We're down to the last day of 2024 and we reflect on the key trends, challenges, and successes that we had throughout the year. From advancements in technology to shifts in customer preferences, we’ll highlight the year’s biggest takeaways. Looking ahead to 2025, we’ll discuss industry projections, including the role of AI and strategies for overcoming labor shortages. Tune in for expert insights and a forward-looking perspective to help you stay ahead in the ever-evolving world of flooring. Don’t miss this essential year-end review and roadmap for the future!

Start your year off right by tuning in to hear what’s next for the flooring world and beyond!

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.

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what is up everybody welcome back to the Huddle your weekly Playbook helping you gain forward progress in your flooring

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

Sir oh G money all right I've got a confession I

almost forgot about the podcast today actually I did forget about the podcast today and uh texted Miss

Ashlin or slacked her like 3 seconds before it was supposed to start like hey

do we have a podcast today she she told me I got on and she's like why is Paul asking me if there's a podcast

today oh so is Jose I on the outside so is what it is what's

up heading into a new year and uh gosh it's just been kind of

a a time what have you guys been up to closing out this

2024 that's it trying to close everything out basically is what I've

been doing yeah what does that look like for you guys as far as what does that mean I'll

tell you what it means for me it means you know you your jobs go

right through the the end of the year you got a few that you're probably trying to finish up we have a few that have to be done this week but

um been sitting in my computer for three days straight trying to re organized

some parts of my business and Company and taking some of the lessons learned from 24 and trying to get ready for 2025

so is is that similar yeah so like with me I've been reconciling and stuff and

just make going through billing to make sure that I get everything that we've done out and then like you said um we

had our uh I pushed our meeting to today we usually do it on Mondays so we did it

today and I just kind of talked about how uh

like hey 20 this is the last one of the Year let's make this next year the best

one and uh what what can we do to change right what let's take everything that we

learned from this past year and kind of write it down let's get it all together

because if you just talk about changing and then you don't do anything that's all it is is talk and if you know we say

we don't talk about it be about it so let's start doing that and uh that's

what our our meeting was about this morning

sweet mine is uh I've just been trying to figure out ways to be more efficient

on my end as well trying to look for different ways to take notes so

everything's kind of automated instead of all the notebooks all the scattered thoughts I need to try to get everything

Consolidated so that way it's easy share with everybody so that way Daniel and I are on the same page all the time

instead of just most of the time um same thing with the crews trying to do all that

um I mean same thing you do every year right yeah but hopefully you know

there's a little bit of retrospect so as we close out 24 what' you guys did you have you had a

chance to like sit and Garner lessons from from 2024 like re if you recap the

year in your in your in a sentence what would that look

like for you guys go ahead Daniel

well if you haven't uh you know taken a a second and i' I've taken a few

days and with we're we're doing a new we're launching teams this next year so

I'm gonna be a team leader in my company not Microsoft teams but teams as as

in the current way we do things we we like have a couple

estimators four uh five project managers couple coordinators you know accounting

staff that kind of thing and work comes in it goes on the bid calendar someone grabs it estimates it if we win the job

I sign the contract and Joel our coo assigns it to a project

manager that's how we operate now you know trying to give our customer

a more um Boutique experience and more

detailed customized experience uh we're switch into teams so we're going to

create uh teams in our company each team will have a team leader a project

manager and a estimator that's an what we call an initial team and then we'll

have a uh you know expanded team and then a full team expanded team is just

two project managers on that team with a team leader and an estimator and then

we'll have a full team which is three project managers with a team leader and

an estimator and then we're going to assign clients to each team so that that client

gets a very familiar experience each time that way they're not getting one

project manager one one job the next job some other project manager and the next

job another pm and some other person they're dealing with all the time this way they're always dealing with the same

team lead the same estimator so all the bids will be very familiar looking

because we we all send out our bid form is the same but you know you tweak it a little it out differently you know it's

just a little bit different uh I may bold everything out or or have a lot of

caps and other people may not and some people like you get my point same form

just a little different style to each one and I you know I've never been a big

dictator like no you do it my way I mean you know each person has to have a

little bit of freedom in their in their their role so essentially the goal was to um after kind of looking back and

listening to some concerns from customers and seeing where we fell down and where we

did well um when we had the same guys on the same jobs with the same people those

jobs just ran smoother and our customer was happier so I proposed this to a few of our

customers and they went heck yeah that is I wish you would have done this years

ago so putting that struct it's easy to say that you got to put structure

together behind the scenes on everything who reports to who what's the information flow so I've spent a lot of

uh the last week putting that whole structure together preparing to Launch

teams I made a joke with one of my guys that said we're GNA have a draft we we got two team leads and we're going to

draft players but I also remember being the last one picked and that's probably not

a good idea rock paper scissors yeah should did a tournament no we're gonna

pick it on um strengths matching strengths and weaknesses so someone

who's strong here you know so we'll make sure there's a technical guy that was an

old installer on each team that kind of thing and I think like that's that's

awesome it's different over here since we're a lot smaller than you right so it's just me and him and basically I I

have my clients and he has his so it's the same it's the same but different right

because it's just two of us but it's still like he's handling his and it's the same thing every time yeah well that

that atmosphere that you have when you're small that's what people like I mean that's what people liked when we

were smaller uh but you you grow away from it and don't recognize the or I

I'll speak for myself I grew away from it didn't recognize how chaotic it must seem to the client to always have a

different estimator and a different project manager and who do I call when I

have problems what if the PM's not answering their phone or they're out on vacation who's my

guy like the PM can be gone and you know your team lead is Boom you know what I

mean uh so it's essentially you guys are what we call a pilot team so as we grow

if we want to grow the business we grow through teams and so we will take an

aspiring team leader off of one of the teams put them as a team

lead hire a new PM for them and then

multiply and uh can you see the [Laughter]

P um said my brother said he looks like uh Cartman from South Park with the hat

on yeah maybe I'm a little far up um but yeah so the you take that

aspiring team lead and you put them over into uh their own team I'm gonna pull

this back with that comment pull my table back a little bit pardon me

guys maybe that's a little better I don't know but um and then he's a pilot

team so he's by himself and he shares one of the other team's estimators until he builds up enough business and then

he'll get a PM um gives him a chance to be in that

position for a bit before he has the responsibility of like you know

um running the whole team so anyway I said all that just to

say that I looked back on 2024 as a real rebuilding year for our

company and that we we had a lot of a lot of

tough times this last year um and it's

been one of those learning learning lessons kind of a year even

after being in business so long so both for go Carrera and steuart and

Associates both of the companies it's going to be uh kind of a new uh a new

year new season and a new approach um so yeah really excited about that and

looking forward to 2025 so yeah it's you guys that mindset what's your big plan

so I've been reading or listening to right because audible um but a book

called mindset by Carol DW and that's what's kind of uh taking me in on this what what we got

to do in order to change and make things better because Mr Tom happy New Year happy New

Year that that's what we're always looking for is that growth right so how is it going to happen it doesn't

just happen by not doing anything yeah or doing the same thing or

doing the same thing yeah that's the whole thing and and uh it trying to change like some of our generic terms

and and everything in our system so that way we're on the same page Daniel and I

and if I take over his stuff then I know what to look for we're we're almost there there's a lot of there's

definitely a lot of moving Parts when you start looking at things like that because you start restructuring one aspect then you're like oh well if I do

that this doesn't complement it anymore now I need to change this a little bit and it's G to be one of those uh forever

evolving things um as long as you're doing it for growth um and you're and

growth doesn't necessarily mean getting bigger right growth can be better just being more consistent getting the right

clients right like growth could be within uh within the company instead of outward it as well so um trying to

figure that out is uh is always fun that's a good point it could be not growing from size perspective at all and

just growing in happiness you know getting systems put in place and and all that kind of thing which you know that's

kind of what um one of the things I'm trying to create a dashboard that has

every single project and so now I'm going to start talking about like predictions and and

like future stuff but I've been researching AI agents I'm as you guys

know Chad is our friend but uh I use chat GPT quite

often but what I'm really um working on is trying to get AI is to learn how to

build an AI agent and do that to

take our processes and move our our project to the next process and like

automatically automatically um and tie everything together to where when we have a job it

knows we have this we we tell it okay here's a new job and tell our system new

job it goes in our project management software that like is got kind of a new

flow and then there's triggers that that AI agent moves it and automatically

orders it when we get reviewed submitt and it reads the submittal and it Compares and it when it doesn't know it

can ask a question for example that this or make a observation

that this doesn't match that so when you get your return submittals on a project that you've submitted on and it compares

to your to your sheet it can read through that whether

it's PDF or Excel and recognize differences as long as the codes are the

same now that's going to fail about 80% of time probably until it's you know

perfected but it's really cool thought it's something that made take an entire year to get down but how cool would it

be that you get returned submittals and you upload them into your software and then your materials are automatically

ordered just magic boom boom there's

give this system to uh I don't even know if I should call them out because they

it's a company that just got bought by another company a distributor and we've

had so many issues with them dude well if this is a vendor I'll tell

you what uh one of our sayings around here is and it's so frustrating because we we rely on our vendors so much I know

you guys do too so I'm this is when I say we it's everyone on this on this uh

podcast we rely on our vendors to execute and give us accurate etas and

this kind of stuff like we rely on that we pass that information on a lot of

times yeah when that doesn't happen we look like the a-holes and so I tell

everybody here we have to be better than our vendors and I've told my vendors that uh I said you realize one of our

mantras at our company is that we have to be better than our vendors meaning you as a $150 million year company or

$400 million your company our little company has to be better than you

got you gotta be better gotta pick up pieces when everything goes wrong um you gotta foresee says we're only as good as

our vendors well I'd say good as your weakest that that there's some meat on

that to discuss I think we're only as good as our processes um vendors being a piece of

fitting into one of those processes and our installers and our our our employees

and us we're only as good as our processes I'm a real binary thinker too

so I'm stuck if I don't have a system or a process to follow I get I'm out in left field chasing

butterflies maybe a little ADHD on top of that squirrel yeah yeah you know what

I mean if I'm not I'm binary thinker so it's like do this task then do this test

and do that test especially when it comes to project management yeah so uh we we do have a

new feature right now too they just launched on here and we are live on Tik Tock right now as well and then we got a

comment that says we are only as good as our last cut

fluorography that's as good as our last cut all right I'll take it as out in the

field uh as long as it's not roll Goods you can redo your cut yeah make it your

last cut so what is uh what's exciting for you

guys in 25 and hey everybody out in the uh audience we got plenty of people on here um what what's your goals and and

not that you need to you know I I I like to review and and actually set goals not

just at the end of the year but you know this is always a good time to reflect and look forward so what what's on your

guys' radar for 25 for preferred flooring for Jose and Daniel and like

what what what if uh you look back at the end of the year next year will you say yeah that was a heck of a I

accomplished that what what is that thing yeah better um better way of sifting through projects potential bid

opportunities um need to find a better more efficient way to do that Daniel and

I definitely put ourselves in a very very busy predicament and you know we

missed a couple events and no days off in the field um as well as

the office but uh finding ways to to stay on task and keep the work flowing so to speak right

like like soon as we stop bidding and stop looking then we know we're going to have a dead spot in our schedule and

that doesn't generate consistency throughout the the year and fortunately that that uh spot when we got too busy

was the area that kind of feeds a little bit of the Slow Time For Us so um but

we're managing right now we're getting through it guys are still working uh we still have a still got a backlog a bit

so doing all right but we could be

better yeah the the processes are

always and that's one of the things when we used to have a project Executives

that was one of the problems with just having a project executive it's kind of similar to the teams uh approach except

for teams uh our team uh uh setup is is

much more uh defined than the project executive uh position but man those guys

would get a ton of work and then they got busy managing

that work and they'd have these really just Peaks and troughs like really bad

and um that's where having more than just you know having some diversity on our teams

I want to make sure that we have that so we have someone really strong always bidding work and that's why you always

have an estimator and you always have a team lead and then your PMS are busy managing team lead manages relationships

and some projects key key accounts but essentially not getting so boggled down

with project management that the estimator is not supported enough to be able to feed that team it's like you got

to have someone out in the field plowing the field and planting and harvesting all the time or planting and and getting

it ready for you to harvest and it's the

the this business is exhausting sometimes and I I mean that in not just

flooring but like specialty contractor running a specialty Construction Company

is exhausting yeah and you know you see you know videos all the time and they

say you know if you're an entrepreneur and you own your own business if you haven't just sat somewhere and just put

your your face in your hands and thought this is I'm done like then I what am I

doing this for why do I do that but but that's the the ticket right it's what

are you gonna do after that is that that's what starts that growth right it's it's getting beat down down to that

point and then like this is what I got to do to change it and I in the meeting

this morning um we were talking about it and I came in on like a Saturday or

something and my daughter was like Dad why are you going to work it's Saturday and it's like yeah but I don't mind

going to work so things got to get done it's got to

get done yep I mean yeah I I would say

if you if you spend enough time on Instagram reals or Instagram you think

you should be a business owner and I'm not discouraging anybody from being a business owner I encourage it

but pick you know pick

wisely I will I will say that there there's a couple things too that that um are going to be driving for 2025 is a

lot of the policies that that just past that are taking effect turn of the year or um early February mid-February got to

kind of prep for those right like you could do as much research as possible but you know over here we had uh one

party stepped out and kind of like rebelled against the other and uh there was some things that that got past

that put there was no thought behind it right like long-term thought and I just got to figure out how that's going

affect us and what we could do to mitigate some of that too uh unfortunately politics is a lot to do

with business regardless of of whose side you take or what what you're claiming and and sometimes uh some

decisions are really good for you some decisions are not as a business owner there's nothing out there to protect

business owners it's all about protecting the community and employees so uh we got to figure out a way well

the the truth is for business owners it just is

whatever it is it just is and you have to adapt we have to adapt we have to figure it out and so that's why um you

know a lot of mentors that I've followed over the years they're like who cares who's president or who's in like you're

gonna is it g you are you gonna shut your business down no you just have to

adapt yes you got to find the way and what you're doing you know research how

are you going to go up against it how how are you going to sometimes it's a title w in your

direction and it's awesome sometimes it's a Title Wave coming at you and you just got to deal with both both both of

those and so yeah that's a good point that as you know these fouryear cycles

that our country is in um and this was a big change this year so I'm not sure how

everything's going to pan out but you know we're we're going to dig our heels

in and and do our very best to supply the best service to our customers the

best product advice and best delivery the best experience overall we I really

want to focus this year uh both companies on the experience like being

part of something uh doing something a little bit different being treated like you matter uh as a a client of our

flooring company or as a installer or a customer at uh at go Carrera

um you know if I had what like my big goal this year for 25 is everybody to

have a rating we're going to be changing the name from Hammer rating I know I've said that on the podcast before here uh

we have a we have a short list I really want to form the uh Advisory Board which I've uh invited uh some people to

verbally some formal letters are going to be going out here this next week and

uh that Advisory Board will help kind of finalize that as well as you know I I I

want more people to have access to really great people and we don't know

who the great people are unless they get on and so we're kind of restructuring

how go what you know is go career today uh how it operates and H what what its

strategic goals are but all in all it's always going to be

to um make sure that the installer who has identified them like

has um invested in themselves into their their craft and their skill level that

they stand out and they stand out in the marketplace and can make more money

because they've dedicated themselves to being great at what they do

and to separate those guys that go jump in a truck after six months of being with somebody and say hey I'm a flooring

installer and I just you know I there's no downside that anybody's ever told me

or that I can find that is making those separations and making

it clear from a company's perspective you can um uh benefit your installers based

on their skill level and and encourage them if they're hourly employees you can

pay them more uh as their skill level increases and that be your mechanism but

as the community or the people out there getting the service in their homes and

offices they deserve to know no different than the Carfax I've brought

that up plenty of times you want to know how your car performed in the past so you can guess how it's going to perform in the future there's not much

difference you know U people can change but at the same time you your immediate

past and and how you view yourself in this industry I believe uh you know

people should know and be able to make wise decisions when they select their their professional and I think we should

all be professional so get making that dream really come to reality in 25 is

like if I stand on the doorstep at 26 and there's

tons of people that are on go carrera's uh whatever its final version

name is but on the uh have a profile not in working in the app but using their

their profile strength to earn them more business to earn them higher pay to get

them the job and outpace their competition um that dream I'm I'm pushing for that

dream to come true in 25 and we'll be alongside with you there

and because that's uh uh to separate yourself organically

and intentionally like that is it's always a goal right just to to earn earn

the respect of your of an industry and your peers and the public and consumers

and clients for them to understand the amount of work that an individual puts in to be able to do uh a sizable project

or even a small one well and efficiently to understand uh and know why they they

got to that point would be great yeah have some confidence in their selection uh if you take a

um survey of like your or your checka trade over in the UK or all these

different thumb tax that kind of thing the number one problem that people have is that they don't know what they're

getting they say it every time every negative review is this guy said he knew how to do it

and he didn't that that sums up about 90% of all negative reviews on those

sites what if you didn't what if you did know who you were getting what if you

did have a good experience or you decided to be cheap and hire a half uh

you know half you know a05 level guy or a half Hammer guy and you got what you

paid for you know like at least you know who you're getting when you pay and I

think that if that dream can come true um the consumer base will be better

served and the installers will be better served and so will the training entities the

manufacturers you're gonna have guys who are really really good

um you know getting rewarded for being really really good and and that's

and hopefully Inspire some other guys to get really really good well and not only that right it gives people a goal too

like if I could get to a little bit of a higher skill set uh hand skills or or

acquire more Talent from a disciplin perspective on installing more than one

type of flooring then maybe I can start my own business maybe I maybe it's

something that I can comfortably do and I can offer more right away instead of

anybody can do that right now the problem is nobody gets nobody gets the

clout they don't get foring it right and they don't get the clout for doing it we

want to add the clout and the daero to the that that Pursuit and I know Daniel

said you know I'm not so sure uh you know I know he said this I'm not so sure

that we have a labor shortage as much as a Quality Labor shortage

yeah I mean if you look at the job market in general there's people that are posting on social media all the time

that you know they' filling out applications everywhere and they can't find a job right

but it's that quality that you're looking for and maybe I I want to say

that some of these people they just don't have that quality and I can't tell you as as

hiring hourly employees myself if a guy comes in with a go careera

like profile if this ever happens to me I'm going to call you guys and we are G to I don't drink but I'll pop a bottle

of champagne anyway and but if I ever had somebody come in with a go- career

profile and show it to me and say this is who I am this is proof of my of my uh

skill set and I'd like to get a job with you how much easier does that make my

hiring process if they have high scores well first off if they did that you're

just gonna like get that twinkle in your eye right away I already see yes but if somebody walked in your

office and they had a they were a level five or or level three uh or had three

hammers uh in today's uh vernacular of hammer rating they had three Hammers and

a good reputation score in the 80s showing that they've you know uh really

made people happy when they do their work like how much just I'd be I'd be very

excited actually like that's the the biggest problem we have hiring people is knowing whether or not what they're

telling us is real because if if if all we had to do is listen to them and hire them based off that life's easy right

because a lot a lot of what we look at is you're always looking at reviews on

everything anyways right everyone does it you go on Amazon you check out the reviews up this is not a good review I'm GNA pass on this one it's the same thing

with us right people need to be able to look at us and be like well they don't

have good reviews so I'm just going to pass on them and you're just giving them that streamlined option and a lot of

guys don't H have a website so it gives people somewhere to look for them because how many times have you been

looking for someone and it's like you go to research them nothing pops up so you just pass them right over it's the same

type of thing we need to stop looking at it like I don't need to be valid ated to

the entire world looks at validation like that as something that needs to

happen right and you know what the you just said I don't need to be validated

um yeah validate me baby if I told you that back in the day if somebody would

have said hey why don't you why don't you go get certified I would have said what for I know I'm good at it I don't

need to go get certified like that would have that was my answer um but

as you get older you start realizing how many people may have passed up on you

because you didn't have a a individual credential or something like that and and that's that's what this is this is

your your diploma right this is your certificate of completion that you see in a doctor's office this is the

equivalent to it except for it can still grow it can still evolve you can add

more to it I follow some influencers on social media right and they say if you

want to work with my company and your and you don't have a company email I don't even look at you it get it gets

down to like that sometimes like you need to look at yourself and be as

professional as you can because that's what some some of these high-profile people are looking for yeah so what

you're saying L people don't like to see the Gmail uh at the end of your address it's crazy how easy it is these days if

you have an iPhone you can buy a domain it's like $15 or $20 a year you buy the

domain you go on your iPhone you use iCloud and you can get your own company

email going directly to your phone you don't need a website or anything but at least you have that professional

look yeah and if you can back it up with proof of professional credentials you

have a like recipe to really I think the guys

that for our trade to start to be paid their

worth and putting all everybody on a more of a Level Playing Field you we're

kind of out of this this may not be taken well by some of the in you know other companies or the industry but we

just don't have a free market you know like it's the guys that can do the

jobs they a lot of times they're the ones that get

the work and they're the ones that will have the attitude like I don't need you know whatever well some of our best guys

we overwork and then they fall down and we give a bad experience because of it that's the truth like some of our best

subs we will overwork because we know they can do the job so we put them on

the job when they want the job and at the end of the day they get

overloaded they're out looking for help like we are you know and not Danny

that's so there's just a better way what's up Danny Sherman my brother twin that's

my um so so and to add on to add on to what you just said about uh overworking

them and the the as a any good sub will take as much work as

they possibly can because they know it's feast or famine right they know if they're not building up that bankroll if

they're not putting something away and and what they feel like what they right

because it could end it could end tomorrow like that um and it sucks to feel like that and and but it's it's a

reality a lot of the people who work hard like that and and don't stop because they grew up with nothing they

came from nothing and they know they don't want to go back and um they will overwork themselves and put themselves

in a position to to maybe not perform at capacity sometimes or they depend on

people that you don't have any idea of is even on your job you give this guy a

job and he has this guy doing it that he hired because he can't quite get there but he didn't want to say no to the work

and bl you know there is a better way um getting that Better Way accepted and in

the marketplace and and then even demanded from the the consumer base and

Architects on the commercial side and you know the residential side of the

world really like hey I'd like to see your your verification of your your

skill set you know when homeowners start asking that and and a and picking people

by their skill set and by how much they want to pay and if we can create this

atmosphere where if they're going to pay a half Hammer guy just know they he may be a little cheaper

but you get what you pay for it goes all the way up to five for a reason and increments of 10 so that's 500

increments you know or 50 increments sorry that was bad math but you get my point like it's it's

in small increments so you can many small time make big time many small time

make big time all right well Happy New Year to you guys I can't uh look down and we're

like 10 minutes from uh I think this is different than you

know what we did last year when we talked about projections CU we're not talking about projections like what do

you think the Market's going to look like next year or anything like that it's what are what are we projecting for

ourselves and I think a lot of people can can take that and kind of run with

it right you look at where do you want to be a year from now take that and

start breaking that down because that's the only way you're going to get there yeah yep great advice man I think

um I think this year coming up 2025 is going to be more of

who do I want to work with and how do I get on their radar right um and how how

can I make them see or how I don't want to make them see how can I how can I get an opportunity to show them the value

that we offer um because I know that once we do that once we can show them I

know that uh will be an easy phone call uh for for the next project problem is

is getting the foot in the door enough times to create the consistency so they can so the difference stands out that

that is that is always the challenge so Walter says it's hard for most entrepreneurs to turn away jobs income

profit and I just seen a video earlier that addresses this very topic because

they said we don't say no we just price

accordingly so you know it's going to be horrible and if you know you got your

you know your worth that's the other thing if you if you know and can show your worth visibly to somebody uh that's

that's like you know it takes me back I talked to a

general contractor this last year and he's like well send me a all this like

background information and just because we really it's like it's desired

intently that people want to know who they're dealing with it's getting more so from the GC to us I don't know if you

guys guys have experienced that but like pre-qualifications and like all this stuff we have to do that we are not

doing that to our subs yeah as an industry we are not doing anything like that seen with our subcontractors been

in meetings with some smaller companies and that's what they they're like why do you guys want to know all this information my brother when we first

started was like I don't want to share this information but guess what everyone wants this information and they want

your they want our financials for the last three years they want to know who

worked for and the contact vendors vendor information a bank

reference our bonding capy why I said that you gotta you gotta remember Daniel

like I grew up know we're only six years apart but I grew up in a time where people stole my identity because I was

Hispanic and it was an easy steal right so there's a there's a trust barrier that I had to overcome for that first

one and uh I just don't like giving out information that isn't I don't feel like

it's safe you know the can't take it back off the web right like it's going over the internet going via facts I just

feel like it was I was it was new to me and all I could think about is what

happened in the past when information was misused but now it's noral yeah now it's

everyday practice and people do want to know I mean they want to know who they're dealing with that's why online

profiles or if you're getting hired uh people go to your Facebook page and they

they want to know who they're dealing with we all also I know we all want to know the skill level of the the thing we

want you to do that you're good at doing that thing we want to know that we just

have to accept as a industry and as a community that it's important to do it

and we all go do it um Danny said the problem is most salesp people B the jobs out to lowest bidder well when if you

build your company on quality and I mean the say a retailer build themselves on

quality the lowest bidder either in in in my ideal world

the lowest bidder doesn't doesn't exist like they're they're a competitive

bid but you're you're comparing Apples to Apples the lower bidder is almost a

farce because lowest bidder how can you do a low bid if you're not comparing

Apples to Apples that's why Architects and engineers and designers and general

contractors are involved in the commercial side because you're trying to bid Apple they want apples to apples

bids most gc's most of them do not want just a low bid because they miss something they don't want the problems

that that brings start they want apples to apples bids um there the you got a couple

levels of of that in there but the consumer doesn't have any of that they don't have any in between to make sure

they're bidding Apples to Apples from a skill standpoint sometimes from a product standpoint but you get my point

like you the the lowest bidder in an

ideal world is is still a good installer that then we we can all Thrive um but

also retailers using subpar labor um at

the end of the day they'll they'll have a bad reputation for getting jobs done a bad reputation

for quality and the retailers who care about that stuff will will rise to the

top that's my that's what I think said more in some work

rooms yeah and we we've seen it right I mean we've all seen it that's they they

they're the low bid so then they bid it out so that way they can get as much profit as they can and

then um that's the thing that if you're in a position to where you're trying to

grow and you're looking at things like this and that's how we were it's you

have to make yourself kind of uncomfortable and put yourself out there and talk to people because then you

create relationships and we're all about relationships and these you know project

managers and estimators from some of these construction companies that you're working for will reach out to you when

they have questions and it becomes more like I talk to them and they're like man

every time we have these people there's nothing but issues but every time we get

we have you guys everything is like so nice and I wish we could work with you more it's like but that's the mindset

that you have to change and it's it's getting your people to say hey we

probably shouldn't use them even though you know the price is competitive right

it may maybe it's just a little lower but you're going to get

this I don't even Superior experience experience if you go over here right

that's what we're selling is the experience I got an idea I got an idea but we have to talk about it off

air sounds good I I tell you you know eventually I could see architects specif

in some some level um and you know companies have an an

overall rating themselves based on their their network uh like who you know our

general contractors will recom request certain installers uh if you can show

that you have an average installer rating of XYZ um and contractors knew and depended

on it that would set the market apart as well because then everybody would be trying to get that rating up and only

work with the best and those the the the guys that really want to make a great

living can um yeah it's it's a bit euphoric or you know this this idea

utopian uh but it's also one of those deals where it were it's it's how it

works in other Industries like the best spine doctor makes the most

money you know what I mean yeah the best brain surgeon makes the most the best

attorney makes the most and you can identify that through their

credentials you know where they went to school how they got their education how long they've been doing it and their

reputation and we we can create a similar um uh environment here uh as a

unit if we all band together and and um I'd be happy to for the rating to take

off and me walk away and not a not a a

bit of uh the work go across the go career Network my my goal is for the

installers to get the ratings and improve themselves and have something to strive for and that that that rating

equals to them a better life a better experience in life happier work uh

relationships with the people they work for um yeah it's a bit utopian but it's

a dream that's why everything's got to start with a dream though right

yeah well Brothers we've come to the end to the audience thank you so much for being with us throughout this last year

and your comments and your your likes and your subscribes to our networks have

been um you know not not uh taken lightly we very much appreciate you guys

uh we're I'm going to talk to the guys we're going try to be a little bit more uh at some of the shows this year we we

all missed some last year um it's just part of you know getting busy and being

overwhelmed but as a huddle team trying to have some representation and getting around and saying hi to everybody and

meeting you guys out at the the events you guys have a great new year uh we

wish you all the best and uh the most success and um yeah we look forward to a

great 2025 absolutely man it's going to be a great year and we're going to make it

like we're gonna make it that way let it is what you make it last words of wisdom Jose for 2025 or

2024 before we hit 2025 hey don't cry over milk why don't

you go go get a tow some cleaner clean it up let's start all over yeah

we all right everybody everybody it's been a blessed year we love you guys keep coming back and we will see you

guys next year all right [Music]