The Huddle - Episode 59 - So You Want to be a Commercial Contractor pt. 3- Getting Paid
The guys will be continuing to part 3 of a 3-part series on the key things you need to address when you are starting your commercial flooring company. This week the guys are joined by special guest Dana Canaday, while they talk about getting paid and all the ways to do it.
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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.
welcome to the Huddle uh welcome back we're coming to you every Tuesday 3 P.M
Central with me as always Jose and Daniel Gonzalez from preferred flooring
up in Grand Rapids Michigan got a special guest today Dana Canaday
which uh Dana is a controller at our other company Stewart Associates as a so
she does a lot with payments and such which is our topic today so uh this is the third part final part
to a three-part series um so you want to be a commercial flooring company or contractor and uh
I would come out and say the very first thing uh this is on getting paid if you
haven't watched previous two episodes you have got to go watch those uh so go
to our YouTube channel subscribe uh you know throw us a like
um or visit one of preferred um social platforms or our social
platforms it's all over so watching those two is most important to today so
kicking that off um I'm just gonna come out and kind of refer back to last week so we were
talking about the g702 g703 really intriguing topics here but uh they are
they are the getting those two documents right
is probably the most important thing of you getting paid all the other stuff is
you know the lane waivers and such that varies on contract to contractor contractor to contractor uh whether or
not they require those but almost every single contract that you get is going to require those AIA documents again g702
and g703 which is the schedule values and your applications for payment
so that being said I'm going to start it off with a question to
um well let's just kick it off with our special guest Dana Dana we um
you've been in construction for how long tell us a little bit about yourself
and I I started out working um for a general contractor and actually
worked with them for quite a long time and before making the move to Stuart and Associates just
um a few months ago actually and also just thank you so much for having me on
today I have listened to your podcast and I think you guys are putting out some really great content and I think
it's going to be really helpful to the industry so thank you for committing to
getting that done and and thanks for having me on well we are very happy to have you
um yeah in your uh time frame at a general contractor so you're you're
really your Insight on on these topics is and there is going to be you know
really valuable because you've been on both sides of the payor and the the payee on
that we're addressing in this podcast which is your specialty contractors that work for you and you worked for a really
good contractor um that uh you know has a good reputation Doug builds quality projects
and also you know is a good payer uh we realize that that's just not the whole
industry and and the whole market so sometimes you got some
you know challenges out there and um without getting too specific could you
tell me some of the challenges when you were a GC what it was like to on getting
paid from owners uh since that's where it really kind of all starts
yeah great great question and I would also agree with you that you know having
that background of submitting the proper paperwork the first time is definitely the most important key to getting paid
whether you're a general contractor or a subcontractor because
um it's the first step in getting your pay application moved in line for
payment but I think um some other important tips for
um potentially risky um or you know not knowing whether or not you're getting paid is knowing who
you're doing business with you know understanding who your customer is and what
um kind of situation that they might be in um obviously that's not always possible
depending on the size of your company or the kinds of projects that you do but I
definitely think that that can help um in having a better you know
understanding of of even like how your pay applications are going to move
through their system um but I think some of the common reasons for non-payment is you know
funding um getting payment from um
on the GC side it could be you know from the bank or
um if there's other parties involved so that's like when a when a GC is working
for an owner who has a uh loan to build their building and they do a pay
application to the bank basically correct yeah that's exactly right and
sometimes it's also through the architect um so it kind of just depends on what
the project is um but definitely those things go all the way down the line as as
subcontractors are intimately familiar with right yeah yeah I think one of the challenges
for a sub is we don't get the chance to interview
um with the owner or really get intimate details on the owner
um so sometimes you know you'll have a project that goes really well we actually have one I won't mention the
name of the project but we have a project that went really well um and our payment has been
very very slow or held and you know it's it's the the owner
um and at the end of the day we don't have as much opportunity to investigate
and know who we're dealing with so what what would you say for a sub uh
which is the seat you sit in now what do you say like does
do you look at because I kind of consider looking at the general contractor if they're good payers then
and they have a good reputation to pay and then they're pretty good at vetting their ownership of who they do work for
is that is that a good statement or is there more to it I I definitely
at least what you know like knowing who the owners are as a
subcontractor you can do the same thing with the GCS that you're working with in
understanding how they determine even what projects they're going to bid or
um you know and I I feel getting into construction like one of the things that I love is that it's so relational
um and I I loved hearing stories when I first started of people being able to do million dollar projects on a handshake
you know and we just don't live in the day and age where you can really do that anymore but it's really just about like
honoring your word and um knowing who you're doing business with even if that's the GC I think that
helps in you know all of the whole process you
know Daniel and Jose how do you guys go about do you guys uh
you know we've all got the contracts that say uh things like uh reference the
master contract between the owner and the and the company supersedes this contract in certain ways and certain
things do you guys dig into that and try to get to know who the owner is or do you when you get a contract that
references the general contractors uh contract with the owner
I think the stuff that we've been bidding we've it's a lot of Hospital work and
and you know the companies around here we actually know who the owner is it's not
like just some random person or something like that but I don't I don't
think we've gotten to where it says you know get with that contract and then the one that we did get it that said you
know refer to that contract they did include it and we did have to skim through that just to make sure yeah
um depending on you know the size of the you know subcontracting company that you
are it may not always be feasible to dig into all of those details you know what
I'm saying like if you have a lot of jobs that you have to like read through
you know 120 pages of contract like I mean that's overwhelming and
intimidating you know and honestly it's not even always reasonable that you can
do that you know it kind of depends on how your company unfortunately um fortunately to to for me anyway and
this is my view is a lot of a lot of what's in that contract is open until uh to interpretation right like if
if that match or contract specifically says the general contractor and I try to exclude anything that doesn't pertain to
flooring and I'll leave that to the general contractor like it says general contract doesn't say specifically for
the flooring contractors so I try to I try to use that does it
is it going to hold any weight I don't I don't know but it's not specified for me to to abide by so I try to eliminate
that from from my portion as well when going through and trying to figure out what terms I think that's where you know
some of this comes back to Paul's point last time when he was talking about make sure that there's a spec in there
telling you exactly what you need to do and what needs to be provided yeah the scope that scope uh that
outline of the scope is like imperative if you can get it in your contract
um it helps a lot but you know I think what the reason we're starting here is because payment really depends
um at its the very first level is doing business with people who paint and
um sometimes when you're doing hard bit work and you don't know who the GC is
going to be because it's a full heart bid and all the GCS have been all the subs are bidding it and you end up with
that job um you know you don't always have the opportunity to select who you're working
with but when you do and if you're going to bid the the hard bit stuff that's a
risk you got to take but when you're bidding negotiated stuff like I know that you guys do probably 90 negotiated
at preferred uh we do a really fair amount of artwork is negotiated as well
that's better obviously because you get to know who you're dealing with from the
beginning um and you seem and it's more relational which we had a whole podcast on building
relationships with your GCS and your your um your client in general but it all
starts with having a good relationship and and uh knowing the company that you're working with and then kind of
getting the flow or understanding their flow of payment and and what they request and you still
won't always get it right uh but you know a lot of those things
um a lot of the real difficult projects that we have ran across are the hard bid
jobs just about everyone that I can think of that's not all of them but uh
that are harder to collect on it's the hard bid job the open bid Market projects and honestly I would I would
challenge business owners to even consider you know are you even profitable and successful in those other
jobs that it's worth it to continue doing a lot of work that way because you
know when you have a relationship I mean having the benefit of doing negotiated work is a is a great privilege and a
testament really to the kind of work that you do that someone trusts you well enough to to give you that work
yep yeah and um you know I'm going to go back a couple years too to where we
weren't necessarily in the best of situations when we were trying to you
know spread our wings a little bit into sales and you know I'm fortunate to have relationships with some of the local
contractors and asking them like hey you're asking me to bid on this work
right I know it's not negotiating you have to get it's amount of bids what if I asked for 50 up up front and
if I'm awarded in the contract like well we don't really do that I was like well I'm not really in a position to be able
to afford you know to float out you know fifty thousand dollars here and 30 there
100 here we're not you know and like we're not in that position yet and you
know all they would say was we'll work with you on it if you get awarded and then that kind of solidified
that I think we did get them working we got to work with a smaller jobs so that way it's easier for them to say
it's not over X dollar amount so we're we're not going to do 50 or we can't
but we did we did try to work our jelly on that for a little while and it didn't work success
were you successful with that in some regards you guys the the ones that we started doing that with will still like
every time a contract comes through they're like if you need a bill for anything let me know
yeah and honestly I would also encourage that and Paul and I have kind of talked about that recently that you know it's I
would definitely encourage because the general contractors that you do have those really good relationships
obviously they want to keep you happy as well and you know unless you're having
those relationship kind of conversations that they are understanding where you're coming from and really set everybody up
for the best possible success right like we can meet these deadlines if we can
have these kinds of things then it just it makes everything
it made it a lot easier for us and um I don't know if you guys can hear me right now but it was a little glitching for a
second we can hear you um being a smaller company and starting
from the labor only and and I was not shy right like I everything on the table
everything on the table like you guys I want to get to a point where I can afford to float those for any project
that we're awarded with you guys however in order for me to get to that platform I need to I need to be transparent and I
need to say this is how this is the route that we can take to get to that point so that way we're not
overextending our finances and loans and trying to you know leverage the funds
that aren't necessarily ours you know so we and then
with that going that route and then some companies from out of state contacting us and wanting us to bed I'm like well I
don't know you guys so because we don't have a relationship we do require 50 down payment of the overall bid
until we have an established relationship there's no if answered buttons and they either said sorry we don't want
to work with you or they said okay no problem um hey Dana you're on mute
Jose I think you brought up a really great point and you know putting it all
on the table there there's this risk involved with being vulnerable with someone right I mean that's really in
any kind of relationship that you have in your life but in business you know to be vulnerable like that you run the risk
of them saying like no we don't want to work with you or even making it hard for
you to do business because maybe they're going to join track all of your stuff or things like that but the thing is is
that when you're vulnerable it builds trust with people and so if you're dealing with the right people then
they're going to learn that they can trust you because you've been honest with them about where you're at and
um I I think those are great ways to um develop relationships with your um
GCS or owners or whoever you're working with yeah sometimes it's when that very
first at the very beginning when you're dealing with the new contractor
um you know back in when you're if you're doing smaller a smaller project with a new contractor it's one thing but
you know like a big hospital or something with the new contractor I wonder how that would go over to uh
you know ask and this is honest question that I
want you know for example we have a 1.3 or four or five million dollar project
that we just uh bid and we were interviewed for and it looks like we're
you know on the front we're we're in the front of the race at the moment what would it do to say hey we really
need you know 50 of the material cost or something like that paid uh you know
within even if you gave some different terms like net 30 not pay when paid but net 30 type stuff right uh I wonder how
that would go over with those bigger contracts so um you know what let me to that is um
when the conversation came up about the finances and if we can uh afford it and or
from me saying that I can't afford to do that as they were like well then if you can't afford it why are you trying to do
it and I said I said okay so if you're saying that to me so something saying yeah if you're asking me to bid on this
and you can't afford to put 50 down why do I want to come and work for you you know like that's real that's good
dude I like that you're you're telling me that I gotta gamble but you're not you're not willing
to do it either right so you meet me in the middle you know like it's the same thing it's the trust them bigger
businesses they just have a lot more literature paperwork they have a bigger team um but at the end it all gets filtered
down to the same values same same understanding same principles that's
exactly right good point hey Daniel so I got a question for you uh I know you do
a lot of the office work and stuff but you know I think the next point is
I'll make a statement and then follow that up with a question on how you maybe
do a collection call at uh preferred when you when you need to call and collect but understanding the contract
terms uh for our audience is kind of the next step like you really have to understand what those terms are for your
contract if it's paid when paid and understanding the pay schedule from the owner to the contractor as best as you
can is kind of your you know your next step after you've done your uh you know
your AIA documents your application for payments correctly then it's like
understanding what to expect from them and uh and then you got a call and and
follow up on getting paid sometimes so I was curious on uh from your perspective
and what you guys do there preferred Daniel what's what's I think we've been lucky we've been lucky to not have to
deal with any of that to the point where even when we were you know waiting on retainage the construction company was
very upfront with us and was like I mean we already got most the payment then it's like hey the owner isn't giving us
the remainder of this check and we're like almost every other day they were
contacting us saying that they were contacting the owner but as far as like
not not receiving payment uh we haven't run into that on a contract basis a lot
of the payment stuff that we do have issues with is for other flooring
contractors as a subcontractor or um actual homeowners like that's why I I'm
not a big fan of dealing with the residential Market
yeah but um well the
residential is a whole new a whole nother thing but you always get 50 on that don't you up front yeah
I don't do enough we do I don't know five to maybe on a busy residential year
10 projects 10 residential projects but we always try to we always get payment
up front with that yeah yeah I would advise that and and just for everyone listening to I
I want to make sure that this gets set to the the 50 that down payment is
because of material um and language it's not just the labor only project it's the full scope
um so we're not like accepting a large late-rolling job and just asking for money for work that we
haven't completed so it's that it's to cover our our buds on the material and
the purchase of and securing it and ensuring that well and in construction you can't
actually um claim Revenue that you haven't earned yet so but you can make those
negotiations for materials up front and what a great thing is that you know to
be able to at least secure what you need to to do your project even if it's down
the road
no but material is your biggest you know obviously your first expense and you're
often your biggest expense on a project so trying to cover those costs which we
did get into in a previous episode about you know having your materials land so
you get your bill from your vendor close to the time when you're able to then Bill your contractor
those are kind of keys to try to help with cash flow but uh
so you don't you don't have a lot of uh connect collection calls uh I know I was
actually going to ask you what it what is your guys's process so we can get a glimpse into that well I I had I have one trick that that
um outside of what Dana does and she does a great job she's really helped us
um frankly we're not the best collectors in the in the in the business uh we we are continually looking on how to get
better um Dana has been doing a really good job on that uh one one thing that I always
do if I'm told that multiple times that they have not been paid by the owner is
let me I would like to call the owner or I'd like to call the architect and talk to
them and make sure that you know see if there's anything that I can help with uh
even if they're not saying it's my scope that's causing the owner to hold
it I'm just saying that I'll offer hey how about I call the architect and put a
little pressure on and let them know that we're looking for payment or the owner um and uh maybe that'll help you
a handful of times that I've gotten a check within a couple
of days from that and I didn't even have to call now that's not the best
um best feeling because it feels like they probably had the money and they were
holding it for some reason uh your mind can wander on that one but uh
the the fact is is that you know I didn't have to call the architect or the
owner and payment was released and it's um and and when it is something I do call
the owner and I have um in fact I've got one in particular that I'm done on my
mind right now that I've got to call the owner and talk to him and and uh so offering to call the owner or architect
a if they have been paid the general contractor has been paid for your
portion of word they don't want and they are just not paying you because they're some other reason then
they really don't want you to call the architect and owner and find out that they've been paid for your scope of work because then by law they have to pay you
within seven days if they've been paid at least in Kansas in seven days I'm sure that varies by area but blog Kansas
is seven days after receipt of the payment from owner the contractor has to pay their subs and vendors so
they certainly don't want you to find that out and those are the instances where it feels like they probably had
already been paid so anyway that's that's one of the things uh we do we have some other
collection processes Dana can kind of give you some high level stuff there that we
one I I know one of the biggest things that we've ran across is we didn't get your application for pink
we've we've had that so Dana's put in some new processes and and uh worked
with some of our other uh leadership on on that but Dana you want to speak to
some of that yeah sure I think that um probably the most important thing about getting paid
is having good communication and um that really involves knowing who you
should be talking to about that and that can vary greatly by you know company job
whatever because sometimes you have to talk with someone in accounting or sometimes it's important to talk with
the project manager or sometimes they have project Engineers or project
accountants who know that information and knowing who the right person to
communicate with is um really important part of you know keeping that moving along
um and I do think that having a system and making a point to follow up is helpful in keeping cash coming along and
um identifying errors early in the process and that really just all starts with communication
um phone calls emails whatever honestly is successful
um depending on who you're dealing with so that that leads us to
[Music] um the the one of the final kind of I
wouldn't call it last resort but pretty close is maintaining your lien rights on projects and
um so I'll tell you what the lien rights are here in Kansas is you have to file lien on the project uh
within 90 days of the last time you performed work on the project
um it doesn't have to be a significant amount it can be punch list but it's got to be 90 days within the last time that
you were sit on the project um so that's the lien ride so for the
audience like you want to maintain those um we don't lean as much as uh a lot of
companies I I've got a friend who owns a painting company that does a lot of the same projects as I do and they get paid
a lot better than we do and uh that was really revealing to me and the fact is
is they'll profile lean like at 45 days they're they're they're said the letter
and saying hey we're going to file Lane if we don't get paid um do you think that everybody in the
audience even understands what that means um
uh I don't know do it take a explain what I'll explain that part of it uh
yeah I was just wondering because I I've like I said I'm not like intimately familiar with who your audience is but I
I did wonder you know if people who might be watching even knew what that meant but so really Alina is just a
claim against property that can be used as collateral to repay a debt and so an
example of something that a lot of people could be familiar with is like a car payment so if you have a car payment
then a bank has a lien on your vehicle so that if anything happens to that
vehicle that the bank is going to get their portion and so you can apply that
then bigger so whenever as a subcontractor you're buying materials
you're paying your employees to go and perform work on a drop a job then you
have a claim at that real property that is you know being built
um and so it that's that's the only like recourse you have as a contractor or a
supplier to make sure that you're getting paid as to file both liens and
definitely it depends on jurisdiction and the kind of work that you do but it
is important to know what those rights are because you you could very easily
um diminish your rights or even not have anything to get started without knowing
you know what you're getting involved in yeah you could lose them all together uh
one note is federal government you cannot lean uh those projects so you
know playing off the way Dana just said some jobs you can't lean and that's the
federal government now uh obviously they have plenty of money if they need it
they'll print some more so yeah it's pretty pretty easy to to know who you're
dealing with in that case um I would say one more
um add-on to your lean um or maybe just to build on that a bit so
the idea is if a when a bank transfers title ownership of a building over uh
and the they can't close out a loan for example on a building if there's a
current lien on it so that's why you want to lean early uh if you are going to lean a project is the fact is is that
that bank can't they can't close out the note to on a on a project that they have
funded um if there's current mechanic leads on them uh also the
say for example the owner is not um this is a not that this is a worse
scenario where the owner owns the building didn't take out a loan for the remodel maybe he's paying cash or has
investors to do it so if you lean its property it's he and he's going to be
there anyway there's nothing there's no trigger to make your lane worth
something it only comes into effect if he tries to sell that property so it could you're still protecting yourself
but it could be years down the road before you get the money if he if ever uh if you're dealing with somebody
really right and Elena is something that you have to renew right you have to renew the lien every year or
something like that yeah some
something that you kind of continue at until you get what you want and
obviously saying that you know you can you can put out some money to get money
you know so it has to be worth it you have to know what what you're in it for so no um I do know that that here in
Michigan there's like Windows of opportunity right like uh you got to submit uh notice to lean within certain
time parameters and the same uh there as well well it's a little bit different on
so if you're going to file a lien you gotta it depends on the uh property
really all residential you have to notify the owner so for example if you're doing work for a builder you have
to notify the owner that there is that you have an intent to lean that property
um commercially you don't always have to do it but uh a notice a notice of intent
to lean being sent to to the GC and to the owner and if
there's an architect an architect then um that's kind of your first course you don't just run out and file lean
I would encourage everybody to First file a notice of intent to lean and name
everybody on it and then once you've done that then and you can do that
in-house like you can save the attorney's fees for that part I mean not legal advice please always talk to your
attorney but I mean in most regards you can you can do your you can send that
notice of intent to lean yourself um it's something that frankly we probably need to be a lot better at but
at the end of the day filing that first kind of puts everybody on notice that a
a lot of times the owner doesn't know that you have not been paid or that the subs not been taken care of and it's the
GC uh that that and then they put pressure on the GC and and make them
pain uh B is they have a right to know what's going on in the background and if
they're if they're because you know an owner of a big building they don't know
all the subs intimately for sure sometimes they may not even know who you are their their contract is with the
general contractor and so they're depending on them to vet the subs correctly and and make sure they have a
good quality sub crew but the owner does you know as a course of
respect uh does probably need to you know best best practice would be to send
that notice of intent so that's kind of the way we do it
um we're and again this is always changing another thing that I can say is that we've done business with certain
companies for 10 15 years and then they get change they change your accounting system or their they have some turnover
in their accounting department and all of a sudden they're just it's from a payer's or a paying standpoint they're
told it's like dealing with the total different company um so yeah just kind of having your head
on a swivel um now when you're knowing your client all the stuff we've talked about already
um and then to kick it back to do you guys ever get that um
that excuse that they didn't get your pay out do you guys not get that yeah it didn't seem like it and we we get it
enough that it's like oh yeah since I handle all the pay apps I'm
usually I'm sending them and then I'm like please reply so I know you got this and
then if they don't reply that's when I'm like making sure that they got it it's the invoices where people act like
they don't get even though uh oh say right on there open this day at
this time open this day at this time we didn't get it we only opened it 27 times
laughs yeah I I QuickBooks is tough from a job costing
standpoint but some of those things are sure freaking handy knowing when they opened your your uh your your pay app or
because a lot of uh times an opened email doesn't mean they read your pay app and I've had that excuse like yeah
I've seen the email but the pay app yeah or wasn't attached or some
something right um so yeah we've talked about like that
follow-up that you just spoke of Daniel I think is one of the things we're getting better at is like we send out
our Billings our payouts and then we follow up hey is there any problem with this do you see any issues did you
receive it okay that kind of thing um and then there's a balance of like
not wanting to totally exasperate your client with so much of it but at the end of the day
we got to get paid for what we do yeah you know yeah I mean we spend a lot of
money to get other people's jobs done I I have a question on this I don't know
if this even applies in my commercial but um we've done the work with uh real estate agents before and
purchase material done the work and said that we were fine waiting until uh property was closed on for us to receive
a check from the title company does that happen in commercial as well I mean we've never had any commercials that's
why I'm asking and then how did you guys approach that if it does not to my knowledge not not that
particular Arrangement um nothing comes to mind where you're
waiting for them to close on the building or what have you although I mean in essence that's kind of what
we're retainage ends up being it seems like is you know once it's closed on
then you get that final money but uh from an overall project standpoint uh I
could see where developers or big big residential builders would love to have
that kind of a situation where they can build their spec homes and you carry the receivable until they sell that spec
home and then you get paid I hope the profit's there for you in those types of
deals yeah we didn't uh we didn't do we haven't done any of that unless there
was a contract in place already and we were just waiting for the turnover so yeah
um we did have some weird scenarios too though like we're one of uh my buddy
actually passed away before uh an invoice was satisfied and that was the
contract of the contract transfer though
we made it through it and got it um yeah that's unique
you can get in a ton of different scenarios from a residential and all those types of deals you know a lot of
these uh big builders in the residential world I'm sure operate some level of of
not you know you're not going to get 50 down and those kinds of things it operates maybe a little more like a
commercial job but in commercial the key is everything we've talked about in this
podcast and the two previous is getting your payoffs in understanding your contracts and then you know maintaining
your lead rights and follow-up again I I'd probably say this on 90 of our
podcast but it's it really a lot of it boils down to relationships and um
good or bad sometimes they can get hurt in collections so that's that's one
um line to navigate you know all right well hey uh we're we're about
20 minutes from an hour and I feel like we've pretty much covered all the
pertinent information here uh so we might actually finish the podcast a
little early today you guys have some that's why I started lavender inputs
yeah so when uh our local Builders Exchange
teams up with different lawyers in the area and they they'll put on different
like uh webinars and stuff and it's I think it's at no cost but I'm not sure
since we're members or might be a members only thing but like every quarter I think they do something on
liens and it's like I've I've attended a couple of them and you
learned something new every time and it's since it's so localized it's
everything that you have to be following in this area and what they have seen you know in their cases that
if you don't do this you're probably not going to win when if it goes to court so I mean that's that's an option to
look into it's not is that through your chat is that through the chamber no it's uh the Builders Exchange
okay so it'd be like our Builders Association maybe there's I was I was just gonna say there's actually a lot of
different kind kinds of organizations who put on events like that and some of them are members only but when and
sometimes when they're not you do have to pay a little bit extra to attend but it's also interesting to note that if
you know you can go to an event put on maybe by the AGC which is you know
worldwide and they might give a certain perspective or um in my previous job I was a member of
cfma which is for construction financial management and so you know they might
present it in a way so you might be getting different bits and pieces depending on who's offering the content
and that could be really helpful as well in knowing and understanding your your
lien rights or pay applications and stuff like that
yeah the AGC is a really good one have you are you guys a member of the
AGC up there uh have you guys ever went to any of their stuff Daniel no
they're they're pretty good um even if you sit in on their general
contract there they have some certain meetings that anybody can go to
um at one point there was a pretty decent um
subcontractor Community for the specialty contractors of the AGC in
Wichita that kind of uh fell apart but when it was pretty live and I don't know
maybe I should kick start that thing back up but the when it was around it
was nice to have the different trades with their electricians and Painters drywallers and roofers and
Steel Erectors all in the same building talking about what matters to Specialty
contractors to us to us subs and I wish it was a stronger portion of the EGC the
the specialty contractor their they did a really good job of being on
our side when it was our meeting but for the most part obviously it's the
association of general contractor so um fair enough it is mainly for General
Contractors um but at the end of the day ma'am I if you you might check at that
um in your area and see if the specialty contractors have a a good um meet up it was like a monthly Meetup
or something like that if I remember right now I used to go to him pretty often um then the specialty contractor that
was doing that ended up going out of business honestly so I don't think
anybody's picked that that piece back up here do you know of anybody Dana that's running the specialty contractor side
here not that I know and I've never been personally very involved with the AGC
but what I can tell you from what experience that I have had is that they're very pro-industry so just like
you said like they're really I mean they may not have something for specialty
subcontractors in your area but even if they don't you can rest assured that the
AGC was working on behalf of the industry they're they're lobbying for
um good uh uh help for the industry as a whole I
believe yeah so yeah I think that's we haven't been part of that um or been into any other events or
anything but we have been to a few events for um the ABC the associated builders and
contractors so I mean do we have a chapter of the ABC
here so again really good information on the
stuff that we've been to it's you know they do a presentation and then they break everyone out into some workshops
where you pick and choose exactly what you want to know more about and they have experts there and
it's actually pretty sweet we should probably get some more of those but I believe they only do it once a year
yeah so forget we do have access to some of that
information and some of the legal documents through the fcica as well um that's just a matter of digging in
and contacting the right people but that's um it's more I don't want to say generic
right but it's more generalized for our industry specific but these other associations you'll definitely get a a
different perspective um on how to approach uh any anything
legally or or any of the other General Contractors you do work with yeah it's a good point if you are
considering and if you've watched and consumed this series I'm I'm I'm
assuming that you're at least thinking about starting your own uh you know material and labor providing the whole
kind of you know full service flooring company um getting involved with the fcica would
be is is really a good idea the other organizations are all great
don't get me wrong and there's plenty of them to be a part of but the fcica has done a really good job with
the business of the flooring business like they've they've got a lot of of uh
good high quality information their Sim program does really well at training your project managers or your
installation managers um in fact we're trying to assemble one in Kansas City for uh to have
uh three days to send there so uh all that being said getting involved with
your local you know or I should say your local but your industry specific uh
organization and associations for flooring fcica is is really good
usually we're talking about the training organizations just for you know
installing and stuff but there's plenty more out there for the business knowledge and stuff too and that you
just have to pick and choose uh I mean go to some meetings go to some of their free events and see who you like
see we touted on on the podcast all the time
like get to Convention the different conventions and the different shows and fcic there was one coming up in
September at the end of September their Jordan force was with the CFI and it's
down in Orlando did I get that right Orlando yep Rosen Shingle Creek in
Orlando we'll be there um uh exhibiting as well as their on uh
you know learning more uh it's a great opportunity if if you're watching this
uh I cannot encourage you enough to get to that because that is like a training
entity and a kind of a flooring business Association that came together and did
is doing one show and and that should create a nice energy uh and really good
high quality information so make it to make it to that show and like like Daniel said I mean get to seica has
events about uh was it two or three times a year uh twice at least twice mid
mid-year and then the end of the year so look into that um
yeah so any other little bits of nuggets that we can give the audience before we uh close it up
for the day yes the next Regional competition for installer of the year is
September 15th and 16th in Fort Wayne Indiana so we got to get more people signed up
for this and you know our our trade is filled with people that say they're the best now let's uh put your money where
your mouth is let's go show everyone yeah so all you guys out there
that's in Indiana he said this one is in Indiana and there there may be one more
in Texas before uh surfaces
okay so just as a quick overview if anybody doesn't know what Daniel's
talking about every year there's an installer of the year or carpet hardwood
uh I think that's usually some uh mix of
lvp and cheap vinyl but resilient um and then uh do they do Sprint they
don't do something they've changed it so they're only doing two categories this
year they're doing carpet and lvp so those are your two headquarters I
know last year they did wood and carpet yeah and then the previous year they did
they did have like a carpet resilient and ceramic I believe one year that was
in 20. there was a there was a lot there was a lot going on yeah
and I know that lvp sounds easy but trust me when you see the patterns and
the crap that is laid out uh Mr uh guy
who lays big rooms of lvp and says it's so easy this is not the same thing I can
tell you that but put your skills to test uh Fort Wayne Indiana when is it again Daniel
September 15th and 16th that's a Friday Saturday and the best way to enter that show is
through cfi's website or what's the what's the easiest way do you know
that is a good question um I tried to look at that I can tell you
at least you can call CFI certified for US Dollars and and and uh they'll give
you the information but I believe there was some info possibly either on the wfca or the F or
cfi's website right I'm sure because they're they're it's a partnership right now so I'm sure that you can find it on
either other websites or it might even be on uh the international service event website
yeah so you know what that's probably a good place to live once you've done the the regional and
you win your Regional you can make it to uh services in Vegas and then actually
if I remember right they pay for your trip out there yeah they pay for your
plane ticket they pay for your hotel stay they give you a couple of food vouchers that get you like uh one peanut
and a water if you're lucky because that's that's how Vegas is
you forgot to you forgot to tell them you gotta go through a two-hour tour of
uh some time share to get that peanut yeah
if you're a good installer and you want to test yourself get to get to Fort Wayne give it a shot
um they I can tell you I've been to multiple of the shows in fact Crystal sent who's Daniel and Jose's uh sister
has competed in that and she did very very well I was a blast to uh to be
there that it's a it's a fun um it's a really fun way to prove your
skill set so um yeah so yeah encourage everybody to make it to the uh CFI fcicio at the end
of September and also uh get out and get involved and try to try to test your
skills and see how good of an installer you are see if you can make it to Vegas so with that I am going to fill this
podcast down everybody thank you for joining me Jose and Daniel as always Dana thank you uh for joining us today
really appreciate your input and uh some of your uh insights into the other side of the
industry you know the gcd side so I hope everybody got a lot of value out of uh
this series and understanding we're not trying to scare you from going in and doing it
um we just want you to be prepared and understand that it's all it's a lot more than just you know printing off an
invoice off of uh your accounting system and shooting it to your customer when you're finished with the job or in some
cases handwriting an invoice or just turning into one corner that the that the shop gives you saying here here's
the invoice it's it's not all that easy yeah there's a lot more involved to get
your money and we wanted you to be prepared to choose to join um you know the the commercial flooring
world and and um start employing people and buying materials and bidding on work uh it's
rewarding but it's a tough business so we wanted to kind of give you the info up front and I know a lot of uh you guys
out there probably have some opportunities coming down the pipe uh in the next uh you know half a decade next
five years there's a lot of flooring business owners that are looking to get rid of their companies or or retiring
and they're looking to to find somebody to to take that over and um I like I
said earlier I've been approached by a couple of people who that's happening to them and they just wanted some advice of
it so hopefully this podcast can be a a resource for those individuals I know a
lot of people I can't go to Convention with these two without them being you know inundated with crowds of people
asking questions like that you know wanting to know what you guys are doing so tune in to the Huddle and get a lot of
their uh their thoughts and brains and um with that I'm gonna cut it out and uh
I appreciate everybody and we will see you guys next week all right see ya thanks okay thank you good day thank you
everyone all right see it