This week the guys discuss some great technologies that are improving the industry we know and love, as well as the importance of integrating these technologies into our daily lives to improve how our business functions.

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

https://www.preferredflooringmi.com

https://www.stuartandassociates.com

industry you know really standing behind and pushing forward that forward

progress that let's get better so I'm gonna open by saying that I know

preferred flooring up in Grand Rapids uhoh

you guys you know kind of embrace technology at this point but you had a time when

you're like yeah I won't call you out Jose oops but your brother D's probably

a little more on the technical side no that's uh that's 100% accurate

and I will still I will still agree with that even though I am also using as much

as I possibly can I still agree that Daniel um is the one pushing the envelope here um if if he didn't say we

need this or hey check this out chances are I probably would never have looked at it so yeah Daniel is uh and it's

amazing the difference between six years uh and age does for school um you know I

left school I was getting done with school when technology hit him in high school and he like this dude grew up

with a laptop like I don't type very fast still right like it shows this dude sounds like he's

Mash I I used to download the the typing

programs and make him do it at home like said you gotta get better at this I'm

old enough that we had uh what do they call it keyboard class yeah yeah keyboarding that's what it was

keyboarding yeah see you guys did keyboarding and then I did computer class yes we just got a

keyboard and we and that was that was new like it was T typewriter before that

so that showing my age a bit um well I know the

one of the things like you guys use big technology companies you've you I know you use Microsoft teams and

Microsoft uh that that platform for doing a lot of your uh um communication

and taking care of your uh I know you use go careera as well for the for like

your uh work order systems and things like that but you also have teams that you use in scheduling and and getting

information to your Crews right yes like you guys use you guys look for

technology for those of you in the audience sorry uh that may not look for

it we're going to talk about a few one being go Carrera uh the other being uh a product

called uh Flor cloud and then bollins bollins Knows Best Man uh you know I

can't wait want to bring him up with his technology so to start out of the gate most of the

time that that I've been involved with technology and now I've built a a software

company it it was pretty intimidating to me um but I knew I wanted something to

do all these things for me so the be one thing I want to come out of the gate and

say is like be curious about it try it out you don't have to get in bed with

something and just stay there like check it out use it a little bit if you got a

free trial or or they have you know a free version that you can use at any uh

technology company get in there and get your feet wet I mean Daniel I'm gonna pick on you for a second is that how you

go when you when you want something done you just start searching and try things out well yeah so uh when the whole teams

thing I think we're like one of the smaller companies to use it right because uh I seen it and then it's like

all right this can do this and then then that's what I did I I looked at what we

already had so we are we're already using the Microsoft platform and teams was included because they're just trying

to get it into company's hands so I'm like start messing around with it and then I start asking other people hey do

you guys use this and they're like yeah and it's like huge companies you know it's World some some of the

people that I was talking to are work for worldwide companies it's like yeah this is what we use and it's like all

right how do you use this talk to another person how do you use this and then it's like taking bits and pieces

from everyone just to kind of put it together what we'd be able to use it

for and uh it's really one of those things that you don't know until you

start using it it's almost like if you put it in terms of just like um

actually getting hands on with material right yeah you're you're not going to know until you start putting your hands

on it like you can read as much as you want about it it's not until you actually start using it that it's like

hey this is actually really nice or we also had had software where it's like

there's got to be something better like this is just not it yeah I um that's how I do it I mean

it's same thing I just want to try let me get in there figure out what's really hard what's really good um you know

frankly a lot of it a different work order systems we' used um just lacked in

a lot of the things in go Carrera and the reason we started developing that um

of course all the labor side of it we've talked about before but from a technology piece being able to shoot

work orders to Geographic locations and have installers in that

area be able to respond just from a technology standpoint it sounds really

awesome you know like to be able to do that and you just got to try things out a lot

of the uh work order systems that we had used before and frankly we went from paper to

trying to find something that was gonna you know we had a problem with our guys losing their their paperwork that was

really the first problem we had that made us want to start looking for something digital and uh you know we

found a lot of uh those technology those different software products lacking but

here's the key we found a lot of the really great stuff that it did too and it changed the way we would use just the

great parts of it and it really changed the way that we um that we we looked at

it and I say that and what I mean mean by that is is it wasn't so scary right it got us

used to just trying things just try something like you're not gonna end the world just give it a shot technolog is

not scary just jump in like you said that you do with with flooring products

give it a shot try in an area or in a situation that's not going to be super

detrimental and uh you might just find that you found some really cool pieces of that because I'm sure you don't use

every single piece of teams right but you use right you use what really works for

your firm uh same with go Carrera some people just use it every once in a while

when they need an installer and they look at it as a labor platform some companies use it full bore like they

want they want the whole process because they can use it front to back from creating a work order to processing

payment and gain uh gaining lean releases there's there's um you don't have to do

everything with the software that's one thing that was really intimidating for me in the beginning is like if you

looked at a list of things that this software does you're like I don't need all that and that's a lot of work

and it seems hard jump in find the things that work really well for your company like you guys did it's so

admirable that you guys do that and honestly you said something right there it's uh it's going to be hard and it is

gonna be hard but once you have these things set up it becomes so much easier

like I don't I don't know where we' right now if we didn't have projects

organized like let me go check this project out this is this was sent on this day and then we've run into

situations where people are like you you guys never talked about this no one ever told us this and you go into teams and

it's like yeah my employee told you on this day that this was going to happen

and it's like no brainer anymore it's everything is so organiz that in

comparison it's organized right and it can get better and it's going to get better and and I know that

and you know coming from someone who never embraced technology to where where

I am now I'm ready to change the platform that we created because I have in my

brain better ways to do it now um I'm just ready to change it

up not going that right there is another good point for for somebody who I know you're

technical it's not like you're um ignorant to any of these things but you're you you get to

um understand a lot of this software Rhymes the way it works right it starts

to rhyme and you start to see some similarities and the way things move down through the path yes uh you know a

workflow that's why you can look at it and say hey I wish it I wanted to do this and I'll I'll do this to make it do

that and you can use that H and and more formulate it to your business whether

it's go Carrera teams uh will will throw out their floor Cloud just to start uh

give a quick introduction on floor Cloud floor cloud is a mobile um site

condition reporting uh technology so you put their sensors on your job site you can log

into their their cloud and you can see what the ambient temperature is if you have it Bluetooth to your Wagner meters

you can check your um check your uh RH from anywhere in the world well anywhere

with the internet um clarify um so you know some

people have the Bluetooth this is an example the same thing I was just talking about some people have it Bluetooth to the the Wagner meter some

just have the they want the ambient temperature you know and the the site

readings the key is doing some of these things and moving because a little bit

of progress can do can go a long way in how your business performs

overall um I know that a lot of people one of our big things that go career that's tough is the adoption of

Technology from the older installer um demographic they just don't want to mess

with it you know they the the and they're somewhat fearful of it but when

we walk them through and get them started and then they do their first work order and they start using the system they're like oh this is

easy that's one of one of the guys that we got on it that he was like really against it and it's like this this is

what we're using man like either get on board or we're going to I told them we're essentially we'll find someone

that will use it and you know he was reluctant but then you know after the first time he was like oh it's actually

really streamlined and then he said he said you you guys are the only company

that I do work for now that I don't have to physically go pick up a check yeah

how how awesome is that you know just giving it a shot taking that first step

you know and then starting break down that fear of Technology if anything in

this podcast I'm hoping to to portray to smaller flooring companies

and installers is dropping the fear of Technology like your

car there's not linkages and stuff like that well most most cars I mean some of

the old dudes they're not giving up their old 57 Chevy but you know what I'm saying today's cars like it's a computer

that's reading an algorithm that tells you to the blank blinker to turn on it's

not mechanical they give you the idea that it's mechanical by making it click

yeah but it's not you turn the wheel that's the computer telling this to make this happen and there's linkage involved

I know but I'm just saying like even starting your car key fobs and all this stuff like technology is embedded and

when you have to use it uh it can get it can be really frustrating if you choose

to use it it can be much less frustrating so choose to give it a shot guys quit being so and I'm talking to

the group that is fearful obviously don't be fearful of trying to use a new

piece of technology um you know I know that Flor Cloud had some of that reluctancy as

well like but once the people are using it now they're telling other people about it

so it's taking the first step um ballin's uh Ballin knows best Kim

ballin's you know AI kind of driven uh Q&A basically right send them a question

they'll give you an answer um that piece I know that guys are

reluctant just to call a phone number and send a Text uh I've talked to my guys about it

they're starting to understand like okay you don't have to do it on everything um

his a little bit uh new so there's not as much complexity to it but as it gets

more complex you know my my preaching my my

uh my Ploy here is don't be scared to try out those new things you'll find out that you're going to be more effective I

know you guys have and I I can attest to it in our company when we started embracing technology we became more

efficient it helps uh helps bridge that gap between uh someone who communicates

well and someone who doesn't and all they have to do is download an app or just get on board and then there's a a

central location and that's that's across the board no matter what technology you're using and uh I I went

when I was learning how to use uh I forget what program one of the first measure programs we had you know I went

out of state bird class and uh the the first one I went to the gentleman said something to me that kind of I applied

to everything he said you already know how to do it in your brain and you already know how to do it on paper all

we're doing with the computer is transferring what you already you know how to do onto this the only thing you

need to learn is how to navigate and and mo most everything we use now is customizable

so that's really what I I think about when we talk about technology because

you were reluctant at first to actually use one of the measure programs and you know we worked a lot with Bob over at

Welsh and he was he was kind of the same way and it's like until you start again until you

start using it and actually start you know going through prints and drawing them you don't realize how much time you

can actually save from doing everything like a takeoff

on a paper print because oh man think about it in terms of some of these

projects that we've been doing right it's like I got to price it out with three different materials and in order to get three different prints and do

stuff like that that's craziness oh h lost signal but when we were um just the

last time we were at CFI convention and talking to floor cloud and how they went through their platform and showed us

like this is a live project right now and I'm going to pull it up and we can

see how many different

uh different RH probes that they had and this one is reading high and these ones

are all fine but this is our our Focus area now we need to get this one make sure that this one gets all all squared

away before uh this project can go and to know that you can just go online and

say this one is still not ready I was supposed to have guys out there in two days they're not going to be out there

in two days what what do we got to do to remedy this situation yeah and it's the same thing is uh now you have now you have a

projects and job sites communicating with you instead of making an hour and a half drive a three-hour Drive depending

on how large and and where the project is located um if if you work for

companies and you do work uh for hotel stays a lot uh you can monitor that you

know and say they must not have their uh their windows closed and this temperature is

fluctuating too much or uh this RH isn't dissipating something else has got to be

done it's good to have all that information uh before you go there and have to do all the old manual testing uh

PRI PR to getting started now you know what to do what to look for right away

and that that's the thing right with um talk about you know Bon knows best and how that's aiid

driven and there was I think it was about a week ago or

so where one of the companies was using one of those AI platforms

to see if there was a better way for them to to code or whatever and they ended up putting in a lot of proprietary

information that the company was did not want to out and that is the thing I

think a lot of people are worried about is because once you do get into some of these

platforms information out it's out there forever right you're you're never able

to to get that back and that's what this company learned and now they actually banned

anyone using the AI platform in in their company that's crazy yeah

and it's like we're talking about like lines of code that no one else was supposed to know and now it's out there

forever now yeah the code's gonna be there AI is gonna retain that information and apply

it if someone asked the right series of questions yeah and that's the thing it's it's good and bad because it's

constantly learning by whatever you're making it back on you're telling it but at the same time

it's it's also that information is there forever so if you're trying to have secrets that's really not the route to

go as far as the uh the other technology um and I'm always going to revert back

to what I know because that's the only thing that that that I'm familiar with is is the measure programs um we used to call them napkin

drawings people go to the job sites and draw on a napkin or piece of paper and then you get that uh this fixes that um

all you oldtimers out there it's just a matter of uh learning how to navigate the program

so that way you can get on on I will say paper but you can get into the the system what is in your head

already and the time savings on Switching materials to five different

variations with a click of a button well just think about in terms of

commercial I made it I don't know how long my internet access is pretty uh sketchy so hopefully

I hey we filled it we filled it in for you thank you um in terms of like commercial

projects you think about it and sometimes you know we'll get a bid and it's due if in like three days and it's

like without some of these programs it's it would be impossible I wanted to bring up another

uh another technology quickly that I just found out about that we're going to start we're

going to give a shot but essentially you take a picture of a room

and you can send it in or you upload it and it'll give you uh I don't know if you guys have

heard of this thing but it'll actually give you the square footage of the room anything you ask for about that room it'll give you square footage it needs

just a little bit of information I'm kind of learning um but it takes

standard measurements off of like counters and and uh couches things like

this and it it sets the scale and it knows the camera angle and it does all

these algorithms and it what's it called room scanner is that

the one you're using there's a couple of them out there oh is it is

it I thought I was like if it works and I can do some small jobs go in and take

a picture and get a takeoff like I'm down I'm going use it have you tried it

I've worked with the beta that I have right now um and they released it did

they release it okay so I breaking up again I guess oh can you hear

me can you hear me can you hear me um well I used a um at the time it

was a beta program and um there are still some glitches in it right like the

recognition like it doesn't recognize some things it kind of Blends shapes together but um I'm sure that they've

fixed that if they released it to the public so that's the thing it's

um they use on the iPhone the ldar to

actually it shoots out dots and that's where they get the measurements and stuff from so it's uh the program he's

talking about is for iPhones only which is pretty limited until Android starts

implementing the same technology if they do did I say Samsung no you said Android

okay if they do at all but I mean you're talking um and when I I

had a meeting at the last surfaces with one of the manufacturers and they were going to start implementing this

technology too and the the thought behind it is is that you can have um and

this was more residentially focused because on Commercial projects they a little bit bigger and different but it's like hey I want this room done they can

take their phone scan it for you send it to you you have all the measurements you know where the doors

are and the the actual rendering that it does it does you can make it so that

it's like an entire 3D rendering so you can see exactly what's in the room you can see the furniture that's in it you

can see what's in the next room it's I mean we're talking about technology this

stuff is going to actually come a long way with in the next couple years to where you you may not have to go to a

customer's house to even measure you're gonna have everything put the product in there send them the

quote and I think that that's a question that I had too during that that um webinar we attended was Will I'd be able

to send out an invite to a client and have them scan their own room and then they then they can upload it to my link

that I sent them and then I don't even have to go there yeah speaking

about about this Jeremy says that he can hear you but I don't we don't know if anyone can hear Paul he you you're doing

a lot of freezing I don't know if you wanted to turn your video off to see if that helps a little

bit and you're on your laptop good idea I yeah so I'm I got all kinds of stuff

going on over here speaking of Technology yeah I know speak

that um I don't know you guys hear me better with the video off yeah yep yes

we do it's a nice picture too by the way thank

you um so I guess the point that I wanted to

really get across and that I think you guys display and is uh I think really

important for all of us is give it a shot uh you know go career is coming out with jumpstart we're we're just days away

from launching that where companies will be able to hire the new guys coming into

the industry from the fcef and several other of the organizations be able to

hire them and make offers right off of right off of a a phone um I know that like some of scary

the stuff you guys do sounds SC but

Dr fear and being uh being willing to try some new stuff I think that's like

the the big message I wanted to get lastly because we're going to close this thing down a little bit early today we

had a few everybody in our audience uh things with the podcast are going to get a little bit more uh structured and and

uh crisp we're crisping up the the studio back at go Carrera uh just to

make the experience a little bit better we have some sponsors coming on board uh

it'll be very short I'm not going to make you guys watch a bunch of ads but there's going to be some sponsors that I think you know about um and then

the structure of it all will be a little bit we want to keep the conversation

piece that's what I love about it these guys are my friends on top of doing this stuff we hang out man love it yeah

so I don't want to lose the conversational piece but just a little bit more uh of the a little more

scripted from uh key points that we hit during a

topic and here is my ask of the audience like And subscribe continue to watch us

and please give us some ideas on what you would like for us

to we already have coming up in 24 four or five different

guests and that's just getting going we're going to have a lot more guests and we'd love some of our audience to

come on um and be a guest as well and at least tell us what you've gotten out of

the Huddle we're going to do one of those coming up in the near future uh what's the Huddle done for me and um you

know get some of our audience on and and discuss some of the stuff that maybe we were able to uh disc you know talk about

on the podcast that helped out uh it I know it's fulfilling for me that's why I

do it um you know I know you none of us get paid to do this we just get in here and

rrap about flooring and how to how to better better the industry so at the end

of the day giving us some suggestions giving us some love through like and subscribing to our various channels and

to PF fling's various channels and uh being engaged 2024 is going to be a

great year I'm looking forward to kind of a revamping of the podcast starting starting then so I'm going to keep

reminding everybody of that as we go uh each each one of our episodes leading up to the end of the year but I'd like 2024

to have just a bit more structure a little bit more um variance in topics

and more audience participation along with more guests and not getting all Joe Rogan on you we're just trying to uh

Stay Stay crisp on our messaging while still getting to just hang out and rap a

little bit yeah I I like the the conversational piece too I mean but just like

everything that we talk about uh a little bit more structure in everything

would never hurt right y it's about being efficient right and getting to the point and and and and solving solving

issues before they they become an issue yeah so IDE we're going to keep the keep

the uh podcast closer to about this time uh which is about 30 minutes as opposed

to our hour so that's going to be another big goal and that's why like keeping on topic with the the bullet

points and and and kind of being really crisp with our messaging will help and

allow us to still be conversational and get you all the information within 30 minutes but if it runs over who

cares yeah half hour 45 is good but sometimes the conversation just uh gets

away and some of that's my fault I do get sidetracked quite a bit go on tangents in the conversation Jeremy said

that we should do one about what to do when job sites aren't ready awesome thank you Jeremy we I

think uh job site preparedness is a is a good one yeah and I just missed the the

um webinar today with fcica is that what it was about yeah dude yeah was so out

FCC records them though so you'll be able to watch it yeah but I like participating and asking questions and and just making comments

like poking the bear I like poking the bear well gentlemen um I appreciate you

guys for for everything and thank you for last week covering covering for me and and uh uh thanks again for today and

hopefully the audience just like like I said take the first step with technology

don't be scared that one thing you've been thinking about trying go give it a try and uh I look forward to hearing

some success stories on some of the the content we've created here in

2024 and uh with that I'm Gonna Let You gentlemen go to the

audience you know stay Innovative and let's uh let's get ready for a awesome

last quarter of this this year and and a great setup for 2024

100% all right thanks guys have a good one man see you all right we'll see you thanks everyone

bye