The Huddle - Episode 178 - The Future of Labor in the Flooring Industry: Trends and Predictions
The flooring labor landscape is changing fast — and this week on The Huddle, Paul, Daniel, and Jose break down what the future really looks like for installers, business owners, and the industry as a whole.
From workforce shortages and demographic shifts to training pipelines, technology, and the new expectations of the next generation, the crew dives into the trends shaping 2025 and beyond.
Whether you’re hiring, training, or navigating a changing market, this episode will help you understand where the industry is headed — and how to stay ahead of the curve.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
The biggest labor trends impacting the flooring industry today
Why younger generations choose (or avoid) the trades
How technology and automation will influence future job sites
Predictions for the installer workforce over the next decade
What companies can do now to attract, train, and retain talent
This conversation is real, raw, and forward-thinking — exactly what flooring pros need to plan for the future.
Why This Episode Matters: At The Huddle Podcast, we believe in Forward Progress. Understanding the future of labor helps installers, business owners, and leaders adapt, grow, and strengthen the industry for years to come.
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What is up, guys? Welcome back to the Huddle, your weekly playbook helping you gain forward progress in your flooring
career. Simply put, we're here every Tuesday to help you win. For all our new
viewers, welcome to the team. What's up, fellas?
How's it going, sir? Going on, unit. Going well. I trust everybody had a
great uh Thanksgiving. We did. Not a turkey was in sight.
We did chickens this year. I think everyone in our family is just over turkey
really. We never eat it. So like that's the we we we we take advantage that one
time. And I'm turkeyed out. I mean turkey and ham both. But uh that and my
wife makes this stuff called pistachio. Well, she calls it pistachio salad. I think it's just a pudding of like jell-o
and marshmallows. Yeah. And the coconut. Coconut too, right? Uh pineapple.
Yep. And marishito cherries. All this stuff. Dude, I tell you what, I my daughter can
attest. I probably I get it twice a year and there's a reason that
because it won't stop. Oh my goodness, dude. I dominate it. I'm like, "Give me some more of that salad."
It makes me feel good, too, because we call it salad and it's not salad, right? What's up, Jimothy?
What up, Jimmy? Well, welcome, guys. Uh, you know, the
the um I know that we are kind of talking about
uh uh you know, coming into the new year, I wanted to mention, you know, we're everybody's always about that
Thanksgiving time. Uh everybody is think starting to think about their New Year's
resolutions possibly. Uh make your New Year's resolution this year of
increasing your stand your personal standards and how you carry yourself in the flooring industry. Let's make a big
dent in flooring in 2026. I know we're a month away, but I wanted to mention this
is about when people start thinking like, "Oh, I'm going to go on a doubt. I'm going to go do this, that, and the other." Dedicate to yourself. get
trained, be professional, and uh you know, get involved. Today's topic is
kind of in that uh same vein, the future of labor in the flooring industry. Where
are we going? like what's what's going to you know we're the guys and I are going to chat a little bit about you
know what we uh see happening uh some studies that have been done uh different
things that are going on and where where we see the uh future of our industry
from a labor perspective. So as always you got the Michigan crew in
Witchah here to help uh support chat. So get in that chat, say hi, give us some
questions, and challenge us anytime you feel um you can on our perspectives. So
with that being said, um it's been a busy busy day. It's cold here. Yeah.
And I got my hat on. I can't take it off even though it's warmed up a little bit today. Uh because my hair uh I was just
telling the fellas before we launched podcast, my hair is like a nightmare just in a good day and then you stick
this hat on first thing in the morning out of the shower and you got got a real gnarly mess. Anyway, the future of
flooring labor. Um when do robots take over, guys? When when are they going to
start doing our jobs? I mean, we have an auto welder. Yeah, we've already we've already been
there, done that, bro. We do have an auto welder and it works really well,
but as as far as everything else, man, it's we're in it for the long haul, I think.
Yeah, I think uh installers doing what we do, we might be able to get assistance from robotics, but as far
as taking it over, you know, the hands-on portion and what we do every day, I don't think that that's going to
be very easily taken over by robots.
So there's been, you know, quite a bit of
uh research, I wouldn't say studies, but research done on the effect of AI and
robotics on uh different industries. Uh
so the trades it's it's been uh proposed
it's going to be more um assistance. So what they mean by that is like back
in the day before there were two wheel dollies uh you you carried stuff by hand
while the dolly is an assistant to you doing your job. There's no in the foreseeable future and
they're only looking out 5 to 10 years depending on which research. Uh the
they're not going to come and glue our floor and install,
you know what I mean? They're they're not going to um
uh uh grout our floors or do this stuff. Um the the assistance part though is
possible I guess. Um think of the welder that Daniel just mentioned or think of
uh you know improved material handling
that kind of stuff. That's where they see it going for the foreseeable future. I'm sure that someday that might change,
but at the end of the day, that's kind of what the research is showing at the moment. I think where the flooring
industry uh labor's moving is we are winning a little bit. like there's
there's these hints of winning on on training new guys and there there's also
um there's also a revitalized affinity for the trades partially
because a lot of people are losing their jobs to AI on data data um entry kind of
level stuff. So I think we're pretty safe and we got to learn new ways of
using our body along with robotics. There there are some assistants. Again,
they're strap exoskeleton assistants. Have you seen these?
Have you seen them, Daniel? Yeah, I have. I've seen quite a bit of it.
Like guys are curling 100 pound dumbbells because I think the one that I seen it was like
a drywaller was like hanging sheets of rock by it by themselves, right? like
yeah, I think that's going to be uh there's going to be some cool tools and cool
uh ways to reduce the impact on our bodies. Yes. Uh one of the things is the exo the
exoskeleton as they call them. Uh like leg almost knee pads. They're they're
like prone knees, but they're powered to uh help you get up and down and not use
those ligaments that we use so much in flooring to get up and down off of the floor.
So, a lot of those preliminary stages. Yeah. The the lower body stuff is
starting to come alive. Uh y and that's because we've done so much in
prosthetics and um like uh leg braces and things of that nature for fixing
different um afflictions from birth. And so they they have a lot of uh other data
to draw from. So the exoskeleton stuff is is actually pretty cool. Jimmy asks,
"What would you consider the most influential in uh or the most impact
influence on the trades bringing in younger generation?" Does that make
sense? So I Yeah, I think he's that was like an example, right? Is it bringing in the
younger generation or is there something else that's the most impactful influence?
I don't know if it's that younger generation though. I think this is a uh I would propose
to you guys. Good question. Uh is it it's it's more of a
threepronged approach. You know, you got to have new blood coming in.
We got to have knowledge transfer. Um, but we have a pretty big um
I think this is true with all the the skilled trades. We have a pretty big uh uh population of
undertrained underqualified guys.
If the entire if all of the network of installers, the entire like body of
installers were um at that expert level or something, we we could really
identify how short our labor really is. But Daniel, you've mentioned this before. What what you're saying here?
Yeah. It's not a labor shortage. It's a qualified labor shortage. Yeah.
And and that's what it does it right. and and all these guys, older guys are aging out right now. And then do we need
to bring new people in? Yes. But when you're bringing bringing them into something that isn't set up for them,
how long are they going to stay? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there there has to be one of
the solutions out there on the marketplace. And everyone knows that uh
well I think maybe not everyone but most people understand now that we are uh our
new platform is called trade tap. Uh but the real support of all that trade tap
is just a marketplace. Choose to work on the marketplace after the new year or not that that's not the case. But what
powers it is the verified trade index. That is our way of as an industry that
we can aggregate and figure out where we're at so we know where we need to improve. Yeah, baby.
When you join the verified trade index, then you have uh you you know where your
shortfalls are and what to do about them. It puts us in a personal responsibility zone where you can't just
hide from the the facts, right? You're either highly qualified or you're not.
And not being highqualified is not should not be a knock on you. But if you don't choose to do something about it
and all the tools are put there for you to do, then then it's a different story. I
would say by by next year though, you know, next year it will start where if
you're untrained or you're not being trained, it is not going to be the industry's fault
anymore. Literally the ecosystem is being built out for you to join the
index, have a training hub right there attached to your profile where you can
look at every training that's available from every entity that is part of that
and be able to go and get the training you need. A lot of it's free. As you guys know, a lot of manufacturers do
some they'll even pay you pay pay for your hotel and your food and stuff to go
to one of their trainings. I mean, any manufacturers uh training I've been to,
and I've been to several. They put us up in a hotel. They fed us. We even had a
night out at one of them. Uh all you got to do is get there. All you got to do is get there
and take the time. And and that's the thing. It's I think it's a misconception too that you have
to be certified and everything to know what you're doing. And that's where the
verified trade index comes in too, right? Because there for a long time I wasn't certified in anything. And then
once I did get certified, they were like, "Oh, yeah. I didn't you you know a lot so we need you in this
organization." And it's like, um, all right. I guess you you can know a lot
without getting certified, right? But I still learned a lot going through certifications. And it's that just that
one thing that you pick up and then it changes everything that you do because you don't go back. You once you learn
that you're doing something wrong and you keep on doing it wrong, that's not cool. Like you you got to learn and and
move on from there and start being like, "All right, I'm going to be better." Yeah, certifications are great, but to
pass an actual certification, certifications are a measurement of your
skill. You either pass or you don't pass on a certification course. Typically
true true certifications. So that's a judgment of where you're at.
I got to go back. But doing the trainings and being uh going to workshops, I mean most of these
um opportunities are out there. They you guys just don't know about them. We're going to put them at your fingertips,
right? Where you can continued education. it's a spec changes. You need to know about it. You
you don't know unless you're reading everything and then I mean even sometimes
technology lacks a little bit, right? Because the people that are writing it and the people that are putting it on websites are totally different teams. So
it the things don't get updated as fast as they roll out. Well, and you need failures. You need
failures in order to update specs and to change specs. Not only when you're missing ingredients, you change
something, but if there's a failure and they you find out why specs change
because of that, too. Um, I want to go back to Jimmy's question about getting the uh bringing in the younger
generation. I just want to touch on that and Daniel had said it earlier a little
bit too. Is is the younger generation really looking at the hands-on portion of trades as lucrative? Or are they
looking at it as my my dad, my grandfather, my uncle's body got beat up. I don't want to do
that. I'd rather design. I'd rather be an architect. I'd rather be a supervisor
instead of learning the hands-on. Um, so as a flooring industry or or in the
flooring industry, I know we're not doing the best to
create a good structure for to attract the younger generation. We're trying. People are trying.
It feels like we're making a little bit of a of a headway. There's a lot of organizations out there that are
starting to make some good headway. The government, so this is a piece of information. The
government is getting much looser with their purse strings because they realize
there's two things. You have less people
because the immigration thing we talked about last week with Scott, right? So,
you have less people. The fact is is you have less jobs. Um,
I've said this a couple of times, but you know, the jobs report on the last quarter, like it was the first time that
our GDP went up and our jobs went down. Like we had we were producing more as a
country but less jobs to support it and
significantly so and was the first time that that dynamic was there in that especially to that magnitude. So the the
jobs that were out there, Jose, that you're you know, when a kid is looking at like where can I get a lucrative
lucrative trade and I don't I don't prescribe to the the thought that these kids are lazy or you know they don't
want to work. I think that the opportunities are uh misrepresented
like it's not they're they're being they were sold a story of going and getting a
social sociology degree and that they could get a career afterwards uh or a
art degree or a this or a that. If art your passion, go do it. But my point is
is that a lot of people went into these college programs, getting four-year
degrees, doing stuff that they ended up not getting a job for or that they were
not able to make a meaningful living off of. the trades are are by far the best
way for you to uh uh uh you know earn a
livable income and then have have your hobby or your stuff on the side like
it's okay to do those other things too but we we started taking hobbies and
turning them into careers or saying they're careers and and I don't think
that the the younger generation is just lazy. I think they got sold a
book of goods kind of, but the trades are coming back. Like the the
government's starting to spend more money on them uh on supporting the
training. Um there's a lot of information out there that that we've learned about how uh they're they are
doing that. there there there's some courses that are going to be free in the future and you can take a a pretty good
size course to um you know launch your career and then having a career path.
That's what the VTI also supports is having a career path to accelerate your
career, get better, show your value and then win more work. Um, you know, my
dream is that qu the qualified guys are always winning the work and the unqualified guys have to go get
qualified, right? Jorge says that he loves getting his ass bleeped. I I guess I already say
I said ass. I bleeped the wrong word. Kicked. His ass kicked every day in the
flooring. Makes his body feel good. This trade is all body and mind. If you don't
like the pain, this isn't for you. And it I mean I can kind of understand
that to a certain extent and then sometimes my body just feels like
overdone. Yeah, I think there's a bit maybe a little bit of satire in that, but at the
same time I do like prescribe move your body correctly when you're working and
it's a workout. That's all it is. I know what he's talking about. He's talking about the the sacrifice, the the body
for the project, right? You're sore. You're like, I don't ever want to do that again. But you're done. You step
back, you look at what you did, and you're like, it's that gratification. Yeah. Right. It was worth it.
And and that's where I I tell people about that instant gratification. You look at it and it's like, yes,
that is my favorite part of being a Florida. Well, you you had just said something about uh the colleges and all
these extra classes and and you know, they kind of sold the generation on a
hobby as a career. Do you think that universities and colleges should put
what percentage of people actually find success in the career they got
their education in, right? Like if those percentages were visible and you
they do those stubbies are out there and it's it's drastically on the bad side
that you know upwards as 60% 70% of people are not getting jobs in their
degree their area of degree right and then all the other fields just look at them and like well you have a
degree so you're hired over here too. Yeah. Yeah. And don't get me wrong I'm not bashing college. you need it for certain
uh stuff. Trade college um you know the trades schools are starting to revive. I
mean I'm old enough to remember shop class and loved it. Like I remember
building a lamp out of wood and plastic and running the electrical and a a full
lamp from scratch, routering out the base and like it's a memory of mine when
I took it home to show my old man that I built this thing in shop class. like
that. Uh I don't know if it's coming back from a um middle school and high
school level like like it used to. I think it's it's more STEM now than anything because STEM STEM involves
you know the whole science and math aspect and doing things like that. So kids these days are starting to learn
how to um design in CAD and things like that in like fifth grade, fourth grade. Yeah, dude.
And then also learning to to to finish that thing out, right? So Kendall says
trades are by far the best way to go, but these this younger generation wants
a million dollars an hour for no knowledge to start out. That's what's frustrating. I agree with you. I think
part of that is in my opinion uh one one of our newer clients uh made a comment
to me that that um kind of addresses this Kindle and what
the gentleman said was when he has uh he has some of his subcontractors that are
like well I'll use you two as an example uh Jose comes in and is like well dou
you're paying Daniel more by foot and blah blah blah and his only response is,
"Well, Daniel takes care of my jobs." And he is uh a a huge proponent of the
VTI because he can be he's he's like, "Well, Daniel is an expert and you are a
intermediate. Get to expert and you'll make expert money." When that dynamic happens, we will It's
happening. It makes me smile because I've been working on this kind of thing for five years, six years now, seven
years actually. And that dynamic where the the companies, the homeowners, the
general, like the people, the stakeholders in in projects, no matter where where you're at, residential,
commercial, whatever, they're starting to realize that like it's a great way to
encourage your your current body of installers to go get better trained. We
all I I mean I pay different subs different cost based I get to base it on
their their ability to do work and I have the metrics behind it.
That's what the VTI is bringing. Um it's go Carrera uh as you know it in the past
but we're pulling that out and the VTI is just your profile. So when you can
whether or not you run your work orders over uh uh trade tap
or not, your your crews having a VTI will allow you to properly pay them and
properly incentivize them to go get that training that they obviously need. So I
love that idea. So, when somebody has a lower uh uh rating on the VTI and just a quick
deal, it goes rookie, intermediate, experienced, proficient, expert, master,
artisan, elite artisan. That's the the levels
when you are awarding work or giving work to certain crews or paying more for
certain crews because of their status on the on the verified trade index that
is in that is then cementing the need for properly trained industry standard
training. And that that made a big impact on me. And it kind of talks about
what you're talking about there, Kendall. If a guy comes in and he's like, "Hey, dude, you're a rookie. You
get rookie pay, but guess what? You have nothing but up from here, pal. Here's
and and Kendall, I would I would encourage crew leads, big guys uh that
are in the industry to s help them get plugged into different trainings, help
them go to product demos, help them go to uh full on workshops, if you're in
the tile world, if you're in the carpet or resilient world, getting involved with NFCT and CFI and and plugging them
into trainings and then, you know, getting that uh result from their
training back to you where they can start to apply that new knowledge with your guidance as a high quality
installer. That's where we can start to make big waves in the industry, big waves in skilled trades, period, but
specifically in flooring. Yeah. And like I think it it's got to
start with everyone that's in here, right? We have to be humble enough to know that we don't know everything and
to be like, "Okay, I've been doing this for 20 years. Even if I go do this training,
what am I going to learn? What can I change about everything I do right now that's going to make me even better the
next time I go and strap my knee pads on a job site?"
Yeah. And do you think uh we've talked about this before, but that you you know that um
you've been good and not certified and
you've been certified and training and attended trainings and gotten certified
and gotten different certificates of completion and done different training.
Every time I've done that, even when I felt like I was good, uh, I did have to
put my ego down. And when I did that, man, there are so many little nuggets that made me more money, dudes. I'm
telling you, like, pick up. It doesn't take the whole course. It take It takes
one little thing to impact your financial standing for the next year in a major way.
Right. You just said that, too. is the nugget. Yeah. Well, you just said the nugget,
right? When you set your ego aside, you actually open up the door to absorb more
information because if you're like, I already know that, you're not really paying attention. You're not invested.
But if you're like, I really want to learn something. Let me let me invest myself into this. And you're open-minded
and you're learning and you're sharing information you have. They share what they have. You learn so much more. You
you improve your own techniques. Yeah. Jimmy says every certification he's taken, he's learned something.
Always be learning. And that's where I, you know, I I used to use the hashtag never stop learning. And that's how you
got to be. And that's how when even I'm the instructor, um, that's part of my introduction, right? I tell you where
I'm from, tell you what we're going to do, and then before we go out into the warehouse and start cutting some
stuff up. I'm like, listen, I'm not here just to teach you guys. If you see me doing something and you know
a better way, you let me know. That way, I can change what I'm doing. And I'm upfront with them right away. and some
Yeah, not this last class, but the class before they they taught me something that I still use when I'm out there heat
welding these uh verticals on the flash coes. Like I never would have thought of it, something super simple and now I use
it every single time. I I am so glad you brought that up
because that one thing that you have to realize if you are in that mindset like
what am I going to learn? Maybe you can go help someone else learn something at
one of the courses. as I I I've been involved uh me many a
times in a training course where somebody in the a one of the students
brought up a technique like you just talked about Daniel that helped everybody out and the instructors
most good instructors are like hey that works that's great and and help uh to
reinforce that new knowledge but you just might bring something to the table that can help someone else. So, you're
there to learn and I promise you if you get involved, you will pick up new new
stuff. You will learn some new stuff. Jeremy says, "The more you know, the more you can make. Learning a little
more than you know now could save you hours on the job. The faster a job gets done, the quicker you get paid. It's a
win-win." Yeah. Yeah. Efficiency is absolutely uh
high quality and then efficiency. And I urge everybody, make sure your quality is in line first. Uh I I made the
mistake. I I was really fast and was doing pretty shitty work early on. Um
looking back on I thought I was doing great. And that's a lot of you. Like you think you're doing great. You just don't
know how ungrate you're doing yet. Yeah. And that that's the thing when you get on some of these projects with some
of these GCs, right? And they don't know you. And say you're on a a job and there's multiple crews going, right? and
you guys are doing the same thing in a different area and I'm I've seen it and it's like well they're over here and
they're like three rooms ahead of you guys right now and it's like you just have to trust the process and that's
what I tell them. You just trust the process and then we we prep prep and then boom it's installed in one day and
then prep prep and then boom it's installed in one day and then them being ahead three four rooms and now we're
ahead 10. And that that's the kind of thing that you have to to learn is is that um a lot of it is
in that prep work and knowing how to uh efficiently run things.
Prep stage. It's in that process. Yeah. The sequential order, the process. Yeah. Like everything all goes together.
And I used to hate that part of it is organizing and always feeling like I'm staging things and staging and staging
and staging. But then once you're done staging, you fall back and everything starts clicking. The crew starts working
together really good. It's like a machine. Boom, boom, boom, boom, done. Yeah. There there's only a few people
that where you can go on a a project, you know, and you don't have to say
nothing to nobody. You just walk in even if it's already going and then you just start doing something. And then that
person sees you doing this. They were like, "Oh, I was about to do that next, but now I'm going to go do this something else." And then it's like,
it's crazy when that happens. But you have to have that mindset. And I think that's where um when Kendall was talking
about the the kids these days want so much more to start out. I want people to
realize that we deserve more to start out, right? We we can't keep on saying
these kids just want more. We need to say they do deserve more and everyone in
the industry deserves more and we have to start upscaling or you our our our
talents in order to get there. This goes all the way back to I don't remember what podcast it was, but I've
referred back to it. I I think it was a uh one of our bluecollar cruises where
70 you guys might remember 70ish plus percent of people
will pay more yes for a tradesman in any category if they
know that they are better than the others without the VTI which is a you know a
rating a standardized rating system. They don't have a way to do that. Now they do. The point is with the with all
this coming down the pipe, you you
need to make sure that you are bidding your work to make money and
based on your stature in the VTI, you can demand more. People will pay more.
Then you're able to what? Pay that kid more. Our industry has to grow a little
bit. We have to grow and the top has to grow. Meaning the the high quality installers need to grow their revenue so
that they can pay a little bit more. That's going to uh help everybody in the
equation. And like you said, Daniel, they they they do deserve more. I mean,
you you can't start somebody out at less than what you know, an Amazon is going
to start them out at to to move a box from here to there, which I mean there
Amazon just laid off 40,000 of those people because it's uh because of what we were talking about earlier. So that
is why um you know the Bible says work with ease. They can't take that away from
you. Uh many a smart man has said that right work with your hands. Uh if you
got a skilled trade, you have something that cannot be just replace like that,
especially if you're a highlevel skilled tradesman. So I got a I got a theory here and tear
this apart, guys. So in order for us to pass on our trade,
we need younger generations. We need to be able to pay them more. Does that mean that
training and education is should get on a faster track instead of requiring a
prerequisite of years and experience? Maybe speed up the training process so
they can fail faster to learn more quicker. Um, I I know that sounds kind
of weird and and I'm trying to make sense of it too, but should all of the trainings be a
fasttrack so that way someone can get on a career a little bit quicker, ask for more money, have credentials that say
that they're valued at more, but then in order to maintain it, they have to perform.
Well, we just don't, you know, before the VTI, we just don't have a credentiing mechanism. Okay. So there
are kids getting trained but they're not getting hired by the flooring industry as quick as we need. Like one of the
catastrophes that I think happen is that some of the organizations that are doing some really good work to get some kids
trained but then they're not getting hired. Um, a lot of maybe and I I'm not
saying this is a fact with uh with Kendall's comment, but it's if you're
hiring off of Facebook or Craigslist and the kid was a worked at Chick-fil-A and
then now he wants to come work for you and wants 18 or 25 or whatever dollars an hour. That part has to be you know
there is a job board for the flooring trade called jump start. If we will just
go to jumpstart and hire these new kids coming out that would help. Um that that
is like we just have to start utilizing some of the pieces of the puzzle that
has been you guys have been a big part of it. Other industry leaders have been
a big part of it in what we're doing to try and I say we're this is an
industrywide effort to adopt and fix some of these
things. We need to have a good way to place the new kids. But I think we tried
the um you know, I certainly did. Hire somebody, show them something one time,
they go and fail, but they've messed your job up. Like those failures are
hard to to swallow. It's like really hard to to
Yeah. I'm definitely not talking like big failure, you know, the the small items. I know it's hard to say it like
that, but the um it's like go cut this corner of base real quick and then you mess up a corner
on a 4 foot piece of base. Not like a catastrophic job where or
we can talk about those catastrophic outside corner on a 4ft section. That's one thing. Yeah. Just grab another piece.
Yeah. Yeah. I'm saying let them dive in and get their, you know, cut their knuckle, cut their finger, you know,
mess something up like that instead of saying push the broom. I'll show you this. Go pick this up. Um
I still stand beh beside like train apply train apply train apply. And if
you can track the train and then the apply then you can train the right next
thing. That's really the the um
that's really like how most people learn most effectively. I mean think of a kid
learning to walk even right? They stand up. They don't learn to walk until they
fall. Just to your point, Jose, right? But they get up, they take a step, take
a dump, get back up, take a step, but they're learning and they're applying.
They're learning and they're applying. Yeah. And Jeremy says he was the quicker messer uper for a while.
And that that's the thing, right? And I I I started laughing because I I think of it and like when I'm doing something
and I technically don't know how to do it, I guess, but then I always say to myself, "Oh, don't do that."
Yeah. Yeah. I have a I have a tendency to call myself stupid. I'm doing Oh, don't do it like that, stupid. You knew.
You knew you're about to mess that one up. What are you doing? I'm going to use that. That's first time I've heard that. The quicker messer
uper. Oh, yeah. I there was many times where I I just looked at Jeremy and I was like,
"Jeremy, what are you doing?" I I don't know. We actually had a guy tell us that who
actually became a really good installer at one point. It's like, "Dude, what are you doing?" He goes, "I don't know."
Well, Denise made a comment earlier that we have to get retailers to manufacture something and and that was our conversation with
Scott. Um was that last week? It was last week. Yeah. when when he was saying that and
you know that's his vision is getting everyone on board and it's just a matter of
how do you go about that well I'll tell you how we are going about it and um as
a like why have manufacturers
not said you got to be certified to this level and we've had this conversation before right you got to be certifi well
What does that mean in carpet? Is an R1 certification fine from CSI or is
another you know certificate like in tile in particular you can get an online
certification. So is that good enough? Um like they they don't know how to put
there there's been no metric for them to to aim at. manufacturers are responding well to the verified trade index that
they have a spot that they can say you need to be this level to be able to do it. They don't
care where you got your training from. It's they also can't jump in
bed with one training entity and then abandon all the other training entities.
And that's also a problem, right? We've been us three have been in that group
when they were having those conversations and you know one or a union organization is like well you need
to make sure they're this and someone else with another organization I will not mention names but they stand up and
say well it needs to be our certification and someone else was like why is yours what about
no wonder the manufacturer's like f that I didn't want nothing to do with that argument Right. Right.
But if there's a third party organization that they can point to, they have responded very well to that
here. And that's where we get the VTI from. Right. Yeah. Kendall says uh his question is it's a
hands-on trade, so you can't do it out of a book or I mean you guys you could do it out of a
training school, but every project is going to be different. And that's what you have to re you have to teach that
going in, right? But everyone has their own way of doing things.
Where do you go from there? And I think that's where people need to realize that there are standards out there on a lot
of things that people still don't know, right? The CRI 104 and 105 for carpet.
One's residential, one is commercial. So unless you know that there's standards out there, you are going to keep on
doing things the way that you've always done it until you realize that, oh, there's a standard out here. let me let
me take a look at this and see what it says. And then then you realize, oh, I was supposed to be stretching this much
and the tax strip's supposed to be this far away from the wall. And it's
any number of things. But what it does do is go back to what you said. I agree
with Kendall. You can't learn it from a book and a training one
time. But if you do what you suggested earlier, Daniel, which was continued
education, continuing the training, then you get in that thing that I was talking about, which is learn, apply, learn,
apply, learn, apply. So the that repetition is what gets you there and
allows you to um uh fail forward and not
not just fail. the the problem that I saw when I first got in the industry and
I was sad to say part of it was I failed but I didn't
know why I failed. I just fa it just failed. It just I failed and I did because I had no no real knowledge to
land on. I I just it just failed. Well, that and we didn't have a computer in our pockets when we started. We
didn't we couldn't look up the specs of everything. Yeah. or watch a YouTube video or even
I'm going to date myself here. I've been on jobs. I'm old enough that I didn't have a phone. Like you still used a pay
phone, dude. We were talking about that the other day in the office. I had a beeper. Yeah, a beeper or a pay phone.
Says that Shaw has a new wool carpet that you need. It says that you need to be a certified installer for a warranty.
And I can see that. Um but the thing is is that though they will still sell it
to someone who is not certified. Yeah. So um the here here's the
dichotomy of that uh just to um kind of break that down. Jose the the
problem with that is the warranty is for the end user. the
manufacturer there the the the the thing that hurts them the most when there's a failure is their reputation
like whether it's a install failure or the an actual product failure it's it's
a dink on them and they know that the consumer has this um propensity to like
oh last time I bought Shaw or and I'm only using Shaw because that's what was used not Shaw's awesome but just as an
example got to make that claimer there. Uh but the last time I bought XYZ manufacturer,
it failed or I had a problem. They don't attest it to anything. So manufacturers
are are scared to pull a warranty away from the end user
because a certified person didn't install it. It puts a really bad taste. Now, they will. I'm just saying it's
it's one of those points of contention. the store may end up having to foot the
bill if an installer um does the job that's not certified and it fails. One of I mean like um a lot of
the products that we use in commercial you you have to be certified to install it. That's what they tell you. And then
you hear about the guy down the street that bought that won a job that has 10,000 foot of that product and you know
they're not certified. So the the bottom line is the manufacturers want to sell
product and they're gonna sell the product. We have on Instagram Nate says, "Poorly
installed floors are replaced more frequently. Poorly installed floors are
more affordable. Poorly installed flooring is cheaper. Installers are a
perfect scapegoat." Repeat customer, right? Like it's job security for the manufacturer. Is that
what he's saying essentially? Yeah. And I mean that's just one person's opinion on it, right?
Like it it makes sense to a certain extent, but I
but I I do talk to manufacturers and I have seen people that have been trained
that will still install it wrong because why am I going to do it the way I learned over here when I can do it
faster this way? Well, I think I made a comment to somebody in the past, and I didn't
always say it the nicest way is, uh, you don't want to hire certified installers because then the manufacturer
gets to sell that job twice. Um, yeah, I think they on the reputation
like as an industry that that could bode true, but they hit on a reputa. There's
just too many options. I I don't know that I can get I guess there's probably
like anything a small element of truth to that but when a manufact when I've
talked to manufacturers they don't want failures because the they don't want the
whoever the end user or whoever the architect or whoever the GC that doesn't
know the technical side of stuff they don't want them to have a bad view of
their product line and one. I mean, you're talking millions of dollars of
product that can be lost in a sale because they had one failure on this other project.
Hospitals, you know what I mean? Like even in what you what' you say?
Hospitals are the perfect example of that. Yeah. uh let let a let a a hospital have
a major failure with a a given flooring product that's getting replaced in that
hospital. They're not use it again. Denise says manufacturers could just suggest or recommend qualified and they
already do that in their documents, but the the hardest thing to do is
what is considered qualified, right? And that's again we'll we'll always go back
to this VTI because this is why it's been created.
Yeah. The the you have to define qualified. And if you if you don't
define if you can't define qualified um then you you lose the opportunity
uh to demand it. it it be it falls on deaf ears or it falls as one of those
things like oh that's just stupid you know it loses its mustard because
the word qualified ends up being more of a subjective word like it's like I think
I'm qualified or or my store says I'm qualified or you know you got to have
something that backs that up and that is again like Daniel just said that is The purpose of the VTI
again I want to state very clearly the VTI cost you nothing for life. So
there's absolutely after the first year when that's launched uh there is no
reason it costs nothing for life. The only cost to the VTI is if you choose to
go from a a standard profile that you have the badge, you got a nice looking
profile, and you really want to up it up and have a full website. That's it. It's
the that is the only uh time you would pay is if you wanted to transform your
profile into a full website. Other than that, you get the VTI
100% free. There will be you'll have a card with a QR code that you can show your customer. They can QR look at your
profile and you can sell your quality. Um, and the people who are just getting
started, they're able to say, I see a clear path to increasing their their
position on the index and a clear path on how to improve. And then like you
said earlier, Daniel, it I I don't know if it was you or Jose, but um the when you start to understand
the the standards, which are hard to learn without going through some level
of training, but when you start to understand the standards, that's when you start to find where you failed.
That's what I was talking about a few uh ago is there's so many people that were like me. I would mess something up and I
would have no idea how to fix it because I didn't know why it failed in the first place. I was taught to do this
particularly. I remember doing I I was trained on double cutting everything
at the first, right? Um I I double cut a
ton. Well, I got put on a job. That's all I knew. I double cut it. It mushroomed up. It looked like fart,
dude. Like a big fart. It was horrible. I still I was like, I did everything
right. I didn't do any of it, right? You only know what you know, right? And we've been on projects, too, where I
mean, earlier on, we were still that that crew that was like, well, I'm not going to double cut this because I know
this stuff will follow a row. It doesn't matter how hard it is. And then we're working at at the same time as another
crew doing different stores. And then they're getting calls about the other one. They're like, "Well, first it was,
why are they getting done so much faster than you?" And then it was, "Oh, why are we getting so many calls about issues on
these stores, but not the ones that you did?" Yeah. They wanted us to come over there and throw people under the bus. I'm
like, "Hey, I can't do that. I don't we don't Well, I learned later. I learned later through training that um
you know, there's a method of approaching a seam, right? Especially
the commercial, if you can row both and butt, there's going to be some sways. But if it's intolerance, you can pull
those together. And if that doesn't work, then move to row and trace. And
also, I learned to test try. Oh, yeah. That helped me out a lot when I got into
the sheet vinyl world and I really I I started to really believe in knowing the
industry like knowing and being trained. I I would spend I I several hours
sometimes working to get my gun and weld rod and seaming correct before I'd ever
touch a job uh to go in and actually heat weld it. Um, I still do that. You
will not catch me go start welding on a job even if I know the product. I am
going to test it. The site condition, all of the stuff comes into play when you're doing this. How cold is the
concrete? That can affect your welding. How how what kind of how how old is your
welder? If the last time you welded it was a year ago, your heating element is going to act different. It's not going
to be the exact same. I always test it. And that was I learned it from the
carpet failures uh after I started to actually care about the industry. And that's just where I want to get people
is from what I was to what I be started to become uh faster than what I did
because I just messed so much stuff up. And it was incredibly frustrating and damaging to my to my um confidence in
this industry because I I messed stuff up and I couldn't even tell you why it
failed. and I'd always blame somebody else because I thought that I did it right. Right. So, Jose says, "When is it going
to be available?" First of the year, the VTI launches. Uh, as you guys may or may not know, the
profiles within the application is um
is in the uh uh in Go Carrera currently. Um it's in the marketplace. We are
pulling that out. So that's that's when all the profiles will be separate from the marketplace. So you won't have uh
installers have to choose to go to the marketplace to do work. They're not automatically their profiles are not
automatically in the marketplace. So um think of it like you you build your
skill and everything. It's your it's your choice whether you go market yourself. It's your choice whether you
go give your your your your uh business card to somebody like so
that's how it will be more so and that's right after the the year.
I know Jeremy I I did plenty of the latter. Same.
embarrassingly to say. I mean, I I I did I messed some stuff up, guys. And uh I'm
not you know particularly uh disappointed in it all from the you know
it doesn't bother me other than like I do see it bothers me if I can't get the word across to other tradesmen that like
we we learn and then you that testing part trying out without just doing it on
your job because that's how you were shown. Someone asked me a few weeks ago. They were like, "How'd you guys get so
good?" And I said, "No one seen the hours that me and this dude were in a garage with some underllayment and some
sports for vinyls or here in the warehouse where it's like, you guys might end up using this material. So,
send me some material. Give me some weld. Let me mess around with this while I'm here because as soon as we hit it
hit the job site, I want to know exactly what I'm getting into." Yeah. Yeah. and and and you had said something
to you about practicing. Uh Paul, your body's a tool. You got to recalibrate that thing, too. Um you know, like if I
go on a project right now and try to weld like I used to, chances are I'm going to drop dead in about four hours.
Um but you got to get your feet wet all over again. Every project's different.
Concrete, wood, uh Michigan to Florida, the weather's different. Well, and if
you approach if you approach your trade like we've been talking where you're always learning, if you'll just approach
it that way, even when you're once you have your basis of of knowledge, when
you go out to a job, then you can fail yourself forward, you make a little
mistake and you can correct it. Um, man, I love you guys and I love the the way
that your your journey through this because it's just such a a important
thing for people to know and understand that it's like that overnight success, you
know? Oh, it they didn't see the 10 years you put into becoming good.
And and I'll I'll say that what like when people say must be nice, it's absolutely nice, right? because they
didn't see uh you know at one point me crying on on the a chair at the house
because my credit was so bad I couldn't afford anything. Yeah. So
it is not so to build from that it's even sweeter when you you um you
built it right when you you built yourself up and everybody who uh is in
our industry has the opportunity to to do that right whether it's the the
actual trainings or we've talked in past about leadership trainings. Uh, one of
the best things I ended up doing was I I started taking leadership courses and
reading books and doing all this stuff when I was a young man. I was I started the Steuart and Associates. It was
called Steuart and Goland then and I had a partner and I started that in 99. I was 22 years old when I started that
company. I bought him out in03. Reading those leadership books is and I
I was installing at the time. That's what made me realize like changing my
mindset on things. So don't forget the soft side of of the industry of any
trade is learning to be a leader, understanding organization, you know,
the seven habits of an effective leader. Books like this, they uh Scott Humphre
has a ship by the letter. Like these things will help you think through
problems on job sites differently and and and help you technically even
because you're approaching the problems from a different mindset from the leadership mindset from the personal
accountability mindset and you just get you get better because of that approach.
Thank you Denise that is so thank you appreciate you so much.
Yeah, I think um like overall this this topic was kind of
we we touched on a lot of it, but the the biggest thing that I'm looking at is that the future of labor is actually
more technology focused than anyone realizes right now.
Yeah. Yep. Yeah. A lot of that stuff that we the way we used to do things to get to the
part of installation is changing and
I guess my rally cry would be like people are going to start verifying this happened in business. It's just been
slow to get to the trades. What do people do when they are shopping you as a business? Well, they look at your They
know everything about you before they walk through your door most times, right? They've looked at your Facebook
page. They've looked at your website. They've looked at any reviews you have. Like, they're verifying you before they
ever come to buy from you. That was a big learning curve for the retail world
that they had to change a lot of stuff during that time. that is happening to
the trades like they want and you're going to make more money if you if you
get if you are verified, if you are able to prove that you're you're worth more money. Um,
don't don't continue to just do the same thing and expect different results. This podcast exists to help give you new
ideas, to help spur new thoughts. We're not geniuses or know everything.
We just know a little bit about what our experience a lot of bit about what our
experience was and we try to share that with you so that you can make different decisions like you don't have to lose
almost go bankrupt with your company like I did because of bad installation because you refused to invest in your
people or invest in yourself. You don't have to do that. Learn from us. like
please don't don't do the same thing that that we the mistakes we've made.
Think about the amount of times that you had to fail in order to find that one success. Just think about that.
Like think about that. Like holy smokes. That's a you know I I'm 45 years old
now. Oh, where' time go? Yeah. I've messed up more
than than I've found any success and I'm going to continue to to to find failure because failure leads to success and
more as long as you're failing where as long as you're failing in the way you're failing now. Don't fail like I was
talking about where you fail and you have you blame everybody else and you don't have any knowledge to fall back on
to get better in the first place. I was stuck in that loop. I mean,
I guess I'm not that proud of it. It just is what it is. The fact is is that if you don't have any knowledge to to
say, you know what, if I'd have done this a a different way, I'd have a
different result and I think I know the right way now. That's a good failure. That's where you're you just paid to
learn is what you did, whatever it was. Yeah. And I think that that people have
to realize that we say forward progress for a reason, right? That's our tagline.
It's because in football forward progress is if you get pushed back the
they're still going to count you down where that ball was, right? You're going to get pushed back at some point,
but it's getting back up and then keep on pushing forward. And that's what we all have to do. And once you know bring
them younger kids in and like full circle moment kind of talking about what's going on with the the labor is we
have to bring those younger kids in and show them that it is going to be lucrative and we all do have to raise
our prices. And I think that technology is going to help us in that because it's going to let everyone know um inside and
outside of the the flooring industry that prices need to go up in order for
you to get the installation that you want. Well, and you're you're you're exactly right. And as our industry might
get any industry, any skilled trades industry might get a little flooded with
the uh machinist who his job got automated and he installed tile in his
bathroom one one time six years ago. And so he goes and tosses a gym's tile
sticker on his van or on his truck and starts competing against you. And you
have without ver being able to prove yourself, you're you're competing on
semantics, what you say versus what he says. If he's better at selling himself
and you lose a job because of that, that's what is like what we're trying to prevent. We're trying to elevate our
trade. I wanted to uh Nate says, "It's the fool who learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the
mistake of others." I had that presented to me in a little different manner and it was like a smart
guy will learn from his own mistakes but a wise man learns from others and uh
same a fool just doesn't learn and uh or was like I was early on has no basis to even
learn from. So, um I I do think that not not Jimmy, just Jim. Sorry.
Oh, that's funny. Jimmy, well, you know what your boy Mr. T used to say about the fool. Pity the fool.
Pity the fool. Pity the fool. All right, guys. Well, we've uh closed out a a good solid hour. Thank you
everybody for joining us today. It was awesome conversation. I think from a high level what Daniel was saying is
bring in the young guys, command more money based on your your
skill and ability, be a pro and pay your guys more, pay yourself, get paid more
yourself, and it's a win-win. And start using technology, man. Especially when it's like low or no
cost. We all have to like every industry is data driven. Without people giving
that data, we're not going to move ahead. Without you signing up for all this
stuff, we are not going to move ahead. Knowledge is power even more so today than it ever has been because the
knowledge is so uh uh easy to access. So you really Yeah, I uh I second that
thought. What's your final thoughts there, Mr. Jose? It's time to hold ourselves accountable
for our successes and our failures. That's really what it amounts to. You want to
you want to solidify your role in a career in the flooring industry or any trade industry, educate yourself, find a
way, create a means, create a name, learn how to be your own um
what what's the word? learn how to market yourself on your own and then people will for you.
I um I want to add to that. Yeah, just a quick one like
quit letting the fear of what Daniel said and what you were alluding to.
Quit letting the fear of technology run you or the fear of change. We have to we
can't just keep bitching about the industry without changing something
starting here. Um and I think you know continue on Jose, but that was just
something that popped in my head right when you said that. Yeah, no problem. That's if you're going to hand something over
to your child or teach your kids something, you want to have all the information that you possibly can to
give them the best chance of success. Do it for yourself first. Amen.
All right, guys. Well, thank you so much. Uh what a great conversation today was. That was awesome. See if we can get
the explosion. That's not going to do it. Bye, though.
Thank you to uh everybody who commented. Thanks for all the people that came on live. Uh we truly appreciate you guys.
When we see those numbers rise during a podcast, it it invigorates us. So, uh keep keep up the good work. Thanks Jimmy
for the opening question. Yeah, thanks Jimmy. Uh thanks Denise and our prayers are with you as always.
Do not forget to like and subscribe our stuff. Get on YouTube. Share it with everyone channel. Share
it. That's what keeps us uh growing and allows us to to get your information,
your concerns, your your topics and get it out to a wider audience. Yeah. And if
you don't like it, share with all your friends and tell them what you think about us. Share with
all all two of them. Yeah. And uh the industry's taken notice
of the huddle. Uh they have been and our I think our guests are great. Um but you
know, we are your voice and we want to continue. So, if you want to come on and
have your voice heard, send us an email and let us know you want to be a guest
and what topic interests you the most and we'll have you on as a guest. Let's get let's do it. This year, as we're
coming on the close of 25, uh we want to have even a better podcast for 2026. And
um you know, the huddle is going to be live with the Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi being women
and flooring industry uh at uh Ty. So come and join us. If you don't join us
live in person, join us on uh our social channels and uh join us on a great
conversation with the ladies from Wi-Fi. And that is January what uh 20
20 26. Yeah, something like that. So look it up. Ty 2026 in Vegas. If you can be
there, be there. If not, join us uh for that live event. and we will uh continue
to to um uh remind you about that. And until then, we'll see you guys next
week. All right. Thanks, guys. All right. Thanks, guys.
