fault they're like oh

yeah we hired a

an inspector and then you're like okay

well we're going to hire an inspector

too and send them out and then you just

magically never hear about that job ever

again yeah

yeah that's a job we're getting ready to

revisit now so because of our honesty

and

um our due diligence through that whole

project um

it's just one of those places they call

us for everything they need for the

flooring and i'm very grateful for that

um

what's your what's your experience with

uh the biggest

we've touched on this before as well

what do you guys hear when somebody

um

you know why they're not

i mean what's the biggest

uh hurdle or reluctancy to getting

trained

good

a lot of it is we hear is like i said

when you're like why do i need to learn

how to do this when i do it every day i

already know what i'm doing

so

there's no point into me going over

there so they can tell me what i already

know

yeah

and that's

that's hard to hear and it's it's hard

to hear because

it's some

commercial changes all the time right

residential might stay the same a little

bit for for like

some carpet but some techniques

come out new techniques new installs new

banking new tools new tools and

there's a lot of things

that if you're not keeping up with it

you're just falling behind and

you

you don't put yourself in a position to

be successful if you think you know

everything and that's the way it's going

to stay and remain it's just it's just

not going to happen

yeah new technology new techniques all

that stuff comes out

so being

up to speed on that stuff is important

but i would say what about

you know

when we ran a survey

for

go carrera we ran a survey trying to

find out why installers don't get

trained and that was the

number one reason number two was they

don't know where

to even go it's like the industry is not

doing a great job they shoot out emails

to flooring companies like myself but

they never get down to the installer

level

for

information on where to get trained for

a given discipline whether it's carpet

or tile or resilient or flash coving

heat welder you know wood flooring and

there's great

trainings out there for just about every

one of the disciplines it's just a

matter of knowing where they're at

um

that's part of our

real goal here is we've we're starting

we're almost finished i should say with

a um

with a webpage that'll have every

training on every month regardless of

who's teaching i don't care who's

teaching it we just want to promote

training

and then

get that out there if it's

recognized as a industry training we

want people to know where it's at and

what it is and try to promote that as

best as we can but

so that solves half

of the two major

kind of uh

disputes about why to get trained but

how do you change the minds of somebody

who says you know

well i'm

i'm not going to make any more money at

it or uh you know it's not going to pay

me i got to take off time and pay for

the training and pay for travel

uh how's that going to benefit me those

types of deals

um how do you kind of go against that

i would say look at what we're doing

right now if we were would have never

put ourselves out there and

did something like that we wouldn't be

sitting here talking to you right now

it's a one of the best networking tools

that you can get as well is going to

these certifications and it's

it's not only that you're you're

learning but you're

also you know learning

alongside someone that's probably has

more experience than you and then on the

other side someone that probably learned

something from you so it's yeah it's

that whole networking aspect it's not

only are you learning about a particular

material or something like that it's i'm

gonna go hang out with like-minded

people and

get that knowledge that i need

um that's a good point the networking

piece of that is

i mean just having somebody to call is a

you know hey daniel i'm running up

against this

xyz scenario what would you do well if

you didn't never go to the train you

don't know who daniel is and you don't

you never

formed any kind of relationship you

might not be able to do that but

i feel pretty comfortable that if i

needed to get some advice i could call

you guys up and say hey man i got this

scenario what would you do you know

right there's we've seen a lot of stuff

and i actually get um calls from some

inspectors that i've done certifications

with when they run into something that's

like hey what's your thoughts on this

and

it's like you know what i've actually i

just went through a job like this so

this is what we found out

and that's the benefit too right is

not only are you increasing your social

capital but you are also educating

yourself through these trainings so that

way when you do have a conversation you

are using the same terminology things

are less likely to get lost in

translation although you know one region

might have a nickname for specific

backings of some sort but if you go back

to the training where everything is kind

of

very specific you can figure it out

if you just have a couple minute

conversation um as to what terminology

is being used um i remember i mean we

still use funny words around here we

don't use the exact terms for a lot of

things uh but that's more

from from me to the guys you know from

my sister to daniel

but more on the job site or when we're

talking to you

to you or someone else the terminology

is a lot closer and tighter knit and

that's another benefit social capital

terminology

yeah you use the wrong terminology you

can get hung on a claim too

yes 100

yeah i i found that

i like to when somebody's saying

something about

oh i've been you know i'm good

i've been doing this for 20 years my

uncle was

the best ever or whatever

uh i've heard i can't count how many

different stories but

when they tell me that i'm if you're if

you're just going to work with one

company or you're

you're never looking to expand your

your client base as an installer trying

to work for more stores than just one so

you don't have all your eggs in one

basket or you're trying to work maybe

with a bill directly with

general contractors or or whatever your

goals are for your company

the fact is you may know you're great

but not everybody else does

and without the knowledge

uh whether it's certifications some way

to know

uh that you're properly trained no one

else knows it's just your word at that

point

that's part of you know what go career

solves with the hammer rating but

at the same time

that the only way you get hammers the

only way you get your skill score up is

education

affiliations trainings

and experience i mean it's how you get

good or uh increase your skill in

anything

i've said it with doctors or

you know you don't want a foot doctor

working on your spinal cord uh you know

you want to make sure they got the

proper training and that they have the

initials behind their name to to make

sure that they're they're qualified to

work on that

body

and just talking about you know like

doctors and stuff i actually um

my son's travel baseball team there's

actually you know we there's some nurses

in there some teachers and i i was

picking their brains and i'm like you

know what kind of continued education do

you guys have to go through

and um just

just the teacher um i talked to her a

couple weeks ago when we were in

tennessee and she's like

we got to go through at least 100 hours

of

you know continued education every year

and

it's like

you think about that 100 hours that's

more than

two weeks of your work time and that's

just maintenance

yeah

and it's like you know the all these

other professions are having to do this

and then our

i don't want to say our entire

profession you know our

everyone is like this but a lot of

people are like i don't need this and it

just boggles my mind now

it does mine too

like

if you think about

that statement like i don't i don't need

trained

it sounds kind of silly when you just

say it if if you hear you know if

somebody would just listen to themselves

and how that sounds i don't need

training

well you got it somewhere you learned

from your uncle or your

cousin or your brother your dad or

grandpa or what whoever you learned how

to install from you got trained

you're just trying we're just saying go

get the

industry training as well back up your

knowledge with

with that that um

you know that certification or or an

industry training that helps support

what you've already learned and part of

the deal was what you talked about

earlier is technology changes i mean

adhesives changed greatly in the 90s

like when they took solvents out uh and

today that they finally got you know

some good water

soluble adhesives but when they took

solvents out that was a big

problem it caused a lot of failures

um

you know

trainings when when um

you guys aren't really carpet guys but

back in the day they came out with the

unitary back carpet it was just

you know no secondary backing

and

to get that stuff to stick to the floor

at the same time when they're taking all

the

the

the uh

solvents out of the adhesives there were

some tricks

that if you knew

unitary would do okay for you

uh if you didn't it wasn't even the

worst it was

lee's carpet with the fiberglass backing

that was though wax back with the blue

blue wet set

yeah i mean

that's we're not still ripping that

stuff out man it's

it's so stuck around all the bubbles i

was gonna say not very easily

um i want to add to the training portion

too because if people are having a hard

time uh deciding whether or not training

is what they need or what's good for

them if you think about it in a

different aspect like uh what are your

hobbies as if you know you go to work

every day and even if you sit in the

office and your hobby is woodworking

after work

you're going to

do research right what is research

research is training you're going to

want to find out more about the species

of blood what's uh you know

what is the better coating to put on it

how am i gonna sand this how am i gonna

shape this

um

if you're playing sports if your hobby

is you know basketball or or weight

training you know you're gonna do

research what protein is good for me uh

do i need to take protein at bedtime you

know what is the best diet you know

there's a science behind everything so

and you're still gonna do research

you're gonna you're gonna train yourself

that's research training

education slash research that's that's

all grouped together so you gotta look

at it like that right

you're in the florida what's the benefit

of doing a a training like an industry

training versus learning on youtube

the

networking youtube is you're listening

to a direction from someone that you

can't ask a question

if you go to a training in person you're

physically

watching you're there you're on top you

could change your angle you can say can

i see that again can you explain that to

me again hold on let me try that what

did i do wrong right and it all depends

on who you're listening to as well

because

on youtube and

all that it's you see some

let me go repair this with some macaque

and call myself a professional

yeah i think it's got a lot to do with

who's teaching it number one

and then number two

you brought up a good point with

networking but i i would

push that further to

why

you can't ask a video why why did you do

it that way and if you're in person with

an instructor i know on the

certifications i've went to

and achieved

uh understanding why they did something

a certain way that differed from the way

that maybe i did it beforehand was a big

uh big help for me to understand how to

how to install it i'm kind of i was that

kid that always asked why and i'm still

i still do that as an adult

i want to know why why did you do it

that way

and then you can even kind of flip that

right because there's probably some

things that you do that

the instructor has probably never seen

me before it's happened when i went to a

certification and you know i'm doing it

and i'm explaining it some way and he's

just watching and he's like you know

what i never thought about it like that

before but that's going to be the way

i'm going to be teaching it from now on

so it's not just you know you learning

things like i said it's

you you

have a lot to offer too and just bring

that with you as well yeah if you're so

good you might just be able to help

somebody else out that i mean

i hate to get you know sappy about it

but for the installers out there that

may be listening that have that

uh attitude or approach that you know i

already know everything well maybe

sharing that knowledge could help too

um you know these training entities um

they're gonna

continue to grow i believe the industry

is pushing

you know more and more towards it um i

see

claims coming out and questionnaires

that ask if you're certified those types

of deals so

i think the industry's pushing that way

so

at the end of the day being

being trained

industry trained by somebody

and then you giving some of your

knowledge you might know a trick that

might just like daniel's um example

there that might help somebody else out

so participation

networking and learning

uh goes a long way i

you mentioned you wouldn't be here

talking to me without it

there's a lot that i think

it's benefited you guys

it certainly benefited our company uh

for embracing training and that's all

we're asking like embrace training

there's a lot of good stuff going on out

there in the tile world

they seem to be a little bit ahead of

the other industry

uh products honestly um

from a training perspective i think um

you know it's it's more of an artistic

or it's looked at as more of an artistic

um

product although i would argue resilient

can be pretty doggone artistic if you

ever do a children's hospital you'll

find that one out yeah any any hospital

any hospital but children's hospitals

they they tend to get a little wild with

colors and patterns but

point being is um you know the industry

is moving that way there's

private um

companies and private organizations

starting a different training give a

shout out to tile nation they do they're

doing you know some pretty cool stuff

with their um

gauge panels

and those the large format trainings for

gauge porcelain panels uh that's pretty

cool you know i know that cfi

continues to

grow they are here in wichita they're

you know they so they have other

training sites now

um

i i'm i'm hopeful that even more come

out and

and uh

that

we can support the amount because here's

here's one thing that i would kind of

throw out there to the industry

if we're if the studies are correct and

we're losing we're 8 000 below what is

needed

uh from an installer level and that's

going to grow exponentially

uh me

being that the average age is somewhere

around 53 to 55 depending on the study

um

how are we going to train

all of those people right

the industry has to step up and and kind

of widen their stance on it i think

overall but right now it's not like you

can't get into a class so i think

there's this dichotomy they're like well

when the demands there will increase the

supply of training so we need to

you know understand that

as

my ploy to the industry is like be

prepared because as as the wave comes in

because i i think we'll backfill

some of the need and

say three or four thousand people need

to be trained how do you how do you

accomplish that so hopefully the

training entities are thinking of that

and preparing for that but right now

it's not like there's a waiting list you

can get to trainings pretty easily i

look at them weekly you know so go get

trained uh increase your abilities maybe

get back to the industry a bit

learn something meet some new people

brand yourself a bit

i mean all those things seem to be

huge benefits to your business

uh if you go out and do it

yeah don't be scared to ask questions

when you're in these places too if any

if you've ever

wanted to ask questions

these certification classes are the

place to ask them because

you're gonna you're gonna realize one of

two things you're doing things the right

way and you're gonna continue to do them

or you're doing them wrong and this is

the place where you can fix it yeah

that's a good point

you can either validate what you're

doing

and that's always good and you get a

stamp of approval so to speak

uh or you can learn the the right way to

do it and start implementing new

techniques

sweet well

what do you guys um

do you guys have any

trainings coming up anything like that

uh down the pipe here

uh no enough for us i was looking at

some of the dates too and that's another

thing that um

might fear some installers too is you

know a lot of the trainings that people

really want are like during the busy

time right and that that's a hard pill

to swallow but um they do have some

off-season training you just gotta be

willing to travel and bust that time and

that money um

like to look into getting more of our

guys uh at least a certification under

their belt i just to make sure that

we're

pushing it to their strengths and not

putting them in a position

to where they feel that they failed

right because we haven't passed every

training that we've ever taken any or

every certification i'm sorry

but we got better even though we didn't

get to serve so we got better

um

and we will continue to get better

because of those experiences

um well kudos to you guys for

for looking at it that way and

you know approaching it where

putting a guy in a certification or a

training that matches their strength i i

know i i grabbed i couldn't lay tile for

the life of me to be honest with you

ceramic doll but i gravitated

and did really well in carpet and she

vinyl resilient side of things

so

working towards people's uh

strengths uh i think is key and then

what their interests are you know what

do you like doing

right

and don't feel intimidated man it's a

it's a place for everyone to learn

that's what we go there

just to learn

um in one of the last

certifications we went to there was

actually a gentleman from our hometown

um that that traveled there too and he

goes in there and he's like man i'm like

i'm so nervous right now i feel so out

of place

and you know just

almost like he was really intimidated

that we were there because we're kind of

well known and it's like don't be like

that man we're here to learn too it's

just stay the course the

most

the most that's going to happen is

you're going to learn something right

yeah

yeah that was a and

that was it came to the realization that

you know

it's not always easy guys right you're

always you're gonna be uncomfortable in

one of these classes or these

certifications at some point

you're just gonna have to accept that

right you're just gonna have to push

through it and give it a go like i said

just because you didn't receive the

certification doesn't mean that you

failed

it just means that you need to brush up

on it a little bit more than you expect

and the next time you go you know what

corrections need to be made

um they're going to let you know

yeah and

every training i've been to

i've ended up

you know getting to know somebody that

you know was cool to hang out with and

even if that's the only time i seen him

at that you know you see him around at

uh different shows and stuff and

everybody's always been really

accommodating and nice at every single

uh certification i've taken any of the

guys that have went it seems like it's

always been a

you know they need you there

that's you know the training entities

need us to go and and we need to go and

learn so it's

obviously a

you know

win-win

uh but i don't think anybody should be

intimidated

that's a little bit of ego sometimes

like almost worried about

you know being proven wrong or something

look go there to learn go there only to

learn and you'll be just fine i mean

that's my

take anyway

see if

we can get uh the uh

training page post

yeah post in uh in the uh

chat

all right let's

see if we got

any questions

i'll toss a couple questions out there

that have been

uh

was

let's see

here's one

pretty uh applicable so uh why would i

pay hundreds of dollars plus travel to

attend a course that may only make me a

little bit a little bit better than

before

they're still a little bit better than

before

that's kind of uh

a little bit better could be uh a lot of

money over over time

so

yeah

different demographic too that a little

bit better might push you past that

threshold that you couldn't get by

before you're wondering why not

that little bit

at the end

equals a lot could be the little bit

you're missing

you know

i mean if you save a couple hours a day

or

a prop per project because you learn

something cool even if it's just a

little bit

um

that could equal out to a lot of money

um

all you need to do from these trainings

and stuff is take away one thing if you

took away one thing that can benefit you

you got to call that a win

amen

uh okay how about um

do do companies really take into

consideration the amount of

certifications that an installer has

um

i think it given

if if i'm choosing and i have the

ability to choose between somebody who's

certified and non-certified of course we

use go carrera so we see all the metrics

of their hammer rating

um

but certainly

that comes out in the hammer rating of

course i'm going gonna hire

if i got two guys i don't know

i'm gonna hire the guy with the best

rating i mean that's if that's the only

metric i have at that point uh of course

if they've done a lot of work orders

through go career and have a good kudo

to work order ratio that's another

consideration but i would say

on my side

yeah if i'm if i'm doing a woven wool

carpet i'd like to

know that the guy's

certified through pj's course or

something through the

you know

natural fiber

uh certification

you put it in the form of a question

like this did you sit down and you're in

a post bed or something like that and

they say

hey your x percentage over the other

two uh companies that are here why is

that and

are you gonna hire the person that

answers with

because we have enough people to do it i

just don't know who's available at the

time or you're going to decide what the

person who says

uh yeah we are a little bit more costly

but that's only because we use certified

installers that this is this is their

their niche this is what they specialize

in and they put in the time and gotten

the education to be the best at this

particular product i mean

that that sells itself

it's not you have to sell it a little

bit right but the consumer doesn't know

unless you tell them

yeah i think it matters to general

contractors if especially if you're

doing a specialized flooring like a

protectal or something like that

or a certain epoxy flooring or wood

flooring or

even a specialized carpet yeah you're

probably not going to be asked for your

certification card if you're doing some

you know

carpet tile but there's a lot more out

there that

you know those things come in

real handy and i think companies do take

it into consideration

um

here's more of a statement i've never

lost a project just because of a

certification

we definitely would have lost some

projects without some of the

certifications that we had

right

yeah they

they called us specifically because we

were

certified and it's like

really you're the only ones over here so

it's

what are you going to charge us and

that's the networking thing too is your

name does go into a database and if

there is a particular customer that

wants

a specific item done

by someone who is certified they're not

looking at you know what's the bottom

dollar they're looking at who's the most

qualified and your name does go into

that database i mean it's still up to

you as a certified installer to come

through and do it the right way and use

your uh your education uh to your

benefit but

that that's a real thing that does

happen guys

i have to ask a question back like how

do you know what you've lost

you know somebody just decided you know

someone could have just decided that

i'm gonna go with this other guy because

he did i mean you don't really know

that's a tough

tough statement like how do you know for

a fact you haven't lost work

how do you know somebody didn't choose

another

person because they were certified and

you didn't get that i mean unless this

person gets every single job they ever

put their

efforts behind

that's a whole nother issue though

then you got then then i would encourage

you to go back to a couple weeks ago and

raise your prices

um

one way to look at it and

i don't speak for everybody but if you

are generating more revenue

um because of the additional phone calls

you're getting because of your

certifications but working less hours

throughout the year

that's a reflection of your

certification

but if you're still having to

crawl around and grind day in and day

out

and you're working

50 hours a week

plus

but you're you're the revenue generated

at the end of the year doesn't reflect

the amount of work that you're putting

in

no that's that's a sure to tell a sign

that you might be missing something

because

verification doesn't necessarily mean

you get paid more money you just might

draw the attention of people willing to

pay the higher dollars

um for the specific projects

well it's that old saying the old meme

that's like

you know you're not paying me to

just to lay your floor you're paying me

for the years of education and training

that took in effort to get here

if you're that guy but you're all you're

also not trained and certified well

you're kind of that's a misnomer i mean

like in

you know

yeah they're paying for your years of

experience your training your education

your your expertise

um

i guess that would be

a good

can you can you be an expert without

being

certified

um

i would say i would say yes

yeah

how valid is that

how do you prove it yeah because you can

be certified not an expert yeah you just

say you're an expert

are you that's almost like a

self-proclaimed expert at that point

well then you you do look at these other

professions right like doctors and stuff

like that you go in their office and

there are certifications right there on

the wall for everyone to see

this is where i went

that's where i got my

my certificate from then right next to

it is their their next one you know

they're very proud of the education that

they got and you should i feel like if

if we had a little bit more pride in

taking those courses and such that

you know i think cfi guys have have

the best culture around that piece of

displaying their

their

certifications probably

uh

just overall

uh not any in particular person but you

see that more i think there's you know

several guys on the go career network

that their profile pictures their their

cfi certification so

uh

you know so i guess you can be an expert

you can be really good but again nobody

else knows it's like

you know when you're you're you're

looking for backup in an argument you're

looking for some some uh someone to back

you up if you're like ain't that right

daniel well that's kind of what a

certification is to your expertise like

ain't that right cfi you know it's or

whatever training entity i say cfi

because it comes to mind the the fastest

but it could be any of them uh the point

is is that

to not be a self-proclaimed expert i

would say

you can be really really good but the

word expert

almost

indicates education

i mean that's my opinion

and

since you you know you mentioned cfi if

you just wanted to get a taste of kind

of uh

what the culture is like and stuff

convention is right around the corner

and we'd be more than happy to see

everyone there i mean just come and hang

out yeah august is cfi convention time

guys

come out there we'll have a booth go

carrera will i know

i believe you guys are going right and

we'll be down there yeah so come out and

see us i mean

um

love to chat more about not only

uh you know cfi because we'll be at the

convention uh but also just overall

uh how to improve your business if you

have any questions come see us

uh one last question before we wrap this

thing up we're here right at time limit

but why don't manufacturers offer

trainings or certifications

some do i i think they're

they're some of them have pulled back

um

because of

liability

them giving a certification

that's why they call them trainings not

certifications right because you can be

factory trained but still not be

certified yeah and

uh

factory trained is just it's all

information right you get some hands-on

you get some written uh you learn some

terminology

and you know they're setting you up for

success right to be better than you were

yesterday um but it's not a

certification because that would be like

you said a liability on their part

yeah i think that's why the the biggest

piece is liability but

at the end of the the

some of these i say at the end of the

day all the time that's like my saying

yes

at the beginning of the day at the

beginning of the day it's really

now um

sir uh

manufacturers

they still train like you said factory

trained

and they still log it like it's still

logged that you completed i think they

give completion certificates or

something like that on some of them um i

can't remember

uh

nora though is a sort of is a factory

certification

um and i believe forbose is still a

factory certification so there's almost

certification actually oh did they okay

yeah and they they stopped theirs before

cove but so they can't can't even use

that as an excuse whether they're

gonna revamp it and reopen it no one

knows but um i am also nora certified so

yeah and i did talk to a representative

from come on forbo

well they said they had to retract the

certification because of some legalities

right there was

they were absorbing a little too much um

i don't know all the details but it was

for legal reasons and

well what are they doing to backfill

that does anybody know

i don't know

i think those no jokes some of that

stuff you better that

their level of

acceptance

is here and you don't think that's that

high right but yours is right here

compared to what they have and

you think that you're pushing your

limits but you weren't even close to

theirs i mean you're talking about them

crawling around and like

there's a pencil mark that's like an

eighth inch right there you're getting

marked down for that yep

learned a lot

learned a lot and um

i um i just never forget it i'll never

forget i have to reach out to forbo

that's

surely they're going to do something

it's just their products aren't that

easy to work with frankly right a lot of

them and and really need that

i was never really comfortable working

with it until we went through that now

now it's like oh affordable i'll do it

all day long i got some vertical

installs that were i'm getting some

numbers together on right now actually

so

huh

yeah i'll have to reach out to him

and then since we're live right now on

like facebook and youtube linkedin we

got a comment that from uh someone

that's in the union

that used to be non-union and he said

the schooling that he received helped

him big time that's where you learn all

the tips and tricks you can't learn on

your own yeah and uni is a very good

advocate for for training man like you

know they have

they got a long process right but they

are very very focused um

i do wish they would open up their

because they're such a large part of our

community that is

independent non-union

that they would open up their training

to non-union people and charge for the

training yeah

something like that because i i do think

they've done a wonderful job most of the

time you get you know a union guy that's

been doing it for a while

you you can have pretty good confidence

in their abilities you know um

that's and after that he said it's an

investment which we talked about was

that last week about investing so

yeah and then uh danny sherman says from

wolf says he'll be at a cfi convention

so you got to go

see him too

danny

my brother

everybody calls us twins especially when

i grow up my beard a little bit it says

now i want to get a picture of you two

together

[Laughter]

oh you're you'll get your chance in

orlando for sure

[Music]

all right guys well i appreciate uh

everybody join in thank you guys for

coming on again it's always a pleasure

every week i i look forward to this so

uh my pleasure

and i think we got through

everything and um i don't see any other

questions so

well danny did put right here my twin

my plan

even though i know what we're going to

talk about i still take notes right

as part of the learning process i i

still want to be better at what we're

doing and i want to review and go over

what we talked about to make sure that

i'm doing myself uh favors later on so

it's doesn't matter what it's in just

never stop learning yeah go back to last

week invest in yourself

right

yeah

work hard at it

i love it

all right fellas

thanks again

signing off we'll see you next tuesday

bye

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The Huddle - Episode 7 - Trade Shows; What Attracts Installers

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The Huddle - Episode 5 - Handling Finances and What to do With Your Earnings