This week on The Huddle Paul, Daniel, Jose are starting a four-part series about relationships, starting with your crew. Zach Keur was able to join and give a little insight from an employee aspect.

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The HUDDLE is where the flooring industry can get together and talk about everything! Lead by Paul Stuart from Go Carerra who is joined by Daniel and Jose Gonzalez from Preferred Flooring.

https://www.preferredflooringmi.com

https://www.stuartandassociates.com

what's up guys hey what's up everybody and welcome to

this week's edition of the Huddle we're coming to you every Tuesday to discuss

maintaining Ford progress in your flooring career I say it every week pretty much any career or any business I think most of

what we talk about is applicable um this week we're starting a four-part

series on relationships um and today we're going to start with

building and maintaining relationships with your Crews um this is

all party participant right so if you're an installer uh uh you know throw up

some chat or some questions in regards to uh some good and uh positive

um ways that maybe a shop you're working with or a builder you're working with

has really impressed you in that regard of building a relationship with you

and if you're a company um we're going to talk a little bit about that and uh if you find any value

and you find a few nuggets that's what we hope so gentlemen this week let me let me add as usual I

got the the Fantastic gentleman from Michigan Daniel and Jose and uh so how's

it going guys good morning all the snow melted so that's good

well I'm in Colorado Springs at the moment and we just got about an inch of snow it was 50 and sunny yesterday and

today got about an inch and 14 degrees so lovely sounds like home nice change

um so yeah this is a um this topic is one of those that I had to

go back and kind of search in my you know through the 20-something years I've I've been in the flooring industry

in 20 plus years in business and realized that I was really terrible at a

lot of what we're going to talk about today um and I'm still not great

that's the truth so uh hopefully we get some some uh interaction I can learn

something from the preferred flooring folks and and hopefully I can learn something from some of our audience so

I'm gonna kick it off with Daniel what are when when we're talking about

building starting building maintaining relationships with Crews

um and this is whether they're employee or or Subs but I think Subs are a little

more difficult to do your employees get to go to you know Christmas parties and all that stuff and uh maybe you throw a

subcontractor appreciation every now and again but you know your employees are

more involved in the company generally speaking so that may be two different

ways of dealing with it but what's your take on how have you guys been able to and what

have you seen out there that's you know with other companies on building good solid relationships with

their Crews I I think it just starts with

that like getting to to know your your guys rather than just thinking that

they're there to to do what they got to do and then go home uh there's you know quite a few

times where just being in the office the guys are coming to the office and they'll stay

here for you know half hour 45 minutes and just shoot the just talk and

see uh see what's going on in each other's lives and ask questions that

that they really don't have anyone else to to ask and you know it's not always

about work I think is what it boils down to right you have to get to know people on a more personal level rather than

just always talking about work yeah I am

I I think that's probably where you know I was the weakest for

uh the first decade maybe of being in business where you know

it's not that I didn't care it's just I didn't put enough effort into getting to

know them and knowing their life and they got kids and they got a family and

they got you know dreams and aspirations just like the rest of us uh just like everybody does and uh

realizing that at some point I started realized that

the way I was treated as an employee I took a lot of solace in that I was

much better than the company I worked for but I still wasn't very good at this it wasn't very good at showing people I

cared about them specifically our our subcontract

installers um hourlys I did a little bit better with there they're a little bit more you

have a little more interaction with them because uh you know unfortunately for an

hourly crew sometimes we bounce them around from job to job right but yeah I

was I was poor at that part dude and um I feel like I've gotten better but I got I got a long ways to go

how about you Jose so it's it's a little weird like everybody's Dynamic

is a little different right like so a lot of the guys uh the majority of the guys that have run through uh preferred

or been with us for a while or well being with us in the future a lot of

them are referrals through close friends or family and it does give us a little bit of

an advantage on knowing the personal um them personally

um like everybody I know like one of the guys one of our gentlemen Bobby I've known

him since before I think he used to walk around the softball field with boogers hanging out you know what I mean I've

known him since he was in elementary school and even like Jeremy that that worked for us so it makes it easier to

to connect on a personal level and you know that you know their life right you know more than the standard or typical

uh let's say boss or business owner um so that that's little

gives us a little bit of an advantage where I feel it's an advantage for for us but

making sure that you're able to keep that connection is it does prove to be difficult sometimes

right like you get you get busy yeah go ahead sorry

no you're good you get busy and you just you you know that you you connect with

them on a personal level but at the same time it's you're still trying to make sure that you can keep that revolving door of work

open for them so that way they have something solid to base their finances off and

with that with that happening you do lose track of the intimate portion of

any relationship uh that is at work yeah I wanted to bring up that when I

first started it I felt really when I kind of recognized and uh some of the guys I knew from the

other company that we worked at and that some it was more natural because I already knew him but bringing in new

Crews I didn't want to be unauthentic about yeah showing interest in them like

just so that they wanted to do something for me or for the benefit of my company or the benefit of the company in general

uh it really I mean it's it's a personal Journey for me anyway that you actually

have to care you actually have to care without the strings attached of of how

what it does for your business uh not to not trying to call you out on it just you brought up something that triggered

how I was and so I wanted to right you know point that out from a from a work

standpoint I feel like what really um which is the part I probably did

better and I'm still not great at but I'm working on it is good

solid communication and having the jobs

you know ready for them you know like making sure that they're profitable caring about their money

not just my money or the company's money but caring about their money by setting the jobs up correctly

training our project managers and our project Executives and our admin staff

to realize that you know get having an efficient job

site for a crew benefits that crew and if we can do that then they're going to

Make a Better Living and less downtime and those you know Less jobs getting

pushed um some of that's going to happen out completely outside of our like we can't

control them I mean you guys know you show you get pictures from a job site that

say it's ready and you get there and all of a sudden it looks like Sanford and Sons moved into the room

you're supposed to be doing so some of it we cannot control completely

uh but that's that's from the business aspect

and then you know a lot of the subs are my friends uh I have a few that are

um that I I mentor on some some level of consistent basis

come into my office I talk to them uh discuss a lot of the stuff I went

through as a sub uh even my employee installers just stuff I went through as an employee installer and and how we can

do better and one other thing I would say is asking them what you can do better

you know that that door's got to swing both ways in order to become more efficient on both sides you got to be

willing to take criticism whether it's positive or negative on both ends right

I know that there's going to be balance but um and to add to the conversation a

little bit because I don't want anybody to think like I don't talk to anybody at work because I do talk to I do talk to

everybody outside of work as well it's just like um like Daniel said sometimes when they do have a little bit extra

time and they have some going on and eating and we're working a little bit later in the office they come in and hang out and I absolutely love that

right like we'll catch up on life in general and I love that aspect but I do

take the time to shoot text messages or phone calls outside of work hours

um to the guys because I get reminded about them through little things that

Milan day today and I want them to I want them to understand that I think about them

at work I have to think about them but at home I don't have to but I still do because that's what you create as a

family atmosphere yeah that's one of the things that um I think is the biggest compliment we can

receive as a company is when one of our installers or whether they're subs or

employees say that it's like a big family you know

um that's a good just a good feeling you know they know you care at that point

because you can you know you can uh it's different with family right because you can have an argument one minute and then

15 minutes later you're all right and you kind of have to bring that that atmosphere here too right where it's

like all right we can disagree right now but just take a quick 10 minute breather and

then we have to get back to it like if there's no reason to hold a grudge yeah yeah it's a good point

uh how family deals with you know uh disputes and then but at the end of

the day you're still family it's it's pretty similar it is and

that's I think that's human nature it's just it's easier to stay upset and

disagree when when the relationship is long distance right but when you know you got to see somebody every day you

gotta bump into them every day there there is no reason to hold on to that animosity to hold on to

just agree to disagree and move on yeah and so so you know great Concepts

how do we what are specific things that you guys do uh that that

accomplish that so um you know I'll give you an example

I make 100 sure anytime an installer is in our office I go up and talk to them I

go up and say hi how's it going what are you up to how's the wife or daughter or kids or whatever uh and we actually have

a conversation and I shake their hand some sometimes we hug I mean

um you know those are those are real life relationship building things and I'm not

doing it I I hope I'm being clear here I'm not saying go out and do these things

unauthentically like you got to find it in yourself to actually want that you know but

that's been a real um you know relationship Builder I guess uh

almost um organically with with the cruise is man when I see those guys you know I

know what they go through you guys know what they go through yeah there's not a lot of people that that are

you know a lot of companies have people in the office that simply and and

frankly those are the people that could learn the most off of this conversation because all three of us are old and

stalms and you know what it's like to be out on a job site and not have the materials or feel like you're just a

tool in that company's toolbox and if we want to bet that is not a good

Innovation Community we have to be better too

yeah it's one of those things where like you said it can't feel like it's forced right but

at the same time when you're trying something new you kind of got to force yourself to do it and then become comfortable with it so

um a lot of what we have done especially like lately crystal is actually and I

think we've talked about it before she had the guys do a vision board to kind of see where they're at and where they

want to go and we talked about that a few weeks ago and just building on that

and how what what they have going on fits into what we have going on like

we're all striving for the same thing whether it's you know in business or personally you want to better yourself

and that's where where we're at and we we ask them you know how can we help you

guys get to where you need to go as well right we're trying to give them those

tools and it's one of those things where we never really realized how big of an impact you can have on

someone as far as like being a mentor and stuff without even realizing you're being a mentor just giving them the

advice and and stuff like that when you're with them all the time you know we we were in the field for years with

guys and I didn't realize it until it was really the last surfaces where you

know Crystal actually got a mentor and told me she was like

she didn't even realize that I was mentoring her until that time and it's like

you kind of need that especially you know through throughout the day because

there's so many questions that people have and it's like just talk to me let me know what's on

your mind it's it's a free therapy session right yeah a lot of the stuff that a lot of

the stuff that we we come back with you know they don't necessarily want to hear but it's the the things that they need

to hear sometimes

well and it takes a good Dynamic for that to to work

um you know I certainly have the adverse side or the other side of that where

I've mentored with guys um I got one guy in my head right now obviously I won't name it but yeah I'm

entered with him for I don't know a month or two he didn't

work for us for very long and nothing stopped nothing

um come to find out it was somewhat like a joke to him

and that does not deter me that is one individual that decided that

it wasn't for him and I get that not everybody you

know jives perfectly with in with someone else but at the end of the day

it does not deter me I still feel like um I poured into him and that's my job not

how he deals with it or not how the person deals with it it's did I pour into them my knowledge and my experience

and my time and my my my care um you just can't get hung up on whether

it works every time is the point right and that's the thing that that you realize too right is is

as long as you know you're doing your best not everyone wants to be helped right so yeah

foreign wants to be all dead you know if I told

you that I took all the advice that I was given uh through what people or individuals that would be labeled as my

mentor I'd I'd 100 be lying to you um

I said find out the hard way myself because I want to feel it smell it touch it

and it doesn't matter what anybody says to you if it's it's not sometimes if

it's not your idea then your brain rejects it and then you can kind of relate it to kids right

because you look at your kids and you can tell them don't do that don't do that and then finally it's like not

listening go ahead do it now you're crying so what do we learn oh told you

um you know another way too like like I'm gonna go back to the original question that yes uh Daniel and

and some of the ways that I relate to people are a little I want to say unorthodox right only

because that's just our my our family Dynamic like we'll go

to I'll just use Thanksgiving we'll go to Thanksgiving and our Thanksgiving consists of us having

dinner watching the kids trip and fight and and do kid things and as they run in

front of in front of us while we're sitting on the couch we try to trip them and then laugh when they fall um you know so that's uh that's just

kind of how how we grew up so it's normal so the adults will sit there and we'll make fun

of each other which is we'll just rip on each other right but that's our family dynamic

um we like to make fun of each other we like to laugh even at this at our expense or someone else's and a lot of

my relationships with uh with the guys that have worked with us that weren't currently working for us

we do that we have that banter back and forth and it keeps us fresh it keeps us on our toes it keeps the wits alive but

um that's just a a way that I personally make connections with people is I like I

like to have banter like that back and forth but when enough is enough we have to know

that and um life has got to be serious at some moments and life can can be fun and

just having that type of connection with somebody and being able to play around like that

um really helps build a stronger foundation in our relationship outside of just the work relationship

um gives you a chance to kind of you know

we all know the construction industry is tough tough business one is tough

business you know when you have a bad day if you've got a boss that you can go uh let loose with a little bit uh maybe

uh toss some uh you know I hate this play some cornhole yeah I

mean it can it can get um pretty racy sometimes uh with some of

our guys you know they uh from the aspect of you know talking talking

with each other um but you know it gives them a chance to just kind of forget about the day and uh

you know some we all have our tough days so you know that's again it kind of goes back to treat them like family I've I've

been to a lot of we've all been a ton of uh conferences and obviously uh we we

support that if you're in the flooring industry as an installer you ought to get to some of

these things but at the conferences you know um they talk about building

relationships a lot they and they talk about I remember I think it was a fuse

conference actually but one of the speakers they're their biggest thing was these these

people are with you with in the same time frame that you're probably with your family so you should treat them as

such and it was all about treating your employees like family and I'm that that

can be real cliche but if you exercise it and you do it and you actually treat

them like that then you know most of your guys are going to stick around

um and you're going to have a better time together at work right like you said earlier you know you

can't treat them like a tool you gotta and the whole family Dynamic comes in because you have to realize that these

guys are and we can kind of get into the whole generational thing where the younger

people are coming in right because we have some younger guys working with us and it's like they're they want to come

in and work but they also have a life outside of work that they want to get to enjoy so what can you do in order to

kind of help them out with that and for you know the past

oh it's been a long time we we stopped working weekends you know we tell

everyone you want us to work a weekend you're definitely gonna have to make it worth it because we also have to make it

worth it because that's cutting in on family time yeah

and then you know even if if some of the some of these guys that work with us you know that they don't have kids or

anything but still they they have things planned on the weekends and it's like sorry man like in order to break these

plans like your job isn't worth me putting my my guys in a position to

where they're going to be angry and then not produce that following week I'd rather give them the days off that they

already had planned to do something and then we'll start off for us next week

that's it's always a hard thing too it's like it took so long for for me to

comfortably get that message across to a lot of the companies that that we were establishing we've been doing work for

and I know not everybody goes for it not everybody does it there's a lot of guys that would rather work on the weekend uh

than you know than a Thursday or Friday and I get I understand it um and and everybody do what what they

what they wish for their work schedule it just for us and what we were doing and the Dynamics that we had going on it

just seemed to fit better for us to avoid working uh weekends

team morale was better on Monday there was there was more benefits than

negatives and the benefits were more internal obviously right

I wasn't keeping everybody happy when I made them or when we made those decisions

but you you sorry you paused and then went real fast it's gonna make it's gonna

sound real good on the podcast oh okay um so that was crazy sorry but it did it

did help uh I thought I said something wrong for a second I said but it but it did it did help uh it did help our

chemistry as a company and production did get better

it it did and guys were guys love the fact that I did my best to

avoid nights or weekends Can I 100 avoid it no no but it's got to be necessary so yeah

you got to push back on your client to make sure is it necessary or just

something that they're wanting um correct we get a lot of you know well

can you guys work Saturday and Sunday and uh my question is always

is that part of our duration and then if it if it's if it's not is this Con is

this really necessary like what whether don't just say yes I I want to drill

down and find out why do they why do they think they need us to work this weekend and

um you know over the summer this year we our guys were ran pretty hard

um we did work quite a few weekends but I'll tell you we recognized that with

the guys we we told them each each one of them look we know we're driving hard

here and we know it's getting crazy but uh hang in with us you know obviously

it's going to slow down a little bit and we'll we'll um we'll uh get back to some normal work

hours at least acknowledge it I think is where we were at we're not as far along as you

guys in that respect as far as like trying almost setting the rule that you

don't have that you don't work weekends and then someone's really gotta come at you with a real good reason why

um we just try to make sure that it's uh actually necessary and not just a request or a want or you know a a nice

to have right and then we're getting comments uh from LinkedIn like

weekends inflate the price and it costs more installing weekends and nights and

you can look at it like that right but at the same time you have to look at it

from from a different perspective as well like yeah you could get paid more but I'll always go back to

um we had a meeting over here at Welsh Style with Dan Wells and he put it you

know he he laid it out he said you got to start thinking about it as you only have so many miles on your knees yes

so when when you're already working 40 plus hours between Monday and Friday

and then you get weekends in the mix you don't give your body that time that it

needs to rush right and especially lately like when when I go in the field

all it takes is one one day and I feel broken

[Laughter] and you know once you start getting into that rhythm again right it's it's a

little bit easier because you you think things in motion want to stay in motion right it's it's a fact so the more you

do it the easier it gets but just just me being out in the field for three

days puts me in knee braces for two weeks um I went in the field uh I mean this

was probably a good couple months ago now to where you know I worked a few

days and I felt fine and then on a weekend I'm just standing there and you

know we're at a a meeting I'm just meeting all these parents for my niece's new softball team and I'm standing there

talking to one of the coaches and I'm my body just goes like this and I have to catch myself and they're like you all

right I'm like it just went out like I have to limp back to my truck now

yeah well that's it you know we have we touched on this on a previous podcast

during the safety stuff or taking care of your body of your body right and and

if you look at it like you're like uh Dan Welch said is you only have so many

up and downs right you only have so many miles on your knees are you wasting them on weekend work

that's not necessary I mean look if it has to happen I'm just the type

that I I I believe we should try our best to make it happen

yes that can also be done creatively by keeping track of who worked previous

weekends and maybe working someone who hasn't worked a week work the weekend in

the last month or so and you know so there you know you get a little bit more

creative we've we've actually had our leads go in behind a sub uh because the sub have worked you know a month

you know straight through weekends and then we'd just have our hourlys uh if if

they if they didn't have all their hours or something uh they were asking for

hours we can give them those hours and follow behind that sub and help that sub out and right you know so you there's

got to be a little creative sometimes but there was a point too where um we were this was a few months ago we were

doing a hospital project and and uh moisture mitigation and then we had to

self level on top of that and in order to keep on schedule I mean the guys were already working I want to say they were

working 50 plus hours a week at this point you know you know Monday through Friday at that point it's it's hard for me to

say hey you guys got to work Saturday too and me Jose and Crystal went in on Saturday and

self-leveled everything so that way it was ready for the guys on Monday there you go that was and you know what

I love working with my brother and my sister it's it's like that well-oiled

machine you don't have to say hey you need to do this it's just like if we walk in this is what's got to be done

all right boom divide Cocker beat in the middle slap hands and go home and that

that also you know goes to to the culture and showing your team

that you know even though I'm not in the field every day I'm still thinking about you guys and I'm still worried about you

getting the rest that you need so I'm gonna take some of my time and go do this and yeah

it won't happen every every time right because there's our kids

are busy so it's meant to have a free weekend especially like during the

summer is is really rare yeah so and I I don't

feel I don't feel right if I go to the guys and like hey you guys got to work every Saturday for the next three weeks

oh well what are you gonna be doing oh I'm gonna be at this ball game and then I'll be at this ball game it's like I

have stuff to do but I know that especially during the Summers when like Michigan winners are horrible and

there's nothing to do over here in the wintertime other than I don't know go bowling

Aladdin there it go sledding yeah don't nobody like to do that of the weather

and when you're working 50 60 hours from Monday through Friday you want to take

that time to even if you don't want to go to the beach at least you got the time to do it

yeah go do well and you know you bring up the

um a point that I wanted to drill down on a little bit

more which is one thing my guys know like everybody that works for me knows

I'll do what I'm asking you to do I'll do it I have done it

um I'm sitting in a hotel in Colorado Springs that we finished a few months

ago uh walk in a final walk-through with the owner and I remember

a few months back my poor knees guys was terrible but I laid uh uh it's probably

it's been several months now but I I laid some you know Fitness room bolon cheap vinyl uh double set with a a

comfort pad underneath it uh I did that because I had to get it done over the

weekend and our crews have worked their tails off on this job and they needed a

weekend off and me and Sean which is one of our superintendents came out knocked

it out over a couple of days and um so we'll I'll do what I ask you

to do and I have and I think that goes a long way with people as well right I

mean just uh one of our guys Zach has been helping his brother refinish his hardwood floors

and he's like I forgot how much work this was I don't want to do this anymore and then he came I was uh in here on a

Saturday and he came in to grab some stuff and he was like you working on a Saturday I said I don't

think you realize how much we actually work we're pretty much if I have

if I don't have anything going on with the kids I'm working like it you can get

that far behind just on the office aspect of things and are

you really ever a head though right and there's always a job to bid or a job to

get something right and then for him to come in here and see me in here you know

going over a print I got you know bids do and and stuff like that

and just trying to trying to catch up when it's the end of the year so there's plenty to do

and for for them to come in here and and see okay like these guys really really

do work as much as we do yeah I I don't know how to even as an installer

there's this um there's this thought like field versus

office when I was installing it was really prevalent like we were almost unionized not really but

like we always got together and just hated on the office but I just got in

the industry that I I came into uh but it was it was for

good reason I mean I back then our our the company I worked for all the office

you know had health benefits and vacation and holiday pay and all this

us installers had none of that not one of those benefits

um you know I think a way to I bring this up because if someone out there in the audience

um has that one thing that will help you close that Gap is

or a brand new helper has the same health insurance as I do

and it's paid for and it's it's the same stuff they have

the same holidays off they have the same vacation accrual everything that the office has so I think that that can help

with closing that up uh I talked to our insurance lady today actually and she

said um that she's seeing a lot of the bigger

companies like really really ramp up their health care for retainage

because the same things that we've been talking about is the people that are coming into the

workforce right now want to see those benefits packages and

if the big companies are working this hard to to get something going you know I told her straight up I said you know

ours aren't that great and she knows that because she handles them right they're they're not the greatest but

they're definitely not the worst right you could you go from no coverage to the middle of the ground where we're at it's

still it still saves you quite a bit of money it's still a significant right still a

significant say um uh benefit though and she said that that's what she's seeing is all the

bigger companies um my wife works for a a big bank and

just from La this year to next year the the benefits package has gotten

tremendously better like last year I was like ours is better like there's no point in the going with

yours and now this year it's making me stop and look like and they get they

they're really really ramping it up so if you're in a position right now to where you're well it's kind of late

because you have to have all your paperwork in by December first in order to get get it effective on January 1st

but if you're on the fence of getting something started for your guys now is

the time because all the big companies are doing it so you're only going to

fall further behind if you don't yep yeah and I you know that brings up

something that has been on my mind for a long time is how can we uh help the subs

because they they chose to be Subs but that doesn't mean that they don't need help how can we as an industry I know

there's some programs out there I I need to do some more research but how can how can the industry help to make sure

Subs have access to health care and I know Federated teamed up is teamed up

you know and has been for years with the fcica um I wonder if a sub-company that's not

a fcica member could uh you know and that's liability and GL

but I think maybe it's the mtca that has a health insurance coverage program

does as well it's just not through like real health insurance it's

a it's a group program to where you know you still pull your money together and stuff so it's comparable to health care

but it's not that you can't necessarily call it health insurance I don't think and

um when we talk to did we talk to the fcic about it I don't remember but it's you know it has to do

with something about the actual Health Care coverage and you can't get certain coverages somewhere so

it's hard to to blanket that under something that's National I'm surprised that there isn't like um

there isn't like a Universal Health Care Program for people to get into besides uh

individualized uh programs right like uh well I know there's programs out there for for small business owners and such

but I'm talking like if look I'm still considered a small business

you know what I mean from a the government's eyes and health insurance wise we're considered a small company or

a small business our subs are micro sized if from their

perspective so I was just curious if you guys you know because that's another thing and I was also thinking too

because um I was listening to another podcast and they were talking about

back in the day when Labor Ready was you know all the rage and it's like in order

to Labor Ready holy smokes in order to put something together like that right now and just focus on the flooring

industry so that way people have the coverage what would something like that take because you'd have to set up you

know pretty much an office in every state or have someone running every state because

of how different things are state to state and then I mean if you look over here

just are spinning you go half the state and this half the state is covered by this

Health Care coverage and this half the state is covered by this Health Care coverage so in order to put something

together that that could one you know unify the industry and have us

become stronger that way but you're also classifying people as employees getting

the coverage that they need and paying them on a W-2 rather than a

1099 you know it's it'd be great to have something like that

but how would something like that well if you if you have W-2 employees you

ought to be able to put them underneath your company's health insurance you know it's this it's the subs that are kind of

left out to dry on from a health insurance perspective and yes they can go to healthcare.gov and get individualized

but it made me start thinking about the hsas uh help I've seen those wheels

turning and maybe I wonder if that's not a good mechanism we got off a little bit of the topic here but it all builds back

to we actually care about the dang installations that's your family yeah it's your family

right you want to make sure that you're you're thinking of every aspect you can to take care of them is really what it

is I'm gonna look into that a little bit like you know you got so many miles on your knees and all these guys are like

working weekends if you ain't working weekends are you really even a flooring installer look at it in terms of our machine mean

if our machine gets broken we gotta take some time off of that

machine you know like if that battery starts dying let me go plug it in it

requires maintenance plugging in that's a hell of a good thought especially like the big the right on it

works for eight hours and then you got it it's done you kind of plug it in and

that's funny we we expect uh a lot of times and I'm guilty as this as anybody

for this but yeah you expect your uh your human um machine to be more and more more of a

machine than an actual machine in a lot of ways you know your your human um you know the installers I don't know

how to say it but your your twin said that's why you get propane but apparently he's never worked in a hospital so we'll uh yeah let him slide

on that of course the hospital or school or a food service area a retirement home or

most the places that we work yeah or an occupied building sorry Danny

now propane has its place bud but yeah I just think that uh I wonder

if that that I'm going to look into that I'll report guys are just getting in right now we got Zach coming in we're

talking about the team right now so it's only right that we talk to a team member awesome

welcome so I can see your face this is Zach he's the one that was doing

his brother's house refinishing the wood and seeing me working on a Saturday

good welcome to the Huddle man so uh I'm gonna put the guys on the spot

here a little bit we're talking about building relationships with Crews um I own a commercial flooring company

in in Kansas and so we were just throwing back and forth some best practices

from your perspective um what do these guys do really well from the relationship building with the

cruise uh perspective um yeah I don't really do well when I'm

putting on the spot man to be honest with you well you did well I'll tell you this

um it's just like talking the way you just did right then which is real authentic and and real is it um is it uh

let me get see if I can lead along do you feel like they care about you

yeah for sure and uh

what what do they do that give me an example of something that

they've done or do that makes you feel like they actually do give a crap uh they took us out

go-kart racing once I got to smoke those guys and go cars there you go Heat team building stuff

like that sometimes sometimes you gotta let people win to build their confidence

on the first lap and then end up winning the next one

hey my twin knows something about some go-karts too oh yeah propane propane go-karts do you guys

remember that on CFI when he got like T-boned on those fast go-karts like

broke some ribs and stuff Danny tell us a story for that one yeah we were at a CFI uh and went out uh

Team Building thing went racing those uh go-karts the fast ones Danny got I think he broke some ribs

anyway yeah so thanks Reuben so hey let me let me add something let me add

something here so everybody that Zach also known as Zach you glass or the

ghost president

even when he messes up he's the goat but um in his free time but dude likes to

blow glass and his his artistic uh views uh uh on his pieces that he makes

that stuff amazes me like I've I've purchased some of his stuff too and I've shared this stuff I even

tried to sell his stuff in a store um at the mall because I know that he's passionate about it outside of work I

just had to get involved with that Zach how did you get how did you get started blowing glass you're in it now bro

you're in it you might as well yeah I uh I just uh I saw somebody do soft blast when I was a kid my dad always did

stained glass so you're in it now so um but yeah it's funny story I actually uh

just did a Google search one day and I found some guy's phone number on yellowpages.com and I just called him up

one day and was like Hey man want to learn how to make pipes did you even know what the Yellow Pages were before

oh yeah it's not that young yeah but how old are you sir I'm about

to be 30 in a couple weeks all right you're still a youngster in my book pal

well that's cool that's a this is one of his pieces that he made me

this is um maybe butt plug

that's great yeah so yeah you got got into uh

blowing glass Jose and Daniel does this uh does his artistic abilities come

through in his uh flooring install I think I think his

his patience to be able to do something really comes through because blowing

glass is not just like I'm gonna get this done real quick he's told me how much you know work goes into this and

it's like that patience Factor really helps them out I think because

he's one of the guys that you can send them to to do something and you know that

he's going to go over there it might take him a little bit of time but I'm not gonna have to worry about that spot

at all anymore it'll be golden and we don't know if it's really

patients or like all the chemicals that he breathes in because he doesn't wear a mask or anything so

and we we kind of talked earlier too about um

trying to try not to work weekends and stuff because we know you guys have hobbies and for you to to spend your

weekends blowing glass is a lot better for your recharge cycle than it is to if

we would be like well guys you gotta work Saturday and Sunday this week you know

you kind of got to make time for the things that you like to do rather than the things that you need to do

yeah it shows you care not just you but like they care

you know if I'm guilty of uh not having a heck of a lot of hobbies because I work so much and I wouldn't wish that on

people so uh having having um some time off man I can't I can't

have a better example than our our ride-on machine I'm sorry I'm stuck on that like it is like that is a great

analogy comparison yeah eight hours of work and you're you're done and you got

to plug that thing in and recharge it and so humans we need that too so

all right guys hey we are nearing the end of the Huddle and I say this every

week but an hour goes by really fast Zach Bristol said that he made her a butt plug too but hers is bigger so she

can use it slightly better it's called shrapnel okay all right we

got off course Technologies guys Zach you're obviously a talented uh glassblower and uh flooring installer

thanks for joining us today and stuff you can find him on Instagram he does a lot of his work on Instagram right yeah

Instagram slash uh instagram.com

glass all right we'll give Zach a follow and check out

some of his work guys thanks again I do want to bring up the the um

board progress scholarship again um you got there's there's still some time

left to apply for that scholarship uh that go career has put on with uh in in

um Unison with the fcica so if you're an installer and you want to learn a little

bit more of the management side of the business and it will help your

installation career I promise you that uh get on and apply uh it's on all of

our socials I'm pretty sure I know it's on GoPro I do another route of sharing that again too to to get more people

signed up I go see you too Zacky fill it out fill it out brother yeah get on there it's a great program man it's it's

uh I think it's value to like 12 or 1300 dollars and it's it's an awesome program and uh

so that being said guys I'm gonna sign us out uh I appreciate everybody's uh

input this was a great great podcast I'm I'm really happy uh I learned some stuff

and and uh we'll go back and apply some of it so thanks again Zach nice to meet

you yeah you too all right everyone signing out see you guys later