The Huddle - Episode 60 - Effective Project Management
This week the guys switch gears from their short series to focus on how to effectively manage a project.
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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 we come at
you every Tuesday 3 P.M Central to discuss maintaining poor progress in your foreign career
be it an installer a company uh we we um kind of tackle a ton of different topics
on this podcast with me as always Mr Daniel and Jose Gonzalez
Grand Rapids Michigan almost at Detroit it's okay we wouldn't even know we
wouldn't even have stopped you we would have just let it go oh well how's it going today guys
well we're a couple minutes late right but that's good because I was actually on the road I didn't think I was going
to make it uh so I I logged on on the road and took that opportunity of being a little
bit behind to get in the office I had a little technical difficulty here uh I'll
call it as it is it was user malfunction and any uh any part of the actual
technology so well um we are today's topic like I said
before we we kind of tackle topics from uh all sides of the industry whether it's
you know the the training organizations but uh to to companies and installers but
primarily we're talking to the installer um and um
those who are are looking maybe to move their career in a different path start a
flooring company uh take over their dad's company their uncles whatever
um be a successor of some sort uh all the way to just the guy that's out there
working his butt off for the industry installing carpet and tile and resilient
and all the good flooring products out there so uh today's topic effective project
management uh we've kind of touched on some you know key points to this topic and
other episodes I guess we could probably we'll probably be saying that a lot now that we're what 60 something episodes in
we've 60 60 this is number 60. zero
we've been doing this for over a year guys so uh I want to thank all of our audience and the people who tune in
um I love hearing from you guys I got a call this week actually got a couple of calls this week
and it's just nice when people reach out and say they enjoy the Huddle and they
watch us religiously on one of the media channels um
and bring up questions that they had on some stuff so this this week uh got a
call from an installer on uh just wanting some some guidance on on how to
move into the commercial world and so that's always refreshing I'm sure you
guys get it too I know you do so it's awesome and I want to just thank everybody who uh Tunes in and uh without
further Ado we will get started
um I'm gonna start with a question what is project management
it's it's kind of used in so many different Industries for so many different three so many different things
if you if you ever want to do an experiment go to ZipRecruiter and put a
put a uh job posting for project manager and see what you get wow
you'll get everything from uh a guy that
uh designs and oversees or project manages new parts for airplanes to
project managers for uh food companies it's it's a big broad term but
in our industry it's just that it's a project and there's a manager that has to oversee the schedule the labor
allocation and the finances and budget of that job
so do you guys agree that that's pretty much what what the uh definition is for
us I do I do and I think uh depending on the the size of your outfit is going to
depend on what that project manager has on on their plate so if you want to give
it that title right so it could be the owner yeah oftentimes is is one of the I'm gonna
I'm still I Still project managed work and and we do um you know hundreds of projects a year but I still project
manage work I know you guys both run jobs and project managed so
um there's always seemed to be pillars to to these types of titles as far as like
effectively managing projects uh what do you guys think some of the pillars are
to you like the key points that all the other stuff falls under
well the the main key point for for us is going to go back to like one of the other episodes where we talked about
communication um like that right there to me is number
one um if you can't keep an open line of communication or
understand how to communicate any aspect of the project whether it's with your your client or your installer or the
crews or multiple Crews um you're going to be in a really really bad spot
yeah so that was the first pillar on my uh that I had written down as well and I
put labor and client so the head obviously a lot of times uh for
the audience uh we don't pre um on every episode we're not able to
kind of get together and plan for it so we ad-lib some of this stuff and and uh
one of the great things about PF is we have a lot of similarities in how we look at business and and so we can get
away with that because our answers are the same uh so
I wanted to say that communication doesn't just mean communication when it's convenient
or when you have good news or you know your your client wants to hear
from you and and your whole you don't want to hold off and tell them nothing silence is worse
than telling them hey I don't know yet I just sold the vendor the materials are
still not released or still not produced or still not on the truck or he's
dealing with that right now oh my God right I mean you still have to call them and say I wish I could tell you
something and I certainly would if I could but this is the reality and sometimes
you got to back it up with communication on add to vent to that communication list your vendors because a lot of times
it saved us with our clients where we just forward them the email from the vendor and say Here's the proof we're
not just trying to delay your job or not show up or short labor they automatically think you don't have guys
and you're using material delivery at least that's kind of the tendency around here I don't know right I want to speak
for you guys but they tend to think like you're purposely doing it or something right and then
even even when it comes down to to some change orders I just had a project out of school and they're like we need to
get it done by this day and I'm like well that's already gone and sailed right but we can get the product here
sooner and that's all I did I took the price that the rep gave me I'm like I'm not trying to make money on this I just
want to get this material here just as fast as you guys do this is what it's going to cost that's it yeah
yep and and showing uh we have uh a job well several dealerships we're doing for
a dealership group and the one thing that we're waiting on is the entry math system
it's like a you know an aluminum I won't name any names or anything Ben's aluminum entry mat system there's a
couple out there so yeah there's a few out there so you can uh but you know
they take time to produce they're custom every single one of them are accustomed to the size that you need and our client
just keeps pounding on us about the delivery of it more like has it been produced yet has it been produced yet
and when our PM doesn't communicate that it makes the client more nervous they
don't think you even are working on their problem if you don't communicate and so that's why communication to me
even if it's not the news you want to deliver maybe it's no news
um you know waiting to hear good news and then communicate that because that's easier and feels better than
communicating bad or no news right but it's important I think that you still
communicate the bad news you know let your client know that you're on it
um and same with vendors if you're waiting on something communicating with them because certainly uh we have a
saying that our company that we get we have to be better than our vendors because a lot of times they tell us that
they and it doesn't come in and so you know we have to deal with those issues as well as communication from
them they don't just offer up hey it's on the truck it's on its way because
there's so many fires and I don't blame them I'm just saying that it's the fact right yeah product waiting to hear on
but if you don't reach out to them and communicate it's like we're the Catalyst to the whole situation we have to reach
out to the vendor get the information and then call our client give them the information because it doesn't always
just flow freely from our vendor even if it's a rush plot issue because
they got 20 other of us that probably have the same thing going on so the squeaky will gets the grease and um you
know we we've talked about communication on almost everything but the saying is there for a reason communication is key
or the key and uh that's because it's probably the most important part to any
um aspect of business whether you're collecting money
um you know trying to Be an Effective project manager or whatever I mean you guys love communication what what's
one of the tools what's your best um not tools how do you guys look at it I
mean do you do you consider when you're talking a client
let's use a situation where you have a client you're really there they need to
get in their building and you don't have the answer do you guys still just call them and say
look I don't have an answer yet but I just called that kind of stuff yeah
it's it's not even it's communicating with them that you're also communicating
with your reps and trying to get some answers it's like I talked to him three times today and I still got nothing yeah and it's so going
back to that right there like I just want to add to that too you said communicating
um good news or bad news to me it's more important to communicate the bad news
so that way a solution can start materializing if you need to kind of take a a lateral movement and then it is
the good news the good news is uh great it's gonna be good news at 8 A.M and it's still going to be good news at 3
P.M right but the bad news at 8 A.M is better to have the bad news at 8 A.M
than 3 P.M um too like if dude if you could just tell
me the day before that you're not going to be on and not just don't show up or
don't you know it's not even like that with us it's with our cruise it's uh it'll be 3
30 and then they'll be like hey we're not going to be done today and it's like you should have known this hours ago
and lunch time at least at lunch time at least by lunchtime you kind of have an indicator for ding
sure I did um that that that's what I'm I wanted to kind of draw you know guide
towards or or get to was you know we need our our crews to communicate with
us too when you're talking about schedule it's not always the vendor I mean there are vendor in that in the
labor side is the crew yeah or the employee installer just letting you know
so you can effectively communicate a lot of times they I
I wonder why they don't you know um my guess is they think they're going
to disappoint you or you're going to ask them to work harder or something I mean
at that point it doesn't matter I mean depending on the schedule it it is room
for disappointment right but like like I said you can't start finding a solution unless you know that there's an issue
you know and and that's the biggest thing like it's okay I don't if I'm doing something
and I'm not going to make a deadline I have to bring that out to the Forefront depending on what type of project it is
if I don't know till 3 pm that they're not going to be done that day but we were scheduled to turn it over uh that
night for cleaning crew I like egg on the face right like that's something I need to know and then and
going back to like uh the wrapping the vendor issue too it's one thing that I've learned
recently is the open communication with them hey just checking to make sure that my
product is going to be here on time hey I haven't received a response on the purchase order or a courtesy response on
the purchase order that has something two months ago and uh where's the products produce scheduled to be here
two days ago and I haven't seen it yet oh yeah we never processed that oh my goodness
yeah that's another example of like being better than your vendor yeah it's
just like we've had it the same exact thing where oh we or they whether they've didn't
place the order well we sent you know some guy at your company uh a
confirmation and never got a sign so the order didn't get placed or something and I'm like you guys don't
follow up like so that's where you just gotta like follow up pay is this order good is it
placed isn't it moving yes okay well lesson learned I'm I'm on my behalf as
well like don't don't always trust the process right and if if something did get missed or
overlooked uh it's not one way or the other it's it's both sides and if it's late
it's my fault regardless I have to say it's my fault um yeah
I can't I can blame it on whoever I want but I have to say it's my fault it doesn't
make anybody look any better when you start saying well this person and that person or this company that company you
gotta be willing to take uh the full force of uh of whatever incident whatever bad news
yep I'm okay doing that I mean I'm not okay doing that but I'm okay doing that does that even make sense
well I mean sometimes it's it's it is both ways I mean sometimes
like the bad news uh they're gonna find out regardless anyway
it's just are you gonna communicate so that they can start problem solving which is number two on my list is
effective problem solving but account it's it's derived from communication so
it's real hard to like you said you let right into it
it's hard to start thinking about Solutions and problem solving if you
don't know there's a problem so that like I said the earlier you can communicate that the better off you are
that's across the board that's every that's I think that's everybody that has to be everybody
so on effective uh problem solving um you know provide Solutions is top of
my list like think of it from a Solutions provider I love like even your guys's uh I believe your email
um signature says something about your Solutions provider or something right
yeah thank you for trusting preferred flooring for um helping you with your flooring
Solutions or something like that yeah yeah I mean it's like you know those things right there I don't even think about this like I was doing my my
signature and I was like oh this sounds pretty good well it's true though that's what you
really do um and then I I have focus on future
don't you know it's it's real easy um
to it's real easy to
get in a situation where you're fighting over what has happened and you're not
focused on trying to get whatever the problem is solved I had a big blow up
last week I'm I'm um probably still have elevated uh cortisol
levels from getting in a big you know argument with a foreman on a
job site and I was just trying to get him to understand that I need your help
now to get this building done my guys have this problem
you should have been done a week ago okay what can I talk about that how does that
help the situation right now I'm not god dude you can keep yelling at me about how I should have been done or I can say
that you didn't you know pay attention to our durations and we can have a fight for an hour on this thing
but right now I'm about two hours away three hours away from finishing your job
if I can get a solution to this would you like that let's let's talk about so
I I want to focus on what we can do about what is that you know right at us right
now it's kind of like what do they say you know you don't worry about you know having an infection in your toe when a
lion's chasing you or something like that I mean does the problem is right that is the problem all the other
problems all the other stuff you got to solve the main problem first and
so um which leads me into the last part of effective problem solving is
understanding what the problem in front of you is and not getting distracted by what these other little things that make
and I have a specific thing in my head specific problem in my head that why I'm
saying little things they may not be little things but in this particular situation all this other stuff was
inconsequential it's it's a time waste at this moment we
have a lion on top of us how do we get him off how do we fix the problem that is happening right now and um
you know we got around it finally got to it so uh you know got the got the the
problem solved and we actually got the job done we're a few hours late but got the project completed
um so what else what is on your guys uh what else do you guys see as effective
uh you know key key things or important things on effective uh project
management um being open about scenarios up front with
the guys uh you know trying we've been around for a little while right we've been in a lot of different
scenarios you're talking about planning I can already tell you yeah it's planning right so you you hope for the
best you plan for the worst um and try to give as much information up front
as possible without overwhelming anyone right so
that way they can process what they have in front of them without overwhelming
um so they're not already on a stressful level so that way if a problem does arise then
they're able to attack that that particular issue or that particular
problem without worrying about the stress of everything else because it's kind of mapped out um
I wish someone did that for me when I when I started but um it's not always the case right and
some of it is you just gotta go with the flow but that's try to alleviate
um stresses whenever possible for from any of the crews or uh the generals or
the the sales rep or whoever the client try to try to go over those scenarios and
possibilities um before they become an issue ahead of time so like planning to me could have
been I guess I have it down later on the list but it could have been number one too I mean because that prevents so many
problems and issues that come up um there's the six P's that
um a guy here that built to cut well Rent-A-Center Tom Devlin uh I've talked
to a bunch of the people that have worked for him back in the past when he owned a Rent-A-Center and he sold that
in like the late 80s uh real big success story for here in Wichita and he started
that entrepreneurial uh program at our college at Wichita State University
I I tell you that because one of his sayings was the six P's was piss poor
planning or uh proper planning prevents piss poor
production I like that so you know from a
production standpoint and getting stuff done if you plan properly you can get through
uh you just alleviate so many headaches I I tell my team it's like invest your
time don't spend it if you invest it it's early on you're investing in the
project you're investing these hours and planning and it's an investment because
it has an Roi it pays you back you get that time back for damn sure you
know if you're if you don't plan and you have all these problems at the end and we've we've had it we still have it
where project managers don't plan out their project properly and have a good
um well plan for how how they're going to get from A to B whether it's a phase or an entire job or whatever
and I always try to I don't try to I preach
that it's investing your time when you're planning it's spending your time putting out flyers
and I can't think of a better way to say it but that's just the kind of the saying
that we use and when it's done it pays dividends man it pays back in
spades because you're just not wasting all that time and and you know how it is how much more money do you spend hot
shotting material or doing things like this when you know paying extra freight
or on the phone just constantly tracking something because it you know we're not
perfect we don't always plan appropriately but a little bit of planning could have prevented it and uh
you know earlier ordering check in with your vendor on is this a
you know three to six week production or is this a six 12-week type of production those types of things are what gets uh
still get us in trouble sometimes you know we'll we'll think something's a a normal you know it's out of stock back
order uh kind of product or whatever and you just assume that because the last
order was three to six weeks that this one is yeah maybe it's a different fiber on a carpet and they have to buy the
fiber they don't make it in-house and then they're waiting on the fiber production and all these things that can
happen so you want to be a Commercial contractor yeah
that scenario just happened on one of the projects that Daniel was talking about is uh you know they they they put
in uh a revision on a product and they wanted you know 12 foot wide uh sheet Goods instead of six foot wide to reduce
seams it's like well all right well let me find out if it's available yeah it's available I have
this much right now in in this state all right awesome so everything got approved two days later place the order
it was gone and it was gone yeah so we had to go back to production so any
clients out there watching just remember if you don't order the product immediately it could be gone immediately yeah we
don't have the control and the Mill's not or the distributor is not going to
not sell it unless you have it on hold or ordered yeah we're talking thousands
of yards and that was um that was because when uh uh a corporation is involved
right they have their their processes and procedures that they have to follow as well and everything's got a trickle
up before we get an answer right okay yeah I like it but let's we gotta get an answer we gotta get an answer until it gets final approval and that's
what happened and we got it approved in a couple days but that was a couple days too late
yeah I've had that happen a handful of times you order something or you check stock on something and then
I say a handful probably five handfuls of times over the time
a handful of time over the last couple months probably but you check on it and then just about
it seems like immediately someone in the you know atmosphere heard again ordered
the damn product right right after you called and checked stock on it ding ding ding order now yeah I've been in their
shopping cart for three weeks I wanted to bring up technology and its
role um it's not a pillar but I thought it you know it has a role here it is a
pillar it is a pillar dude you think it's a pillar okay it is what what's your uh
so technology to me the reason I didn't call it a
pillar was just the fact that and it probably is but the reason I didn't was
it supports effective communication it you know if you think back before email
and stuff how those people had to get the information from one person to the next it was days you know picking up the
phone calling someone else's landline hey Jim that carpet's not going to be
here until February all right click he has to drive to the job site let his
superintendent know you know I mean we didn't have all this technology where it
was just instantaneous and you're forwarded messages and stuff and you can get the same information in seconds it
used to take days to get so it really supports effective
communication um and understanding you know one of the pill one of
communication and and that is a pillar and go Carrera because that is one of
the biggest things that we feel uh can help is keeping the communication with
the project if you do a lot more a lot of projects you know text messages and
emails can get lost or or just um you can find them but they're in a
chain of things that you don't remember what was said before or after or whatever and we have sometimes we'll
have people that you start a communication on email and then they go to text message message then it's a
phone back to email yeah like just we were there we were there that's what we were doing it was hard to keep track
right and then there's five different threads uh text messages and then the emails and then you start having a
conversation about Project B and C but you're on email thread project a and
there's just like ah um it takes practice to get better at
making sure that you're intentional on the communication in its specific area
and where it belongs and um in its piece of technology yeah and
and don't get me wrong I was really really but now I'm the one who gets
frustrated when people are taking conversations outside of of uh a specific thread where it should be where
it belongs yeah where you can keep track some some level of tracking on it yeah and
Daniel was light years ahead of me it's amazing the difference he's only six years younger than I am but it's amazing
the difference in technology what he grew up with versus what I did yeah yeah the the the understanding and importance
of what he has taught me uh about technology versus what I thought I I
didn't need um we just had a conversation with the client today uh measuring with uh you
know measuring with the mobile app walked around with me distract me there's so much that I left
my laser and my tape measure there and he called me when I was five minutes from the shop hey Jose you forgot sure
did but yeah you know technology goes a long way I
mean there's a bunch of different ways where it it can help um
overall life obviously but when you're talking about project management
everybody else is moving at the speed of light you know communication with your
client and if you deal with General Contractors and bigger General Contractors that are using procore and
all these things and you know go career is kind of the pro core for flooring Subs in a way and it just wants to keep
the communication packed um around the project but the point here
is if everybody else is using it you better or using a piece of technology and this
is not obviously to you guys but if you're a if you were a fan of the previous uh
series about becoming a flooring contractor one thing I can tell you is that you're going to have to embrace technology you're going to have to
really look at the different accounting tools and the different you know communication tools and different uh
applications that best serve your business but they're essential for these
other things to work at all
it is and it's hard to um it's hard to
explain that to some individuals who are still stuck in
their old ways I would just saying right like oh I don't need that I'm successful without that and like
you know I guess if you willing to to stay stagnant and in that
same repetitive lifestyle then yes but if you're someone who's trying to scale up
and you're trying to you're trying to promote your business
and and get better and become more efficient then technology is something you cannot leave behind trying to have
forward progress yeah amen there you go some people just don't understand that
man and you don't want to it is it is hard especially like when we started
implementing teams it was everyone is learning it all at the same time and I'm
still learning it yeah yeah I mean and and Technology changes too right so
they're gonna have updates and then you gotta relearn it but it's like without having everything in that
particular job you can't just go back and be like oh let me just scroll through this job then you got to go
through dang who was that that I was emailing what was their name again yeah what project was that tearing up the
search box yeah turn it up I hate the search box I think that you're right
technology could be considered a pillar or it could just be complementary to every pillar that's in there right like
the first time that holds all the pillars up I mean to me it's an add mixture to your
foundation that's all it is yeah it might not be a pillar but it's definitely mixed into every every little bit and piece of of
any industry and you know problem solving you could use technology plan for the future for communication whether
it is the client uh the labor rep manufacturer like technology is part of everything that we
do right now and it's not going away anytime soon amen so on when you're just to go back a
little bit to proper planning I I forgot to mention this is uh I'll be a little vulnerable
and transparent one of our biggest problems um across our team is
setting realistic expectations early on part of the planning process
but you know I got a PM right now that's uh kind of he learned his lesson that he's
in a a battle pre-planned to battle with a contractor who asked for durations on
the last portion of the job and he said it's going to take three weeks the guy starts you know mauling it over and and
responds well that should take two weeks he goes it's gonna take three weeks
that's our duration that's how much time we've already done nine of these
buildings we know how long the the last one's going to take with our current labor source that we have available to
do that job and it's going to take three weeks that's one thing and I'm proud of being
for like doing that and and getting out ahead of it because we were expected to
do the same job the same building um each one of the other nine in in uh
like three days and it's impossible without without having seven or ten guys
on each floor like literally one one crew per per unit it's
without having one crew in each unit doing all the different flooring whether
it's the LBT the base or the carpet or whatever but doing the whole scope in each unit and having one crew in each
unit on each floor it's impossible to get it done in three days uh we ended up
having like 40 some guys on that job site at one time trying to get it caught up because
on or we allowed the client to set the unrealistic expectation it goes you know
sometimes it's them setting it and you don't say anything but part of planning is re rebutting that and saying No this
is how long it should take and uh I mean it it caused us a heck of
a problem you know because go career or not I could shoot out a work order and maybe get some extra guys over there but
then you got you know hours of time when you're on fire like that to try to get a new crew
started on a new job and all that stuff you're like effort this guy did the other apartment
the other student housing get him over here he did one get him over here you know and you're trying to just get the
project finished um but I I feel like that that planning is
really a lot about proper uh expectation management you know like telling the
client what the real truth is and I found more and more and you guys probably can Echo this that we are
getting squeezed more and more on our duration yeah and it's like guys
some of the products have to dry before we don't control that
and I don't know if if concrete's nice and dry and the humidity the ambient
temperature and humidities uh reasonable then it'll probably dry in an hour but
you know you get get a few uh a few dozen Windows opened into the job site
because people want to throw their trash out of them or something all of a sudden it could take four hours
for that same area to dry and so that proper like duration
um has been that's and and the fact that I don't know where it stops but clients
thinking that because one job you were able to go slam in 1100 yards in a day of carpet
tile with two guy two Crews or something that that's doable on every job because it's a similar size and one's a big
single room and one has 20 offices and it's like do you not it doesn't it's
not apples for apples but a lot of times they just look at square footage look at square footage
um and it doesn't it doesn't it doesn't comprehend or compute so I want to throw
that out there that you know properly setting the expectation when you're doing your planning
um can help a lot as well and we we have to get better at that everyone has to get better at that and
that's that's something that I've done too in the past where they do give you a timeline and then
you're like no it's going to take this much and then it's like well if you want to take that much you know you want to
cut it down by that much time we we can but it's going to take this much more
to do it and you know switching products out it's like we're not going to skim coat the
whole thing we're going to self-level it with an expensive self-leveler that's going to cure in an hour
so I mean you wanna and sometimes it just can't be done no
matter yeah yeah I got another job that had a similar deal we told him a month ahead of time
or ahead of time we told them it was a month duration to get all this Nora uh
flooring down and it's a a lot of yardage Flash Cove heat welded
everywhere like the hallways are not you know flat lay in the rooms
everything Splash code there's Corners everywhere and they just couldn't
understand why this area was going to take so long and we said because we know what it's going to take it's going to
take a month you know when they release their damn schedule they give us 13 days
guess what happened didn't get done in time no way but come on it's it's taking them off and it's also
not something you just throw a bunch of more people at because more people doesn't equal more production and equals
more problems especially on something as particular as Nora exactly it was it's a very particular product and on top of
that the the you know when you can get too many
people in an area like not everybody can be productive when you start doing that I mean you have to be able to get out
and get to the water to skim coat but if that hallway is that that is the only entrance into the
other room is glued up or has product pulled back or it's being pattern felted
or whatever the scenario no one can go through there and so like more people doesn't always
solve the problem and that's why those durations you know we kind of Saved ourselves on that
um that deal because we we had it in writing that it was going to take a month to do we told them very clearly to
take a month and they they completely ignored it and that's you know what that's the sad
truth that's happening right now is everything is getting funneled in and you know we're we're finishers right
like we're coming in as finishers and they're trying to get us the final product that everyone's going to see
that everyone is going that needs to outperform the stuff that's hidden um they want you to hurry up hurry up
and get it done I remember a conversation one time and you were talking about uh ambient temperature and humidity we ran into a really bad
problem with humidity and we're prepping and nothing's drying not even with moving air I remember the the general
telling me well you need to get more people here and I because I was young and the person yeah
exactly that's exactly what I said right I mean you want them to breathe on it like I don't understand what more people
is going to do well that's not what I mean well that's what's going on right now so I guess you
know it's one o'clock and we don't usually leave at one usually the last one's here but we're leaving there's nothing else I can do
so it was funny you said that that's exactly what I said you know and we've had
instances we've had too many people on a project uh you know we've had new guys and when you have a new guy sometimes
you do have one too many extra hands and you know I just I remember a friend of
mine that worked with us and he was handing handing one of the installers one piece of Base at a time because there was nothing for him to do so he
had it over his shoulder here you go hahaha
oh yeah you know the other thing when you start talking about Shiba and stuff
and uh we've had this happen you have one crew over here doing cheap on
another crew over there and there's no specific boot way of doing the boots and
they don't communicate one dude does a butterfly and one does an outside on my inside corner or an outside corner
you know different ways of of doing your corners and and they're like we like that way better
than that way we're like it's not specified and you you yeah you made us have three different Crews on the site
yeah one of those things that just happened and I wish we would have caught it and like had some pre-con meeting
with all the crews but yeah that time you're on fire so again planning durations can save you but that that
locks it in for if you ever run into that situation again you're like hey you guys were already there what are you
doing so that's what everyone is because none they're both right yes yes preference and if and if um any
resilient installers out there and you run into that and if you're going to a project and it doesn't specify then then
spend some time doing mock-up so they understand what you're talking about when you say uh if you're if you're
there helping another crew or doing the job yeah go look at the other guys stop see how it's already been done uh that
would have solved our problem too but that didn't happen either and if you um ever get put in a situation where
someone tells you on a Friday that you have to work through the weekend because it's got to be done and then you have to hire other flooring companies to come
and help make sure you're not the flooring company that says yeah I can I can do that yeah
oh man nightmare unless you're friends with the other flooring company and you can talk
between the two of you about the best way to attack it yeah doesn't happen
very often in the same Market obviously but all right well uh what other
you guys got anything else that's the end of my my uh list that I had written down that I found that you know I felt
like was important on our side um I do have something else
um and when you when you're project managing
put forth an effort to know your people you're right um
it's something as simple as as knowing a hobby knowing what they like to do and conversating
um it it is one of those things that is very hard to remember to do when you feel like you
have a million things to do all the time right is to be personable but
um me time for that be intentional about that that's
yeah and you're no one knows it as much as they want to right or as much as they they probably should unless that's their
full-time job but be intentional and knowing I don't want to say your
audience right because it's more than just your audience but the people you work with whether it's a rep versus uh
your your employee or uh your your contractor like
strike up a conversation know them get to know them I'll add on to that just a little bit
maybe not so personable but still uh important in that same arena is
uh you know the quality expectation of things and how things are gonna look
you know making sure it's clear that
um you know I know you for example uh we had on that student
housing project they they rejected they totally said no prep like do not prep the floors
right no no we're not paying you a dime to prep anything all right sign this paper you understand that what the
concrete and Chip Creek look like is how this floor is going to look right
and um so going through that and and listing
out the things that can happen like we can have peeling because chip Creek's not properly prepared and all these
things and just listing them out and the the concrete itself had blisters in it
where air bubbles came up it didn't pop it's like that's going to show through it's going to look like debris under the
lvt but it's not debris it's the concrete bumps that are like throughout so
um we don't always sad to say you don't always have the highest quality projects
uh and project expectations that you like I've got a few projects I wish you
know we we didn't have to do because it you just cannot possibly do the level of
quality you would like to uh but when you do come up against that it's important to uh you know plan on the
expectation and make sure your client knows this is what to expect and not just verbally I would uh highly
recommend you put that righty but uh knowing what their expectation is and
you know what it's going to look like and then marrying those two together so that everybody's informed
yeah we we just we walked away from
one of the construction companies not too long ago because they had uh I did
all the legwork and you know got a system approved from the manufacturer that is still technically not warranted
by the manufacturer but it had been performing so I did all that and then they came
back with no we just want to put floating floor in there I said I'm not gonna do it and then they got all
angry at me and I was like when I say butt hurt is what he was going to say
but I just talked to uh the owner of that construction company and I got a
meeting with her in a couple weeks and she was like oh yeah you were the
one that was supposed to do that it's all failing already
we don't say I told you so either we just say well need any help finding a solution yeah
yeah you could say it in your brain but uh and it feels good to say it in your
brain even but not very productive to what's wrong with him you don't go
I mean yeah oh no
um so some people just don't understand and I get it sometimes sometimes Solutions
are outside of the budget that's available um I I get it yeah that's what happened now they
didn't have a a dime extra I mean at all and I I usually will even give some to try to
get it right but it's such a massive project and because it's individual units you give to one unit they're going
to want all the units so unfortunately you can't give to even one unit or else everything else
the you just raise the expectation level now you're skim coding and floating and doing everything on every unit why can't
all the units look like this because you don't want to pay for it and I decided to make one look good well then you
should have made them all look good you know that kind of thing the unit I'm moving into so I spent my time working
on it so yeah that's the one my kid's moving into so uh yeah
all right guys well we came to the end of our time I I feel like uh you know affected project management just to
recap the whole thing here real quickly is communication with your labor your
client your vendors uh effective problem solving being a Solutions provider uh
embracing technology and then proper planning prevents pissport production
so all right guys well that that hour flew by as usual it's always a pleasure
to hang out and talk to you guys um again I just want to uh say to the
audience convention with fcic and CFI is coming up at the end of September uh
look I don't get nothing for this I just think it's valuable for everybody that can go to go so I know you guys feel the
same way I came here come hang out with us and yeah I was going to say actually I do get something out of it let's just
go hang out yeah we'll hang out by the pool bar yeah yeah and if the if if it's a Tuesday
maybe we'll pull you in on the podcast and you can contribute and and be part of the uh part of the Huddle so oh the
the convention does start on that Wednesday right so you should be getting there a day earlier anyways
yeah then when you can join us I think we have some um we had to attend a few things on Tuesday anyway yeah we
have a meeting that goes right up until the time when this is supposed to start so I'm probably gonna set everything up
somewhere go to the meeting that old story yeah yeah you've always
got an excuse always that's how I mean we've shot him at poolside we've shot them in yeah right outside the doors
we're going to be here on Tuesdays that's our that's our goal we've only missed a couple in over a year so
um and and one of those I think was a full technology failure so you know
sometimes it happens but um all right well uh last but not least please if you
enjoy the content or you see some value give us a like a subscribe if you're on
a YouTube channel or you're you're catching this on one of the social channels you know comment tell us what
you guys want to hear about uh one thing I was gonna throw out there you know with all the Facebook groups we're part
of I thought we'd do um maybe take one episode a month to just dig through some of the comments we
won't name any comments but you know we want screenshots we want to put them
up put them on the screen let's dissect these we can I mean they put it out
there publicly but uh you know go through some of the the questions some of the problems out there some of the
funny you read and oh man yeah on the on the Facebook uh groups uh but
just our comments about the uh that you know maybe it's the go career comment section of uh from the Facebook uh and
Instagrams of the of the world so I think that'd be fun a little off the
beaten path not always so serious about how to run a business and things and just uh you know have a little bit of
fun with it so that does sound like a good time actually yeah it would be fun if you
guys are here and you want to comment on one of those uh and you have an idea for a topic on the podcast give us a give us
a shout on there you know let us know and and we'll do our best to put something together for it and maybe your
episode ends up I just read that comment really but commercial planning is some hard
stuff when you add all these episodes or yeah I'll add all these episodes together
yeah all right guys have been commenting on here
oh man sorry that's funny to me because overwhelming
yeah well there's a lot to the business there's a lot to any business but the flooring business uh you know that's why
we're here we're here to help people and and that's why we do it in segments right because you learn a little bit at
a time because many small time make big time amen all right fellas we will chat with you
guys next week and um until then have a good week yeah thank you all right thank you guys