The Huddle - Episode 27 - Relationships Pt. 2 - General Contractors
This week on The Huddle Paul, Daniel, Jose continue their 4-part series on relationships, this week on General Contractors.
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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.
what's up everybody and welcome to the
Huddle where we come at you every week to discuss maintaining forward progress in your flooring career with me as
always Mr Daniel and Mr Jose Gonzalez out of Michigan
and uh this week you spell it h-o-s-a
yes Jose with an H no uh this week we are continuing a
series on relationships and this week is on General Contractors so uh we're gonna
kick this thing off um with a question
when you guys have started your your uh dealing with general contractors in the
in the past how was the beginning of the relationship and did you ever experience
happen to um maintain that relationship you know a little bit differently I say
that because you know maintaining that relationship with general contractor if you're doing
a lot of work for a particular GC um it's not if you're going to have have
a conflict it's when and when you have that first conflict maybe your buddies and you formed a good
relationship and then you got a problem and this is the first problem you've come up against
how has that worked for you guys in the past and uh I've got some stories on it as well so
um yeah when we start with that how do you guys start your relate you know pick a
relationship you've got with the GC and how did it get started and then how did you maintain a good relationship with
them so um I'm just going to start out with fortunately for us the relationship with
these generals started uh prior to Preferred flooring so we were able to
establish a relationship with them and it wasn't always
um easy or nice right because we kind of had to follow behind other installers that
always made promises but didn't perform so they just kind of you know whatever you say they're not going to respect it
um but after after we started preferred flooring we had uh a better reputation
um then so it was a lot easier to ask for certain
areas a lot easier I don't want to say favors right because we were a little bit smarter a little bit older more patient
we're able to fill out the situation and understand what direction the
conversation should go so that way we could meet their deadlines and we can get the areas that we felt we needed and
that the areas that we felt we could um have complete by uh the deadline that
they set forth or exceed their deadline so specifically what was
some of those I mean you guys obviously like you just said Jose is you already
had some they already had no good knowledge of how you guys work and how you guys uh operate ahead of time
um so they kind of understood you before they started writing you before you got
into the position where they're writing new contracts is that what you're saying correct gotcha as far as like the
troubles like all right guys man we're cleanup crew right we get stuck with everybody's
stuff Gotta Move It gotta clean it the electricians are our favorite people um
drywallers painters I mean you you name it no we have to deal with it um so some
of the common problems that we deal with is obviously rooms not being ready like
people's stuff in there and I always say that you know every trade thinks they have it
bad but flooring does have it a little tougher because everybody walks on the
floor right you don't walk on the walls you can have two or three painters in one room and and a ceiling an
electrician putting in outlets and no problem but we take up an entire floor space so
a little bit more difficult so getting areas cleaned out and ready for the cruise that's been a problem uh another
problem is overspray from painters and who's going to clean that up and and drywallers as well uh all excessive
drywall mud you know if it's a little bit it's going to come up sander if it's excessive you know it doesn't and or it does but
it takes videos of like piles and it wasn't even drywall it was like the
fireproofing from them spraying yeah like dry fall and stuff like that and
it's like protecting the substrate from other people working you know we we fight a
lot with the painters especially if we're doing like if a lot of our Assisted Living projects have painted
wood base and they just go through and paint and there's this thick thing of
of paint you know uh foot off of the out onto the concrete and
it's got to come up and instead of taking a 10 foot piece of cardboard with them to protect it as they spray
you get that Now setting those expectations early is is uh good and
pre-construction meetings and such but uh and then cleaning out having rooms
cleaned out I you mentioned electricians they're like notorious for coming in after we've cleaned a room and putting
in Outlets or something and you can wire nuts and little pieces of electrical
crap everywhere and then they're gone took them three minutes
they're in and out before we're even we even notice it and then we got to re-clean the room
so those are some of the common problems but that's with other trades but it is the gc's you know it's their project so
that's who we deal with in those matters mostly I think you know like especially since we're some of the last ones in
there what we don't really take into consideration when you know talking to GCS is how much they actually have to
deal with like we only have to worry about the floors but they're in there and they're worrying about everything
so and to go in there and be like all right I understand that
you have to deal with everything but I still need my stuff done and just
showing them that understanding can actually go a long way yeah okay and you had mentioned uh the
painters in the overspray and you know some of that too like understanding the
product that's going down and then relaying that to the general prior to that area being painted primed or if you
walk through on a progress meeting you're doing a walkthrough you notice that they're priming and they're spraying and it's everywhere you say hey
this can't happen like I have to remove that and if some of them's like just spill over like
here's uh here's the information I'm just going to send it over to you go ahead and read that if uh if you can't
you can't defer responsibility right because you're telling them what can't be done yeah and and that's where
being up front in your delivery um can go a long way um with with a general
well and you start to form those relationships as well if you're in commercial you'll see the same painters
on jobs and the same electricians and and eventually you form relationships
with those people too and and that's why relationships to us is so important like
I just go up to the head painter I'm like hey man remember on that last job he left me a bunch of overspray don't be
doing that on this one okay man you know or whatever so it's like having relationships with the other
subcontractors on the project is important as well I think that that tends to help as much as how you deal
with your GC because your GC sees that you're working with the other trades to work through problems and not always
just going and attacking them on everything and they tend to appreciate that a lot when you can work together
more important actually because I've been seeing that a lot in the the
the bids that come through is them pretty much saying that you you're you
on it's your responsibility to get with the other trades to make sure that everyone's going to be working together like they just
I guess they're sick of dealing with it and rightfully so like I said they got a lot on their plate
yeah um they still are the general contractor and they are still you know
you still there's a level of holding them accountable to to and I think that's the biggest
dichotomy of this relationship thing with the GC is holding them accountable to doing their job so that you're not
you know tasked with doing it um every single project but at the same
time doing enough that they know that they're valuable to you
that you that that is the problem with the that relationship with the GC as a
client is you want your client to know that you care about them and you give
them a good experience but at the same time you have these these dichotomies these other things that you can't go
above and and Beyond every single time or else it's expected and you're gonna have to start figuring some some extra
money to cover all these additional costs you incur for cleaning out rooms or scraping you know what I mean so how
do you guys deal with that with that Balancing Act I think it's just a matter of
communication [Music] um if if we're not happy with something or we
we're able to have the foresight on a situation um going in because we recognize a
certain crew or we've worked with um ex-company a few times that we understand the nature in which
their supervisors have them operate it makes it a lot easier to uh to
to foresee some issues and to bring them up in a professional manner also is
making sure that there is a representative from the flooring side um during some of the earlier progress
meetings on some of the larger projects or even the smaller ones so that way you can speak your piece in the beginning so
that way it's not a shock you know there are four meetings in and nobody from the
flooring has shown up and and represented themselves
uh so they've already prepped around all of that and we haven't had a say so I think
it's a matter of communication representation uh that kind of falls into play so being being involved in the
meetings a lot of flooring people have bad reputation for that I think flooring
overall does uh I know that even we struggle to get to every job meeting we
do between four and five hundred projects a year and we struggle to get to every job meeting and so trying to
get to a pre-con meeting at least to set expectations uh is the very minimum we
try to get done and then we go you know there are certain jobs you kind of know
where it's going to be an easy project it's running smooth it's all set up real
nice there's not a lot of dependencies you know maybe it's new construction and you had a real good progress or a
pre-con meeting and it runs well and you don't have to go to every job meeting and then there's those ones you got to
babysit and uh be at every single job meeting so sometimes it can be tough and
I find that The Balancing Act is something we may have talked about offline which is once you kind of do
something for them just don't do it and let it go right you said something about
that Daniel like you follow it up with an email or something like hey we clean
this area out or we scrape this and pictures are worth their weight in gold I'm I'm dealing
with uh something right now on a project where you know there's there's moisture coming
through and I took pictures and stuff early on because I'm like hey guys there's some
moisture issues going on here and you know we're using something that or they use something that you don't
need to do moisture testing so it's like all right if you guys are gonna be
saying all that I'm gonna do it and I'm just letting you know that this is what's going to happen and
now it's happening so the conversation isn't I told you so
it's I have pictures you know you can't really just blame it on me because I
told you it was gonna happen but also what can we do in order to remedy the
situation what does you know the client want are we going to be able to get in there at certain times do they want a
moisture test now and it's is becoming a partner in every aspect of
you know the job it's you're a partner with the
GC you're a partner with you know all the other trades because everyone it all boils down to everyone
is there to make money the GC is there to make money and we keep on calling it GC but it could be a CM you know
construction manager but we're it's a broad term that we use we call everyone gc's because that's what that's what
we've always called them but it's it's a partnership because if if I know they're making money
I know I can make money we know they can make money as long as everyone's working together
yeah so those Partnerships what what makes it a partnership is the fact
that you guys have that we all have a common goal right like we the common
goal is to get the job done in an efficient manner and make money like most of what matters the most and I I
this is another point I had written down what's important to your general
contractor or your construction manager or whoever you are working with in this conversation we'll keep that to CMS and
ngcs construction managers and general contractors or see them at risk as a
overall you know Builder to commercial builders
um what is important to them I can tell you on most jobs and each one will have
some other things but on every job it's going to be schedule and budget yes
right you're not going to get away from those two and then others will add some more
to it but those two if you know your gc's biggest especially your on-site
contact so your superintendent or project Foreman their main goal man is
to get the job done they they don't care about much else how do they get the job done efficiently
and if you compose your problem as a almost as a solution meaning hey
man if you can make sure that the painter protects the concrete it's going to make us come in and out we can get
done with this area in two days in and out and you can turn it back we can turn it back over to you but if we have to
spend two or three days removing paint it's just going to make this longer
and then they're you're kind of giving them a benefit to take care of the problem so that you knowing that
schedule is their big concern um that's worked well for us in the past
uh I think that also working with the other trades that we
mentioned earlier you know if you can go up to the painter and make him aware and then you're still able to turn over that
area in two days and they you know a lot of times uh we've worked with G season
they're like man I would I didn't think it would go this fast you know it's sometimes you just don't realize how
much you can get down in a day if you're a high quality if you have high quality Crews on it and uh so a lot of that's
communication like you mentioned earlier but it's communicating the right message right and it's always
it's communicating letting them know what you're going to have done and also getting done what you say you're going
to have done yeah under promise and over deliver that's uh for sure the best way to
um when you over deliver you th project that they'll see you on but
you like I don't say you but I like to go back and say hey I don't want to
promise that because there's variables in there that we just can't factor in yet so I'm still going to say this is a
seven Working Day project knowing in my head that I want to try to get it done in five six or five still going to be
seven days in my head but the goal is to get it done before that seven then then you're the uh
you're the Savior you've done you've gone above and beyond but you've really
done nothing but stay on task
yeah and so when you guys we talked about the day-to-day interaction as a
relationship what do you guys do for GCS to show them you appreciate them
yeah we've taken them out to lunch um
I think just general conversation man it can't always be about work um if you're a people person you're
going to be able to read um a little bit of the energy that they're pushing out right if they're
under a little bit of stress when you're having a conversation um I like to just Comfort them a little bit not like you know give them a hug
and cry on my shoulder man though it's more like hey dude hey I know you're under a lot of stress I see it so don't
worry man let's work together we got this we're here to have your back so that way we can make you look good we
want to make sure that your client loves what you're doing we want to make sure that everybody else here is happy with you but in order to do that these are
the steps that we need and this is what we would like to see in order for us to
be more efficient if you're going to use me to push everybody then just know that
I need the floor to do the floor and once I get it done you can cover it up you can have it back you know depending
on what material you can have it back pretty quick um but just give me this area and then
you can store whatever you want in here just just and let it sit and that goes back to the relationships too right because
you said what do we do for them to show them that we appreciate them we were uh we were on this project and it's the
first time we ever worked with this guy you know we've worked with numerous other people within the construction company but it was like
he had a lot of pushback and as at one point he was like can you just do this
and I said No and then he was like no you're gonna do this and then walked away so what did I do what I wanted to
do and I closed off an entire area and this was you know first thing in the morning and by three o'clock he came
back over there he was like you really got all that done I said I told you I was going to get it done
and that that was you know the building of that relationship and then the last project we were on with him and you know
I had we had regular meetings in it in the meetings he he pretty much you know
he started with me Daniel what do you need let everyone know because you're pushing like you're running this project
yeah that's that's both okay good and bad to that too you being
the driver um because then execution like you have to execute nice so you
know you get a crew that gets sick or you get a an installer that doesn't show up it was during covet so it was okay
[Laughter] you did
so um yeah just to touch a bit on one thing
with General Contractors if anybody that's watching this hasn't dealt with General Contractors on construct on
contract projects so you get a contract from a GC
contractually you know there's there's um rules to you know bid rigging or that
what they feel might be uh encroaching on ethics and such
um so just remember that if if you offer something to a general contractor and
they refuse it doesn't always mean that they um don't want it just they don't want to
appear to be uh being bribed or something like that to give you work uh
We've ran across that a few times on some larger General Contractors where you know we drop off gifts so during
Christmas and stuff and we've actually had them say hey we don't we don't accept gifts from subcontractors
and we're like okay we get it you know you just got to understand they don't want to have any perception that they're
you know that you're bribing them for work and that's not a bad thing but we
have had that happen and so as you're building the best way to build a relationship and the reason I asked that
question earlier is there's not a lot you can do with them outside of just
being authentically building a relationship with them like you mentioned Jose like actually talking to
him about stuff other than work and um you know performing and and the
day-to-day work that you have with them on a project showing them you care and
those things and that that you're executing and over delivering and under promising as you mentioned but sometimes
you can't gift them sometimes you can't um we used to do this thing I think I've mentioned it prior uh podcast at some
point but we used to this thing called uh like it was called Wichita trivia and so we'd send out an email every single
week to all of our general contractors and it'd be a simple question about Wichita
our hometown and its history and whoever won would get uh one of our season
tickets to the Kansas City Chiefs game for the the next home game
um we added GC call us one of his project managers had participated the owner
calls me and says hey we don't do this it's not allowed I said that's fine we'll take them up
we understand we're not doing any but I do want to point out this is everybody has equal chance this is a trivia and
not a gift so the only way he wins is if he has the right answer and he's the first one but he still didn't want to cross any
lines so you'll you'll run across some of that stuff uh that program died because the Kansas
City Chiefs at the time were terrible and people started saying hey uh we don't really want to go to that game
at the time we were like four and twelve so yeah anyway no and I I guess I didn't
realize that we have gifted quite a bit of you know our merchandise to to everyone and it's
typically usually around the holidays and stuff like that or you know just randomly on different projects we're
working with this guy bring him a hat and uh and a cup
um stuff like that someone is always like oh man your guys's
hoodies are so awesome and then you just lock that in there so that way in the next next project here goes the hoodie
yeah you know um and I don't I don't really think about it as bright
because uh for me from a personal perspective um you know playing softball I've gifted
umpires some of my knucklehead apparel you know hats and stuff like that shirts
uh even some of uh of the other jerseys that I've designed and
not with any expectation that I'm going to get any type of a preferential treatment because if anything they
actually they're harder on me after that because they don't want anybody to think that there is a special treatment there
but just because they like it and like you said you remember that oh you know they
like this hat they like this this jersey I just happen to have an extra one here you go I don't need it I mean yeah for
the most part I think it's most of the time it's accepted I just wanted to kind of throw it out there sometimes it's not
if you get shun don't take it personally is my point the very large GCS uh like our other
negotiated GCS they're like take me to take me golfing and take me out to dinner I'm good with it you know and
that's all cool too but uh just if you try to gift a general contractor and
they turn you down I I would recommend not doing that out of the gate like the first time you meet him don't
do that there's another relationship and then figure it out but uh at the end of
the day if they deny it for for that reason just don't take it personally just understand that there are General
Contractors that want to keep crisp lines uh their fiduciary duty to the
owner when they sign a contract with the owner to give them the best value of their project they want to make sure
they're not crossing any of those lines so don't just don't take it personal and I can see from uh from my work
perspective too that it does when you don't feel like you're uh personally invested in someone or a
company or emotionally invested it's a lot easier to make the logical decision
um or to uh stand your ground on on something you need to any issues or potential issues
um when when you don't feel that there's a a relationship that could be ruined uh
there as well so I get it yeah I mean floor guys like swag right
you guys got some of the best swag in the business I just got a question texted to me
uh I don't know if they're unable to comment but it's hold on a second
yeah any questions what about when the GC is asking you to
do something that's not best long term for the owner foreign
I'm reading into this as hey just install it or just do it type stuff and
you know you can't because in three to five years it's gonna fail maybe it gets you past your warranty but you know at
our company we care about the end user because we know if we care about them enough it it's taking care of the GC but
they're sometimes a conflict there so I think that's where the question kind of comes from is you know what what if the
what the GC is asking you to do is not the best long term for the owner of the
building that's going to be occupying the facility We've ran into this a lot right and um
early on uh as we were you know a subcontractor to other flooring stores
so we were you know subbing down only we weren't full service it was always them pushing us probably
because the GC was pushing them and it was it was then when we were like
there's when you know something isn't gonna perform the way that it needs to
that's your name on the line that's no one else's name on the line right so
you we've been through it to where even though the flooring store told us
to do it we're getting thrown under the bus so that was kind of the end of that
where it was like all right if I know it's not gonna perform the way it needs to I'm not gonna do it and then when we
started getting pushed back from that it's when you start expanding your knowledge even more it's like I'm not
gonna do it and this is why and this is where you can find the information so
um we so how have you specifically dealt with that like
you don't have to name names but a specific scenario where we do quite a
bit of work in hospitals right so it's it's like look man if we do not do this
you have to start looking at the patients that are in here and the
health and their health right because um going back to moisture we we were on
a project where there was a moisture issue and you can tell like it has resilient on it now you rip it up
patch is all crumbling and stuff like that right and then it's like
they're they always come with well it looked fine before why can't you just make it look like that again yeah and
it's like listen that's my most dreaded response
it looked good before why do you have to remove this pressure sensitive glute that's over broad Loom
adhesive the file did just fine and and you just have to look at them and it's
like think about like money aside it's doing the right thing
man you got to have some Integrity sometimes and then like in the hospitals it's like this moisture
is going to affect the air quality because hospitals HVAC is running 24 7 and all it's going to do is keep on
moving that stuff around everywhere so you want to remedy the situation now or
really you're looking at if lawsuits can be spawned at any time
right and if they the more you dig the more you're going to find out so yeah certainly for neglect
it's just a matter of educating them the implications that they're putting
themselves under right is going to last you this window or you don't have to worry
about it anymore because we're gambling now you're going to be here and you want to gamble or we can just take care of it
and there is no Gamble and and the biggest thing is you know they they're
always like well are you gonna do it and especially you know these past few
years we're like no like this is where our contract ends and then you can find
someone else yeah I remember the exact job that started out like the very
I remember when we decided that that was going to be our we're not doing it and then Daniel never
lost a dime on the job I didn't take I think I think what you mentioned earlier the why is a big piece to this I
had a job where going into an area that's that was an old kitchen so it had drains and you
know slopes to drains and and it's being turned into an area it's going to have cubicles and carpet tile
and I I told him that we would have to level out every drain so that it's good
and level and they they the response was uh just patch it and we're okay that
we're gonna because I said you know you're gonna see some gaps and
you know because when you go down into a valley it's going to you're you're covering more square inches so it's
going to gap on you and so we explained that that wasn't enough and they were like well that that'll
we're fine with that and so would the owner bee so I got the furniture plan looked at that and there's going to be
people sitting where these drains are and I was like do you realize if we do this people are going to be like going
this way but their their cherries are going to be just moving around
and uh you know after they got that why it's like getting the right why uh they
were like okay well let me go present it to the owner I think part of the why and why the reason
I I and Drew that all out was because the why is what they need to go to the owner
and feel confident and asking for more money under given circumstances as well so it's not always the GC is just going
to pay you out of their pocket they're they're trying to recoup the money right from the owner so they need your why and
and you know there there's been projects lately where that's that's happened and it's like they're like all right we need
you to kind of dumb it down for us and then once I do that they're like okay this is something we could take to
the owner and and that's how that that conversation is all right now we can go talk to him
she brought up a few times [Music]
well let's just have a meeting let's get the owner involved let's all have a sit down and let's explain to them because
if you want me to explain it to them so that way you're not the bad guy you're not the messenger I have no problem
doing that um because I don't know how many owners of large buildings or any facilities are going to cut some of those small Corners
if they're not getting the full value out of their install they're not going to want to hear
it could fail or it is going to fail well and later it's all excuses now it's
you know on the front side it's it's the why on the back side it's an excuse so
if you do it and it fails or you do it and the end user has a bad experience
with what you did then everything you say seems like an excuse as opposed to
presenting it on the front side it's the reason why you want to do it a certain way
and sometimes it's not always money it could be just a scheduled situation they
don't they don't want you to do it because they want you done tomorrow and what you're proposing is going to take an extra two days or something
but that's where it's nice to have multiple things in the toolbox and not be so set on you know one manufacturer
or something like that because there's plenty of times where like this can this is available and this can
work right now they it's right here you know it does it cost more yeah but
we're gonna stick to that schedule yeah yeah being creative with that that
brings up a good point being creative with solutions to the problems that are inevitably going to come up on projects
uh the GC really any general contractor will appreciate your efforts in being
creative with your with Solutions when it comes to either budget or schedule
um many times I'm sure you guys have been through value engineering on projects and sometimes it's schedule
sometimes it's you know trying to get the cost down and either way when you
come with Creative Solutions um you know they certainly appreciate
those types of deals too especially when it's both when it's this carpet is in stock and it's going to save you 8 500
yeah that's that one yeah that's what we like to call a win-win that's what you like to call the
building blocks of a great relationship yeah and that's pretty you know those are those are it's
awesome when you get into those scenarios where you can provide a true win-win cheaper
are more affordable I hate using that word cheaper but it's more affordable and
it's going to save you it's available right now yeah it's good to know your options
especially now with all the uh shipping issues
religious and yeah options so if you had a GC sitting across from
you right now that you did not know what would you guys say about yourself to kick off a
good relationship with them I guess this happens quite a bit we just
had a meeting a couple weeks ago with uh someone that called us and
we we try and and say that we're transparent right and we're
We're not gonna try nickel and Diamond because we've been on the other side of
that when that's what that company's doing and we're trying to tell you how to do it right it's this is my number man this is pretty pretty close to where
it's going to be if not a little cheaper for you and and that's what you get with us
um not only that it's our work really speaks for ourselves so
it's not going and hey let me get this huge project this
like uh you know our buddy Brian westmas told us you know a few years ago he's
like man I don't need the whole job just give me a closet let me let me do that closet let me go
blow your mind with this closet then then we can talk about something else but let me start out with getting my foot in the door give me at
least something so that way we can we can start out a relationship yep so I I've actually had
excuse me I've actually had uh conversations with general contractor before
that what went something to this extent you
guys that them talking to me they they say you guys your quality is excellent but you're difficult to deal with
yeah and I I said well in what regard well you guys are always all there's
always a problem on a job and with other contract flooring companies we don't have those problems and it typically
comes from we moisture test everything and there's a moisture problem or and here's the solution we try not to bring
a problem without some solutions um or this needs leveled or this needs
skim coated or this needs floated out this is not in the bid this is and
I said I can't speak to what the other flooring companies are doing I can only tell you that we are
Factory trained people where where we understand flooring we've been in this a
long time and we just want what's best for your owner we don't want to shortchange the job and this is the
reason why and you know they they tend to understand that but
somehow you have to make it Pleasant for them to to deal with you in
some ways so we've loosened up um softened the message it some of it
was our delivery some of it was our guys our field staff being too blunt like
nope we're not doing it until we do this yeah there's definitely definitely a way
to deliver that yeah just soften the message a bit a little bit differently and and
understand that what their what they care about they care about their schedule and you're trying to blow it up or they care about their budget and
you're trying to blow it up so you got to recognize what you're doing and then deliver uh appropriately
no we're just Messengers man the the floor they also don't they also don't like feeling like you're
uh you know holding their job hostage right and you're not trying to but it
can feel that way to him sometimes so I don't know it's a those scenarios are
a lot of uh case-by-case matters on how you deal with them but you know
uh sometimes you gotta put your foot down and do do the right thing for the
project even in conflict with your GC sometimes
in my experience uh through that scenario right there um someone who's been in charge of
projects a little bit [Music] a little bit push that like hurry up hurry up get it done I don't care it is
I had that experience with um not just flooring installers but contractors who are saying just say okay
you know the yes contractors yes sir right away I'll just go ahead and do it wrong for you because you're asking me
um they've already had their fair share of failures and as they get older and
smarter they understand stop all right let's explain this a little bit more like Daniel said not
necessarily dumb it down but let's put it in terminology that can be expressed across this boardroom so everyone can
understand it um but then you get the new guys who have just been put in the position of leadership and they're trying to
Flex their muscles a certain dominance yeah they're trying to try not trying to um you know make a name for themselves
they're just like no no no my way or the highway um
but at the end they they are going to still no matter if they are going to dinner with you three
nights a week and shaking your hand when when they're put underneath uh that much pressure you know they're gonna bust and
they're gonna they're gonna put it on whoever is whoever's in that trade it's not gonna be like I told them
the issue was brought up they never came with a solution so I figured that everything was taken care of you know there's a way to there's always a
workaround uh as far as verbalizing uh somebody else's responsibilities yeah
well I like your guys's um attitude towards gc's as being a partner
um as understanding their needs and you try to you know make life as easy for
them as possible but not at your own demise I mean that's kind of how we look
at it we try really hard um you know not too long ago
um a specific situation has come up you know a couple years ago when all
manufacturers used to have uh if you're chemically if you're abating a
uh asbestos floor and you use chemicals they would have different ways you could
skim coat and that well they've all completely like Mohawk the big the big
manufacturers completely said do not install our product over chemically abated floors
they don't have a solution so now you got to go search for a solution and we had this situation come up when Mohawk
uh this was a mohawk project uh had first basically said
that year that no more of our products can be uh installed over chemically
evaded floors period they didn't really have a solution but that was the problem we ended up
finding some different solutions through uh multiple manufacturers from pay and
some others scouring agent with a uh you know a primer system
uh uh we came up with Solutions and now there's more solutions as the as that
goes on but it reminds me of what you said earlier that like it looked good before and so I I've I that's what I got
told is we've done this plenty of times and I've been doing this for 20 years and we've done it this way I understand
sir and I understand that maybe a lot of your projects haven't had failures but
Mohawk or these other big manufacturers have had and it's not just Mohawk all
the big boys did this but they've had enough failures from this
that now they've separated themselves from the problem entirely so it does fail uh it can fail and so here are some
solutions and we had to work through that as a church project with a very good GC of ours and it kind of was a
tough one man because we had to explain to them why this has always been okay in the past
and now it's not and so those scenarios come up and it only it only works
um I shouldn't say it only works it works best if you have a good relationship with them and you show them
and you have shown them in the past that you're only trying to do the right thing and not make an extra dollar off the
thing you're just trying to do what's right for the owner right and I think that's where a lot of the
the training comes in right because you're you're constantly educating yourself and then you're taking that
education to the GCS um one of the the GCS that we work with if you look in their quality standards
manual they contacted me to kind of go over it and before before they published it and
every single flooring picture in there was one of our projects something that
we did and then you know for them to reach out to us and say hey can you you know
in division nine to make sure that you know that this pertains to what you guys are pushing out there and not only that
it's like this this other project that we're
on it and we're having issues now we're with the moisture and it's like well how do you know that's what it is
I'm certified I'm certified to test this the the concrete because my job to know
and then they're like oh we didn't know that well yeah so when I tell you that
you know these things are going to be happening and stuff like that I'm not doing it just to like you said I'm not trying to just pad my pocket and nickel
and dime you it's man this is we can remedy this situation now and not have
to worry about it later any GCS or CMS out there that are that join us or see it later on just to let you guys know no
flooring installer wants to add more onto their list when they're going in so if you're like mad at them because you
feel they're pickle and diming you trust me they do not want to do any mitigation systems they do not want to go I tell
extra work like we don't want to do that it's just a matter of protecting ourselves our livelihood is at risk I
tell them all the time we would love it nothing more than if we just come in and the job's ready and the concrete's fine
and everything's hunky-dory and we come in and knock it out that is our ideal
solution or our ideal situation adding three days of that they don't have in
their schedule of mitigation and leveling is not ideal for us that's not we don't want the added pressure it's
not worth the little bit of money that you do make I'd rather go in and be ready and everything be perfect
sometimes you know you the the little bit of money you make doing that still costs you a bunch of money that you
could be making on a different project yeah exactly and and I'm glad you you
guys said that I'm glad you actually talked to the GCS there uh Jose and told
them I mean the the fact is we're not we don't want that we just soon it be ready
and we come in we're most efficient make the most money when we sell you product and go install it efficiently and we
bill you and right ideally if we could walk in a job site and start installing
we'd be happy yeah you mentioned training earlier and I I
think that's a good uh spot to throw out that a lot of what you guys
have said and a lot of what I speak to is the stuff that's in the cim
right yeah a lot of that how you deal with people and building relationships there's good aspects of that in the cim
training so again just to remind the audience we have uh the Ford progress
scholarship for uh the fcica's cim program and that stands for certified
installation manager but it's really great for project managers install managers and
installers if you guys can get that go I wish I I'm hoping that a ton of
installers go and apply because you understanding what you the field people
are thinking or the office people are thinking a lot of them have been through similar training or that training so you
understanding how they've been trained will help you deal with a store that you may be a southern work out of or what
have you so everybody go go and um sign up for the Ford progress
scholarship it's a 1300 ish dollar value and it's a great program so
and it's uh and just to shed a little bit of light on that too it's like a bird's eye view of someone else's
responsibilities it it puts you in someone else's shoes for a little bit so you're like kind of like the Ghost of
Christmas Past right you're up here watching it and you're learning what's going on and you can you can see where
some corrections could be made or you can go about things a little bit differently to help yourself and and
help the company be more profitable help yourself be more uh efficient there's just a it's just a good program yeah and
and it's no different than the reason why you guys may uh an office person may
go get trained on the actual installation uh methods or go through a training to
install something because we want to know how it happens this is the installer's uh uh opportunity to do the
same like go and figure that out who you got with you there this is Macy my
youngest Macy hi Macy she has no chill she don't care that we're live right now
this is Voltron right here come say hi Voltron my son Caleb hey Caleb
uh nice to meet you welcome to the Huddle guys this is the true huddle now we have a
big team to get right then we did um Dirk did ask a question about giving away his some of his
apparel but he's a residential installer and he's been thinking about giving his t-shirts to his clients he doesn't know
if that's a good idea or not but I think it all depends on you know if your clients actually want
one it depends on how good of a job you do too dirt like if you if you didn't do a good job don't give it to them but
well I think that in general it's um
you got to give them something that they're going to value and not something that you value so
um you know sometimes giving away your swag with some some generals or some
clients I should say it's you know absolutely you know something they want
and then some may not so I think that's where a lot of this stuff comes in right yeah
something like this that's useful for everyone that they're going to use and then not necessarily a shirt that
they're gonna have in their claws that are just give away at some point so if they say that they want a shirt
definitely give them a shirt but something like this that's going to be useful to them you know on a daily basis
is more valuable um with as far as the shirts and stuff I'll take a shirt I'll represent me too
I'll tell you one little trick that I've seen um I didn't do it but I'm gonna steal it
so I noticed uh a GC wearing a Carhartt with his logo with the general
contractor's logo and then real small on the sleeve is the subs name
hmm so he made it for him with his logo on
it and then he put their their the supplier put their name
on the side here just real small not so small personal take their yeah I thought
that was kind of clever John right in front of them just sew it on
yeah I thought that was pretty clever all right well guys we have come to the end of the podcast again I want to tell
you both I appreciate you guys coming on and and sharing your experience I hope the audience got some um
some valuable little nuggets I mean a lot of this stuff is find that one nugget that might help you in your next
interaction with your client and if so it was worth your uh half hour or hour
that you spent on this podcast I can guarantee you that so all right I think
that you know if they look at it as everything that they do is a partnership they're not ruler of the world they're
not the almighty it's all right what how can I help you help me like how can we
do this together I think that that'll open things up to um
better opportunities later on when when they're working with GCS because that's 100 what's happened to us and it makes
it so that way they know that you're not just there to let me just do everything I have to do real quick and run over
everyone it's like let's make this a machine how can I be part of that machine yeah another another takeaway for me for
an experience and I just wanted to share this real quick is um we were on a project one time and the
this was uh through another flooring company and the guy who hired us
um I was letting them know the issues and the potential Solutions and when he told me kind of stuck with me he said
you're always trying to give someone gold when they can only afford bronze and my
my um rebutter to that was if bronze is all they can afford it's
still their investment no matter what right now we didn't do very well on that
job labor only we didn't do very well we didn't come out on top and hit a number
that that we needed to hit to appear profitable however we over delivered we
went above and beyond for the client and regardless of the company that introduced us to them
those people remembered that and that that company that could only afford bronze can now afford platinum and we
are a preferred vendor for them so it's just some of those little things right there that can go a long way you're
building relationships now that might not help you for two years but you're
still building it well there you go that's an investment on that's your gold investment on your side right I mean
that's the investment you put into your to your client for long term uh relationships
and uh they're asking for the link for the the program I think I'll go ahead
and copy and paste it on um on the streams that are live right now
so that way people can do it and I mean Google career has been blasting out some
stuff so it if what's the best we would love to see more people actually on here
and and talking and asking questions I mean live is great too but
um once you get on you know the mailing list for go Carrera then you're gonna get these they get
reminders hey don't forget sign up for this scholarship yeah so I get them even
though I can't there you go me either so
um in most of our social media it's in our bio so on our Instagram uh right even on
my mailing list you could we'll get it that way um if you uh let's see so we got one more podcast
before the comp but before it closes on the 15th I think is that correct Ashland
so we have one more uh maybe we'll start it with uh tossing uh tossing it up
somewhere maybe we can change your screen your screen image and put the link on as your screen image and
everybody can see ICA emails they're even sending it
out so yeah but look for that um on the podcast platforms ad I put it
out on two I have a link in there as well yeah so even if you don't watch us live
like some of these guys you know we see a lot of the same guys every week but it's out there yeah well people are
watching it maybe we'll put in our bio and on YouTube as well because I know
that some people are going there and watching it later so we'll we'll add that we'll add the link to our YouTube
uh Channel today so hopefully that helps some people out to
get uh get on and and uh sign up for that scholarship guys so
all right guys I appreciate you again we'll see you next week and uh I feel like with the uh the the
Huddle we ought to at the end go ready great
all right see you guys next week all right take it easy bye