The Huddle - Episode 120 - Blue Collar Cruise #4

All aboard for the fourth installment of Blue Collar Cruise with Paul, Daniel, and Jose! In this episode, the crew dives into the latest trends in flooring and construction, exciting innovations, and big news shaping the industry. From new technologies to upcoming projects, they’ve got everything you need to stay ahead of the curve in the blue-collar world. Whether you're a seasoned pro or just curious about what's next, this episode is packed with valuable insights!

The Huddle was created by Paul Stuart of Stuart & Associates and Go Carrera, alongside Jose and Daniel Gonzalez from Preferred Flooring. Aimed at helping you maintain forward progress in your flooring career, they cover topics from personal and business growth, to installation tips & tricks and everything in-between.

Want to be a guest on The Huddle? Email thehuddleforwardprogress@gmail.com today!

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https://www.preferredflooringmi.com
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what's up team welcome back to the Huddle your weekly Playbook to get forward progress in your flooring

career I got a little feedback going but this is where you belong welcome to the

team with me today Mr Jose Lake Gonzalez and Daniel Gonzalez from

preferred flooring out of Grand Rapids Michigan this is our Blue Collar cruise

week so we're going to be cruising topics that uh are in the construction or blueco collar industries that we

thought might be a little bit entertaining and or um informative you

know wrap a little bit how you guys doing today nice to have you both on the on the back with us you know it's it's

exciting I know about time right kidding I understand I mean like

you guys are out there making it happen and that's that's what the Huddle's all about anyway so you guys are living what

we preach on here and and that's absolutely uh amazing but it doesn't

take away from the fact that the the audience and myself has missed

you thanks for having us back feel like we were on vacation for a

second all right well you guys are both in the vehicles you guys look alike I do

like the uh the uh Paul learned how to play okay so there's a little story about Paul

learning how to play Fantasy Football this is this is Mo mostly true I I was 0

and five and and Kevin was like dude come on like make some trades or do something because do something you your

your whole team is like on bye this week I said all right so I got in there did a

little magic and won I was like there's my first win look at me go Kevin now you

gota get a spreadsheet you gotta get a spreadsheet to see how that happened oh bro I would I would go nuts if I got too

involved in it I'd be I'd be doing nothing but watching ESPN trying to win win win if I get too involved I'm I'm

trying to win the thing I know a lot of guys are already that way but um I've never participated it's been fun I can't

calls from from uh different guys that that are on the uh in the league asking

for trades and well you're not doing nothing anyway why don't you give me your kicker and your quarterback and I'm

like dude come on now I might I might get back in it and look at me I think I scored 111 points this week

so this is Tanya's first was it too and she

uh she goes and follows some people that are supposed to be professionals and then they give her the wrong advice and

then she ends up getting all mad and watching her phone all day bro I Kevin

says uh told me he's like yeah I forget the which team it was but he's like he

got autod drafted and hasn't really done much but just make sure he has players and he's like undefeated so all you

professionals out there that that that think we know what to do because I actually took the draft pretty seriously

and was looking at it and doing all this making sure I had guys for the bye but then just like a GM of a real football

team I had to figure out how to handle all the injuries and all that crap so

anyway enough about fantasy football we we're going to start the blue color cruise off this

week with a little story um about how the

US how how the US construction has left the World Behind

so give you an overview the US has been really strong

in uh construction versus the rest of the world so the article cites that um

the industry has faced its share of challenges here recently with construction uh costs still sitting

close at 40% higher than February 2024 which was you know pre

pandemic but while you know other countries uh didn't like China Germany

United Kingdom South Korea um all of them are down in their uh Construction

and some of them you know that's a big part of their GDP so uh China's construction sector is

sluggish uh with declining demand due to property Market downturn uh reduced infr infrastructure

investment that's because you know uh a lot of people talked about this is that you know China really uh government

funded a ton of infrastructure so you go over there it's awesome but there's just not a lot of business happening it's

almost like a like a really nice painting uh Germany the take a look at

it looks Co yeah it's like a really nice building that doesn't have anyone in it you know what I mean or or awesome

highways but no one can afford to drive from place to place uh it's that kind of

stuff uh yeah so it says Germany which is Europe's largest uh

economy uh ALS o contracted did a deep uh a very steep drop in housing and

Commercial projects alike um looks like it's still a pessimistic outlook for

them the bottom line is uh the US had kind of a construction surge many of the

factors causing the slowdowns in other nations like Rising material cost and

economic uncertainty are still present here but some of the issues are just um

well even I guess some of the issues are even more pronounced in the us but we just kind of handled it differently uh

in 2024 it says a market survey from Turner and Townsen a global real estate

infrastructure consultancy based in the UK reported data from 91 markets and we

uh the the um us constructions spending in this

same time frame has grown more than 41% now that's interesting this is where I wanted to get to to talk about it grew

41% but construction costs are up 40% so is that growth because everything

just costs more and so because they're they're calculating this based on the dollar

amount yeah yeah yeah so so they're saying they're saying the increase in

dollars spent is growth right but growth is not dollars spent you know like how

how many new businesses are coming up dollar spent but it's not Mo it's not more square footage or more more

construction less square footage might be less square footage but more dollars spent because of the cost that's uh

that's crazy to think about it like that isn't it holy smokes yeah it seems like it seems like they they presented this

and this is from constru Ru dive uh if you guys are interested in checking out

the article but construction spending grew 41%

construction cost are up 40% over the same time frame so uh does that to me that means we

really only grew somewhere you know I mean this isn't perfect math but let's say one% so which is

still uh still growth but I I think there also the other side of that to

look at is that um in comparison with other countries their construction cost

Rose as well but they did not keep up you know what I mean their

construction growth slowed because of the uh increased cost to me it seems

like we maintained Uh current let's call it

projects out of the ground or remodels or whatever

um but just at a higher cost it's what it seems like so we're still stronger than other

countries in the world at the end of the day the other leading construction

companies of the world or construction countries of the world but so we're staying steady we're staying steady but

we're not necessarily making more money we're just staying consistent we're

we're staying busy yeah yeah seems like we're staying

at a even kill through the the that whole time frame uh but not not really

growth the way you think of growth like it's almost like you know I don't know

measuring your kid when he's in a hole and then having him stand up and me when he's not a hole and saying

yeah he grew man this um Jorge say says you know

also fuel costs and that's part of I'm sure in the calculation of the construction cost is the fuel cost but

you know if you if if um and I'm sure you do too but if you look back at at what you're spending um for the for the

business in 2018 to 2019 for a very similar project right about now I'm

pretty sure you can calculate the percentage of increase and then the loss of I don't want to say Revenue right

because it with that 40% increase and everything you're still

generating Revenue but the profit what does the profit look like on that that's

that's what I don't think they're they're really talking about they're looking at the the revenue the dollars

and cents going out they're not looking at how profitable companies are at uh

that percentage of increase yeah and we talked about this

before there's there were some major drivers on this initiatives uh like the

$1.2 trillion infrastructure investment and jobs act and then the uh you know

inflation reduction act that was 369 billion and then the 52 billion chips

act so all that was like federally funded growth uh and you know this article even

points out that that's that's played a significant role in the in the US construction industry success so

well stay it's success it depends on how you gauge success if you're uh if you're

doing it based on um if you're doing it based on

comparison so like is success in a football game is only in comparison to

the other team you know you can score three three points but if the only if the other team only scores Z doesn't

score any points you still win you know it's still a success so I think from that perspective it's a success but from

the health of the industry I'm hoping that you know at the end of the day that what this you know

kind of signals and seems like where this article's leading is that the strength of that should could carry

through when the economy uh when the construction economy kind of recovers on

privatized spending because like I said the article points out very

clearly there's there's three significant bills that have added you

know well in excess of a a trillion a half dollars to the to the construction

of you know to that construction number

so man that just burns go ahead go ahead I'm saying bring

me a little bit because the um so so when you when you said federally funded right right I think and in comparison if

I'm going to relate it to something that I did for a while you know related related to softball when we used play

ball we used to get penalized for um home runs and when we did hit too many home runs we used to have to award the

other team um runs it was called Progressive runs so if we were only

allowed two home runs or three home runs a game and we went over that the first home run gave the other team one run the

second home run gave him two runs the third home home run gave them four runs

and then it doubled every time and that's almost like when somebody says ferally funded right I think about where

are those funds coming from and how are they going to replenish that stock um so every time I hear that I think about

where is it coming from and how are they gonna get it back and and if they federally fund it today that means that

in the next the next uh two years they're going to figure out how to get that back in there so that way they can

federally fund some more to get that back in there so it almost yeah that that goes all the way into the

government the government spending thing this is that that machine is not going to be stopping if you think that we're

gonna quit quit spending this this machine is just gotten going uh there's

there's no nothing stopping the this increase in spending

we just print more dollars tax heavier uh and I mean find more things

to tax on yeah I mean but that also is what other countries are doing too so

you're you're talking about when you start comparing comparing these things you're like if the whole world's doing

it then where wh you have to have something that's going to be like the

Baseline to that brings the uh Legos down so to speak I don't know the House

of Cards down I don't know if there is anything uh even the venture Capital

money that's really invested in construction Innovation was uh about 80%

of all of that uh available funds from Venture Capital so private money 80% of

that was invested in the US and that's because you know we can be very proud as Americans

that we still are the uh Innovation capital of the world like we're the

money goes that money is particular going to go to where Innovation is being

you know where it's thriving where their money can thrive in Innovation and that's that's the I have noticed I have

noticed that the US is getting pretty good at taking products built outside of the country into the US and figuring out

better ways to to use them I'm well pretty Innovative it's been done it's been done to us

for you know decades and decades so says yeah R says the building going C

going crazy in his area big warehouse and office space setting empty sooner or

later they will have to stop yeah I don't know when they Rolland I don't know how they're going to do it that

China just keeps building uh empty buildings um I hope we don't do that I

hope we build based off demand but you just never know well we're seeing a lot

of it turned into a affordable housing yeah yeah D we just had a project here

you guys got projects there that we had a project here that was stacked for um

it was it was slated really for like condos it's a nice building downtown and it just got from my understanding uh got

approved for affordable housing today or this you know recently I should say you guys got that too yeah they're

groups over here that that's all they do is that's their specialty is going and

trying to get as much grants and government money as they can in order to build more housing because it is crazy

how much I don't know that it's necessarily a shortage but since like airbnbs and

stuff there's a lot of houses that no one lives in that they just run up same

thing with the hotels and and um you know part of that Daniel is the the census right the population they're

trying to increase population because you increase population it increases tax revenue you increase tax revenue then

you can po lower taxes in those areas um and in Michigan we have more people leaving than we have coming now and it

never used to be like that um you know one of the that's why they're like over here they're working on like they're

building a new Ampitheater and a new soccer stadium and they're allocating a

bunch of uh these taxes to to these spots to try and get more people

here I'm just trying to figure out what you're doing bro looks like he's picking up some mail we

got we got we got so we don't so you don't hear both of

us yeah the um I'll tell you the truth is a lot of this uh the way that taxes

and the influx of of um populations if they would reduce taxes

eventually that'd be nice but I've yet to see that happen it's always you know they get more people it really they just

spend more so you know at the end of the day I don't know if you guys have it there but

you know we have Bridges and things that really need some attention so some of

that um infrastructure spending is necessary it's one of the things the

interstate highways and stuff that the federal government should be taking care of but all right so on to the next topic

after we discussed um no you're good we can talk on one topic the whole time but

right government spending that's a that's a whole episode right there that's right and deep deep dive

yeah mean we do know people that we have meetings with that that's all they do is government work that's it that's it yeah

like it's it could be lucrative but you um if you can get used to if you're a

flooring company or any specialty contractor you get used to doing all that you'd have to like we do a fair

amount of government work but to we don't like the paperwork

uh or hey we we should we should do an episode on I'm try I'm trying to see

this I'm um but yeah that government work is

I mean you can get a lot of it if you specialize in it but that's the key is you really have to for it to make a big

difference um for us we've done several projects and we we have several projects

at the moment going on the Air Force spacee here but I'll tell you what the

paperwork all the regulation all the labor requirements on the jobs they have

it's been taxing to make sure I know on our manager to make sure that um I don't

know who keeps clicking these my brother is clicking buttons me that's me just

I'm trying not to do that my screen keep You're Gonna Do It um but the

um specializing in government work will will uh keep you busy and especially the

next the next foreseeable future this money's already been allocated so if you if you're doing that then you're going

to have uh you know a pretty good stream of of of projects to look at

moving on to talking about construction and Specialty kind of stuff we

have I thought it'd be interesting to talk about a a large uh company that

does specialy construction like flooring contractor specialty construction so

these guys are uh it's Apache industrial and they're one of the leading specialty

services companies in America for uh construction and maintenance so they had

originally I'll just read this it says since its Inception in 1967 Apache has evolved from a modest

single location industrial painting contractor into a leading industrial services provider with strong presence

in petrochemical energy sectors across United States of

Canada essentially they they're they evolve their services and I thought this

was interesting because we talked about this in flooring not too long ago about expanding your services to to grow your

company and they've expanded into um

softcraft Services which I'm not entirely sure what that means uh

scaffolding insulation fireproofing uh abatement uh Coatings

Linings all kinds of things so they've turned their their little business into

this pretty good s like massive company and it's all from the

commitment as their uh CEO says to delivering Superior Services and

long-term value to their clients uh understanding technology another thing we talk about a

lot on the Huddle plays a pivotal role in modern construction they we've invested in the latest Technologies to

effect uh effectively address our clients needs uh that can that goes all

the way from embracing the principle that you're only as good as your people so this comes into making sure you have

the in flooring in any business but in flooring

that means making sure you have the best uh guys and gals out there putting the flooring uh flooring products in and

providing awesome quality but anyway what do you guys think about that this company's massive Nationwide company out

of a a small single single s Painting Company in 1967 F first off I want to say good for

the the owner the yeah good for them for for finding a a need in their area and

then taking advantage of of every opportunity they came their way because that you can plan for something like

that the best you as as good as possible and and not end up like that that's

that's just like a a series of events that he was they were able to capitalize on through and through and to evolve

from from the startup to to where they're at now that's that's an amazing story I don't I don't care who you are

that's that that that used to be what the the American dream that was the American dream that I was told when I was a little kid how things could happen

and how businesses started um and now you know it's you have to have a it's

pretty inspiring it is it is it it could it still happen yeah does it still happen 100% but those are the people

that have the for and understand what what bucket they're dipping their toe in uh for for that moment right and when to

change those smart people yeah and you know they they put a

lot of emphasis on technology and people as their uh you

know as what plays into their growth they got 40 locations across North

America so that's a lot of yeah you got be well

um hold on like boxes like PO boxes or I don't think so man uh man that's

amazing yeah pretty cool pretty cool and they they're their

growth um you know like anytime you're growing uh Stephen concludes the CEO

that you know Apache is in is still in a growth uh period this year it's been

exciting and challenging at the same time so you know also that growth uh a lot of times

people forget what type of work is behind the growth um yeah the you ever

hear that saying that like you work 15 years to be an overnight success it's

because like people don't see the background work and then all of a sudden you get noticed and it's like oh this

great company what what a great job they're doing but all the hard work and

challenges of growth um and I tell you what you know with with all kinds of

changing regulations and employment stuff it's it's uh that's a hell of a

feat for them to have reached um so I thought that was pretty cool being in special contractors

ourselves hey I think um it gives you it gives you hope right like

uh how do you approach something like that what what's the next steps what do you do is it worth it um when's the

right time to make moves yeah this is this article is in construction today and you can kind of

read even deeper into where they Place their values um and the workforce

quality they've doubled down on I know that we've talked about that a lot on the Huddle here and that the quality of

the people you hire and that you train them up and all this stuff is is so Ultra important and sometimes you can

find fall behind and not quite get there uh I know the struggles of growing a

business so do you guys and so someone to do that and have the foresight to be

able to um execute on that level I mean we got two locations and it drives me

crazy yeah it kind of reminds me when we were talking to Joey AO when

we were down over in uh Detroit right and the from the carpet guys and he was

like he started you know going and selling door too and now he's got I don't know how many locations he's got

but he's got a pretty big setup down there over in Detroit now and it's just got what did they

do uh it's the the floor guys oh gotcha the carpet guys the

carpet the carpet guys I'm sorry the carpet guys think I got his hat over here somewhere yeah the carpet guys Joey Zago and um he was down at ties the last

time I think we've seen bumped into him a few other times we went down there for a train the trainer um class uh and he

hosted and that was the first time meeting him and just hearing the back story it's right people

like he take it he to he took a chance on himself as what it was and it worked

out so let's let's uh promote him a little bit if he's knocking out of the

park what did he um what did he what what's his is he a floring installer

crew be wise call the C guys so or are they a store that he's a flooring

retailer down there and he's got an entire team like when we were at his building it was

uh it was huge and he's got his own setup for training there now too so that way his guys can host um training CFI

too yeah that's that's awesome need more of

that full on St fullon store he got commercial residential but like his showroom like

his whole building is a showroom it it was it was beautiful pay your phone bill

Dwayne probably in the area where he lives no doubt he lives out in the

boonies have you guys been there we were there with you oh that's right I forgot about that we were there

we were there together yeah I've been out there a few times few few times him blowing stuff up

and and uh riding uh four-wheelers and going crazy out on Dwayne's property and

other people's Pro property around there too awesome place and he supports

education that's one of the most important things is supporting the education of our industry and um there's

a lot of movement I'm really excited about how things are starting to progress with uh jump start we're about

to add a couple hundred new jump starters uh that's going to be I just got my email this morning

yeah there's going to be a lot more uh so yeah I've got a I've got a ton of um

good news once we were getting them loaded and interviewed and I I could not

agree more with that statement right like me next week I'll be going down to

uh to America's Floor Source with the nctt and we've got I think 12 or 13

people signed up to do the heat Welden Flash Cove training down there where's

that at America's Floor Source in Columbus Ohio Columbus Ohio yeah that's uh

Goldberg's place right yeah and that's another guy that you can talk about about expanding right because I don't

even know how many places he's got I know he's got a lot like he was buying

stuff up left and right not long ago yeah yeah he's got a lot of

places um is that to anybody if someone's on the in the audience and

wants go and is in the Columbus Ohio area are they able to to join or think

that you can try nfc.com but I think the signups ended on last week Friday or

Saturday B man they'll let you in they'll let you in but there is a you have to have a prerequisite for for that

class right Daniel or is this uh uh no because it's it's a training too so you

can either you can op to do the training or a certification sweet

awesome well if if there's any of them that uh are just training and they they

uh don't have jobs get them on jump start hand them out of flyer I think we

did we send you guys a flyer too no but I'll print some and I'll take them with me though I'll look right now I was

trying to log you should have got a flyer that's got a QR code on it so uh flooring companies can hang them up in

their in their uh location and the subs that work for that

company that need help as well can hire off a jump start just the same so 21

jumpstart I love it all right well one uh sweet well you can print that off and

put it in your in your place so I was going to share a photo this came this

article comes from from wood flooring uh wood floor business article I thought it

was pretty cool to to we were talking about um we were talking about Innovation

check this out this is a I'm gonna I'm going to

kind of read this article a little bit but this was taken in 1921 and uh this gentleman had the the

picture but this is how they used to scrape floors by hand wood floors and get them prepped for uh you know to to

uh re uh refinish a floor or even a new floor and it's I guess a pretty famous

article or a pretty famous photo uh from

1921 so it says by 1930 I'm not even going to try to uh

pronounce Lewis's name there but lisis Floor Service which operated in Cleveland for 50

years uh he told the magazine that he started working for his father pushing a broom when he was eight years old I

think a lot of us have that story that we started pushing a broom when we first got into floring I don't know about

eight years old and how the labor laws would um uh go for that I even my butt

could even wipe my butt right at eight years old it's your kid it doesn't matter if it's your kid it doesn't matter how old they are just put them to

work yeah I thought it was a pretty cool uh story about how this this company

grew but it's really a testament to technology we now have machines they

have heck they got they're I've seen robotic machines that are starting to um

you know for sanding wood floors that do it on their own like that

part of the business I don't know about the application of the Finish but that part of the business is getting uh

faster probably than most uh getting uh

robotics anyway so that is the cruise for the day if I start another article we'll probably run over hopefully

everybody enjoyed some articles if you would like to see any additional

different types of Articles we have a staff that uh uh you know kind of scour

all the construction uh Publications and tries to find really

cool articles there is another one that I did not actually now I I have to do

this one I forgot about this uh I started off on um on um I've gotta find

it real quick I started off on how we kind of left the World Behind oh by the way you know uh thank goodness that long

shoran strikes over e it didn't last very long I mean I mean

they got it taken care of they got it taken care of but this article talks

about and I'm just gonna play

um I am gonna the Huddle's on at 4M Eastern every Tuesday just answering

this question oh he had another one too about keeping trainings in uh was more of a

statement training keeping them separate yeah it was it was a statement but that's why we have a three-day training

and then a two-day certification yeah I mean our the go career Hammer rating tracks all that

anyway whether it's a training or certification so it is separated but from an efficiency standpoint it makes

sense to have the training and then if you want to extend it for the certification you can

so uh that's that's my my view I'm I'm not the uh

full Authority on it but that's my opinion is that it certainly helps from an efficiency

standpoint um oh he's saying that they need to be separate organizations yeah I think his stance is

that uh there needs to be a creditation uh around certifications um him we we have a u

phone call coming up or a meeting coming up here in the near future kind of talk about what he um

is envisioning there but okay um having a a an accrediting

accrediting company or organization putting accreditation on a

certification so that it's uh you know true yeah it's a true

certification there's plenty of discussion around that and we can like get deep because one of the problems is

that we need more training and not less

and the the cash crunch on being able to train requires because installers don't

just have the money uh or at least has not seen the value and he's talking

about ANC andm standards for training and credit credentialing um but in we we already

struggle with getting installers to see the value in training and um take taking

time away from their skill that earns them money then paying a fee to get the

education um and then travel to wherever the training or certification is uh

located and with all those things that uh the industry has to deal with I think

some people are doing really good jobs um uh in in attacking this and um you

know I think Forward Motion is most appropriate and let the cream rise to the top you know if trainings and

certifications did get uh specifically certifications get credentialing around

them and the industry the installer base seen more value in them uh regardless of

cost then that's going to be where people go you know the market will tell when you start talking about cost that's

what you have to start looking at like I know we've touched on it before but my buddy owns an electrical business and

they go to the local community college for classes so they pay $800 per

semester so they can do continuous learning and they're there um I think

once or twice a week on their own time when you look at what we have now it's like the installers got to pay for 100%

of everything plus they have to travel and then you're losing

money and it's one of our certifications is is a lot of money so

if we can start getting accreditation like through colleges and stuff and it it cuts the cost down that's really the

direction that that it should go and there's there's a lot of talk about that on social media right now right well the

bottom line is SE plenty of posts yeah because it's primarily our our our labor

forces subcontract labor it's independent labor that means when you're not working

you're not getting paid it's not like working for an employee as an employee somewhere where your boss pays you to go

get trained and that is probably the largest hurdle to jump in our industry

we either have to build we've talked about this before we either have to build more value into the training and

make it clear that you get these the this certification or these you bump up

your skill level that you're going to make more money and that it's provable you either have to do that or

you're going to have to figure out how to get every sub to quit being a sub in every company to start hiring employees

now I don't know how to do that one but I do know luck if you if you format the

industry around a skill around the level of skill that you're paid based off of

your skill level uh then you you have a better chance of making it work um cred

Ving the and these types of deals to the trainings would just

um uh I agree he says it would legitimate legitimize the the um the uh

trainings but someone still has to do the grants for the financial aid and the

uh the stuff and someone if you know maybe he's uh talking about doing this

but someone has to do it you know what I mean uh we formulated our approach uh

and I you guys know everything about go careera that that approach was let's just weigh the trainings based off of

their Merit to improve the uh installers ability and then give them that credit on the on a easy to understand score

that's basically um you know a lesser training gets

lesser weight results in lesser Hammer rating MH for each each one so I mean

that system works really well uh it's in place and um we're obviously big

proponents of it but um the the fact is is that that we can't get away from is

that out of the installer base and it's over a thousand I think Ben told me La last

count of active people on the Network less I would say 80% I think is

uh pretty close are under a hammer so we have to see the value in training first

because it's obvious that a large portion of our labor force does not see the value in getting the education

they'll work for someone and I know you guys probably dealt you know witnessed this yourself but I've witnessed guys

that work for somebody for 6 eight months and they're like I want to be a sub or I'm gonna go do my own thing and I'm

like whoa yeah whoa take it take it back and not BR I know you learned how to cut

tile and put it in thin set but did you do layout did you consider grout joints

what about the substrate did you consider waterproofing did you have to do all this or did the mechanic that you're working for do all of that and

then you learned the hand skill portion there's a mind skill that comes after the hand skill I mean I learned how to

cut in C long before I knew how to lay out broadloom carpet you know so agreed

there there's a lot more to it and you're right and then even even now when we venture out

and try to make do something different or make a change or or Implement something you're always like are we

doing it right can we do it right but who can we call to ask you know how do

we what do I don't I don't want to mess up and a lot of people just don't they

just I want that that big check they don't think about how that check has

divied up and all of the all the science and experience that comes with that

person that they were working under for those eight nine months that made those projects run

smoothly um that's it's hard to

recognize what that I agree I was just gonna comment on Jesus's comment that I

think what he's saying is he sacrifices now and for delayed gratification yeah

we talked about this quite a bit you know throughout the the podcast and it's delayed gratification it's I'm going to

do this now so that way later on you're comfortable right I know I'm doing

everything right instead of having to question it and we've had guys come full circle where you know we worked at a

company together they came to work with us um a couple years later and then

they're like all right I'm going to go do my own thing and it's like they do know what they're doing but you know and

you you ask him it's like well what what happened he was like man I thought you guys were making money hand over fist

and then I started and I'm like dang all these expenses and that's what no one really prepares themselves for I think

and that's why you have guys that are on on some of these groups and they're like my this person is supposed to pay me and

they haven't paid me in two weeks and it's like yeah because that money sometimes takes that long to get well

that too it's the continued education right like it you can't only learn in your eight hours at work you can't only

learn in that 40 hour work week right if you don't apply yourself and try to to learn on your own time you're never if

you can't learn on your own time and educate yourself on your own time chances are you're not gonna be that

focused when you're getting paid from someone else to do it um you know you you obsorb

better and and apply and Implement better when you do a little bit on your own and that's the

that um you know the best of the best the best of the best in in most

Industries put in work on their own like football players I mean oh yeah if you

look at any sport the the best of the best they're not just going to training camp man you know they're going to

that's a good way to put it they're doing you know offseason workouts and working with running back coaches and

quarterback coaches and physical therapy coaches and that's their craft and our

craft is flooring and yeah it's it's been more of an uphill battle than I

ever thought it would be to get installers to really like embrace it but

eventually I believe that the Market's going to start doing that the the the

homeowners the the general contractors are going to start requiring like you

know they want to know that the guys on their job are qualified to do their job and um you know I think that's starting

to make a little bit of Headway in the industry you just see some chirpings about like if we knew how good you know

if the guy was qualified or not it would have saved us a ton of money in all this replacement and failure which you know

failure flooring failures in the US are somewhere around $3.5 billion dollars so

this is not a insignificant number I was going to show this other I was going to show this video but uh we got on this

topic and we this topic and we're gonna finish it off with this topic yeah all

right I'm wna kind of touch on this right here because he's still talking about you know that you can get the

financial aid from all these places but then that just defers back to how every

business is ran and it's all subcontractor based and I don't want to throw a number out

there but I think the vast majority of you know subcontract businesses like in

the flooring industry don't keep track of their stuff the way that they need to and in order to get one of these grants

they want to know all your history basically hey I want to know from your

Inception like where did all this money go and and another thing and I want to add to what Daniel just said too and

because we went through this um another thing is that the way that those grants are structured and the way you have to

keep submitting information in order for you to get refunded because they don't just give you money right they reimburse

you as you as you turn uh your spendings and um and a lot of it is not structured

for construction America it's structured as if you were a corporation and um even

some of the uh some of the businesses that are pretty well-run don't have all

those systems in place to to be able to to give them the information in the format that they're requesting it after

they even qualify and that would be us us as one of them and you know well that's one of the things that's that's

the hardest thing with grants and this this that approach and I'm not saying it's not a worthy approach I'm just

saying it's not the end all Beall there has to be multiple facets of attack um

because the the financial aid and the grants and all of this stuff require

somebody to track file uh for these grants and I know just working with some

of the training entities like the fcef for example you know it's not easy guys

for that to get a grant you have there's professional grant writers for a reason

like it's it can be a tough a tough go so I'm not saying it's not possible and

I know there's some training entities out there that are working with us on jumpstart right now

that um that that will sorry that comic I started

reading but there's there's um that are working with the uh Juvenile Detention

uh facilities which I think is a great outlet for all I think all trades I

don't this isn't just like yeah they're very young men and

women in juvenile programs that are being trained and florine's one of them

and kudos to those people doing that work getting out there and putting these programs together but it doesn't just

happen someone has to take the Reign and go do it right so that's why it's easy

to talk about but it's hard to implement everything because it takes so much effort to make it happen and someone's

really got to have the financial capabilities to just do something like

that you don't make a ton of money doing that like having a training that's thing like we we always we talk about working

on your business instead of in your business right and it kind of you can really see it these past few weeks when

I've been in the field because I hadn't been able to focus on any bids or anything because I've been too busy and

then we're we we are going to see a law in work where things weren't bid right and

that's just the nature of it but it's you have to be able to step out of that seat and a lot of people just don't have

that luxury yeah yeah well I'll tell you what I I've stepped back from my

flooring company uh before and it it takes you it takes a lot of of kudos to

all the flooring companies out there the owners that are able to like structure their business to run pseudo without

them and they work on the business all the time I have to kind of jump in jump out it's almost like Hopscotch

you know work on the business work in the business on the business in the business on the business in the business

but um yeah so we have closed out the the hour with our favorite topic of of

Labor and our our Industries uh crazy thing is you were like I want to just do

one more thing real quick and then this topic came up and then we spent like 25 minutes on it yeah well it's easy to

spend and we we talk it it always comes up because what we have to realize in the

audience everybody watching uh everybody at home everybody at a flooring company

or an installer watching this is you you have to realize that this is always coming up on the

Huddle in different ways and a lot of times it's spurred on by the comments

why is that it's because it's a root problem and yes uh I I I have what I

believe not just me but multiple people uh a lot of people believe is a uh

antidote but not a full-on it's not a cure um in go Carrera I believe that

that program allows individuals to thrive in their industry in in flooring

and promote themselves from within and jump starts just one of our initiatives

where it allows for both flooring installers retailers flooring compan IES

to get on look at the new recruits that are coming out of the training entities and let's get them placed in our

industry so we're about to add a lot you know a uh a a lot of um

new jump starters are are getting ready to get added to the program and jump on check them out subscribe and hire your

next Talent these guys are showing these guys and gals both are showing initiative that they want to be in

flooring so let's pick them up they're not all going to work out but you can also go on Craigslist and siphon through

30 line Cooks if you want yeah so all

right fellas as always it was a pleasure uh the blue collar Cruise uh continues

to sell the the last video I was going to share was about uh it was an

innovation topic as well and it was this company in Switzerland built a bridge

like a full-on bridge bridge for a highway that comes uh that diverts

traffic over them redoing the road underneath uh it was a pretty cool video you can check it out on uh construction

briefing.com and the topic is uh traffic avoids road

work uh thanks to a mobile construction site bridge and it's pretty cool it's a

literally like a mobile bridge I think it's like a mile along and they just

move this bridge along as they re as they redo this they just move that bridge along as they redo the road

underneath it's uh pretty cool if you're ever stuck in construction traffic you know that that that's uh that would be a

blessing here in in our area it just you just get detours but um anyway they

close the detours yeah then they close the detours Jose Lake Gonzalez thank you

for joining you weren't that late brother so it was a it was a pleasure talking to you and Daniel again and and

having you on the Huddle this is this is uh one of my favorite days so appreciate you guys appreciate the um audience if

you are catching us on Facebook comment like give us some some love there if you

catch us later on YouTube give us a like subscribe a dislike whatever you want uh

but let us know what we're doing that you love and uh where you would like to

see this go so yeah yeah love or hate us just comment and let us know what's

going on and we will uh do our best to bring you the best uh topics in our

industry from there gentlemen I will catch you guys next week and again it's

Tuesday 3 uh Central and two what is it

four o'clock Eastern yep

yep yeah he's done a lot of research I I'm really interested in chatting with him and seeing seeing what uh what what

um where he sees that you can like implement it in a big way it'd be an

interesting conversation maybe we'll have him on the Huddle and uh continue this topic I'm sure we're gonna have it

again so awesome guys well we will see you next week thanks for joining and

we'll see everybody in the audience thank you everyone until next time