The Huddle - Episode 127 - Surviving Slow Seasons: Tips for Staying Profitable Year-Round

In this episode we explore strategies for maintaining profitability in the flooring installation industry, even during off-peak times. Discover how diversifying services, improving operational efficiencies, and investing in marketing can keep your business robust. We’ll also discuss the importance of budget management and proactive planning to smooth out seasonal fluctuations. Tune in for practical advice and actionable tips from industry experts on how to not just survive, but thrive, during the slower seasons.

Hop aboard and stay informed about what’s shaping the industry—don’t miss this exciting journey!

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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welcome back to the Huddle everybody we're your weekly Playbook to help you gain forward progress in your flooring

career for our new viewers welcome to the team what's up fellas what's going on

sir how was your uh Thanksgiving what it do you know it was pretty fantastic it

was uh nice to have a few extra days off and

little little family time it was it was nice I did I did the same I did uh

unplug which I'm not used to doing um good for you though every every now and

again I mean I worked a little bit over the weekend but it was pretty low pressure because you had that extra day

so was like I came in for a few hours four or five hours and you know just doodled around and got some stuff done

it was nice I like how anytime we say that we're working and you're like just a just a few you know like five between

five and 10 hours so so I was gonna I was gonna add to that I unplugged from technology but I still

came to the office and built some shelves and I still claimed the warehouse and did some or like that's

good that's good stuff though just get your mind off things I don't know put on a good book or some music

and that I just you lose yourself and creativity like that man well that rolls

right into our topic of the day surviving the slow season uh tips for

you know kind of how to maneuver and and uh position yourself during the slow

season and uh what we can do is installers at flooring companies uh I

know what a lot of uh Architects and designers do at this time um wanted to

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floor cloud bring it up every time every time I

watch that video you know it reminds me of a few things but one of the big things is the need the need the lack of

the need for like you know uh connection or or some box that you got to put

somewhere uh it's cell driven so use cell towers and um because it is mobile

if you have a installation manager you know in one part of the

state and the job's in another and he's in charge of that it it is an incredible

Tool uh to help you with deficiency so absolutely we're still we still got it

rocking on a couple job sites right now just so that way uh if anything goes wrong and it's I mean it's snowing now

so if that temperature starts dipping we'll know about it as temperature starts dipping Daniel's flork started

tripping he does too well another a funny thing is is that um

and a lot of the guys on here do commercial work they know but um I want to make sure I'm

doing a little housekeeping little systems check are we live I'm not showing we're live on my side we are

live yeah we're live all right just making sure um but uh the you know the before and

after and the the the temperature and humidity and everything that you're

supposed to maintain on a project uh we've had it get there get a call you

get there they keep it that way until you leave and then they do whatever they

want again and then they do whatever they want to do and in these temperatures uh it's not super cold but

we're in the low mid 20s uh lower 40s as a high and it doesn't take long for a

70° uh job site to cool off real quick when they pull the you know the temporary windows out or whatever the

situation is so it's uh it's smart that you're you're leaving it up even after you're done with your installation show

those fluctuations and you guys use it a lot uh tell tell the the audience do you

get a graph uh over time the history of yeah

it kind of does this thing right here so it just gives you can you show the screen

uh I might be able to without up to do that but we're kind of throwing you out

there but the the key is that you can go back and look at times uh I want to just your guys's um

you know input on that because the way you guys uh utilize it uh I I know that

you know you can go back and see you know on a certain date when the

temperature drops or the humidity goes up or whatever and you can see that kind of stuff and and of course it alerts you

when if you'll load your products in on the project that you're doing it'll alert you when those products are out of

their specification so if a spec calls for it to be 65 to 70 degrees or

705 degrees in a certain humidity Point uh floor Cloud knows all that all you

got to do is tell it what product you have on there and it'll let you know if falls out of sorry Daniel out of

spec Daniel's back looks like so guys you know we're talking about this at a

very timely uh you know point in the year this is typically when projects

unless you do a lot of like um even school work will kind of start

to happen over Christmas break but right now this is the deadest time usually for

us is between Thanksgiving and Christmas you're not to Christmas break yet so you don't have your shutdowns at your plants

in commercial world that it can be a busy time actually during Christmas

shutdown but after Thanksgiving and before Christmas it's like it's just

there's no work there's no I mean there's work but it just the activity is

so much lower uh at least that's our experience for 20 plus years

and consistent so what do you guys do in

these times what what are some ways that you can uh you know I I kind of looked at this as as how can we improve our

business practices and processes during the time of slowdown how can you reeval

re-evaluate your budget if you're a flooring company uh and even an

installer if you have you know a few Crews evaluating uh your team members and and these kinds

of things and understanding where you're at uh for the year even you're close enough to the end of the year you can

kind of see what the picture is going to look like do you do some of that activity what do you do during this time

so um historically we've always I don't say historically in past

years let's just say the last 10 years we've uh kind of prepped ourselves for

uh during this time is when we get our vehicles in get the maintenance done catch up on all the stuff that we need

to catch up on uh trailer maintenance uh vehicle maintenance um maintenance

around the office just because we know that we're not utilizing everything to a full capacity right now um you know you

start checking the tools making sure that all the Grinders are working properly the vacuums are are good the

filters like you know all the behind the scenes stuff that nobody ever really thinks about you don't you don't

really tackle those unless you have to right during the year but the slow time is uh is our time to prep for the busy

time I would say is is how we've been looking at it for a while um you know we

I mean there's a there's a lot of different things what we're doing right now pretty much starting that process with reorganizing the the warehouse and

creating more storage space um we do see some training and some Hands-On uh

coming up in the near future um try to utilize it as prep time instead of slow

time right uh mindset I think is is key uh but that's about it Daniel can add to

that if you'd like yeah I mean we got one of our vans in there today uh just going over everything

making sure everything is all good with it so that way it's I mean we get a bunch of snow so we need to make sure

everything's ready for the winter time right the last thing you want to do is break down and and start freezing

especially if you got like one of our machines or a bunch of material in

there and uh basically we've been you know talking with uh Mr garden over at

CFI and seeing what's uh going on with some trainings over here and then also

um Sunny with the the NCT and trying to get something over here

sweet yeah I I like the idea of like the these are the times when we can get

ready for like next W increase our skill set

you know uh do some training you're not going to miss out on as much work if

you're slow you ought to be uh searching out some trainings uh in my opinion as an installer it's one of the things I

wish I would have done more of when I was just installing um but yeah just getting

ready for that next year another thing that a lot of uh companies you know this

is a good time for sales activity from you know making some phone calls and and

hitting the beating the streets a little bit um we do we tend to have a quite a

full plate of estimating going on at this time just not a lot of job starts

or you know uh some of the projects if if it's getting cold and they're they're

not quite we have a project right now it's got a ton of protect all on it and it's

you know it's not closed in yet and it's you know not acclimated you know three

months ago acclimation was outside it was 68 to 75 degrees all day every day

and it was perfect but uh this time of the year you start getting really extreme temperatures either up or down

you know your projects just can't start if you're doing if you're following the instructions um your projects just can't

start because no you just said they're not quite closed up you said um this time of year right and

I'm looking at uh hor has comment on there it says weather's perfect down here so we we're still slammed I'm

wondering if the region dictates the slow time right do the hotter States

slow down at the hottest part of the year and you know the colder State slowed down during the coldest part like

that's a question for the audience if you guys can give me some ins I wonder also if it's not a residential uh

commercial thing a little bit more I do think that probably I'm guessing and

Jorge be a perfect person to kind of chime in here but um I'm guessing that

residentially you got some people trying to get you know their new floors in or finish a

remodel holiday before the big you know Christmas and that's that's one thing you can do too like like because we're

mainly commercial right but it's it is around this time of year where we start getting those phone calls and where all

the the the stores you know the residential stores are super jam-packed I mean we got a phone call um a couple

weeks ago now and Jeremy's in here right now he went and helped us out on this project but they called on like a

Thursday and we was like this company was supposed to be here tomorrow and just emailed me and said that they are a

month out now and this was something that was already scheduled and they push them another month out so it's like yeah

we had a couple of residential uh jobs their their big uh like a big outside uh

tile project were just polishing off we just polished off really we got a few more little details to do but you know

they wanted to have Thanksgiving they got a lot of family coming in for Thanksgiving and wanted us out of there

and so there's big push up to Thanksgiving and then you know I would imagine going into uh these other

holidays you'll have a big push on the residential stuff we we do just a very amount from a revenue percentage but you

know four or five six projects a year um of size and then maybe another handful

that are a little bit smaller but everybody wants to get you in and and

and like have their uh their remodels and their floors done before their family comes into town

so there are people now trying to get on before Christmas but we have yet but we

have to tell them they are not going to get it till the new year yeah it's

always nobody ever wants to hear that right and sometimes people don't think about like oh we're running out of time

we got to get this done and then they'll call and have we've we've definitely uh fudged

our schedule more often than not around the holidays um I would say probably more so for the residential because

they're smaller projects um hard to do it in the commercial industry right because you kind of plan to be done

before the holidays because your schedule's a lot a lot uh further out um

than than the the popup residential but it's just one of those things where you just expect it you expect those calls

you got to be ready for it um and you know a lot of the residential guys around here are jammed right now they're

slammed and it's uh that's a great problem to have right and some of the commercial guys are still calling us

looking for work so it's that that mixture right there that's where you know diversifying and hey if I'm not

getting it over here let me go over here for a little bit just to so you don't have any any spots

that are that have nothing in the schedule yep yeah and that's

a that's a great segue to what one of our previous podcast about diversifying

and getting a little bit if you can at least be proficient in uh one or the other and you live in say commercial for

most of the time but you're proficient in you know the residential um Vinyl

Products or car carpet or whatever you can pick up some work in those slow

times I know that when residential gets slow man we got guys just beating our

doors down for looking for work and we always you know if if we've worked with

them before you know you might give them some some work but a lot of times in the commercial it's such a big commitment

it's easier to go from commercial and pick up a few smaller residential job is

to go from residential and then pick up a commercial job because you know a new hospital could be a three-month project

for an installer right and if you're looking and the same thing if you're looking at like a basic residential

project not anything specialty like you know hardhead takes care of but from a

basic standpoint the knowledge that you need to to transfer from a residential

to a commercial project is substantially different so m where're

um transitioning from commercial to residential is a little bit of an easier uh move I would say in my opinion but

you know I might be a little biased because that's what we do what we've done um but I know a lot of residential

guys that are a one a one uh one product

installation um company so in commercial it's you can't do that um you can try

but you're not going to flourish so when's the uh Rollins like you know

indicating that he's pretty busy during this time of year like uh so when is the

residential guys uh downtime and do they have downtime like Jorge is in a good

climate and mainly residential so does he ever have downtime do you ever have downtime

hor he says we're right it's easier to do residential commercial has more

factors in play yeah well definitely I think there's a lot more people uh

sitting there making the you know that you have no downtime for this pleas uh

superintendent and other project managers and such no downtime all right well Jorge this isn't for

[Laughter] you but you know what he keeps himself busy too right like he goes out there he

networks and and he does the same thing if he's not working on a project he's working on the company or or staging uh

his next project for the next week um and that's a lot of the behind the scenes that a lot of people don't do and

or won't do um if you're an employee you don't do that um but if you're um a

proprietor subcontractor trade contractor you probably do a little bit of that but it might be like cleaning

the van or something like that but well Jeremy brings up a good point here too you know he really did hit on something you

know people save up for flooring to get done in time for the seasons whereas

budgets are running out on Commercial jobs for the year like you know your your big you know around here we have a

lot of um Aerospace you know aircraft manufacturing and a lot of those places

they're they capital budget for the year's pretty much done um yep so you

know they they may not have you come and replace carpet we are lucky to have a few that have a different fiscal year so

their budgeting year is different than the fiscal year uh so they um don't run

into that problem but that's a good point as well I think overall you know it's about taking that downtime and

getting trained up getting your stuff geared up it's you know getting your

stuff ready and uh and then hunting like call some people that you haven't done

work for in a while and and touch base with them what they're up to go grab a cup of coffee with with

someone kind of uh let them know that you're still there plan maybe some people want to reach out to you and and

like Jeremy says right here it's all about the clients you're going after right so if you're going after a bunch

of the lower end stuff that's when even their budgets right around this time are kind of closed up it's like nope I'm

only going to be spending money on the holidays I'm not going to do anything and then the higher in is the exact

opposite it's hey I'm having family come over I can't have my house look like this I need this replace before they get

here yeah I can't let know that I peed in the carpet in the living room when I was drunk we gota rid of

that yeah think the clientele tell matters but I think we all have some

downtime it just is a different time except for Jorge it sounds like he has no

downtime and it I would imagine that he has to make his own I guess yeah like

you get planned his wedding right yeah oh yeah congratulations uh publicly to

Jorge for getting married it's been a few weeks back now but uh congrats my

brother um yeah so it just it gives you time to

to do things that you don't really have the time for during your busy season right like I'll I'll be honest like

especially for these past few months where I'm in the field and I've been you know doing trying to do the office

anyways and bye Daniel um so Daniel has been spending a little bit more time

yeah I don't know what he's doing over there usually my guess is that he was going down that path of saying you know

this is also a really good I mean it is a lot about family and it's a really good time to reconnect you know spend

some of that extra time with family because a lot of us during the busy times are working some crazy hours doing

some crazy things uh we travel a bit so I travel and you know if I'm wearing my

project manager hat I'm out there on a job you know trying to make sure it goes right and I I also have that old

installer blood so I jump down and help heat weld or lay lace and floor

sometimes it's just um you know when you're running as hard is what I think

Daniel was alluding to now he's back I'll let him take over but I think that's kind of where he was going keep

on calling me and I have it on do not disturb and it still just cuts everything out I don't understand I've

gotten like 10 phone calls and they it's the same number must be an emergency that they can wait

on turn your Bluetooth off on your phone it's G to be some residential client needing some work done right now uh no

that's through a text message though they did text me while we were on here um but yeah it's it's getting the stuff

like I've been slacking on social media like what can I do in order to get up our social media presence right because

it always goes back to what we learned at the chamber and it's it's not who you

know it's who knows you so keep on getting your name out there the the the more they see you the

more they are to be like hey I remember that name just like our vans you know we got them wrapped four years ago and

almost five years ago now and everyone thinks we have like 20 Vans but we don't

we have two two yeah like I will say that like in in a

two-day span um one of the one of the two Vans was on the east side of the

state on our side of the state north uh South like we were everywhere doing a

lot of different things they're like I just seen your manand here and then here and they're like you guys are everywhere like no you probably seen the same

person they were probably mad that they to go deliver stuff well that's good that still Falls

right in line with learning you know improving taking that time to find those

things it's just in a different manner than maybe a a hand skill but learning a

little bit of a new um approach to your social media like you were just talking

about or you know up in it find a way to get and we can tie this into you know

the the whole AI aspect of what we talk about bring AI into it ask them what you need to be doing better what you know

get a calendar going or something yeah yeah I think it's a good time for

improvement reconnection I like to use the time to connect with old clients that I haven't done work with you just

kind of look back and you're like hey I haven't heard from them in a several months connect with them like you said

Jose go grab some coffee y you know yeah just reconnect plant some seeds and

you got a little bit of it little bit of time I I will I will add this though and

um this goes for all year round just because it's slow and there isn't physical work for some of the

smaller companies uh at during some of these times does it mean that the office is not busy because you we can see those

gaps coming in the schedule and as we get closer we are grinding we are trying to fill th those voids um and this year

we got really busy and with both of us being out of the office and um filling

in on projects you know that that's part of uh that can create a gap in the schedule as well

and actually shout out to our mom because she man the office while both of us were gone basically the entire time

wow shout out to Mama Gonzalez she didn't she's still here yelling at

everybody and their organization skills in the warehouse what the why they put it right here let's let's

back it up to when we were talking about it's easier to move from commercial to residential because Rollin says that's

not the case with like Custom Homes and dealing with clients and we weren't talking about about that right I think

we were just talking more of like the timelines and stuff like that it's easier to go from from a six-month

project and then catch a couple you know two three day projects than it is to go from someone that's constantly doing two

or three days to go to something that you're on the same project for six months it's

just it's not yeah it's a it's a Comm certainly was not talking about the

skill set because I think both I said that I said basic I said basic installer

I didn't say like highend is different but yeah the the basic yeah it's it's I I certainly was

referring to the fact that you know commercial projects are typically longer

term even a smaller commercial job will take you can take you a week or two you

know uh what would be considered small in the commercial world you know A3 $40,000 project with say $110,000 of

Labor that could take two weeks to do the same type of uh you know and I'm

not saying I know there's always outliers heck there's commercial projects that are by far take longer but

in general you can go pick up a uh you know a

u living room and hallway and a restroom lvp job and fit that into your

commercial schedule and it's just harder to fit you know the four o rooms in a

residential guy schedule even if he does have the skill set to do it and vice versa so yeah it's certainly not a skill

set thing from from my perspective it's more of just like like you know when I was installing I was mainly commercial

but I'd pick up I picked up jobs all the time and I I have residential mainly

Dwayne pret mainly does residential it's harder to get him to pick up some of my

commercial work than it is for one of our commercial guys to go pick up a

little bit of residential work unless he's just doing the demo right unless he's doing the demo then he'll drop

everything jump on he'll drop everything jump on the machine come to your place

cuz he loves doing demo and I don't blame him it's pretty uh pretty easy and fun work if you can

ride the machine Easy's relative uh that YMCA that we just did ripping that

rubber out like where the machine couldn't go that was uh was that 3/4

inch rubber that was down no it was just under a half inch was it oh it must have

been with the the the prep material so is it Mondo the old Mondo brother about Mondo yeah

yeah yeah well that used to when we installed it and I installed it in a lot

of gym floor uh like running tracks and stuff at different high schools and I was put down with the

two-part epoxy adhesive and not much change what it is uh then you have to

Brick everything down every single scam yep but taking it up

is a bear taking it up as a bear that

that yeah B doesn't break a break up it made us replace the motor in our ride on

machine yeah are you serious yeah which one is it what what uh machine you guys

got right on National 5700 gas or electric electric electric

oh that's the same one one of I mean that's one of that's ours yep so we had to replace the

motor yeah good thing we had one just hanging

out holy moly I had to replace the batteries in ours not long ago that was an expensive ordeal yeah how much did

you pay the last time we did it I think it was just under 10 grand it was like uh it was right around there eight or 10

grand okay we got the Blue River uh batteries I think that's what they're

called but yeah it would I mean we had to have electrician come and put them all in and wire it all together got to

sequence looks like yeah I didn't want to touch it see it looks like fun to me like I

like that stuff so how you get electrocuted with 48 volts yeah yeah

that'll do it yeah yeah so um that's what we gotta come up with an

adapter this is true what Jorge says that's why I bought the electric was

yeah a lot of Hospital work yeah do too much enclosed space

work and you can't you just can't run the uh the propane on those projects if

you have a construction site it's easier but if you're just got icro walls up on

uh hospital or you're doing a partial remodel of even a y or something like

that you just can't run them inside like that yeah they wouldn't even let us open

um cuz we were having trouble getting some um the rubber to stick on the

risers and we brought a a gallon of contact and we ask them hey is this okay

and you know they go back with the SDS to their safety guy and he says it's okay if you do it at night said I will

use the waterbased stuff thank you yeah but I mean all this you know talking

about the machines and breakdowns and stuff this also gives this downtime gives you a chance to catch up

on your Machinery too not just the vehicles but your tools like what can you clean and get ready you know take

some stuff apart and get all the dust out so that way when things start ramping up again because you know

they're going to everything is all good and ready to go ready to rock replace some cord ends update some cords um

sweep out your van re rearrange your uh your setup so that way uh it's more

suited for for now because everybody workload evolves right um you know what you need every day you know what you

don't need every day and you know this is just my perspective right like I'm just repeating or I'm just letting you

guys know how what we did and how we started and when we started progressing that that's how it happen um just like

oh we need to be better at this oh look at these tools keep breaking because we're not taking care of them so what if

we have to build a shelf and have its own compartment to protect our investment so yeah so what Joselyn says

right here is actually pretty nice it's including things and operating expenses right so essentially what we do is

there's every week I have money going into three different

accounts right and it just automatically goes in there so that way if anything happens and it just did happen because

one of our lines of credit the the bank is no

more so once we started getting these bigger projects it's like man what am I going to do and we had we had to sell

fund so that was that was the kicker there but I mean

ju straight up just take some of that money that you're making and get it out

of your account into another account so that way you're not going to touch it so when things come up when you you need to

afford something you can yeah the hardest part is

yeah I uh I can't say that we do that so that's a great great piece of uh advice

there like a Jeremy Jeremy you're only because you

use that's that's in general I tell you what we um when you start talking about tools

and allowing people to utilize them uh it's it's tough letting you know we we

have some of our subs that we allow to use our tools and then you get them back and you don't know anything's wrong with

them we're our guys are supposed to test them in and out but you know things get

overlooked and next thing you know you go to take a tool out and it's broken down you're like son of a gun I'm supposed to be doing this XYZ thing

today and I don't have the tool to do it so it's just a good time to bust it down

and and take out each tool make sure everything's running well and and uh you

know go through actually can be like everything is tyed together right so I'm going to tie this back to the networking

aspect because when our machine did break down we were like well broke down

on a job site what are we going to do now and it's like I met this guy at the

gym he works for this place let's give him a call they had someone there I

think that day or the next day to check it out that day said this is what it is

and then good thing we had the motor right because we replaced the motor in our other one which it wasn't the

motor and then we rep the batteries they then they said it wasn't the batteries turns out it was the charger but that's

a whole another story but I mean they had this machine back up and running in

a couple days like two days so definitely like networking is huge I

know um the chamber has an event tomorrow uh the year end event I don't know if you're going to

that I can't go my son has wrestling tomorrow it's his first wrestling meet oh

Sweet It Is That season wrestling the cool Glide needs to be

looked at because only half of it's working I already got a new one because that happened and I think it's just an

ongoing I hope someone watches this um so part of that is because of the amp

right if he's plugged into an outlet it isn't pushing out the amps it's not going to work properly onging issue with this speci

model a dedicated 20 amp circuit oh really yeah it requires a dedicated 20

amp circuit holy crap that's more in the microwave that's

the same as the vacuum yes you know the problem is is that if

you look at the the I'm a nerd guys if you look at the the the way that they have the capacitor set up it's not

storing enough energy consistently to keep that going so they either got to do a better series of capacitors or up

their game well makes cool

Glide tracks yeah tracks oh nobody remembers those

commercials who works for tracks they need to be watching this so they can give me a new cool again that would be our

maybe they'll chime in so that's a good point though you know talking about how

networking benefits you in the long run on multiple different fronts but that's

one good example of just having that you know you got a problem and get it taken care of so my

best what we do and I I really you know I sent my uh um coo email while we were

on this call cuz I was like you know what somebody said clean out filters I was like hey man I seen our guy you know

see our guys's got a little capacity you know keeping busy uh have we checked all the filters and all of our vacuums and

all of our equipment to clean them out make sure so I sent that literally while I was on this uh podcast so you know

just trying to get things um ready for the season man and so K says that's that's why he uses his regular seam iron

but I think that's just because he's old and he doesn't like new technology

true you know I do have a question for every anybody out there who utilizes a van does has anybody have any experience

with uh the diesel heaters like the external smaller diesel heaters to keep

the back ofes that are all on Tik Tok right now well those well just in general um I

know they have the smaller you know little ones like that I've never I have

no idea just if anybody's listening has experience I'd like to hear

it so Jocelyn says she sees networking work well when you stay consistent

following up with people that's 100% right and that's why um once you start

going to some of these events like I would love to make it to the the chamber one tomorrow but I can't but we do a lot

of um minority contractor events and you do you see the same people over and over

again and then they be it's just like anything else they become top of mind hey I need like an electrician I got you

hey I need a drywaller I got you hey I need this I need a painter right here

and that's that's what it's all about right and then the same thing with them is hey I do flooring so they're going to

send whoever my way yeah yeah and you can yeah I think it's just a good time

to to you know get your stuff ready and uh Rec connect with people spend some

time with family and uh I it sounds like not everybody has these same down times but I will tell you there there are down

times and in these slow times is regardless of whether it's now or at some point you definitely want to have

uh some time uh to you know kind of

connect um you know re redo your stuff

um Eduardo how do I uh uh send a email

to support atgo cara.com Eduardo and they'll get your profile

tell them uh where you're at and getting your profile active and they'll get you

get you all active and coming soon we'll have a profile only so that'll be just a

you'll get a card with your profile you don't have to connect your bank account you won't have to have a w we don't care

if you're a business or not or it's just going to be a installer uh profile only

and you'll have your score and uh you'll be able to utilize that go up to your

homeowner whoever you're working for give them your card you know show them your card they can QR it look at your

public profile see how you stack up against or uh Elevate above uh other

installs come over to their house giving them bids and hopefully help a lot of people uh get paid what they're worth

yeah and this is a a great time you know we're talking about Slow Time get Ong go Carrera get your stuff

updated activated all that good stuff because I was on LinkedIn earlier and you guys posted something about um you

know what features do you want to see because go career is about working

for you right so what do you want to see on here so that way things can be incorporated later sup cool

Kev yeah so I'm gonna do uh get an episode in to kind of give an update on

what we're doing we're doing some rebranding working on to getting the uh rating system renamed out it won't be

called The Hammer rating in the future uh but um it's going to be more applicable to what the the score

actually does and is and working on getting um getting that accredited and

doing some of those things and really all we care about is providing the

installer uh a way to separate themselves and make more money and uh we

if if you're really great you ought to be paid like you're really great if you need some work at least you know it and

you can take the the necessary steps to become great um and then you know

ultimately it it serves our industry and the consumers the people who buy our

products and services uh better when they are able to um you know know why is

your price 12,000 and this other guy that you know XYZ that says he's awesome

but has no proof of how awesome he is uh is 9,000 well if you can clear clearly

show uh that you are you know a a superior uh superiorly trained and you

have a great reputation and all these things that go careera can prove to your customer well then you are um you're

going to be able to get that extra money and uh there's there's a lot of uh proof

out there in the uh industry a lot of uh proof from consumer uh reports that con

the the people will pay you a little extra they'll pay you a lot of extra if they know you're great um I know that

I've been paid more than other guys plenty of times uh because of the the

fact that I I was good and if I had a go- career profile back in the day when

I was installing all the time that would have been my number one goal would have been to get my rating up as high as POS

possible and uh use that to get me more work so more news coming down the pipe

uh join jumpstart to hire the new guys coming out of the fcef and the introductory trainings let's get these

guys to work uh it's a good time to evaluate your Crews and your processes procedures your equipment connect with

family and uh obviously jump on the uh huddle here and and uh conversate with

your friends we're here every Tuesday 3 pm Central if you're catching Us on YouTube uh give us some some love on

there give us a like a subscribe you know give us a follow if you're on one of the social channels uh engage with us

let us know what we can do better uh here at the Huddle what what topics you

want us to research uh we have some capacity to do research and and find out answers on things um everything from

labor to products uh bring your bring your questions I would say that uh we do

tend to get the ear of some of the industry and uh able to make some

changes if we know what those changes uh you foresee uh would be beneficial for the

industry so get on here and conversate join the community join the the the movement we are still here uh what's

what episode number is this guys 120 something dang I think we've missed one

or two weeks the entire time that we've started so 126 it looks like is

127 127 she lied so 127 Weeks so that's over two

years of constant content and we have uh

committed ourselves to this uh we like doing it I enjoy always connecting with my two very good friends in the industry

and I love all you guys' comments so continue to engage you wanted to say homies but you didn't want to put us out

like that so continue to engage and I look forward

to um seeing you guys next week don't forget we have if you are a Spanish speaker don't forget Spanish oh is next

next week is Spanish okay has says two of the the other episodes were Spanish I mean one of bilingual I'm I'm gonna be

ready for it I bought some uh I bought those trans translating headphon headphones from the tiktock shop I want

to see if it's get nice well I want to thank Jorge for hosting the Spanish uh huddle the

Spanish speaking huddle and uh you're doing a great job uh please everybody if

you speak Spanish and you you know you like uh our content or you hear about it

you know jump on and join Jorge give him some love give him some um give him some

uh comments and and let him know what you know what you want to hear uh we we

uh we want to really uh try to engage the Hispanic Community the all the

Spanish speaking Community to help um a get plugged into trainings a lot of

times those those things are uh uh not known and I know that Jorge and I are on

a community together at CFI that is aimed and by the way Jorge you and I

need to get on the phone about this but uh engaged in trying to increase the uh

Spanish speakers in the uh CFI membership and training um uh you know

family so yeah join along love you guys and thanks for join in the industry

right now either right a few weeks ago um my mom and I went to one of the elementary schools and they had this

event for the English as a second language people and I don't really know all the

ins and outs of it but it was they had a bunch of vendors there you know and it it wasn't like geared towards anything

it wasn't hey come buy for me it's hey what can we help you guys do to succeed in what you guys got going on and I mean

a lot of them were like you can really tell the kids that are interested in it like later on

so not only can you use it for like later employment but even some of the

the people that were there they're like hey I do flooring already so what can I do to to get with you guys

yeah yeah one of the things I want to do at go career is create a career path a

really clear career path and how you can uh leverage your profile to uh to do

that it doesn't matter if you work by the hour for somebody or you know uh

you're an employee company uh that hires all nothing but employees uh it's a

great way to incentivize your employees to get better and perform great and and

um you know is the higher Hammer rated at this point Hammer rating um the

higher Hammer rated guys you know you can have a a scale in which you can reward off of

so yeah thanks for all the love uh you know we're ending the uh year of 2024

and uh I just want to tell everybody how grateful I am that you've joined us on this journey and we hope to see you

again next week and uh um don't speak Spanish go on there and talk crap to him

in English throw for a loop can somebody

tell Mr King to give me a call back Jeff King yes

sir Mr Jeff I think I've got his number I'll see if I can text him too I'm just gonna start texting him

every day if you don't call me back you're gonna get a day I don't know if PR's on

here but he sure uh he's he's uh communicated with Jeff quite often so maybe he'll get with

you all right guys well another great episode I appreciate it uh this is just

a lot of our opinions sometimes you're going to get on here and get a lot of deep technical knowledge sometimes

you're just going to get three guys opinions about how to do X Y or Z and this was uh you know uh obviously a

timely um podcast with a lot of places do uh look at this time of year and uh

it slows down to you residential guys I'm kind of jealous and uh you're you're

all swamped and and we're we're over here putting out bids but we're um a lot of these Concepts we talked about we're

implementing I learned some stuff today so I'm GNA go uh go Implement yeah that's that's one of the

main things that you can do just take something away like taking that chunk of money out every week having it go

somewhere where you don't touch it that way when you do run into the slow time it's like you know what I can just hang

out for a little bit you know do a few things but I mean we all need a break

sometimes right yeah all right fellas love you good

seeing you again we'll catch you guys next week see you guys all right bye