The Huddle - Episode 203. The Profit Leaks Nobody Talks About
Sometimes the biggest thing hurting your business isn’t what you see, it’s what quietly slips through the cracks.
This week on The Huddle, Paul, Daniel, and Jose break down the hidden “profit leaks” that slowly drain money, time, and efficiency from flooring businesses every day. From callbacks and poor communication to wasted material, underpricing, and disorganized systems, the guys dig into the small issues that create big financial consequences over time.
In This Episode:
The hidden costs that eat away at profitability
Common business mistakes flooring companies overlook
Why efficiency matters just as much as revenue
How poor communication and disorganization impact the bottom line
Small changes that can create major long-term gains
Because making more money isn’t always about working harder, sometimes it’s about plugging the leaks.
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What is up, guys? Welcome back to the Huddle, the number one podcast and flooring. We're here every single week
to help you guys gain forward progress in your career. Simply put, we're here to help you win. For all our new
viewers, welcome to the family. Welcome to the team.
With me more often than not,
And with him more often than not is Mr. Jose Gonzalez. I believe Daniel is uh at
a baseball game and will be joining us here in a bit hopefully pending um
connection. I uh I hope he gets on because he kind
of came up u has this this is his topic. So, um,
although I think there's plenty of meat on this bone and it's hidden profit
leaks that nobody talks about and I don't know if nobody talks about them part. Uh, so hopefully he can join in
and and tell us what he's thinking about that, but I would tell you that uh this is there's a lot of profit leaks that I
I am excited to kind of chat about. Um, not like I said, I'm not sure that
nobody talks about them, but um,
uh, certainly ones that are not as clear as job cost
and those kinds of things. So,
um, that being said, Mr. Jose Gonzalez, how are you doing
today? I tell him that he's in a closet because it looks like he's uh he's there. It's either a locker room and or
a closet knowing Jose. It's more set up like a locker room. It's more set up like a locker room for
sure. It's uh it's my handy dandy custom uh uh closet over here. That's just my
stuff yet I have everybody else's stuff there. So, and then I my my little
knick-knacks and gifts and trinkets and stuff that I get from my kiddos and trophies from, you know, tournaments
and, you know, things that and baseball gloves. I see that two and my Voltron figurine that you
probably can't see, but it's pretty dope.
So, hidden profit leaks. Um, dude, I I literally reading one right now
while we were getting ready to start. Like I thought a good way to start would be
maybe starting at the installation level. meaning what what um what we re
we uh know looking back when we were subbing or installing as
our primary source of income versus a full service shop and there's some
parallels but there's also some unique uh challenges to each side. So, from an
installer when you were subbing uh kind of area, what what uh I've got a
few and I'm going to say mine if you don't Sam. So, so let's just start by mindset
shifts and changes as you progress. Right. So, if I go back to like when I was just installing and I didn't have to
worry about anything else, um I was always still concerned with
being on time, making sure I did things right, um and making sure I took care of tools
because they weren't mine, right? Um because I I I
wasn't dumb. I I knew that that money came from somewhere, right? I knew the money went somewhere. And I always felt
like if I took better care of everybody's uh tools and and and if I did a better job than when it came time
to ask for some time off or a bump in my pay raise, it'd be easier to say yes if
if they knew how how much I cared about their things and their time. So, I would
say that I did pay attention a lot to have what I had to redo of other installers and I
also paid attention a lot to tools and equipment that was mistreated or all of a sudden gone missing.
Um, I didn't know the cost, but I knew that that's one of the the hidden things
as an installer that I worried about. I I thought that that was pretty common, but I guess it was it wasn't. Well, I I
um I have tools and equipment. Now, this is on both sides uh or both areas,
whether you're a flooring a fullervice provider or if you are a uh labor
provider. But your tools and equipment, I used to buy the cheapest stuff that I
could get my hands on when I first started. Like whether it was TRS or
knives or blade, I don't care. I was a bargain shopper and I was trying to find
the cheapest of everything. That is a hidden issue.
It's It is one of those This would be the one that I would probably put under hidden.
That is very hidden, brother. Yeah. When you buy cheap stuff, the amount of money you lose by rebying and
rebying. Yeah, man. Buying and rebying and rebying because it breaks or it wears out quick or
things of that nature. Buying good quality tools, saving up a little bit uh
as opposed to I got 10 bucks, this is the only thing I can afford kind of thing. uh was that was that came later
in my career when I started getting frankly when I started getting certified
uh and more attending more training and things of that nature. I started learning how much better tools can work
when you have good tools and um so that kind of a side plug for for
training. And and by the way, speaking of great trainers, I should mention one
of our sponsors of the day in ASCT is bar none. We had some uh folks go
down to their last training that your brother ran. They were extreme. I mean, this guy's been doing it since he was
19. He's like 35. And he same thing as we always say, he's like, "Dude, I
learned so much and I didn't even realize how much I didn't know and all that." That's what you get when you go
to a good high quality training that like the NAFFCT pro provides. So he gave you good feed he gave you
feedback on it. That's awesome. He did. Yeah. Um your brother gave me some feedback on him and he gave me
feedback on the overall experience. And so what I'll tell you is these trainings
and certifications more more so your trainings when you're working with the tools the most often the entity is
sponsored or at least the tools are provided by one of the manufacturers. So you're getting really high quality stuff
cuz Roberts or QE, you know, QEP Roberts or Crane or one of them are sponsoring
and we'll make sure that that provider has the good Mozart, you know, Tremor or
those things. That being said, that's one side benefit to getting training. And um so seek that
out. and NFCT. There's there's no there's nobody that does it better in
the resilient world than them guys. So, quick shout out to a great sponsor of the show, NFCT. Thank you for your
sponsorship. That being said, it ties right in like I
would buy the cheapest equipment and tools and I learned so and what even
even after I started like I bought a more affordable blaster and that thing
may may as well be a paper weight a really expensive heavy paper weight
outback. make you make me go off into La La Land on this subject because I didn't even think about that. But
I bought that thing because it was $8,000 cheaper.
I I should have bought a I hate to say too many manufacturers
name, but I would have bought a blast track if I was going back. And it's not that this blaster that I have is not a
good hard-hitting blaster. The the thing that I would uh uh alert people to is
that when you buy a cheaper piece of equipment, um the one thing that often happens are
those manufacturers come and go. So, this gu is not even around. You can't get parts for it. I can't get it fixed
when it needs fixed. So, like I use it so sparingly because if it breaks, it takes forever. and a a freaking
network of people like top secret dudes that know how to work on the thing. It's
it's ridiculous. So, buy good quality, well-known equipment that it's worth it,
especially when you're buying higher priced equipment because saving eight grand on a blaster
in hindsight is nothing compared to the amount of money I've had to spend to fix it and the headache and the times I've
had to rent a blaster because I didn't want to use that one because it only gonna go for so long kind of thing. It's
just like that is a profit killer when you start
just pulling money off your bottom line whether you're an installer or otherwise
to to fix equipment that was not so far off of the top line uh
equipment from a cost perspective that I I shouldn't have done it. Damn, dude.
Mr. Vano, what's up? I don't know if it's going to be too loud here or not, but
sounds okay right now. All right, we were just talking about tools and equipment, and I was telling a horror
story about one of my expensive equipment purchases that uh you know, hindsight's always 2020, but uh it you
want to talk about a real profit killer is buying cheaper tools, cheaper equipment just to save a few bucks.
And I think everyone goes through that in the beginning anyways, right? It's just buying stuff just to get by. And
then you don't have to. You don't. But if you watch the huddle, you don't have
to. Just listen. Trust me. Don't buy the cheapest thing.
Yeah. I mean, it that's a double-edged sword, right? Because you have to come up with all that cost up front and then
it's either that or buy the cheaper stuff and then having to upgrade later, right? Which ends up
costing you more in the long run. If you would have just bought the good stuff, you would have spent less money to begin
with. And that approach works okay with hand tools and, you know, things of that
nature. It does not work okay when you're talking about a $35,000 blaster that if
id have spent 43 or 44, I would have got
a well-known brand that still works on their equipment, still does all that.
Um, you know, the problem is is when you buy the cheaper stuff, usually it's if
it's an off-brand, you better make sure they've been around a long time and they're going to be around a long time
because getting that thing fixed right now is like a nightmare. Like, if we need it, we have to go through,
like I told your brother, an incredible network of people just to get anything
fixed on the thing. And if it was a blast track or a well-known brand like that, national, something, you know,
well known that's been around for decades, just call them up like, you know,
hey bro, you got some of this stuff? You got some parts? You know, I one of the things that we ran into is uh when we
switched over from like the Chevys and the Ford vans for work over to the
Freightlininer Sprinters or Dodge Sprinters, we bought used because of how much money they cost brand new.
And after two years of dealing with that, we were like, dude, we could have already paid off a brand new vehicle in
two years. Like, it wasn't even just paying it off. It's a matter of being able to not spend the
money on the maintenance, right? You get something that you know is going to work. You don't have to spend money on
the maintenance. And then down the line, are you going to have to maintain it? Yes. But I mean, we didn't have to do
anything like huge to the sprinters until probably 3 years into it or
something. And most of the stuff that was going wrong with it was covered by the warranty.
That's always a a good thing to have. Like man, and you're not coming out of pocket all that cost right away either. Like
you may have to come out of pocket for a rental, a van or a truck or something like that. Well, I just mean like for the financing
aspect of things. You don't have to come out of pocket for all that. And I know there's some guys that are going to be like, "Oh, no. If I'm not paying cash,
then I'm not doing it." And it's like, I mean, someday we got to do a podcast on proper
use of debt and how to how to make how to use debt. Um, because it's not an
evil word, unless you're Dave Ramsey. And outside that businesses
uh of any size properly proper use of debt is is a is a uh a good topic I
think. But yeah, I mean at the end of the day quality products, quality tools,
those types of things are well worth the money and later on you
still have them. I mean, look at some of the old old stuff that some of these old dudes have of of uh tools that they used
when, you know, 25 30 years ago. What's wrong with that, brother? Yeah. Nothing. That's my point.
Nothing's wrong with it, do it. It just It ain't going to be that way if you buy a $40 kicker, though.
No, it isn't. I don't even know where our our cheap kickers went. You know what? Like, they fall apart breaking
into pieces. Mhm. Oh man. Yeah. So, there's a lot of uh profit
leak there. And the other thing that I was going to mention and then I want
Daniel to get into it a little bit of what he was thinking about the the the
side maybe the hidden that no one talks about portion of this, but um this one
kind of comes out of the blue and it's just doing quality work.
Yeah. You want to talk about a profit leak, a profit killer is going back and
redoing work and redoing work and making multiple trips. We've had I mean
it's hard to like 100% get away from some of that. Especially if you're like
our company and you use subs time or two, things don't go the way you want them and you got to go back and fix and
fix and fix and the sub disappeared and you're stuck, you know, taking care of the client, that does happen. But as
much as you can do uh with dealing with quality, the that's what I I will tell you as an
installer, I lost money. you you lose so much more money not only in the actual
time you spent but in the uh opportunity cost like you're there
fixing something you could be installing something that's paying you and it's
hidden because you don't if you don't value yourself at a dollar figure of
some sort and this is my encouragement to installers value your dollar even when
you're the one that has to go back So you can know what your cost is in your
head. You spend 10 hours repairing something. You value yourself at a hundred bucks an hour. And I'm using
these numbers for easy math. Well, that's pretty easy, right? That's a thousand bucks you just lost.
And it adds up. It adds up quick. High quality.
Yeah. High quality. Taking your time to do your job right and making sure you're properly trained to do it. I know. I
always find some way to bring it back to training, but it all goes back there naturally. The point is is doing quality
work the first time and being diligent. Meaning even quality guys I have seen
like you know it's 6:00 on a Thursday night and they want to get they need to
get home or they want to get home. A couple extra hours could solve finish the deal and then they have to go back.
And I've I've heard I've seen horror stories where I mean we we live it every day, brother.
Like that's one of the things that is just hard, right? You have the subcontract subcontractor mentality and the employee
mentality. Like there's there's a fine line and there's a lot of give and take and well being being as aggressive as you
can as a sub and being the one that's known for quality and going back and taking care of your stuff.
That's all part of it. But if you'll do it right the first time, and I give it to you, sometimes guys don't do it right
the first time because they don't know what is right. And that's my ploy for training.
And even sometimes when they do it right, um, you know, having to go back and revisit because of
other trades messing up your product like Yeah. and dime everybody. Can't nickel and
dime everybody. So you try to take care of a little bit and just the freebies add up with all the This is true. I don't I don't I try as
hard as possible not to do freebies and not expect them, right? If I that that way it the the it's a
level playing field. Hey, electrician, you messed up my stuff. Sorry, I filled your bo your outlet box full of thin
set. You know, I'll take I'll take care of my problem. You take care of yours.
and because you can get into that. But that's a that's a good point and that's
a personal decision or a a business decision if you're going to approach it that way. But I encourage people charge
for charge for it. The gimmies can come and go. They're they're they're
okay, but you can get stuck in a scenario where you're doing them all the time and you're not getting it paid
back. So just remember that. Yeah, I know it's a it's it's a sad
truth and it's unavoidable. I would say in some case in most cases unavoidable
to to go a full year without getting something back or let's say job
security on the punch list front. Let's just say that's that that does happen. And I think
Daniel and I, we had a meeting with the guys and we kind of showed them like some of the losses for the year and
right and it's and it's a number that you can hire more people with with the number and even no matter how good you
feel you're doing th those little losses add up to a larger number than most people are are
willing to admit, right? And $10 here and there, $100 here and there,
but you can minimize it, right? Nobody's perfect. You can minimize it for sure.
Well, I take the equipment and tool thing uh very seriously. Now, if I'm out
of town and I got to fix something and I'm like, I'm already here. I might as well fix it, but I don't have a tool. I
go buy a tool that is worthy of getting a number and put in our tool bin.
Yep. Uh I don't buy something that's super cheap. If I need a trial, I'm buying a tri that will last and can be put in the
tool bin for the next time because I'm going to use it for half hour or something. Or I bought I had to just buy
a vacuum. I didn't buy the cheapest, smallest shopback just because I was
only cleaning up four or five little bitty areas, right?
I bought a nice DeWalt probably. Yeah. And you know, medium
size. It wasn't the big, but it was medium size that can be used on our jobs. And it's now in our freaking
equipment bin. We do the same thing. We just you can't
you can't buy for the moment. You got to buy for the longevity. Right? If I'm if I'm going to spend a hundred bucks and I
need it for, you know, one day, but if I spend 150 bucks and I can use
it for one year, you best believe I'm spending that extra 50 bucks. Yeah. Or even longer in most cases.
Or Yeah. Or even Yeah. Way longer. But that the tool thing and and you had
mentioned the the trials. We refer to the trials available at like
the big box stores as the throwaways. We just call those the throwaways because they don't
uh steel and metal um quality is really really huge when it comes to telum.
It's almost the only thing that matters. Yes. And I didn't know the difference
early on, but as you keep going and you keep finding out like, man, I can't buy this patching tri at this store or this
type of patching tri or I can't buy these because they don't they don't last. One drop, the corner's bent
because it's a softer alloy. You know what I mean? And or it eats it up. The concrete eats it up too quick and you're
just like Yep. All those things matter. And I I'll I'll move us along to even bigger
opportunity costs, which or bigger costs, which I think opportunity cost uh
that I kind of touched on earlier is a big one. When you have somebody who um
if you have to keep going back to the same job, the loss uh I'm going to give Daniel one last try here. um the the
loss of opportunity. It's it's hard to put a dollar figure to
that unless you value put a value on your time and then you can start to like
okay well this week and being honest with yourself and keeping those a kind
of keeping track of that kind of stuff. We actually at the company here uh two
years ago, anytime we do a punch list or a warranty job, it goes under its own uh
deal and it's line item out. It's not thrown into the project where maybe you
had a really profitable job and then you have some warranty work and it gets thrown in there and you never get you
never get that line item to look at like how much money did we spend in warranty and call back. That's a That's a great
idea, dude. So, we we now know exactly the amount of
money that we spend on warranty and call backs every year. And those obviously
are costs you want to get as low as possible. And that's by properly
training and making sure the expectation of your installers are are at the right
level. Um, it often requires our project managers to get out and check on jobs
more often than that they do they would have normally, but it's all in an effort
to keep those warranty and call back costs low.
Another one that came up that I thought um
you know this really goes to to both sides as well but it it gets bigger when
you are uh when you have more and that's employees.
underperforming employees will cost you more money than anything. Whether that's
an underperforming helper, an underperforming uh
you know employee, if you are, you know, if you have project managers and estimators and field supervisors and
warehouse guys, underperforming employees cost you more than any almost
any other given thing because they can cost you money with their salary, but
they can also cost you money because they're underperforming. So, they're doing things incorrectly that are going to have to be either redone or cost you
money because you missed something on a bid or what have you. I am the guiltiest
of this of this. I I I dislike uh firing
people. I've said that before. Um but you must get good at hiring and firing
if you're going to own a company. Yep. I'll say a lot of a lot of the
a lot of the laws in Michigan now kind of prohibit people from hiring and firing right away without still costing
us money, right? Like you you gota pay your dues into the unemployment tax and all that
other things and you got to offer everything upfront to people now and it's just a total loss. You gota get rid
of people quick enough to not put you in a spiraling debt,
so to speak. Almost all of it is still cheaper than keeping an un underperformer.
Almost all of it, whether it's unemployment, you know, or what have you. The the fact
is is that there's just a lot of times when the the risk of keeping somebody
who's not fully bought into your business or fully uh aware of your
willing in some cases to be aware of your policies, procedures, and processes
like that will cost you more than letting them go and having to pay unemployment
uh or your um you know, and Every state is different, so you got to follow your
rules. Kansas happens to be a right to hire, right to fire state, and many
there's plenty of them in the union, but there's also plenty that you've got to document. Now, I would tell you that
documenting your someone's employment is something
you got to do each time. I don't if you're a a a a
single installer and you hired a helper and they didn't work out like and you got to give them you have to have a
reason to to fire them. You need to be tracking every day they show up any
minutes late tracking anytime they're insubordinate in any manner and make
sure you have at least a one pager of expectations of working for you. that
does not, especially with chat GPT, if you got on there and said, "Hey, I'm an
installer. I hire helpers here and there and um I need a one-pager
uh handbook that, you know, one or two page document stating my uh expectations and blah blah
blah, and you start listing them out, it'll create it for you." Like, there's no reason not to do this stuff anymore.
If you're an installer, you should have, hey, this is what it I expect of you to work for me. Here's It could be a one or
two page document. Have them sign it and have tardiness and no call no-shows, you
know, policy for calling in, those types of things, and you put them in there.
That way, you have a document that they agreed to, they signed, and then you
utilize a simple write up and you have them sign right next to it.
I don't care if it's a piece of notebook paper that you keep filed away. Anything's better than nothing. But
opportunity, long story. Yeah. And those will grow as you get bigger and you at least start something.
But that is something I never did that I would I would do if I was starting today. And then I'll add to that too is
uh you know and uh leadership really has a really big impact in the mornings if
if your leader is always late and people are waiting. If anybody in your crew is late and you have people waiting
four people times a half an hour that's not a half an hour. You know what I mean? You're paying people to sit idle
while um while your leadership is is Oh, I'm late. Late again. I'm late again.
That's a hard one to uh to work through as well, right? And it doesn't always give the uh the right impression to
everyone. Well,
Dan Daniel has uh has uh connection issues as I would expect at a baseball
field. So, he said, "Sorry guys, he can't be on today." So, we'll we'll try to uh fill fill in for him as best as we
can and hopefully he can join us next week. Um, that being said, yeah, you're
right. Like, uh, I worked at a company by the hour that the boss would all he
was the owner of the company and he was also the the main guy that made sure we
were all going to whatever jobs that day. They didn't have a work order system or anything. Just come in and
he'd tell you where you're going and what you're doing. Um the the
bad thing to that is you're always waiting for him to get there and he'd show up at 8:30 and then you show up to
the job at 9:00 and you're already in trouble with everybody on the job because you get there whenever I we
couldn't leave. So, you know, having your stuff, having a system that does
not depend on that person is like our work order system with Trade Tap is
second to none. So, we have really crisp, clean,
strong directives in that work order. Um, but
if you're talking about like the lead installer, have some rules around that, man.
Yeah, man. like don't don't let you know your guys people need to be you know
respectful of other people's time and when somebody like accidents happen things happen I get it but
yes of course for the most part being on time is is a character thing
you know be being be being where you're supposed to be uh is a character thing
and I say that and I'm conflicting myself because uh I also show up late to
meetings sometimes, but I don't show up late to the office. Let me put it that way.
Let's let's backpedal a little bit, right? Because I I feel Let's back up a little. That's that's a personal thing, too,
right? Is I am almost always on time.
Problem is is that when I do get somewhere, I add too many things to that small window.
And I I do that to myself. I do do that to myself uh for the most part, but I I have that same problem, right? Like I'm
pretty much on schedule, right? I have the same repetitive schedule day in day out every single week. Sometimes I just
add a little too much. Like I'll have a plan with three things on it and then I
get there and next thing you know I have six and I'm like I can still do this.
Yeah. I gota be better. I'm guilty of that as well, which uh if I got a half
hour, I I try to shove an hour's worth of work into that half hour and still
get it done. So, we we're all not perfect. But the point is is that most
of the time if somebody else is relying on you getting there in time, that's
what we're talking about. Because yeah, just like you stated, like at the end of the day, there's a a
uh the numbers multiplied, you know, and if three guys are waiting on one guy to
get going on something, then it's going to be costing you money. Um whether
that's in if it's a sub and it doesn't cost you directly, it's reputation, if it's or relationship with your clients,
like there are costs to it regardless. And the hard costs are,
you know, obviously if you have hourly employees and they're waiting on somebody to get their uh their their
lead installer or their manager, that stuff will drive me nuts. Like our guys,
if you got a crew going out early, you better have one hell of a work order made where they don't need you or you
better be here. Well, you have a good I'm sorry, I'm
looking at some of the work orders right now while we're talking to make sure that I'm not overspeaking, but for the
most part, we're for the most part, we are pretty detailed in our work orders and we try to have them up and and ready
to rock and they are there for for the installers to
view, not only for the crew leader, but also everyone else that's involved on that project. And the one of the one of my pet peeves
is people not knowing what they're doing on Monday when everything's been available for two weeks,
you know, or not knowing the schedule when everything's been available. And that's just
it really is. The bottom the bottom line is those things can cost and they're the
hidden costs. Like I said, you know, Daniel, I I believe in the spirit of
this is not talking about missing a room of carpet that you that was on the
drawings and it got missed. That's a mistake. This is profit leaks. And like I said,
there is no bigger profit killer, I hate to even call it a leak, than underperforming employees. So that's
what led to you talking about, you know, people being late. That's underperforming. That's costing you
money. That's costing everybody. You're you're right. The majority of the leaks is going to be because of the
field, right? Like you can plan for insurance, you can plan for vehicle maintenance, you can you
have all that planned out. You can't plan for
I'm gonna go out on a limb here. You can't plan for a crews conspiring against your company, right? Or or just
Well, yeah. And hopefully that doesn't happen to anybody, but I I would say um
one of the one of the things in the office that we learned is, you know,
when you're signing a lease, I can tell you that'll suck your profit dry if you don't pay attention to
uh annual increases on maintenance that the landlord charges you. Uh, we learned
that uh at our at another place, you know, you didn't realize, I mean, you
didn't read the fine print that says, you know, they're going to increase it by 12% a year or something and your
maintenance of for mowing a strip of of grass the size of my laptop
is going from 40 bucks a week to 80 bucks a week or something stupid. And
that happened. And so there are some things that you really need to pay attention to when you're when you're
signing documents and leases. Um, you know, checking the boxes on. Uh,
but making sure that you understand. If you understand it, fine. But, you know, that
was something that came up with us that I was like, "God dang it, man. How did I let that go? How did I miss that?"
How did you miss that? Yeah. and and uh you know we we just moved in a new place, right? We got a new place and
this is a bigger um contract, right? We had our lease was a lot bigger, a lot
more detailed than what we're used to. And I'll be honest, it took took us almost two months to negotiate on the
the terms once everything was accepted, right? And we went back and forth. and you don't want to do it too much. But um
our our representative was did not work for the company. The did not work for
the owner. So he wasn't an owner's rep. He was our rep, which helps out. That's one way to alleviate some some of it.
The other is uh submitting everything uh to AI and
letting them go over and then cross referencing some of the the hidden details um and
editing it and requesting edits and well and there's always been tools around even before AI you send it to
your attorney and tell them hey find the stuff that doesn't make sense. Um,
we did we sent it to my buddy who's an attorney, too, and he helped us out. Charge for it, right? Wasn't free. Sure. Wasn't free,
but it could save your it could save your butt, you know. Dude, there were some things in there
that even the people who wrote the contract didn't realize they had in there that was incorrect. Like, it's a
drag and drop system. And it was like, it's like, hm, guess we have to edit that, guys. Sorry.
Yeah. Rollins says being on time is a big thing with him. I can believe that Rin is one of them very punctual kind of
guys. Yes, dude. Yeah. So, one one thing that time is money.
This is the last point I had uh is time is money and kind of alluded to it
earlier about the um you know valuing
your time as an installer when you are going back to fix something that you need to fix that you put that number in
your head again. As you get larger you're going to want to do that anyway. If you're a flooring company, one of the
best things we did is start breaking out, like I said, our claims and warranties so that we know the dollar
figure that we spend every year on warranty and punch lists and call backs.
It's called uh warranties and callbacks. And so we have a line item in our accounting software for that. And so
anytime we have to go back to the job, it that cost doesn't get hidden in the
project. it gets brought to the surface.
So time is money is uh time is money is the bottom line. So once you figure that
out, you start to look at um a lot of stuff you do as an installer. Uh where
you can be efficient. Um from a company standpoint, it's the same thing.
Efficiencies. Often you're using software and things of that nature to create efficiencies. when you're in an
office setting and you have, you know, uh, you know, different software tools
that you use. So, you're trying to utilize those for efficiency. Otherwise, why would we do it? Just it's, you know,
I mean, the old pen and paper works. Why do you do computer and Excel or some
other software? Because of efficiency and and it's just easier and faster. And
so the more things you can do um to help your project out to be efficient. I'll
tell you one of the things I always preached was I was not the fastest be,
you know, installer because and I wasn't even the fastest, but I wasn't fast at all just because I could trial faster or
because I cut vinyl faster. It was all about the setup. And oh yeah, it may
seem slower the first couple days and then by the end of the week, you know, week one or week, you know, a
week and a half on the job, all of a sudden I've got way more installed than you would have ever imagined because we
got the the process fell into place. I was pretty good at that as an installer
of finding a way to systematize the product or the project. So, uh, finding
those efficiencies, they're, um, different on each project.
So, it's not like I can just tell you, but I can tell you, you know, my some of
the specific instances is having similar sized areas like not prepping the same
day you're trying to install. A lot of these products, you know, you can install on in four or six hours or
something, but if you you still are prepping during the time when you could be installing and going back and forth
like that. Yeah, dude. Prep everything that I could get my fingers on. Uh, you know, for the first
couple days I was there making cuts, doing thought it was um
final layout and get flat because then I don't have to fight it as bad. All of
that stuff was so that I could be quicker and at the
end of the day I get the job done faster but with the same level of quality as if I was running around trying to, you
know, act like I was killing snakes, you know? Yeah, that's a that's a great point. It's, you know, being quick is not
always being efficient, right? creating those systems and becoming efficient. So that way you don't have to go back and
utilizing that downtime properly is is worth its weight in gold at the end of a
project. You're not going to see a huge difference at the end of a two-day project. And for some things you will,
but if you're there for for a week, you know, and you know you got, you know, 25,000 square feet that you you have to
install and a week later you're 22,000 square feet on the floor and you only got a little bit left. And if you're
side by side with another company who was banging out room after room every day every day and and you're like, you
know, stacking them dominoes, so to speak, so that way you can knock them all down at the end. Dude, it's as simple as cutting uh your like doing VCT
and stuff, cutting the door to at the door where it's going to go to another
project so that it's already ready to receive the transition and putting the transition down when I put my vinyl
down. just that I I gained guys that would lay their LVT or VCT back then or
sometime quartz or Fritz tile. That's that was the fancy stuff back then. Now
we have LVTs. I I've installed plenty of it but not near as much as the VCT, the
quartz, and the fritz tile of the 90s and early 2000s. But my point is, a lot
of guys just lay it lay their get all the square footage down, but then they didn't have either product cut to the
center of the door. So, they're going back their straight edge down, scoring,
cutting, heating, all this, and then they're putting their transition down and they already have the carpet,
covering, and it's hard to get the transit. like do it cut when like we I would do that
as I went. I didn't have to go back and put in transitions because when I was cutting in the carpet in the hallway, I
just my transition was already there for that exam room and I lay the deal and I
cut it in and slide it into the transition while I'm there. I never went but you know, you didn't have to go back
and put in transitions. Staging it out was my favorite, man. Like that was always the it was always
the running around like a madman. But I was setting everybody up. Everybody's busy and I'm just setting everything up
and and then when we fall back everything just goes click click click. Um you know back to the VCT thing
getting it installed and then cutting the door. Right. My pieces that I cut off I used to cut everything. I used to
put them right back on there. If I knew I was coming back, you know, two weeks later to do the carpet because they have
to set up in these classrooms. I'd cut my pieces and I would just leave them there. Maybe a piece of masking tape to
keep them together just in case. And then when the other sellers came back, they just had to remove them, slap
the reducer, put the carpet. It was like, why why would you leave it all the way
full and I don't want to Yeah. I just seen a lot of guys do it do all that kind of thing and just being
systematized about your install. And I'm talking to, you know, a lot of the
viewers of this channel, uh, they know these things and do them. So, I'm probably speaking to the choir,
preaching in the choir in some sense. But if you are not used to these types of concepts, like
thinking through, it doesn't take as much time to do it the first time as it
does to go back. A transition is a good example of that. Um so yeah I mean you
know quality work done in the proper order at the the fast is just a faster
at the end of the job and first few days it can feel like man I'm not getting nowhere and you'll have the super I used
to have superintendents barking at me I'm like just wait just wait
but I would be naive to not mention the pressure that comes from the client,
whether that's a GC or a homeowner. They don't they want to see product on
the floor kind of thing, and they think that's progress. And you know, they can like they don't care
that it cost you money in efficiencies to go back and put all the transitions in. They like it if all the floors down
and all you got to do is go back and put transitions in because it looks pretty much done. uh but that's not always the
best thing for you. And to speak about you know quality and all this I mean it all
relies on using quality materials. Another thing I used to do
um that I got away from really quick was
buying cheap cheap adhesives. And
because early on in my subc career, uh, they would provide the material, but
they wanted me to provide the adhesive. I'd go buy I'll tell you what it is. It was a Parabond,
uh, bronze. It was like $14 a bucket for carpet glue,
you know? It was like water, dude. Couldn't get seen. I mean, I learned pretty quickly, but
it's it is the thing. I mean, look at one of our sponsors, uh, Divergent, like
great adhesives. You're not going to It's not the cheapest on the market. It's not the most expensive either.
Finding a good quality product to use. If you are supplying those adhesives or
the the, you know, contact cement's another one. Buy Parabond 49. I think
it's $40.99. Don't go buying, you know, some thing of DAP at, you know, Home
Depot or something. Oh, dude. Buy quality stuff. Makes your life go a lot lot better.
It sure does. And that adhesive thing is absolutely one of the biggest pet peeves
of mine when we're doing labor only out of some of the other places where they would buy the cheapest. And it's like,
I'm not going to use that because when that flash is over, I have no tac and you guys got me doing pattern match. I
need something that's going to continue to grab until everything is set. Oh, we don't understand. It says it's rated for
it. It says it is, but I'm telling you, the workability isn't there. This doesn't work for me.
Yeah. Well, Rand uh his comment is uh talking about Tom Brady. He said he watched a
interview with Tom Brady. He said he wasn't the best because he could pass better or run faster than other players.
What made him what he was was he spent hours on hours knowing the other team's
habits. He said he knew what they would be doing before the ball uh the snap of
the ball. I tell my people, you don't need to be the best or the fastest. You just need to be the best prepared. And I
love that and it goes along with one of my favorite quotes and I I attribute it to Abraham Lincoln. I think it was him
that said if I have an hour or two hours to chop down a tree, I'm going to spend an hour and 40 or an hour and a half of
that time. And this is not verbatim, but essentially I'm going to spend an hour and a half of that time sharpening my
axe. Love that. Yeah. And so
pattern recognition, man, that goes a long way, you know, being prepared. Yeah.
Getting your having your stuff ready. Another killer, just a side note, is not having the tools that you need for the
job. Uh I find that all the time still with installers. You're like, "Oh, I
don't have that. It's at my it's at my this or that and the other." I'm like, or it's on your work order that you were
going to do mill work space and you don't have a D cutter, dude. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't check the van this
morning even though I know that I should be checking it every day. Um, well, that's the preparedness that that
Rollins talking about. Yeah. That Tom Brady in his example knew what
was required, what was going to happen. Like, if you do this stuff every day and you don't know the tools you need, and
given there's going to be a specialty thing you need here and there you just didn't have, and I get it. But for the
most part, don't go to a vinyl job without a sander, without the proper cutting uh items. If you're doing roll
goods, having your your your um cart and
having your like all that you you know what you need that cart. Let me
a lifesaver. Do you know how how much uh money we wasted rolling and flipping and back
rolling and flipping and dude once we got the cart like first is like we don't
want to spend that kind of money, right? Like the first cart we bought 700 bucks. less expensive.
You'll make it back in one decent sheet vinyl job. It doesn't even have to be that big. You'll make it back.
It doesn't have to be that big. I tried to design one made for like Candace carpet. It didn't work out. Well, I tell I tell you that the other
part of that is like qualitywise when you're handling the material so
much like that and you're back rolling or if you're back rolling, it's killing your back. But if you roll it out and
then or pull it out over the roll and then you put that on and you got two
guys on a pole that's through the thing and you're pulling it back. I mean, it's just it wears your body out, let alone
uh costing you way more time and that material is handled so much more times
than it needs to be before you put it on the floor. You get a cart, pull that
stuff out, you make your cuts, like it doesn't get as dirty. There's a lot of stuff. Yeah, the cart's a cart's one of
many things. Just like the adhesive that I mentioned from Divergent, like having
quality stuff or the tools earlier, having quality stuff. Don't buy the cheapest roller or the cheapest cart
either because I guarantee you the bearings inside there are not as quality and a lot of times they look the exact
same. Cart's a good example. There's cheaper ones and you look at it and
you're like, "It looks exactly the same." Well, that's by design. It looks exactly the same. Those bearings inside
there, there's something not as quality as the quality cart, trust me. Right. So,
yeah. All right. Well, we have blown through even without our main guy for the topic
and we got through uh with what I think are some of the biggest things that have
costed me money over the years and I think that we're really aware of now and it sounds like you guys are too
that we're and we're learning every day every day. Something new that we can be better on, something new that we're
learning, tools that we find that can save us time and money. So, we're
definitely open and I think we only touched on probably 1% of this topic because
well that you can go as deep as you want, as many and as detailed as you want, but
it's it's certainly there's a thousand things that apply to just one of the
concepts that we, you know, provided. Um, so yeah, we could have went a lot
longer had you got down into the details of every single thing. And I'm not suggesting you be the guy that's
sharpening his freaking utility blades either. Don't be that guy either. Like not on the curb. Are you sure?
I mean, I've notched a trial or two in my day, but I don't know that I ever sharpened uh utility blades, and I have
seen guys do that. So that that's a little far for me, but you know,
that's actually pretty crazy. Yeah. All right. Well, I hit all the topics. Uh the main ones uh that I saw
um and identified. Like I said, these are things that we've either personally
experienced or uh has been brought to our attention uh from from subs or just
being in the business together. So, I want to thank everybody for joining us today. Yeah, thank you.
You know, I know that um you know, we're coming up the time of year where
everybody's super busy. You know, it's school school season, all that kind of stuff. Uh we should have had Jorge on. I
guarantee he has some insights. He's over here commenting. I guarantee he has some insights on binding and needles and
all of this kind of stuff that that you got to be careful of. But uh you know care about your business, care about
quality, uh care about your reputation. A lot of these other things will fix
themselves. Buy good quality stuff. Have quality first and uh most of this uh
works itself out. So thank you everybody for uh joining us today commenting. If
you're catching us on YouTube, please give us a subscribe, a like, make a comment. Also, we're coming up, believe
it or not, on needing some more comments. So we love to address what the audience wants to uh hear about and if
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give us some love out there in the social media world. With that, I will tell you guys thank you for for the
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