The Huddle - Episode 131 - Wired for Success: Parallels Between Flooring and Electrical Trades

Welcome to 2025! For our first episode of the new year we’re joined by Jordan Verhulst, Owner and Managing Partner at Frontier Electrical, to discuss the shared struggles and unique dynamics of the flooring and electrical industries. From labor shortages and client demand to the distinct techniques specific to each trade, we explore how these challenges play out across two different industries. Tune in for a thought-provoking discussion on what it takes to succeed as a small business owner in these interconnected yet distinct trades.

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 forwardprogress@thehuddle.team

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Please visit our new website! https://thehuddle.team

what's up team welcome back to the H we're your weekly Playbook to help you gain forward progress in your flooring

career to all our new viewers welcome to the team what's up fellas how's it going

what's going on it's going good today we are uh joined by Jordan and Eric uh

Jordan can you help me with your last name please before I sabotage ver no

problem uh ver Hol ver Hol okay very good and male poer

is that right yep Mel holder nailed it okay yeah so today uh

you know we are kind of exploring a new um well we're all in the trades and

we're just exploring how the flooring and the uh electrical trade kind of come together uh so this episode's called why

for Success sorry I had to read off notes I am technologically challenged

today my whole electrical system went out in our office for a moment but we're

back on and here with you guys live so uh as always to the audience if you guys

um you know like what you uh get here from the Huddle please like And

subscribe I'm a little bit off kilter guys because I came in as a guest it looks like so I'm G to try and make sure

that I can do this do this correctly but um so every week we we come together and

we talk with uh you know it's me and the guys usually and then we'll have uh you

know guests on from different scopes of life and you guys are in the flooring tra or in the electrical trade and

obviously uh I would guess that you guys experience the same kind of things we do from a uh trade shortage like help you

know enough skilled labor uh that kind of thing can you guys give us a little

bit of background on yourselves uh what you do uh in in the trades world and

kind of how your Manpower situation looks actually he just texted me and said that they are Frozen right now so

they okay their their internet went out uh right before well the storms are

causing problem everywhere it is man so they're trying to get reconnected right now and then my

brother's having camera issues all right well hopefully we can

get this uh this technology train back on the on its rails if you're joining us

um from the audience our actual episode name is exploring the surprise parallels between flooring and electrical

trades it's called wired for Success so you guys know the uh the the new

dudes uh you guys know um Jordan is that correct Eric yeah so Jordan I actually

uh went to school we went to school together and he's uh married to my best

my best friend's sister happy New Year Mario happy new year so we actually um

see him quite a bit or I I mean he go he's in some of the groups that my brother's in with the the chamber and

then I see him a lot on um like job walks and stuff like

that yeah we we um we get to sit down and have a lot of the same um we get to

share in our thoughts and a lot of the same meetings when it comes to some of the the local politics um and

legislation and all that stuff nice stuff that goes in uh with with being um a business owner the the small details

that you got to pay attention to sometimes yeah tell me about some of your conversations since they're having

a little bit of problem getting connected here what kind of conversations have brought the parallels

that that uh to the flooring World them being in electrical trade we've talked

about some of them uh throughout the years here on the Huddle but uh more

specifically like do they struggle with the same I mean is it the same

struggle it's the same struggle man it we were just kind of talking about it right right before right and it's the

labor shortages and is it an actual labor shortage or is it a qualified

labor shortage and they go through the same stuff right where um what we see is guys coming in and

saying uh yeah I can do this yeah I can do this and then once it comes down to it you're like all right do this and

then they come back and it's like all right apparently I can't do this yeah or at least they say that their guys will

actually H be humble and be like yeah I I don't know how to do this um I feel

like in the flooring trade guys will just get mad at you and still tell you that you're wrong because we we've seen

it before or they'll try I mean in electrical they Pro they may not have

that well let's just try to run it yeah know just try it hey you know yeah right

hey flip that switch let's see if it works let's give it a shot and I think

that's where we land a little bit um different is in the flooring world I I

know I've experienced it and you guys have experienced it where a guy says he

can do something you send him out to do it he'll still do it even though he doesn't know how to do it he doesn't do

it right he'll still do it so like you're not burning down a house because you put a floor in wrong but in their

right in their trade you you wire something wrong and you're you got a problem they're back I think us non-el

electricians have all tried to wire something and then actually hit flip that flip a switch and then you see

Sparks yeah that's how much you guys missed but um

but or heard when I first uh you know started the podcast off but you guys

mind giving us some background on yourself a little bit about you you guys what you do and maybe some of your main

struggles in in your trade um first of all I've been doing

this for you know 16 years now um worked at a couple different companies you know

and then me got linked up at the last nighted to go out on

our own and started Frontier um I guess a

couple things that I've noticed is is like the guys willing lately or wanting

to put in more than right you guys deal with flooring

too it's not always a a 6 to two 7 to 3:30 it's it's when the job's done so a

I willing to put in the hours to get the job done yeah

willing to put in the hours to get done and not not not to uh a a time frame

yeah that we have the same problem and right I'm may feel like I'm picking on

the unions a bit here and I'm not but it's a little bit of that type of deal that got brought in um the problem is

the industry isn't foll and suit if you do work whether it's electrical or flooring on a commercial building the

number one thing that drives the job is schedule like they want it you got to get done the next gu's got to get done

it's like all schedule driven and so there's no room for somebody to come in and work from you know s to to 230 or in

our world it's like 9 to three or something you know you got to get you

gota be pretty fluid you gotta have the desire to stay and get it finished

whatever that right you and a lot of the time you know flooring guys you're

waiting on up yeah or vice versa we're all we we need heat there and we need

lights we're always on somebody yeah we typically try to do our best to wait on

the electricians and the HVB guys those are very important for us we kind of

need that it's because electricians don't own brooms or anything so we're

always cleaning up always leaving their change around well obviously some of the the

clear parallels gra all those nickels man been collecting them for

years yeah obviously some of the um parallels in in any of the trades is

finding qualified people you mentioned that you can actually find

some qualified guys but it seems like they don't want to put in the the hours

do you have the same problem that those same guys also need a loan on Friday or

they're constantly having vehicle issues because they ain't got no money do you have that dichotomy where you're like

hey man you put in 31 hours last

week I don't necessarily think we don't face that a whole lot um um I mean we

have the the oneoff you know situations where someone's having car problems or

you know something along those lines um the big the big thing for us is is

probably finding that qualified person um and and you know they can come with the qualifications from another company

but in that company they may have been doing this task whereas their qualification they should be doing this

at this point so you know you be a second third year or fourth year on these TX ask through those first couple

years of yourip um so with that you know a lot of our foreman have an

expectation hey we hired a third year know you know this amount where and

it's not to discredit them it's just it's how they operate um being that size of a company uh you put those people

kind of in an assembly line and that's what they do so that's that that's

another you know one that kind of pops up on our end as well where do you guys get where do you guys

get your uh where do you go searching for new uh new Talent new whether it's

apprentices or Journeymen or or Foreman or whatever uh in your trade do you have

a trade school that you can pull from do you guys Foster new guys or do you how do

you guys go about that I'd say I'd say we're half Word of

Mouth and half um we've hired out of GRCC which is the local Community College

here uh they have like a like a vocational program through the uh mtech which is their they have like a trade

school almost um so it's like a six-month program and they put people through that and teach them the very

very basics of the electrical World um so it's in a way for us it at least

shows that level of dedication that you were willing to go through this technically be be

I think we lost them again I think we lost them because of the tundra they're

frozen okay so essentially they they're pulling from a a a community college around there

which is you know at least something a feeder kind of program that they have

electricians a couple of them around here like that where a little bit better that d

Walling uh carpentry that are more heavily represented than floring in the

trade schools uh I'm not I would say sure why that

is carpentry Plumbing electrical and mechanics those are those are the the

the four main that I that I see here and I I did see that um engineering was uh

was on the rise a couple years ago when I went and made a a visit uh to some of the vocational programs uh learning how

to run CAD systems and stuff like that I mean just in the high schools alone they have um the stem programs which is great

to get people like more focused on on the trades and

stuff so back again I mean that St yeah they're back again so let me go

uh so Jordan I'm gonna go over this again so you guys do pull from some of the programs from like GRCC some of the

local um entities like uh what's the other one West Michigan um construction

Institute construction industry I don't know if that caters to you still facing the same problems that we are qualified

individuals willing to put in the work um now I know that we had talked very

briefly before we started the podcast about some of the policies that just passed um fortunately like for us we're

not subject to some of those policies um so maybe you can tell some of the the

industry what you guys just avoided um kind of just in a in a snippet but I

know the plumbing didn't but they could Count Their Blessings that we don't have to deal with that as of right now yeah

yeah so the the state mandates an apprentice to journeyman ratio uh which

currently it's three to one so you can have three apprentices to one journeyman or master electrician um and the proposed

legislation was going to change that to a one:1 ratio uh which would severely deplete obviously you know the up

incoming apprentices that are you know in the process of working towards a journeyman's license or going through

school at that time so they it's not officially dead yet um but it it did not

pass during like the lame duck session at the end of 2024 and the thought was that if it didn't pass then with the

administration change it likely won't pass um once that takes place so getting

through the lame duck session was a big I guess win for us um you know I think

the state of Michigan tried it in 14 yeah 14 and you you just found more

people were trying to go around it versus can you explain to me I'm I'm a

little bit dense sometimes can you tell me what the benefit what what the goal what were

they trying to accomplish with that LE legislation so the main the main I guess

argument for revision was that it was it would improve uh safety on job sites um

which looking back at historical data when they changed it from 3 to one or they changed it back to 3 to1 from 1 to

one in 2017 I think it was um there hasn't been any noticeable increase on oal

recordables from when they changeed from one to one to 3 to one um so there's

there's a long rabbit hole that we can dive down to other you know reasons why um I mean it was it was more or less I

mean for my eyes a union driven issue um but there there's some other

small pieces where there's some contractors that you know aren't you know they're they're more on the Shady

Side where they'll hire an apprentice and they don't necessarily register them with a with a course um because if you

have an electrician working for you they have to be registered with a state sponsored program so they can register

or like they worked for you for four years and then they want to go take a test but they're not they've never registered

so at that point they basically waste I don't want to say wasted but in some ways wasted four years of you know

working and now they're not able to test for a journeyman license that was to get rid of that as

well to it's not like they can go back and and just tell them hey I'm supposed to have all these hours it's something

that has to be recorded while it's happening yeah because you come to a company like us now and you try to get

in and it's like well you're a fourth year ready to take your test but in the system you're a first year Apprentice

yeah no no proof no proof so I mean I guess to expand a little bit in order to test for a journeyman license you have

to have 8,000 hours of working in the field plus four years of completed

schooling so you have to have both of those complete in order to test for your license so even if you work for x amount

of years in the field but you've never completed schooling technically from a state perspective you're not ready to

test right and I think I've talked to you before too about how it's it's awesome that that has to happen because

in the flooring industry we have no regulations at all and it's just essentially a free-for-all you guys

can start installing flooring tomorrow if you wanted to and then it's a a struggle for us to try and get anyone to

do a certification class or something like that but also it's when we were

talking about pricing the pricing that you guys have to deal with is a lot lower than what we have to to deal with

cuz we're looking at you know a two or three day certification costing 700 bucks yeah well I think I think the the

people that they're after or the people that they get to are are in it for the long haul I don't think anyone looks at

a as electrician or a plumber as I'm gonna try this out for a couple months and then and then step away right they

understand that that is structured and his career oriented and training and all that the

progression is track rewarded for the time that you spend the

progression is tracked that we don't track progression outside of go Carrera which is a a software that I developed

uh but that that offers what what the industry needs to to do that tracking

and to verify that skill and that score uh that takes in the year it basically

does exactly what you're talking about it tracks their years of experience their education and mixes it together

for a a Tradesman score um that you know is a skill score for them in a certain

piece of flooring um but that's not an industry requirement and so what Daniel

is saying is like literally you can just go watch your cousin install tile over

the weekend jump in your truck slap a sticker on and say you know Jordan tile

and go out Frontier flooring starting it up start competing and then we we have

so you got you get this vacuum of sub quality company and labor sucking down

the prices all the time from the companies who really do like preferred

uh their guys are trained they get them in a they get them in certification courses in education and they want them

they want to mimic good companies in floring want to mimic somewhat what electricians or plumbers do in an

apprenticeship kind of program but very few and far between is there apprenticeship programs for flooring so

we yeah we struggle with getting the really to the qualified side you know

what I mean so we can get guys but they're there's no way to verify if they're qualified unless they're in in

on the platform there's no way to verify you know I can tell you yeah I've been doing it 20 years

how do you know all right give me some references they give you their cousins like it's you got to have um and the way

that you guys are set up GE I tell you what what a that that's a good thing in

a lot of ways um I'm sure you guys appreciate it but it's a good thing that make sure that you

have uh some structured program for the guys to go to the next level I know you

got your guys's time is short but I have a follow-up question to this piece of legislation what what is the biggest to

me it seems like it would push guys to do things that they're probably not qualified for yet or maybe your guy that

he's a three-year journeyman but all he did was put in outlets and some like fixtures the whole time just wiring in

fixtures or something and maybe that's uh oversimplification from a flooring guy but is the the fear that then you're

going to have to that guys are going go into the journey journeyman position

without being ready just to hit a quota of one to one uh I think some of it's going to be

so for instance our company um I mean we're a smaller contractor in the grand scheme of things um technically if that

legislation would have passed we would have had to let two people go because we don't have enough licenses to account

for how many apprentices we have so those people that have dedicated two or three years now all of a sudden it's

like I'm sorry we can't we can't employ you anymore because legally we aren't allowed to and so for some of the larger

companies out there that you know have two 300 electricians working for them or maybe they have a 100 licenses and 200

apprentices it's like how many people are going to lose their jobs because of this happening right um so it would

greatly you know the speed that construction's done um there would be a lot of wage increases because as far as

precious as Journeymen are now I mean their value would would have just skyrocketed

people I mean obviously companies would have just be been fighting for licenses I mean across across the state would

this also consolidate like smaller companies may go out and the bigger

companies dare I say Union but like consolidate because the guys the you the

journeyman would always be going like to the whoever's going to offer them the most money because they need more

journeyman to be able to keep the amount of apprentices they have essentially the big companies would gobble up I at least

outside looking in it seems like the big companies would gobble up the journeyman they got the cap space and

maybe the cash to do so and the smaller really good companies out there could you you'd have to basically

push out almost yeah yeah I would that would have been I don't I don't know it would have

been you know everybody would have went through that but I would say a lot of the smaller companies would have gotten driven

out yeah yeah wow out or you know whatever whatever would happen but yeah

I mean thought thought we lost you again some level of consolidation

yep wow yeah there was the the finds that were associated with it too which

was one of the major differences from one of the previous iterations of this bill um previously it was only the state

that could issue fines like if they were to go to a job site and say hey let me see your your cards

um so now it was any local Authority so like if our local Grand Rapids electrical inspector would have come to

a job site and said hey you have three apprentices and one journeyman here then the city of Grand Rapids would receive

that fine money in lie of the state so

like in for people to find old western

deputization yeah yeah so it was more you know authorities to really you know enforce

it um so yeah would that would have been a big difference with the passing of this as well and I believe the Plumbing

bill that did pass had those same had that same language in it which they went from 3 to1 to two: one so that's you

know it's still a drop in theirs but at least it's better than one to one so yeah but yeah and I think that's why I

don't know if you were at one of those meetings but I think that's what I said out loud kind of like made everybody like look at me weird but when I said it

just sounds to me like they're trying to create more government positions um is what it sounds like to me

and yeah everybody kind of I don't know I say some things sometimes in those meetings that probably need to be but

nobody wants to say you're kind of pitting government facilities against one another who can

get to you first because whoever's G to get that fine money that's a that's a

sounds like a terrible piece of uh legislation there that you guys

avoided I I know that I've spent some time on that but it's interesting to me when when there is some structure around

how then it the overreaching we got to be careful what we ask for in flooring

because then the overreaching of of the these these structures and who's behind

it is who what lobbyists or or things are behind that idea is it the union

lobbyist pushing that agenda yeah I

mean I don't think it's officially out there but that would be that would be my educated guess is that the Union's

pushing for it yeah well let's just do some simple math here right uh over here east side of the state there has been a

little bit of a decrease in Union productivity right and and it started years ago so what do you do when the

industry that created the structure starts to struggle a little bit you flex your muscles and use your contacts and

and you know maybe swell up a little tear in the eye go out and say this is what needs to change and this is why and

we need to maintain our structure and what can we do to to change it oh we already have that plan written out um

yeah just speculation guys just speculation for my part that's all well we're always asking for more structure

on our side because like I said our probably our biggest problem is one of the biggest problems I'd say is that

anybody can just jump in a truck and say they can do flooring it's very much

subcontractor driven so most of us sub our labor out we don't have in-house

employee installers now I do at my company I have both I do both uh

preferred flooring mainly has hourly employee W2 installers and Subs a little bit out but there's companies most

companies in in Kansas Oklahoma Nebraska Texas like anywhere that not heavily

unionized uh subcontractors kind of run the gamut they they do the most work so

if you can imagine if you were in the same position some new sub comes in and says yeah I'm great you need work done

and they they can just tell you yeah I I've been doing this for 30 years and yeah I've got I've got um we got to let

him go um but that's probably our biggest problem

is the fact that we have unqualified completely unqualified guys saying that

they can do work it's and being um deceptive about it even and that's a

that's an industry problem so we ask for structure but then you can see where structure can go it just bigger

overreaching that almost into a nonproductive uh scenario for yeah not

only you guys the midsize or highquality electrical contractors or trade

contractors out there but it's it's like really shooting the

smaller guys in the foot like the guy that has you know that bill would have

pass and it's an electrician who does it on his own he's got two two apprentices that work for him he's gonna have to

fire half one of his guys the structure that we have is is

Created from us instead of someone who's overseeing the

industry right we want to that's what we need to do do what was you saying Eric I

said I mean that was that was the big thing like companies like us like Jordan said earlier they dedicated two years to

us and now all a sudden it's like hey we got you gotta go yeah that's that's

terrible yeah and I mean not to say that I mean perfect world maybe we could live in a onetoone world like you know ratio

like to say that it's not a benefit I can't say that I mean you know having an apprentice work one-on-one to one with a

journeyman is I mean it would be awesome the amount would learn over a foure span

versus if they were working with five or six other apprentices is a big difference but it's just not realistic

in the world that we're in how could you get there in a in a in a perfect world how could you get there what would make

that possible we'd have to have four times as long construction schedules the projects would be a lot more expensive

um I I mean schedu probably more money money yeah yeah I mean schedules are so

tight nowadays and that's like the main way I mean most General Contractors when they present a schedule to begin a job

no one else has really seen that and a lot of it is you know we need it done we need it done now and so in order to do

that obviously you need a lot of bodies and with having a shortage of you know licensed electricians on site I mean we

can only move so fast and then if you cut out a bunch of The Apprentice helpers then it goes even

slower well then you almost decrease the the inflow in you get into where maybe

it's not a bad world to be in like the elevator business

where very few mechanics it's oneto one and extremely expensive extremely high

labor um we lost a guy that was paid well for us in flooring but just

starting off he was making another 20% to go follow some guy around in the

elevator world and he's gonna triple his pay by the time he became a journeyman like sounds like you got

shafted it's just crazy money but they they can they don't have a big influx

because of that one to one like you can only that one guy can still only trade one guy for that time frame you know so

you don't you almost stif off your inflow of people into the trades and we

don't need that either we need more people coming into the trades so I mean it was very it very

counterintuitive to the issue that the whole I mean and it's not Michigan alone either I mean it's Nationwide faing you

know a shortage of you know qualified people here so it's yeah it's just it's one of those where us us talking about

it now it doesn't make any sense but you know way up there where it was being discussed you know utopian yeah I me

when you don't do it yeah like when I started it was and I graduated uh High

School it was like you got to go to college you got to go to college you're not you're not going to be anything unless you go to college now it's kind

of changing to where hey we need to go into the trades right so all those guys

back when I graduated who went to college and I mean what are you doing that you

went to college for yeah most of those guys are in trades now they're

electricians right yeah we talk about it pretty often we talk about it pretty often on

here um and I don't want to hold you guys if you got to go just let me know but uh one of the things we say a lot is

the the push to college and that whole that was a almost a two deade long maybe

even longer push that if you don't go to college you ain't [ __ ] right and most of

the time around 70% it depends on what which uh study you read but around 70%

of the people that graduate do not go into that the workforce in which they were trained

for it's so much higher in the trades if you go through a trade school you are

going to that trade like you don't it's not like a I got my liberal arts degree

and then I went and work a teller position at a bank you know to totally

different literally what happens that's literally what happens and I do see the wave changing going back towards the

trades because there's all these comparisons just compare the the debt

that you incur and then you get a job that's going to pay you you know 45 50 Grand maybe uh when you graduate and then

going through trade school and getting a apprenticeship and by the time

uh there was a study done I found it fascinating that it was like age 44

before and it was in the upper trades like electricians and plumbers but it

was like age 44 before a doctor caught up with the

earning uh of a Tradesman and it was because of all the

debt they incurred the first few years of residency they get paid Squat and

then they finally start getting paid and it it was age 40 40 or 44 before they

caught up with the trades person in the amount of money that they've actually

brought into their household I guess that shows that that you could either have your debt compound

right interest or you can have your uh your labor compound interest your

knowled yeah compound your know or compound your debt that was and I've

seen it too you know where it's like hey I went to college for two years I don't

know what I want to do so I want to come you know be an electrician but I want to make X right because I have student

loans to pay well TI yeah you know as an apprenticeship right you're usually at

the bottom tier and then every six months we're going to evail you and then

you're going to move up but they want to skip those steps because I got student loans to pay off yeah yeah the

government didn't do as and it was firmly in my belief that it was there

they're pushing that but the push for college education did

not do very many people any good like all it did was enrich colleges because

they started coming up with degrees that made no damn sense right like they they

you know what I mean there's only so many jobs at a museum to be a

historian that you can feel like opening all these new uh new degrees up over the

last 20 years if you look at that it's a it's a crazy number so we I will let you guys go I know you got some stuff to go

I think the internet said that they were leaving they froze again okay well we have lost our guest for the day I

appreciate you guys joining us for having us here thank you he did he said

uh I give up this is wild well I want to tell them I said thank

you that was fascinating to hear that little bit and I'm glad you brought it up Jose that what they went through

because that opened up a lot of questions on my mind about like

what's the benefit and who's pushing for it and if we push for this oversight kind of view in our

industry you can see what happens when government or let's just say Authority

Arian type entities take over the control of your of an industry it's like

now they're overreaching they do stuff on paper that they think sounds good uh and at the end

of the day all it does is hurt the actual people doing the job you know losing jobs it sounds like to me a ton

of people would have probably lost their job over if that legislation was passed as well as a lot of um companies a lot

of companies I mean the big companies would have swallowed up these apprentices because they have Journeymen

that they compare them with where I would imagine if it's a smaller company if I was an electrician I would have

just enough um journeyman to do the work I need and back fill them with apprentices

like that's a pretty smart business model you know um yeah I I don't know it opened up a

ton of questions in my head about the uh you know and it was also interesting

to to hear that they struggle at least they recognize they're always in our way you know the sight conditions that

they they they uh they brought up you know that uh they're they're usually

before us and they need to get done and mentioning um it's part of their training it's it's a part of the program

for the first year Apprentice to understand how to infiltrate the flooring industry and be in their way

and leave cut Knockouts and clippings everywhere well you have a way to at least combat some of your sight

conditions if you got child you guys if if you at least you can figure out if

the electricians have your HVAC system hooked up and that's fired up if you got Flor Cloud on your site floor Cloud will

give you all the information about your uh project site right at your fingertips

it's a cellular um driven uh technology right off a sensor that you put in

anywhere into the job site you can even read your moisture test with the right hookup and it's super simple I know you

guys use it a lot more even than we do so um you know if you if you want to

deploy your your Crews with confidence to job sites and know that your

Project's at least ready from a spe specification standpoint get yourself a

uh a membership a subscription to flor Cloud get with Patrick and them guys over there Scott and uh you know hook

them up I think we might let me go ahead and play a quick video for floor Cloud

here floor Cloud enables real-time monitoring of your job site conditions

via desktop or mobile device no more manual checking for temperature humidity

or even dupoint no need for base stations Wi-Fi or external power sources

simply scan the QR code on the front of your sensors and you're up at running with the most accurate and Innovative

sight monitoring system in the flooring industry dispatch your Crews with confidence and reduce your climate

related installation issues now you know you

know no and when you guys were talk we were talking earlier and he was talking

about you know going from a big company to a smaller company and not really

having the knoow because in the bigger companies you're only doing this or you're only doing that and I kind of

feel that like that's where the business is right going from a huge company to a

small company you got to wear many many different hats and that's that's you know just one of the struggles of every

small business owner and that's I think why we could relate a lot to each other it's because you

know we are small businesses so yeah yeah and of course just like you said

that's a that's probably less of a trade problem and more of a just moving from a

big company to a smaller company problem uh you know big back in the day the the

the big automakers uh that that had assembly lines you know that they those employees

did the same thing they did this uh if you're building an entire car um and you

got to be a mechanic and a bodyman and you know what I mean like all these things it's kind of like in floring why

we're so separated between hardwood Ceramic Tile carpet and resilient I mean

I know plenty of really good carpet guys that could not put a piece of tile floor down to save their life or a tile guy

that could you give them a piece of broadloom and they'll look at you like you are asking them to skydive you know

what I mean and so flooring is flooring but we have the same deal you get a guy

that is at a real big company and all he did was grout for five years like he

grout a fantastic like grout Master yeah he can make a bad a a a good tile job

look great or a great tile job remain great like you know gring's where it's

at and everything's finished art too dude you can do that but then you if you came to a

company like mine and you're called a tile finisher I'm expecting you to make Cuts Like You Know Stone edges do layout

like be able to thing yeah so yeah I I could see that

um particularly in their Zone because I know that there's some electricians that they don't touch that all they do is

pull wire to the appropriate boxes and you got somebody that's going through and there it's like an assembly line on

a job site you got someone going through and hooking up the fixtures and it like and I I think that's that that

progression too though right because if you're only a year in this is what you're doing like yeah you can watch me

and help me do this but once this is done you're going to do your job yeah and it's kind of like that in flooring

too it's just not that streamlined because there's so much going on with what we do I think and then you were

talking about like the verticals right like carpet hardwood uh to stuff like that and yeah

it's and you got residential and commercial in there yeah and then you got everyone like on the the group Pages

someone asks a question and they just Hammer them man like yeah

dude questions there's not a real friendly group on there I haven't been on those pages in a long time if I'm

honest but part of that is um and I'm not saying we need to be

Kumbaya everybody like glorifying or help whatever one another but there

there is just a better way to approach it and I know the really the guys that I

look up to in floring share knowledge willingly are slow

to uh demean or uh tear down somebody and quick to

teach and I I think if we could just be that in our businesses um quick to teach

and slow to tear down uh we we'd uh improve um but I I'd be I'd be lying if

I didn't say that I'm envious of the system that they do have like they have

a school they can pull from you sign them up on a with the state here's my

Apprentice this Apprentice is gonna work for four years he knows it he's not asking hey I want to be a journeyman two

weeks after he he went in I mean I've literally had guys come in after working with one of our mechanics you know one

of our lead installers for six months and say hey man I'm ready I want to do this I'm I want to be my own crew like

you have no idea dude like not close to

ready that system prevents those guys from trying to they know what level

they're at and they get paid this amount for that level and if you want to move on you have to actually go through the

progression and then test out like yes I know how to do this you have to get the education and the experience and that's

that's what we've built go carrera's the algorithm the score on education

experience there's no there's that's the only two ways you get good at anything and when you can when you can accurately

track and do that they just have a state entity doing that for them basically they sign them up the date is set and

logged they started here I'm sure that then that person well it sounds like

that person then Works through and takes periodic education and testing and then

to test out to be a a journeyman you got however how many hours he say 8,000 or

something 8,000 so like I I am a little jealous of a system like that you know

because too often you get guys in and they want to skip all the other steps

similar to his example of the the U the uh uh guy that went to college I need to

make this amount because I got student loans I'm sorry I'm sorry that you got student

loans you're a level one apprentice and this is what level one

apprentices make you want me to this guy's been here for a year and a half getting ready to go to level two you're going to make the same as him would that

be fair to him you know and so that's probably a struggle for them as well

but there there is something to that to that system that's what go Carrera from

an outside standpoint not a government entity forcing it upon but that's what

that whole ideas about is just tracking years of experience

tracking education and tracking the progression of an installer so that we can have level of saying okay instead of

a use it's just different terminology he's a four-year uh Apprentice okay he's

a one you know he's a level one uh tile installer for example so it's just

different vernacular but it's the same thing right and I you progress the best

thing about it what you said is that that education aspect is because they're required to get their education and go

to classes and I talk to them about this and I think we've talked about it on here before it's once a week they're

going to classes on their own time yeah it's not like I'm gonna come to work and

then I'm gonna do it while I'm at work it's all right you're G to get out of work you're going to go to your class

you're G to get your education see you [Music] tomorrow yeah I'm little jealous and

it's the kind of the same thing in um the union too right because it's the

union when I talked to them they were like yeah there's one of the unions was

um I I don't know if it was like every quarter or something but they shut down for a week and the guys had to collect

unemployment and then just attend classes for that whole week the other ones it was like NOP we do it you know a

class or something a month and what ends up happening is they vote on what day

they want to do it on and it's not at work so it's typically a Saturday or

Sunday yeah that's that's what I appreciate about all that is this

um self the the owning of your of your

trade of your life of your skill that that like you have to give a little like

sacrifice a little bit sacrifice a Saturday because you got to go to class and put in get your eight hours for the

quarter of Education or whatever that is and and that's this coming year one of

the big things is CEUs within go Carrera is going to be a thing thing and not in go Carrera as the platform but as part

of the algorithm uh to to help support that awesome come on guys get those

credits those education credits to help build your your knowledge base up and uh

prove that you're the best and then look if if people don't look at it like that all the time like prove that you're the

best the fact is in other trades you you just have to to even get the job you

have to do this I'm just you know we we're just begging people over here to to go in get the education get the

experience apply yourself and then continue your education and go to workshops and do this stuff we're

begging as an industry for Crews to do that over there in other trades it's

just you just don't have a job if you don't do it well I think um the structure that they have too is is

they're requiring a minimum of in order Advance right and I think uh us as an

industry um we minimize our requirements so that way we get bodies and that's uh

that's not good for us either and um you know what what you just shed some light on there too is the Saturday classes 8

Hour classes or whatever once a month or once a week or whatever um is is required you know a lot of the people in

in the industry that have worked with it you know they were all athletes at some point right and did you get your

practice at the game only or did you go off on your own time and get better and try to hone some skills to make a make

the team or or to to have a starting position it's no different for your career than it is for any sport or hobby

you don't get better by just experience it when you're supposed to you get better by by experiencing it on your own

and learning your own limitations I just had this conversation with my son and that's what I told him right and I said

cuz you know his mom was like he goes to practice every day and I said yeah and

that's the bare minimum so in in the summer when when I

like my son plays baseball and you know I have homework every day like I required during baseball season I did

require him to take 50 swings off a te into a net and he said you know and he

said like you know why do I have to do this you know at first he didn't like it but then he got better at hitting and um

part of that was is because now you have 50 more swings a day than anybody else

who's not pregn iing you have 50 more opportunities to become 50 swings better

50 swings better 50 swings better it just it it speaks to the fact that in

our industry so far and we can change this in 25 this is the year that we can

all change this but it speaks to the fact that what we do

is we go out go to work we think it's our education our employment and our

babysitter like in a lot of ways our industry uh

the participants the in installation Community I was as guilty as anyone I

installed too but we we don't go outside to gain the knowledge and it just all

the all the opportunities there um we don't think very heavily like if you

want a car man I know guys if they want a car they'll make a deal here deal there and before you know it stack some

this and that and the other to get a loan to get the car they want but they won't sacrifice or do any of those same

you know mathematical gymnastics to improve their career that will improve

their earning um so you know I I just want I want to see our at least the boat

turn this year towards people requiring installers to be trained go

get your get a certain amount and tracking if nothing else get in a

profile for tracking the education units that you get and being able to prove that as an individual to your potential

employer and for the potential employer to be able to verify that's all that they're talking about that was the whole

thing they talked about it just State mandated right yeah and we can do it

within our own industry we can do it within a flooring veteran matched up

with a couple other flooring veterans matched up with some other flooring

inside we can build this to where we have created an atmosphere and or a

ecosystem where that's how it works dang it so we don't have to have a government

entity if we don't want sooner or later I'm assuming that something will happen but uh well they're going to want a

piece of their pie right you can't make money without paying the piper that's uh unfortunately how the US government

operates lately so well and it's it's I'm fine paying as long as my roads are

fine right I mean like as long as you're getting the benefit like paying is one thing paying

and then and then you know blowing out a tire on a on a street because the roads

aren't properly taken care of or your infrastructure is falling apart that's a whole another thing whole another

podcast but the truth is is like you know I think most Americans we we we're

fine pain for a fee to go learn something or to do this as long as we

know there's a benefit for us on the backside or we can recognize the benefit of from it on the backside

so at least that's my hope well that was an interesting conversation I'm glad

those guys joined all right fellas we have reached

our the end of the uh podcast here I want to thank everybody for joining us

thanks for all the comments appreciate everybody uh Happy New Year to those of you that were not on last

week's when we did a quick little uh what half hour maybe I think it was yeah

yeah just a little quick one little quick one Happy New Year to everybody I wish you the best for 25 Let's uh let's

band together let's uh let's really do some cool stuff yeah let's work on mindset this year I think I I like you

said people need the the companies need to hold installers accountable and installers need to hold themselves

accountable and it all has to do with mindset you can't think that you're the best at everything like you said that

with like no credibility it's let's start getting some credibility and that starts today

yeah let's build that a credibility amen speaking of uh who's the best I am definitely the best that's slipping and

falling and thank you for Jeremy for checking in on me appreciate you

brother all right if anyone hasn't seen it's all over social media the video of

this guy Fallen is hilarious I got to check it

out it made me it made me go get some uh higher resolution cameras so that way I can see it in HD next

time there will be a next time I promise all right well keep steady feet there my

friend don't uh don't take any more skills and uh uh just a quick reminder

before we close out Ty is at the end of this month so anybody who uh will be out

there uh doing interviews checking up uh with the installation competition kind

of roaming around seeing what the 2025 is bringing in uh if you got the uh time

to get out to Las Vegas and and hang out with us please do look us up give us a

holler and uh let us know if you're going to be there that is at the end of this month and um yeah go check out the

inst uh uh competition I think it's going to be pretty awesome this year there's some

uh International stuff going on as well I believe and it's going to be fun so with that guys we'll catch you next

week and uh thank you everyone have a blessed afternoon see you all right see

you guys