The Huddle - Episode 168 - Implementing Effective Quality Control Measures

Paul, Daniel, and Jose dive deep into one of the most important aspects of running a successful flooring business: quality control. From building accountability into every project to preventing costly mistakes, this episode is packed with real-world strategies and insights for installers, contractors, and business owners.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

-Why quality control is more than just a checklist.

-Practical tips for avoiding errors and ensuring consistent results.

-How to set up systems that keep your projects on track.

-Real stories from the field where QC made or broke the job. Whether you’re a seasoned installer or managing a growing flooring business, these actionable insights will help you deliver top-notch results every time.

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What is up, guys? Welcome back to the Huddle, your weekly playbook helping you gain forward progress in your career.

Simply put, we're here every single week to help you win. For our new viewers,

welcome to the team. What's up, Mr. Daniel? I'm back. People can hear me this week.

Yeah, we missed you last week. We needed you. We needed you. All right. Today's

sponsors, NFCT and Divergent Adhesives. If you need training coming up October,

what is it, Daniel? Uh 20th, I believe.

20th. We are uh I say we are uh NFCT is having a sheet vinyl heat weld flash

coing I believe uh training that is in the 24th.

And where's it at? Columbus, Ohio at America's Floor Source. It's a amazing facility that

they got there. Awesome. So, uh, if you're in the

resilient world, want to get in one of the most in demand floorings that are projected to continue in demand, you

should probably check out the, uh, NFCT heat weld and sheet bunnel. um

course there in Columbus. Reach out to Daniel, reach out to NFCT.

And we want to give a shout out to Divergent Adhesives for sponsoring today's show as well. So, both of these

companies are great sponsors of the huddle, showing you how much uh we care as well

as they care about training and quality products.

Don't forget to give us a like and subscribe and, you know, hit us up on the social channels. Let us know what

you're thinking about, what we can uh help you guys work through, maybe get some experts on

and uh, you know, help uh continue to uh curate our topics. Speaking of topics,

today's topic is implementing effective quality control measures.

We got our homeboy out on the golf course today. He's going to participate.

Uh and uh show you what quality does. It gets you on the golf course.

Good quality relationship gets you on the golf course. I don't know about golf game, that's for sure. It's all about

the relationships that you build. And um um hey I just want to add you guys that have me on mute just in case they say

some things that aren't uh quality aren't huddle a aren't huddle approved

but um uh we there's a lot of uh interest in the uh course coming up in

Columbus. Daniel I just wanted to let you know that um had a couple gentlemen that uh exchanged contact information

actually gave them your information as well uh so they could reach out. Um, and that event we had some of our neighbors

were interested. Uh, some of the local flooring companies interested in attending as well.

Sweet. Awesome. What's up, Jose?

Yeah, he was guys down there at um convention last week too, right?

He was. Yeah, it was awesome being down at convention and

it was it was really cool. It was uh it was a lot bigger um bigger audience than

normal. Um the the topics were pretty wide varying. They

had a great uh couple keynote speakers. I mean, we had guys doing flips,

handstands on freaking like on the podium, which was the most impressive

part to me. Um, I forget the gentleman's name off the top of my head. It'll come to me, but he he did like a,

you know, did a backflip on stage. Of course, it's all set up as far as like

why you do those things, you know, but uh the speech was really good. It wasn't just a bunch of charades, but he ended

up doing all these different tricks and kind of uh building that into his speech, but he ended up doing a

handstand on the podium, which is just a regular little podium, like a little square on top of it like

on top of it. Dude, got up, lifted his legs up, boom, complete handstand. his

his uh for all of you viewers at home the the point was

in in that part of the talk was about balancing your life. You know people

believe that uh you you always strive to have a balanced life as if it's a

destination and um his point was you're always balancing it's and he did some juggling

uh as well. So, it was basically about embracing the chaos that like when you

try to get a balanced quote unquote balanced life that it just doesn't exist. You're over there for a minute

like maybe spending more time with family than it than you than you were, but then work demands come in or vice

versa. And um his point to that handstand was he he was never balanced.

He was it was shaking and moving. I thought this would be quite the show if

if he eats death. But he his whole point was that he was constantly having to

balance when potentially off balance, right? Is that what he said?

Well, off balance. It's more about just like understanding that you're going to be off balance and

embracing the chaos of it all, right? Yeah. It's it's a constant battle. Cons never just

smooth sailing. It's always and and you think of that in terms of just like when I was talking to I just

went and measured someone's house, right? And we were just talking about like the kids and it's like yeah like

got something every single day with the kids have work and it's like there's so much work where it's like where do I

stop working and then start participating you know as far as am what what am I

making and what am I not going to make and then a lot of the times it's finding that balance where it's like okay I'm

just going to work super late today since I don't have to go get the kids or I don't have to pick them up till like

8:39. 9 and then that gives me time tomorrow to leave at 4:30 5:00 to make

it to the 6:00 game. Yeah. Yeah. It's that constant balancing

that he was bringing up in that and it was the same. He he did some juggling and was like

uh that w moved more into he learned to juggle two then three balls and that the

when you're juggling and you add another ball like that that takes a whole new

skill like you got to learn something new just one more ball to juggle and you

got to learn something new but there's always a pattern to this to the jug struggle to life. It was a really great

talk. You'd have to get uh go to convention to catch that kind of stuff. Uh go to the to the show and um you know

get the get the full like delivery of it because obviously I'm not uh an expert

in his um in his uh take on all this stuff, but he

he delivered it well and it made a lot of sense. The balance thing really struck me because I'm constantly I own

two companies. I've got three kids in the house. I've got two grown kids. I've got multiple locations. I've got two

grandchildren. Um and then you try to fit in a football game with your, you know, I watched my

son's football game last night and trying to fit all of that in. Um

embracing the chaos made a heck of a lot of sense to me. like um I I what I

really took out of it and then we can move on was that

you're always strive you you add undue stress when you're trying to strive for balance like when you're if you just say

hey the day is what it is I'm you know you make the best plan of it but when

things get kind of crazy and you're offbalance you you just get back on balance you know and so you're not

you're not adding that stress to your life like I I need a balanced lifestyle. Uh truth is is that um if if you

prescribe to his uh take, you're never on balance. You're always

trying to find it and and to embrace rolling rolling with the punches, right? It's you just that's what you got to do.

It's everything's a a constant thing. And that's what we talk about too. Um

you in our meetings. It's like you get you try to be so focused on one thing

that if something goes wrong, it ruins your entire day. But if you're always with that constant mindset of all right,

I'm going to go focus on this, but what if something pops up? All right, you got to be able to move quick.

Yep. Yeah. And he did one more uh piece of it where he was on a unicycle showing

that that thing's never bal truly balanced. You're always doing it. Looks like Jose wants to say something.

There you go. I just had to unmute it, guys. You know, it's funny you talk about balance and Daniel mindset and making sure that you are uh not creating

the chaos, right? And I just happen to be golfing. I suck at golf. These guys

know it. They're not going to lie. I still use one of my barrels. But, you know, I I I didn't let my lack of

experience in golfing dictate my day. I'm still having fun. We're still making conversations.

Yeah, I know. That's why you don't show up. We talk about that.

It's not not like those memes with the guy in the papers like, "F it, I quit." And he's throwing it and then he says,

"Never mind. I'm just kidding." They show him picking up the paper pile of papers. Um, you're right. Balance goes with a

lot. Uh, and and if you can find a way to stay balanced, chances are you're going to stay a little more organized

and you're going to be able to roll with those punches a lot easier. So, Justin does have a question. Um, he

wants to know and since we're in different markets, you know, we're in Michigan, you're in Kansas,

uh, if you we're doing a lot of sanitary base cuz he sees it replacing Flash

Cove. And I don't know your thoughts on that, but I know you've been dealing with the same thing that we've been

dealing with over here. Is the PVC free or nonPVC depending on which

manufacturer you're talking to? Yeah, there, you know, I've seen more

specifications for Flex Co, uh, and their their base system and welding to

the the floor. Um, I believe that's what he's referring to when he says sanitary

base. Um, and Jurloor came out uh with and I didn't know this and it may have

been out for a while but like Jurloor has pre-formed and inside and outside corners and then of course you know

putting you'd make the the straight runs. Flex Co is a little overkill

on some of it because it's like the um you know it's expensive. If you

have to buy the straight runs and if you're doing vinyl uh that has preformed

inside and outside corners then um and you border the entire room essentially

um that's often times a little more affordable than doing a sanitary

system, but it is gaining steam. I would I would tell you that. Um, I think it's

it's the frustration with inside and outside corners, uh, from an installation standpoint is is why not,

at least in our market, it's not as much of a like a design

desire. Uh, they just soon have it flash coing and heat welded. Um, but I I think

it's more of a performance standpoint that you know a lot of guys have trouble welding those outside corners and

welding your inside corners. Guys are still I go on job sites and see cocking

on inside corners and stuff like that. And I understand it like the sheetrock's

not perfect and you know you've got all these other things. But um I seen a

trick little sister did, you know, with with the the flashing metal flashing.

Yeah, metal flashing uh for that kind of stuff. So that was pretty cool to to to

see that. So there are some some things you can do as an installer to uh improve that scenario. I particularly like the

outside corners uh done that way because it gives you a real good backing where we fail on and you should be uh you

probably should teach us more than me, but where I see failure on outside corners and inside corners, but

primarily outside corners, there's nothing behind it. Yeah. And then when you try to weld two two

pieces of weld with no body behind it, open up. Yeah. it it almost like just

disintegrates them depending on which vinyl you're using. So, and then you get

these gnarly like you go back and you try to weld that and weld that and

before you know it, you have this gnarly looking outside corner. So,

but yeah, we don't see it too I haven't at least seen it too much over here in any of the bids or on any of the

projects. So, um that's something that we'll be looking for. So, if if we do,

I'll definitely let you guys know. Yeah, Jur Floor just uh we just The only

reason I know about that is they they had a uh we had a bid come out that specified their inside and outside

corners and I was like, I didn't even know they made them. Um must be pretty new. But yeah, right. And just searching

it up, it looks like even Nora has their own. And then you get into the preform

stuff like just outside of sanitary base and ROI has their own flash coat where you can send them whatever material and

they put the metal on the backing for you. And it's that stuff right there. It's um

it's I don't know even what to say about it because it was not that fun to work with when we did it. But that was like

it had been like at least 20 years ago when we first did it. Oh, really? Yeah.

I've never used it. Never. Was that the

OEM place out? Yeah. Yeah. Orthopedic Associates. Yes. That was an absolute nightmare. Um

just no knowledge, zero instruction on how to do it. So, we had to figure it out and it was brand new. Yeah, it was a

nightmare. So, do do you guys um have anything else

to say about convention at all last week? I know we just wanted to do to to catch things up and Justin does say

thanks guys. Only worked with Noran Manning. Mannington is Oh, I don't want to say

that, man. Well, it's not Those aren't our

comments, but we'll try not to uh perpetuate it. Yeah, good catch.

The only thing about last week as I would say is and I think we kind of say it all the time is get

get yourself off balance, right? Intentionally off balance. Go to some place that you you might not feel you're

going to fit in. Be uncomfortable for a little bit. Before you know it, you might come out

of the the visit or the convention or the meeting with a friendship like ours. You know, you might meet some pretty

cool people at these places. You don't know where your tribe's at until you start traveling. Yep.

Yeah. And uh I did I was on the phone with him earlier and I said, "Man, a

good joke would have been that he took the red eyee to and from Nashville.

The literal red. Is my eyes still red?" I think it is. A little bit. A little bit.

Yeah. So, I'll I'll say the the last thing about convention is it there was a lot of really good um technology pieces.

I think that's just because there was like some company more companies involved

and there was um more stuff aimed at technology and AI and those types of

deals, multiple seminars and talks. Oh, thanks Rand. I appreciate that brother.

Uh I did a talk on um how AI is kind of replacing that middle 80%

of businesses and ours is no different. I mean we're we're in the process now at

Steuart Associates of of building narrow AI. uh I kind of made sure to explain a

little bit more about the separation between between general like large

language models like chat GPT that everybody kind of knows um and you'll

still use those in building narrow AI but this generative AI and and uh artificial intelligence like super

intelligence that you you see on your YouTube feed of the end of the world

stuff. Um, you know, there's real dangers there. Uh, most of the experts

that bring these dangers to um to the forefront, they really

are saying like AI should be utilized for narrow like very specific things

because they can replace people but not

have the harmful effect side. if you are designing them to only do one thing at a

time. And we're far enough along with general AI that those narrow AI models

can be built. You probably have heard of AI agents. And those AI agents are just

like employees. You have to train them, sometimes even more, but once they're trained,

they never forget, right? And they work 24/7 if you want them to.

So, uh, we're in the process of trying to eliminate a couple of roles, uh, in

our company and replace them with AI agents and then move those people into

more valuable roles. So, we're not going to let them go. We're just going to move them into more valuable roles where they can produce more uh, benefit for the

company, more uh, roles that are more uh, personally fulfilling than just data

transfer and placing purchase orders. the the purchasing and that kind of thing. So, there was a lot of that and

it was it was cool to to see see a lot of that. And then you get like you and I, Daniel, and your brother were and

many people were in business, but you know, in the flooring business, but we also installed. So, I also got to get my

geek on to go watch Navalis put on, you know, uh their seminar installation

stuff. And so there there it was a really good mix, probably the best mix of both worlds if you're wanting to be

in the flooring business, but also you're an installer. It was it was really valuable,

right? And which a lot of the the guys are, right? So it's really beneficial for everyone.

So um you know what you reminded me real quick and I'm sorry I don't mean to drag that that on, but um the ripples of the

national event are still happening right now via LinkedIn. Uh Mr. Joseph Richards

had asked a question about how we are how Daniel and I are utilizing um AI

because he was actually there an extra day because he wanted he heard that Daniel was going to speak initially and then that changed. Uh so he stayed an

extra day there. He wanted to hear Daniel's thoughts on AI because because he's an avid listener and thank you Mr.

Richards. We appreciate that. Um and um the conversation on there is based off

of the conversation that we he and I had for a few minutes on how we're utilizing AI to kind of help us out with uh some

of our takeoffs and our bids and some of that process. Um we're

you can make one person can be many if you do it right. And you like you said Paul you got to teach it and then it

don't forget. It still makes mistakes but it don't forget. Yeah. Yeah. Once you've taught all the

caught all the pitfalls and the the problems, boy, it's it can produce and

and produce the way you want every time. Now, there's always stuff you you know,

humans change and then so your agent has to change, but the key is is that once

you train it and it and you've trained it properly, it's uh you know, it's a

done deal. Well, implementing uh effective quality control measures. I

was going to throw out there just a few things and let you guys wrap on it. The way that I thought through this in my

notes was uh set expectations with your crews. So

guys are really probably sick hearing me say, "Hey, this is a really important client of mine. I don't want any issues.

If you have any problems, you call me. I'll be there or I'll have somebody come. We don't want to do anything that

you know we need to get this job done effectively and efficiently, but it needs to look awesome. So, if you have

any problem, you know, I'm always setting that bar as high as as my expectations are. Uh proper job setup.

So, you know, making sure that the the everyone is kind of, you know, you send

a crew out that, you know, if they're focused on their installation and not so

focused on dealing with superintendent and schedule and stuff and for my my

company, our PMS manage that deal to make sure that the project manager at

the the firm or whoever's running the project is trying to stay out ahead of

us and that they have their HVAC on and that the the buildings, you know, they

give us time to do door moisture test and everything's like ready for the crew

to go out and effectively install. And then client management or client

expectation management. I see that as a really really important one and could probably be number one because often

we'll get something and our customer has this idea in their head of

perfection and or how it's going to look, especially when you're doing some

custom stuff. And so explaining to the client some of the uh things not to be

expecting upfront have it may cause you to be in a discussion with your client.

Uh even if it's a homeowner oftent times they have this visual in their head and you want to draw that out and make sure

that you know what they're talking about or what they're expecting. And when you know what they're expecting you can kind

of manage those. And then last but certainly not least and could also be

number one is crew training and equipment. So proper training for your crew uh or your you yourself as an

installer being properly industry standard trained having a VTI and

um having the right equipment. So I just wanted to puke all that on you Daniel

and let you uh respond. And and not only that, right, it's we talk about the the salesman training quite a bit because if

you catch things early on, like you get ahead of that quality control right away when it's like, I know this is going to

happen, so let me get ahead of that. And that's kind of the double-edged sword when you're bidding stuff though is

because you know it's going to happen, but you have to bid it almost like you

don't because you know everyone else is going to leave it out. Yeah, that is. Man, I you just hit on

something that's the the hardest part. I was telling some people, I think I've

said it on here uh plenty of times, but I wish we did it here the way they

either used to or maybe still do in Europe when they're building a commercial building is they take the

closest to the average is the winning bid. Not the low bid and not the high bid, but

the closest to the average. And so you're always trying to just bid the job

properly then and not trying to like I know what you talk I

mean what we do yeah you look at the deal and you're like oh it's going to have to have that but it's not specified and if someone

some other estimator on the other side of the the uh city uh is is not a old

installer doesn't understand how that how hard that's going be or why that's

going to be needed to be done, whatever. I'm, you know, whatever the scenario, and you include it, well, you just

priced yourself out of the bid and you don't that you're not even having that argument with your client anyway.

But it it is um it's conversations that I like to have sometimes, you know, ahead of time to where it's like, hey, I

I know like this isn't going to be included, but just when you go through walkthroughs, and this is where people

start reme remembering you, too. It's like this has got to change because

this what you guys have spec just isn't going to work. And then yeah, I can put in an RFI, but you know, not they're not

always guaranteed to come back before the bid is due anyways. Yeah, if you get enough time to get an

RFI out and get it appro appropriate uh the appropriate time in around here,

it's 10 days. Well, sometimes you don't even have that long. I'm not even opening up the drawing

sometimes in 10 days, you know. You know what? Right. It's funny you guys are talking about that and I'm sorry I'm packing up my

golf cart right now, but I got and I turned my video off because I'm walking around, but um I I got one of those

phone calls today, right? There was a lot of items on there like, "Hey, I'm including this. I'm including theirs."

And but I and I flat out told him, I feel like I'm going to price myself out.

And you know what? He called me today and said, "Hey, I need you to meet me on the site so we can go over a couple

things and and and and make sure that you're on par and and we're both happy so we can pull the trigger." Um, but it

was about being open and transparent and I was able to look at that project like an installer and still did and still be

fairly competitive. I'll tell you another thing that does work and I know this is uh maybe going

spend a lot of time on the one thing but when you if when I find something that

has that like I my conscious won't let me leave it out type deal then I just

separate it. I give them a base per plans in the specs and I put voluntary

alternate hey to you know do XYZ

uh like if you're going in Flash Cove uh for example um around a old in a remodel and um

it's got like carpet. Well, we all you should know you're going to have to remove adhesive probably grind the

floor. Um, but at the very least remove adhesive, prime it, skim coat, that kind

of thing. But I have yet to find where, you know, if it wasn't planned for sheet

vinyl that the I always have a problem with this sheetrock being too high. So I

figure on filling all the way around the room and I just put like filling

sheetrock gap at Florida Florida wall transition. Uh because if your cove

doesn't have anything to attach to, I mean, what can you do? So, your cove

stick, that may be German to some of you carpet guys out there, but you vinyl guys know what I'm talking about.

Speaking of carpet, you know, did you see this Rollin comment? Sure didn't come to NFIC. Oh, that's right. You

don't do carpet. But the crazy thing is is that we have three people that are

NFIC certified over here. So yeah, boy.

Yeah. So I might not do it, but I did like the class. I learned a lot in that class.

So that's you you were mentioning just way up front with the bids and getting

it right there. That's kind of the the almost client

management part that kind of throws in with that. you know, whatever your salesman uh or your estimator or your PM

or whomever, whatever part of flooring you're you're in, whether it's retail, residential,

whatever. If you're direct to customer and you're doing uh retail work or residential work, direct with customer,

you are who sets the expectations. So, just I I find that's a pitfall. like you

can do a really great job, but they just had something else in their head and

boom, you know, um tile comes to mind like grout joints or particularly subway

or a white glazed tile with um dark dark

grout. I always I always like straight up you understand

this is a eased edge glazed wall tile with dark grout. You are going to see the grout joint is

not going to look consistent because you have such contrast between the two. It's stuff like that that you want to try to,

you know, but it's kind of easier these days though because people like that tile that kind of looks a little bit off,

right? Looks more handmade and that's kind of the look that a lot of people I mean I don't know

if that's what they're expecting. If they're expecting a nice tight straight grout joint, you'll give them that. But

it just the the you can even striking, which I'm sure if

there's any tile guys on here would be like, you should strike your joints. Yeah, you can strike them, too. But then

once you sponge them off, you're still going to have just a little bit of un um

inconsistency in the grout joint. Anyway, that that's too much on that one uh piece. I was just stating that like

what you said is is 100% true. setting those expectations way ahead of time even in the bid.

And you know, we we can even get it as far as talking about the culture of the company, right? Because when you're

looking at the quality, you have to have people the culture has to be there to where you're like, "Hey, there's

something going on here." and they bring it up to you instead of them just and

I've seen it time and time again where you know um and typically it's a subcontractor that or trade partner you

know however you want to call them um that you know you talk to them and

it's always with us it was always on someone else's project right but they're like well they're not paying us for this

so I'm not going to do it and it's got to be you have to have that

culture to where people can just tell you, hey, this is what's going on.

This is I I can't do this. Basically, they have to feel comfortable saying that.

Yeah. I like how you you kind of bring up things that encompass multiple deals

cuz that's kind of setting the crews setting the expectations to your crew

like hey if there's any problems whatsoever.

Call me like I want to know about them. We can discuss if it's going to cost more, if it's going to cost less, if

it's going to take more effort, whatever. But call me. Don't just do it

and then say, "Well, the sheetrock was not plum or there was sheet my base

looks like crap because there's sheetrock mud left at every joint at the bottom." Okay, but can we talk about

that before we put the base on, right? You know what I mean? Like, let's chat

through the situation and make sure that either we're going to do it or we're not. But

don't just uh go forward with something that's not going to turn out super high

quality. And that's that culture thing. And you can build it like you said with

your teams from like them picking out that stuff. And

you don't even uh although I would always do it. I mean even with our hourly guys that are fantastic, I'm

always still like, "Hey, this is really important that we do this." Right. Right. And that's what we do too. So you

you know you have to set those expectations like you said. So we have um our Monday meeting every Monday and I

will bring out all the projects that uh we did last week

and talk about those and see you know what went wrong, what went right and then I'll bring up all the projects that

we have going for this week. All right, these are the ones for this week. Let's go over this so that way if you have any

questions you ask them now. If I have anything to say. This is where everything is is brought out to the

table. So that way, you know, hey, this client right here is going to be looking at us under a microscope. So if anything

is wrong, we need to catch it right away. Mhm. The other thing that you're um

your culture hit on was

setting up the job. You know, I mean, I know that crews dislike nothing more

than get to a job site and the materials aren't there or the they don't have any

place to work and nobody talked to the inst the company um

you know the no I am not NFIC certified

um but getting a you know that falls under company culture as well is that

job setup like RPMs making sure that the crews are going to be most efficient. Um

I know when I'd show up to job sites, glue wouldn't be there or this wouldn't be there or that wouldn't be there. I

mean, we all run short on materials here and there. Uh things happen. We're not

perfect. But the not just not being ready and not going

and kind of making sure calling your superintendent the day before, hey, my crew is going to be there tomorrow. You

got room for them. Are where are they starting? What room number are they starting on? Let's go over the drawings

together. That kind of stuff. Um, yeah, that's a culture as well. I mean, a lot of what we talk about can

can be tied back to culture, and you just have to as soon as you realize that, that's where you start building

the culture and making it so that way you just always build on that and

everything is based on your your culture. Yeah. Yeah. Certainly

you get to build on one thing that can like you're saying many small things

make small time make big time right and that's where you know um it's it's

the small details that make take effect right and it's when you're talking about

the gaps at the bottom of the wall. Well guys we could have had this done and completed while we were patching. Now we

have to go back and we have to spend a day taking the base off, putting mud in

there, putting it back on. And it's like just explaining to them, you know, the time,

the what it costs basically to do that when you're doing

it is minimal compared to what you have to go back and do. Mhm.

And then what's uh what about oversight um for you guys? Do you have one of your

crew leaders? So it's like you know every lighting up a pre- punch or how do you

guys handle that stuff? Yep. And it's uh I would like to to say that it's a daily thing, but you know

that's kind of unrealistic in the real world, especially when you're on a huge project. But there is times where it's

like okay um have the the person in charge of that project go through and walk everything

right and it's like this is where culture becomes very important too because it's you have to be able to take

whatever is wrong and then go back to the people and say this is what's wrong

we have to fix it. And not only that, you you you explain

to them why, right? And cuz a lot of the people that

it hurts their ego, I think, cuz it's like, I thought I did a good job. And it's like maybe they did do a decent

job, right? It's just people have different expectations or different standards. And when you're trying to hit

a certain standard, it's, you know, it it may pass, right?

But to me it doesn't it it doesn't meet my standards. So we're that's why we have to do it and this is what we have

to change about it. Yeah. Just like I'll give you an easy example. LVT and hollow metal door

frames. We coaul every one of them. And I expect

my crew to every door frame even if it's cut in very nicely. And I had one

of our better crews say, "Oh, well the contractor said he was going to do it." I'm like, "He

just go back and it, please. Like, you cut it in so perfectly. I get it. It

doesn't really look uh you know, but it's still not perfect. Like, cutting

into them jams, if if you do commercial, you know how the bottom of those jams

get burgered up pretty bad. Yeah. They get bent out real bad because they have the spreader bar in the middle and

they leave the spreader bar forever. hit it with a hammer and it makes the bottom of the door frame jet out.

Mhm. Yeah. It doesn't break away like they they think it should. Um I don't

think they're really designed to do that. You should cut them uh with an oscillating tool, but that stuff happens

and door the bottoms of those door jambs are jacked up a lot of times and so it's just best to to uh them. All that

being said, what what I'm driving at there is that it just gives setting that expectation

for your crew and and and um they may have done a good job to your

point earlier, Daniel, but they it was just a little bit incomplete, right? It

just didn't quite tick the check the box every Yeah, it has a check every single box. And if it doesn't, it's like let's

rework it a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't mean you did a bad job. It just means that, hey,

we need to kind of tighten things up a little bit, you know.

So, company culture is probably the biggest one that can affect a lot of these things. Company culture and

training, uh, which almost anything you do could be put under the umbrella of

company culture, right? like even having a culture of training that kind of stuff

it can be put under company culture but um company culture training and then uh

CL salesman client expectation management

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And guess what? I told everybody here to use huddle 10. Nice job.

So, I listen I I heard everything you guys are talking about. Sorry, I just didn't want to interrupt with all the video going everywhere and and the

noise. I'm actually leaving early. They're doing the raffles right now, but I also got a football game in a little

bit. talk about balancing life all the time, right?

Sometimes. So, what's your what's your take on the quality control measures we talked about, Jose? Do you have any input

there? You know, it's or did we do a great job?

You you guys did a great job. No, you guys went over a lot of things, but but essentially, right, like my take is it's

about consistency, right? The same way we're on here every week, it's about being consistent. It's about um starting

with your guys, holding your your making sure that you're doing your best to hold people accountable um for for their part

and also having the teammates back um all the way to making sure that communication is happening across the

board. Could we you could we be better 100%. Is there going to be mistakes?

100%. Is it going to get better? Yes. Right. But it takes it takes everyone.

It like the culture. It takes the whole It takes everyone in that tribe, in that in that company, in that building. Um,

and the well, that's not my job. Uh, mentality really doesn't help build the

the system, but if everybody does their part, then it's easier to to recognize

the faults and where the holes are and how we could all be better. Um, it's just open communication.

Um, Daniel's been really good at that. I'm still a little bit brash when it comes to

delivery. I'm like to the point. I don't try to tiptoe around it. Like no,

didn't didn't like it. But um I do pass on I I I do pass on

when our clients are absolutely ecstatic and happy with everything, right? Like that is one thing that

when when everything falls into place, communication is great. Um, the

installation goes well, the experience altogether is is good. I I pass that

information on right away because that that's that's what it's all about. Sometimes it's not uh sometimes a thank

you and a pat on the back goes a little bit long a little bit further than just a it's part of your job description. I'm

still working on that though. Well, I think all of us uh speaking for

myself anyway could be better at giving that kudos to people when they they do a

great job. You know, a lot of times I you I I use special occasions to thank

them. Um, but yeah, you can people like to know they're doing good work for you and when they do good work that it's

noticed as much as when they don't do good work and you have to correct them.

So, you know what that brings me back to when uh at the convention Kevin Keith um

had congratulated like Rollin, you did a great job like on the presentation that they did, but he didn't say like man you

did a great job. He said it like uh Hancock, like Will Smith and Hancock.

Good job. Good job. I just start making fun of him right

away. It's like, uh, so sorry, I just kind of went off topic there a little bit. That

No, you have to go to convention to catch those things, too. Yes.

And I think uh, you know, you can start talking about who owns quality control,

right? Some places have entire departments just based on quality control, but I think with with us, it's

almost every single person has to be a part of that because there's so many moving pieces. It's not just going

through um like an assembly line, right? Which

would make it way easier for someone just to to keep on checking. It's all right, I did I did the bid, so now we

got to double check it. and all right, we we got the job. Now we got to double check and go over all the submitts and

make sure all that is good. And it's it's a constant battle all the way down the line. So when you're installing it, you know, the installers have to own

their own quality control, too. And then give that feedback back to the office

because I mean in the everyone has to start looking at their bottom line. It all feeds back up, right? And we have to

make sure that that there's a a constant flow of communication.

Yeah, I I agree. I I tell you, there's a lot of people, like you said, there's

obviously some companies out there that do um they have their own like quality

assurance piece and I did that for quite a while. We did a we had a installation

quality control person. Um the the thing that I find more effective

though is the expectation of the crew being there and then you come in as the

project manager. I go to my jobs at least once or twice throughout the duration of them. uh depend on the size

obviously and just show up and you know write a pre- punch early that will kind

of help set that tone as well. So um and

it just makes the crews better. They they they take notice of that. Our guys

have good hand skills. Many of them have good ratings. Um it's it's not that they

don't have the ability. It's at five o'clock on Friday. Bam. I don't want to do this XYZ or that

three o'clock on Friday that to do it, you know, the right way is going to take another hour,

right? It's going to take getting over that. Yeah. It's getting over that that our

crews have gotten really good at. It's like it's better that than spending the

first six hours on Monday fixing it. You know, that's a hard thing to to learn, right?

Like You know, I get it, right? Like everybody's life is is is important and

and you have a lot of things at play and everybody's got to put themselves first. But

when you recognize that, that mentality hurts the company the crew depending on

the size. Um, and you and maybe you don't recognize it until you're the one

that's most affected by maybe it's hard to

recognize. Try and save some bandwidth.

I think that quality control is individualized.

Oh, can you I turned your video off to save bandwidth.

You're breaking up a little bit. Yeah, we can hear you. You just were breaking up a little bit.

I was just adding on to what Daniel had said about it starts with an individual and then it affects the company if individuals

don't hold themselves accountable for not only their quality control but their crews.

Yeah, I agree. I'll tell you another uh just a a side bit to this is how you

talk to the crew about the deal. If you if you come at the cruise um the way

that a lot of the Facebook people go at people when they are looking at their

work or they're judging like that never works. It doesn't it may you

may get that particular thing fixed but if your goal is to demean the guy or the

g the girl the installer if if your goal is to demean them then you are you got

the wrong mindset or to show them how much better you are than they are uh I

see that sometimes um look my goal my goal and I've taught

this to all my staff and I my son runs our Kansas City division and I teach him

this same thing like put your ego aside and think about what the goal is. The

goal is to not have that happen. How can you correct your your crew on a

particular scenario that prevents it from happening in the future so that you have less and less quality control uh

concern. So go at them and you can teach them, but you got to have the right

attitude and the right uh approach. Um that's just a little side note. Um I

just see demeaning uh stuff. I I was part of that. Meaning

I I been an installer where, you know, I didn't do it the the the best uh early

on and, you know, the guy that would come behind me and look at it would just

dog and then try to dog you with the company and dog you with other

installers. Well, if you're doing that, dude, you're you're not accomplishing maybe you should readjust your goals to

making sure that not only is the job done very well for your client, but at

the end of the day, you don't have to keep battling those things because you take the time. I think Jose said it

earlier to like show them how to do it differently. I mean, I've had some of the best installers. We talk through

stuff and they get like, "Oh, yeah." Like, they're they're better than me at

tile, but I come up with an idea that helps them in their install

uh for it to go better. Um, you know, so have that mindset where you're trying to

actually improve them and not just, you know, prove them wrong. Right. And that was one of the the

things I was going to hit on too was like an a total mindset shift where you

you look at things where it's well I want to be out by 5:00 so I'm only going

to go up to this point and then you actually have to look at at that mindset

and be like well if I do that then next week I'm going to run into this and this

and this. Like I'm putting myself behind as soon as I start. Mhm. So, you have to look at that in your own

mind and be like, "Okay, if if I can set this stuff up the way I need to and make

sure it's done right, next week I won't have to worry about it." But then you it's a it's a snowball effect almost

where especially on the big projects where it's like, "All right, I didn't do it last week, so that puts me behind

this week, which is going to put me behind the following week." And it's just making sure that you're you're

trying to stay ahead of everything. Yeah. Uh Rollins says that the the Florida CFI

chapter is ready to go. How about Michigan? And uh I think we were looking

for someone to run it because I can't commit the time that it takes to run

something like that. So So it's in the works, it sounds like.

That's awesome. the Florida chapters going. CFI's got the local chapters

rolling pretty well. I think that'll be number 14. Um, Florida will be. So,

that's a an awesome thing that Rollins's in charge of and and doing a great job over there at CFI putting together those

local chapters. So, kudos to Rollin and CFI for doing that. that brings

training, camaraderie, and things like that more back down to the local level

where um I think can be really effective.

And like we said, that's one of the most important things having trained crews. I don't care how nice you are, how well

you uh motivate or coach along, if they don't have the skills, they don't have

the skills. So, make sure that's at the forefront of the of your uh agenda is to

make sure your crews are trained and that you're you're getting them, you know, do I a little bit of my talk was

about accountability. How we we tend to think that

um accountability kind of has a bad name where we think of it as judgmental. It's

almost got all these negative connotensations, but uh accountability is just literally the ability to account

for something. So, it's like having systems in place where you

Yeah. where you you have the ability to account for that particular installer's

uh skill level. And if you have systems like this in your company, there's obviously the VTI

uh that will do this for you. But if you if you don't use that right now, you

will in the future, but if you don't use that right now, use a spreadsheet or something and judge their uh I know that

a really good company I used to look up to had scorecards for each one of their guys,

like laminated scorecards and had their like they knew how good

their guys were out in the field and where they're falling down. And if something got done not great,

they could pull out that scorecard for that particular guy and be like, "Man, you should know better. You know, you

you were XYZ and XYZ pointing out that he had been trained on those particular

items." And so it's like that's essentially what we're doing at the with the VTI is just giving you a scorecard

and the ability to account for your crew's abilities and then uh have good

way to uh increase those abilities and the their skill set. So

yeah, I mean got to start somewhere and accountability is huge. It's not, like

you said, it's just everyone has accountability with

something. It's just putting it down and letting everyone know what it is.

But I mean, um, I did want to bring this this other QR code up, you know, scan

this and let us know what content you want to see on here. We did pop this up

last week. popping up again because, you know, we're always looking for everyone's input to to make sure that

we're delivering the best possible, you know, podcast and then in the future

webinars that we can. Um, we want to make sure that they're beneficial for everyone. So, if you can, you know, scan

that and give us some feedback. We want to hold ourselves accountable

for the content that we're putting out and well this is our ability to account right here is uh is like Daniel is

saying we we want to hear from you guys. We want to bring relevant important topics that you care about and without

your input we don't know other than um our experience uh which by itself is uh

not not sufficient honestly. So uh otherwise we we kind of uh you know work

together to get topics. Uh but we will get them one way or another. It's always

best if it comes from you guys though. Yeah. And one thing is too is try topics you know we try to be as proactive as

possible and and try to bring information and provide information that is valuable to to everyone. But what are

some of the struggles that everybody is going through right now? Right. What do you We're about to hit winter time. Is

there anything during the winter months that where you have a hard time finding work? Were you looking for work? How you going about it? You know, we have some

of those struggles, too. Um how can we find managing work during the managing the

work during those periods of time when so many people are off? There's a lot of things that can go into it. If you guys

are interested uh in any of that, QR the uh you know,

scan the QR code on the screen and uh yeah, give us your feedback. Let

us know what you uh what you're thinking about, what your current challenges are, and we'll do our best to address them.

And if we don't know, we'll bring on an expert that can help us out. So, and we didn't win the bet on the sea limit,

Daniel. Oh, the sea limit. the climate.

All right. Well, that is bringing us to the end of our podcast here. We want to thank everybody for commenting. Uh we

really love uh all the topics that you guys have suggested in the past. So

again, scan the QR code and give us some ideas. Uh Dan and if you could uh I

appreciate that my man about the AI and if you want to scan that QR code and uh

shoot it shoot it on to that topic. I know it's a little extra work for you guys but it really helps us curate this

stuff um properly. I want to thank our sponsors NFCT and Divergent Adhesives

today. Give them some love guys. Uh get trained um get with Divergent. They got

great adhesives. When you need a an adhesive that's going to really come through for you in in tough scenarios,

high moisture adhesives, Sunny's got a whole plethora of adhesives. And Sunny's

so knowledgeable that you know uh you can really trust his his ability to put

together I mean like the best adhesives on the market. So give them some love

and uh make sure to uh search out NFCT. Coming soon will be a u be a training

hub for for each individual installer to go and get trained from NFCT. You'll

have your own training hub that you can go through and select all kinds of different trainings at different

locations that are uh relevant to you. So keep on the lookout for that. I'll keep you guys updated with that.

I'll talk to you guys next week. All right, we'll see you guys. All right, see you guys.