The skilled labor shortage is one of the most talked-about challenges in the trades. But what if we've been focusing so much on finding new workers that we've overlooked why so many don't stay?
The conversation has always centered on attracting younger generations, expanding training opportunities, and getting more people interested in skilled trades careers. Those efforts matter, but bringing people into the industry is only part of it. What happens after they're hired can determine whether they build a lifelong career or walk away entirely.
In this episode of The Huddle, Daniel, Jose, and guests Kevin Keefe and Andy McWilliams challenge the traditional labor shortage conversation and take a closer look at the role leadership plays in workforce development. They explore how company culture, mentorship, accountability, communication, and opportunities for advancement influence whether skilled professionals stay, grow, or leave.
The trades absolutely need more people entering the workforce. But if businesses aren't willing to invest in developing good leaders, creating better working environments, and giving employees a future worth working toward, recruiting alone won't solve the problem.
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What's up, kids? What's going on, people?
What it do? Can you hear everything right now? I can.
Awesome. Having a little bit of technical difficulties there. Nothing was loading up.
Andy, you there with us?
Yeah. Well, well, hey everyone. Welcome to the
huddle. Paul is uh I Paul is actually here.
So, uh he's the one that usually says, you know, all the cool stuff about us being
the number one podcast and your weekly playbook where you can uh Yeah. learn about cool things,
especially when Kevin is here to join us. Hello everybody.
Yeah. What's going on? Cool. Happy Tuesday. Yeah.
See if this works with Andy. Andy, can you hear us or no?
[clears throat] Yeah. Oh, Andy doesn't know how to technology. But anyways, Kevin is on vacation right
now, so we appreciate you joining us on vacation. And I mean, you you say it time and time again that you'll join
whenever, right? So, I figured, hey, let's invite never going to turn you guys down. The
number one podcast in the flooring industry, the huddle. Kevin Keef here, director of technical
services, Robert's QEP, the company that is leading the way in innovation and education in this industry.
Look at you with the plug. Love it. What are we talking about today?
Well, first we got a shout out to our sponsors, brother. Well, let's talk to our sponsors. Give
him a shout out. Daniel's got all the info. I know it's Pro Installer. Boom.
Pro Installer magazine. There's a lot of opportunities for people to write articles in there to to
give their two cents of the industry. I know that the literature is provided. Typically, we re we have a membership or
a subscription, but I know it's still available on the shelves at your guys' local distributors
if they're nice enough to do that for you. If not, find another go online.
I mean, everything's in your pocket these days. So, yeah,
sure is. Well, thank you again, Pro Solar, for for for supporting us and and
we've always supported you guys and regardless, we won't ever stop. We love what you
they're always there, you know, when something's going on in the flooring industry, they're there to
cover it. Uh they do a great job. Love the magazine.
Long time. I'm not going to lie, that's where it um
it started when I was like, "Let me just read this magazine real quick and see what's going on."
Yeah. And uh that's when I learned that Daniel knew how to read. Hey,
I love the the brotherly love.
Hey, can you do we have control over unmuting uh uh Andy there?
There's something on our end. Maybe I don't think so.
Andy, I can't touch nothing on my screen, brother, cuz as soon as I touch it, something goes bad. Something something happens.
Yeah, Andy, I don't know what's going on with yours. I can't unmute you from my side.
And he said it's the one time he has full Wi-Fi and everything and this is happening. It's pronounced Weei,
but we al Oh, brother. Brother, I can see your table now.
Oh, great. Can everybody hear me? No, we can hear you now. There's Andy McWills, my dear friend.
And I think it just went silent again. So, whatever you just did. Yeah, how about now?
There you go. That's everybody. Fantastic, my friend. How are you doing?
Wonderful. Up here on set filming some commercials. Okay. Nice.
Fantastic. Bro, give everybody a little glimpse of the of the studio real fast.
I'm sure a couple people in the industry have been up here. Where where did you put that floor down
LA uh a few days ago? That looked good. Oh, yeah. That was in uh that was in New Orleans
at Healthcare Design. Okay. You did it quick, too. You like showed the logo and then you threw the logo and
it was all done. Yeah. Yeah. [laughter] I'm like I'm like Jimmy John's. You know, floor is so fast you'll freak.
And that's your guys' selling point, right? That's why we got to buy you because all you got to do is throw it at the floor and then you're done.
Throw it out the floor and it just goes right on. Watch out. What the
Sorry if I sound extra dusty today, guys. My lost my voice doing absolutely nothing.
[laughter] I probably sound normal to everybody though, so there's that.
So, where's Paul today? Paul was in a meeting that he had to be
in and uh I just I don't think he's in a very good
spot for signal or something. So, okay. That was in a Home Depot bathroom.
So, what's our topic? Let's go ahead. Uh
the topic today is uh the trades don't have a labor problem, they have a
leadership problem. Um and I appreciate you guys joining because I know that you guys are
uh look at it from from a different lens than than most. And you guys you guys' input started as uh installers as well
and you guys kind of jumped up the rankings into the positions that you're currently at. And
you also get to meet up with everyone from across the country uh doing what you do and and learning from everyone
across the country. So you you're your basis of this topic is is way better and
and way way more uh into this into the subject than Daniel
and I can do because we only have our perspective. You guys talk to everybody. Well, where do you see the leadership
problem being? Um, in my opinion, um, I think the
leadership problem started like a if I got to go back to where where when I started is nobody wanted to teach what
they knew because you were there to take their job, right? Um, and I didn't start
in a union or anything like that. I I would say that that was the first um
that was the first runin with leadership issue. The second that I ran into is uh
I'm not the younger guy anymore, but the younger generations coming in, they might have different ways to go about
getting to the end result. And uh and I I'm guilty of it nowadays, too, even
though I was the younger guy back then. Um having a I don't want to say having a
hard time, but not always entertaining um ideas from from everyone. So, you
know, it people aren't inclined to stay in our industry longer if they're not
being heard. Yeah. Well, uh, one thing I'll I'll I'll
piggyback on there, Jose, is you're right about the older leadership, right? The older leadership did not want to
teach. They didn't want to teach their their, you know, installation skills to the newer guys coming in because you're
they they would absolutely they thought they would absolutely steal their work. The problem with the new leadership is
is that new leadership didn't spend enough time behind a leader before they
went out to That's a great a great observation there. Um you know I I go on sites all the time
and you know how long you been doing this? How long you been doing this? And I'm getting five years, six years, seven
years and they're responsible for 100,000 square foot jobs, you know. Um, and it's mind-blowing to
me that people are letting them loose on this. And the floor prep is where really, I mean, and I hear you guys talking about that on the last episode.
That's where they're not getting that that good time in, you know. Um, and so
I think that's where the bad leadership lies right there. They're not spending enough time
under leadership. And then so then when they become a leader, they're not leading correctly
because they don't really truly know how to lead in on a flooring project, right?
They don't know really true start to finish, how to walk into a job site and and and disperse everybody into what
they need to do and to come to the end of the job, right? They they absolutely
don't. They don't know how to delegate, right? They don't know how to delegate. They don't that well they and truly they
don't really know the the true steps from start to finish. Yeah,
you're right. It's just they they only know you only know what you know, right? And I think that like
you just said it right. The the leadership now it's based off of a a very short term versus uh years of
experience and education to create that knowledge base. Um and and you're right,
like everybody everybody is uh from the installers perspective, a lot of installers are trying to race to get to
that top that top position with what they're doing and then missing a lot of steps in between.
Um [clears throat] I I get it. I think I I think this statement is a
little bit more in depth than than what it looks like at the surface, right? Because we could ask this a couple
different ways. Are we talking about residential? Are we talking about commercial? Are we talking about union
versus nonun? Um, you know, because leadership changes
at every different level, right? If you're in that residential form, all you got is the guy next to you or maybe
another guy on a small crew. And you're right. I mean, that old that old uh
mentality of I don't want to teach this guy because he he might have my job. I'm getting older. He's getting better. Uh
kind of mentality. But then I see you go on to these commercial sites, right? And I see there's a lot of great leadership.
Um, but Andy hit it right on the button. Um, and I do believe we have a labor
issue as well. Right on top of on top of this. And the labor issue comes into
play is lack of installers. and the installers that we have unfortunately
have been pushed into being able to uh having to do multiple different types of
flooring, right? And you know, when I came up, it was more of you are a master
of one, not a knack of many was a saying I heard a lot. And we wanted to be
masters of one part of the flooring industry. And how good can you be doing
different types of flooring using different tools on a daily basis, right? That's that's been my mentality for
years. But unfortunately, the flooring industry changed because of a lack of installers. And the installers we have
now are being pushed into having to do carpet one day, engineered wood another
day, and finish up the week on a vinyl job. Right? And there no matter how many
years you have into the trade at this point, how many years do you have focusing on one aspect of it? Right? So
how much can you learn? How much experience are you getting? And how can you lead a job properly without having
to go through the struggles that we've all gone through on a day-to-day doing the same thing over and over and over
and over again. So, when we talk about this issue there, I think there's a couple different variations of ways to
look at this and different perspectives. Um, if you know, I just got back from uh
doing doing a little training and competition thing with the Michigan Union a few weeks ago. You want to talk
about training and leadership, man. I mean, it was an amazing site for what I saw in the few days I spent there seeing
what was going on in there. But again, these guys, the competition there was not like the competition we have for Ty.
It was five different type, you know, four different types of flooring in one
competition. So again, there lays the problem. If a guy's going out every day
and doing, you know, four different things every week, how good is he ever
going to be at at any of them? And how well can you lead a job not doing that
every day? Now, that's just my opinion, right? And I think with with yours right there, you have to put an asterisk and
you have to exclude Namba out of there, right? Because he can do whatever he wants. [laughter]
Hey, there are there are a few exceptions in this industry, but you know, again,
couple things. Paul is jumping in here and saying that leadership is the only way to solve the
the labor problem. And then he piggybacks on this and and says that
leadership creates systems and sees the bigger picture and they're the ones that
take action have uh leaders and leadership. It's just time to focus on the solutions.
Yeah. So I want to add to what what Kevin just said too is uh uh you're you're you're
right, Kev. like if if I don't know if anybody really ever
spends the amount of time needed in one discipline in order to completely put
themselves in a position to let's say master that type of of flooring. Um and
and a lot of that is because the industry um calls for multiple types of
flooring on a single project. Now I'm looking at commercial, not residential, right? Um so commercial residential too.
Residential. Well, yes, it can be depending on on on your your approach. I mean, are you
You'll go in some of these houses, right? Like especially new construction. I was going to say you got carpet in this room, you got hardwood over here,
you got tile in the bathroom. So, it's like everything is laid out. Yeah. And and I just and I just had a
very long conversation with with a um prospective client about that today,
too. And and a lot of it was because of the lack of leadership. and he's got a
history in the trade, so he understands. Um, but the um where I was going is that
sometimes depending on where you're at, it is hard to to to focus primarily on one and and I know that I didn't. Did I
want to? Um, no, dude. I'm too ADHD to like I you'd be working on resilient for
for a month and then you're like, "Oh, I can't wait to go do some carpet. I can't wait to go work that pattern." Right?
And that's where my mindset was. But we also put ourselves in a position to
retain. And a lot of a lot of the um problem that that I've come across with people, individuals, is that
memory retention and muscle memory.
Some people miss that in the genetic code. Um and those are the ones that,
you know, I'm just a carpet guy. I'm a flooring guy, but I only do click. I'm a
flooring guy, but I only do stretch carpet. Well, that's Kendall. Kendall did chime in right here, too. And I'll pop his up
real quick. It says that that's why he just does carpet because he don't he wants his full focus to be on just one
aspect so he can get that right. Dude, and typically just him and and one guy,
one or two guys, too, right? Yeah. Kend Kendall. And and it shows like if I put Kendall's next to our guys
or, you know, two or three of my guys against him and two or three of his on the same, you know, cookie cutter
project, he's going to be done and at the lake, you know, tipping one back when my guys are still putting in the
last area because he does it every day. And and that's that's proof of what you just said there too, Kevin, that when
you focus on on attempting to master one instead of many, it shows in in your
your sequence and the order of operations. Well, and and let me just say, I think I
think being able to focus on just one category is
it has to do with where you're at in in in the region. um what sort of business
you're running. Kendall talks about he's a small entity. Um and that's great that he's able to do that, but that's just
that's not across the board. You know, installers will starve if if that's how
they have to operate. And you know, I'm going to make this may sound stupid, but
you know, if a mechanic only focuses on working on Fords or, you know, only does
rear end work when, you know, there's other things on the car to work on, then he'll starve as well, right? So, I mean,
I consider myself and I've always considered myself a floor covering installer. You know, if you run a
professional company and you sell or you know, advertise that you install multiple surfaces, you should be
proficient at all those surfaces. And just because you don't do one surface every day doesn't mean you should lack
the knowledge in it. I mean, you should absolutely go get the training for that surface that you're advertising that you
install. Um, you know, and look, I have much respect for guys that only do those
single categories. That's awesome that you guys do that, but it's just not practical for every installer to act
like that. Yeah, especially right now, we get so many people that'll come in here and they're and like my brother
says, you know, that I'm a I'm a flooring installer. And then we get them in here and they're we're like, "All right, what uh what do you what flooring
do you do?" You know, and they're like, "All I do is click LVT." So, it's like, man, that is one
Yeah. Like, we don't do much residential. Yeah. So, it is hard for us to
even put you anywhere. So, Right. Yeah, my neighbor does click LBT.
[laughter] Let's pick that apart though for a second. Okay. Yes. When we're talking about leadership,
right? And and if I'm a company, if I'm a flooring company, okay,
yes, I'm going to advertise person. Now, this is me speaking personally. I'm going to advertise that we do all types
of flooring, but I'm going to go out and seek if I can find one, right, that is a
master of each one of those trades. and have the right guys on the right jobs. And that means if if the carpet guy's
going in for a half a day to get the carpet done and the hard surface guy uh hardwood guys coming in right after them
or pre-forehand, whatever that is, that's the leadership's job of that flooring company. But we're talking to a
lot of installers here that are subcontractors, right? And that we're
talking about leadership. Well, leadership put should put these guys in the positions to be the best at what
they do. And I'm not hiring an electrician to do my plumbing. I'm not
right. So why would I hire a hardwood guy to do my carpet? You see what I'm saying?
No, I totally agree. But the only dis I'll disagree and say
you might not hire an electrician to do your plumbing, but an electrician that can wire outside and, you know, hard
wire into the house definitely also knows how to wire on the inside. There's a finished electrician and there's a
rough in electrician, but they're both electricians, right? So, I agree. I wouldn't hire an electrician to do my
plumbing. So, I wouldn't hire a general contractor that has did a couple of floors to do my flooring, but I
absolutely, especially in a residential setting, I would much rather as a homeowner want one crew in my house for
the entire thing. If I had hardwood going in everywhere and carpet going or or or LVT going in, let's not say
hardwood because hardwood's a little different, right? If if if we're talking about sand and finish hardwood, that's a
whole another ball game than carpet, vinyl, and laminate, right? So, if I'm doing
That's what we're talking about. Throw ceram throw ceramic and stone in there, too, and waterproofing and all that.
I'm I'm just not that guy, you know? good for you if you can if you can do if you can do all of it or or half of half
of them, you know, under your belt. I mean, there's nothing wrong with going to get educated and learning a new
So, as uh Kevin is there trying to get his his signal back, I do
want to jump here real quick. In fact, I'm a huge supporter of that. You know, you should go get educated.
You should learn as much as you can about all the different parts of this trade, but should you be doing them all
at a young age? And you know, the majority of these installers now, it's either your you're old and one foot in
the grave or you're young or your young bucket three, four, five years in that says, "Hey, I can do it all." Trust me,
you can't do it all at three, four, five years in. You can't
say here that he he sees A lot of lead installers paint a bad picture
because they say how hard the job is, so why would they want to stay? And I was
actually um this morning and I think I even brought it up, I don't know if I
brought it up on the Monday meeting or maybe it was a different podcast, but um you know, some of these guys will show
up and they they have that mindset where it's like, "Oh, I gotta gotta go to work today." And it's like I don't know if um
I don't remember the last time I was like that. It was never like I got to go do this. It's like let's go get this
done. And and it's it's that mindset. I think that's more of a personality thing, too, right? Because it doesn't
matter what those type of people do. They're going to do that no matter what. And life choices, right? Is this guy is
this guy leaving a healthy lifestyle because he's going to come in with a great attitude? But if he's coming in
two hours from getting out of the bar, trust me, he's going to have that, "Oh man, [clears throat]
we're here again," you know, um some But that's the thing. Sometimes it's those guys right there that'll show
up and they're like, "Let's go get this done." You want to know why? Because they're ready to go to the bar again. Yeah. But again, goes back to leadership,
right? whoever is leading that shop, you know, if we want to if you want to talk about a true leader, a leader
motivates these guys without having to tell them, hey, this is what you need to be doing. This needs to be your
attitude. He he, you know, he puts it into them, right? By just being them, by
being a good leader, by putting them in a position to uh succeed and excel.
He's getting more notifications. He's popular. He's very popular.
He is too. Uh oh. Kevin, you're gonna have to uh probably you you're gonna have to probably quit and
then rejoin, I think, because that it's done that to me before, too. Uh Kendall
says that he was with the guy that taught him for 10 years before he was he
even felt comfortable going out on his own. And that's because he felt he
needed more knowledge with everything. And you know, he says that he he's in the residential game. Yep. And he's
right. I mean, he there's guys that I met that worked for me that, you know, worked for me for six, seven months, and
I taught him how to, you know, stick some boards down to a to a glued down floor or do some carpet tile or some
click flooring and the next thing you know, they were going out on their own and going to sub work from other places,
you know, and I would find out where they worked or where they went to and I would call that place and let them know
that I am absolutely not on their reference sheet. They I will not vouch for them. They do not they cannot run
their own crew yet. Um and it was sad because I wasn't the only guy in my area
that was having that happen to them. Many guys would, you know, start as a young kid, you know, 20 25 years old and
just learn just enough to be what I like to call just enough to be dangerous. And
um so so let me let me let me add to that because you just made me think of something like I don't know if it's outside the box but
some of that and is due to the pressure of all the sales going on without the
the qualified or or installers, right? And and if if this is something that is
due to lack of leadership, then where does where where does that weight of leadership fall? Does that fall on the
uh industry or the manufacturers not setting a a specific you know hard line
in the sand saying a set of standards that that require x amount of experience
from an individual in order for them to install like you know they took that away from us at one point you know what
I mean? [snorts] Well it's really hard to do that as a manufacturer right? Oh yeah,
especially as as a large manufacturer. I mean, you know, when you're when you're selling when when you're, you know,
distributing to half the world, you know, you almost don't have a say in who's installing your product.
Correct. You know, and really you can't I mean, you can't say, you know, I mean, you can, but again, if if we did or if or if
Kevin did or, you know, if Jay Zern did, then you know, how many people do you
really think would be certified? And then also, how how easy would the certification be
to get if you wanted to become a Navalis certified installer when I'm having to certify thousands of people to install
our flooring? Right there you go, dude. You said it right there. So, it's a you guys are supplying the demand. You guys
are not controlling the market and the sales market. You're just supplying the demand. Right there. Again, what it does is it
deflects the responsibility to the manner in which products are sold. So,
well, and and that's why we we're still in that 1099 culture, too. It's because
these retailers and stores will look at it like that and they'll be like, "Well, if I hire people, then I got to train
them when I can just hire anyone and just throw them out there." But then issues come along and instead of being
like, "Oh, maybe we should train even our our contractors," they're just like,
"Nope, you're done. On to the next." Yeah. And that's what they do. And that's why, you know, when you talk
about the sales, the the the ground level sales rep, the retail sales rep, you know, I there's a lot of great ones
out there and and don't take this the wrong way if you're listening. But some of them are pure snakes. And if you they
don't care who you are. If you tell them you can install and they need a job done, they're going to get you to do it
because once you touch that flooring, it's your responsibility. and they don't care if if if something messes up, you
know, because they'll have it inspected and they'll pin it right back on you and then you won't get that paycheck and you're a 1099. What what are you going
to do about it? You know, so it's up to that installer that you know is being
1099, not you know to move on from that. You know, I hear all the time we need to
change the prices in the industry. We need to change this in the industry. Probably not going to do that. This industry is huge.
Probably never going to change prices. never go. It's not possible. It's up to you as an installer to change who you
are and get out of that version of the installation game. Right. What's up, Ke?
Can you hear me? Yeah, we can. [clears throat] So, Tanya did uh come on here and she says, "Good
leadership involves creating partnerships to build strong foundations. That way, when the hard decision needs to be made, their team
trusts them to make that decision. Too many leaders lead with a my way mentality instead of collaborative one
and no one sticks around with places where they aren't heard.
Well, that's all very true. Very true. I like to go back to the sales people talk, right? We talk about leaders,
we talk about leadership, talk about it starting from the top down, right? Where do these jobs start from? They start
with the sales rep, right? In that home or in in the showroom. Uh, we always
talk about education for all these installers and getting them trained and what's it going to take and next level
and whatever. What about the salespeople and the and the managers of these places? There's somebody there there's
there's there's people sitting in these stores that are hiring these installers that say they can do everything and and
they've only been in the industry for three years and they're putting them on the jobs, right? That's where the leadership starts. The leadership starts
with the salesperson not overpromising, not you know half of them don't know their don't know the installers that
they're doing their work. I go in and do trainings all the time for both installers and sales staff. And one of
the biggest questions I ask is are you going to the job site? Do you know your installers?
And my second question is why? Why not? You guys are both,
you know, BSing about whose fault is this and what happened and why, but neither one of them know each other,
have never talked, don't have each other's numbers, you know, uh, education needs to be on
all levels, right? The store manager, the sales representative, the installers,
and who's, you know, who who's uh responsible for that? Well, that goes
back to my first question. What are we talking about? Are we talking about retail? We talking about commercial,
union, non-union, right? Because that that that responsibility changes, you
know, slightly. I think even it doesn't matter what you're looking at if you're talking salesperson, right? Because you don't
have to have any background in flooring to be a salesperson, right?
You say that because we got a we got an upcoming podcast here in a week or so, right? And you really don't have to you
don't have to have any experience to be an inspector. You can take it you can take an online class.
Let's save this Kevin. Let's save it. [laughter] Right. So So when we're talking about
responsibility, right? I mean it lies on all of us at different levels, but we really got to
narrow it down to to what are we talking about? You know, if we talking about the 1099 guy, no, that's that's fully his
responsibility to take control of himself, educate himself, not take on jobs that that, you know, he's over his
head in. Not learning on the job site, but learning in a in a classroom, in a
manufacturing, um, uh, training, uh, you know, there's other places than just going in and
saying, "Hey, I want I want your work. I can do it all. I I've got, you know,
barely any tools. I definitely don't have the knowledge and, you know, that that's problems, but that we're we're
allowing that to happen because we do have a a shortage of installers. We've had it for a while. You can see it just
by what we started this conversation with about, you know, not being a a
master of one, but a knack of many. like you have to know you have to do at least
three of you know the big ones to be even in business nowadays as a 1099
employee. Right. So you're talking like Paul Paul comes in here with this, right? And he says
that there's levels to each and this is going all the way back but you just kind of brought it up. Yes, Paul. Yes, Paul.
Most guys on the BTI that are above master level are only master in one
occasionally two disciplines. the rest of their disciplines are at most proficient. It still works for a guy to
be focused on one or two disciplines but still be proficient at another. Being diverse is a necessity in most places,
particularly in smaller communities, right? And
yeah, because I mean we do we tell people we do carpet and resilient and then we start piecing it out after that.
Can I do hard tile? Absolutely I can. Will it take me twice as long as if I
just call up my buddy Chaz and be like, "Hey, Chaz, can you go take care of this project for me?" 100% it will take twice
as long, but it I know that it'll be done right. Well, and and there's there's there's more to that too, right? Like there's uh
projects where can you do hardel? Yeah, we can do some. Well, can you do this? It's like, well, that is definitely
going to be outside of my comfort zone. But we we have people that we partner up with that, you know, trusted partners
that that we lean on for that type of installation. And that's where the community comes in. And we're we're okay
saying personally, no, I can't. But let me use
my network and and my contacts to make sure that we get this done for you the right way. Um
Paul does come in with yikes. Just a little taste of what's to come on the inspector [laughter] podcast. So, make sure you guys put that
one on your calendar. You're not going to want to miss that one. Let's let's repeat what Paul said there
on Trade Tap. There is handful of people at that artisan level
and very few if any have two proficiencies at that level. Right. Um
if you are at that level of artisan master they master they can still be
proficient. If you're at that level though you don't have then you don't have to do every
aspect of this flooring industry. If you master one I promise you you can do that
every day of your life and there'll be plenty of work for you and you can get paid whatever you want. And I think
that's that's one of those what I was just saying too that's like a misconception. It's not that you're not
going to do anything else. It's just that you're so good at one thing that you can focus on that but then still be
good at other things because you're so good at this. You know that all right if I'm going to go do this wood over here,
I'm going to read all about it. I'm going to make sure that I'm doing all the testing and following everything 100% because if anything gets missed, I
already know it's my fault. Yeah. And that [clears throat] just comes from experience on having bad experiences,
right? Or watching others have bad experiences. Um it doesn't doesn't
necessarily mean that that you or I or anybody else is going to be proficient at that discipline. It just means that we have an understanding of the product
and we can get through the basics and get a project done. um being as as Kevin
keeps saying, you know, the master of one uh or you know up there
knack of many there is um like like Daniel, look, I'll just use
us. If we get a phone call for for any type of of install, any specific material out there because people ran
out of options or they don't know what's going on, what is it going to be?
What's the phone call going to be about? What type of material?
Commercial sheet vinyl. I'll answer that. Yeah, I know. Yes, correct. It's going to be resilient, right? is going to be
commercial sheep violence. And that's because we put ourselves in a position to not only have a lot of hands-on
experience, but we we had a deep focus on that for a very long time because
there was a big need for that. There still is a big need for that. And
this [laughter] is this is where we can also go back to Kevin's point when he was saying um you know the the
salespeople, right? because they'll sell sell sell put anyone on a job and not anyone can
just do it right and this is where the salespeople need the training too. It's because if you don't know what goes into
a job you're not going to price it correctly. I just priced one out as a labor only where
they came back and they were like you're 40% higher than we even have into it. And it's like that's because I know
exactly what's going to go into this job. That salesperson doesn't. So they're selling to sell to
get the job. Yeah. Not not because they know what goes into it. And let me just tell you from a
manufacturing side what happens when when all of that comes together and they get who? Joe Schmo to go install it.
It fails. A claim gets started. We deem it
installation related. The salesperson then comes back and says, "This is one
of our best customers. You guys as a manufacturer have to do something about it."
So, we end up sometimes footing the bill for more material to
take care of the customer because at the end of the day, the end user is who we're everybody in the game is worried
about, right? the end user who purchased the material and has to live with that flooring regardless if it's a 10-story
building or it's Susie Homemaker's house, that end user end user has to live with it, right? So that salesperson
that hired whoever and they come and screw it up, they come back to us once
we say no, that's an installation related issue and say, "Well, but we don't care. What are you going to do to
help us fix it?" Right? So it's full circle who it affects.
Yeah. And it goes right back to this educated installer. So that educated installer affects everybody in that
entire circle. Kendall brings up about sales people. He says that he always felt like if you've
never installed flooring, you shouldn't be a salesperson in flooring. And then
the the reason that he says that is because the salesman promise, right?
always promising the world without even talking to the installer or letting them
know and then they show up on site and it's like this is not going to happen.
Well, and it's a proven fact. I I mean listen, you know, listen, salespeople, there's great salespeople
out there, but if you want to sell in any type of aspect, right, whether it's
cars, you know, you're not going to go in and just sell cars tomorrow. You're going to have to learn about the cars you're selling, right?
There's no difference with flooring versus being a car salesman from the start. I know a lot of great sales
people that have never touched a piece of flooring in their life, but took the time to get educated, spent time on job
sites asking the right question, right? And became some fantastic leaders in the
flooring industry, right? Fantastic. But the problem is it goes into leadership.
If you don't have if those if those sales guys don't have a boss saying, "Here, I this is what I need you to be
doing. I need you to understand how a job works from start to finish and not just go sell this piece of carpet cuz it
looks pretty, right? Because there's a lot more to it." But I mean, the same thing goes into selling cars. Well, this
is a beautiful red, you know? No. I I want to know what engine is in it. I want to know Well, I don't want to know
if it's an Evo or not cuz I'm not buying it. But uh you know like these are questions that need to be answered at at
the point of sale, right? [snorts] Well, you know what? Customers have a lot of questions too and and here's a
big problem and this is for the manufacturer side of it is the lack of education from the salespeople to the
end user about care and maintenance about where what product should go
where. Right? And this is a leadership thing because it's either it's either
they don't know, which is probably 90% of the time, or there's 10% of the time
that these guys do know and they're doing it anyway, right? Which makes it egregious. But there needs to be these
guys need to be just as educated on care and maintenance issues cuz I tell you, I
I see so much of that, especially in the resilient world, right? going to a
school and they're the janitor's cleaning the floor with with the the most nasty chemical in the world where
the pH skyrocketed, you know, and it's just like, well, I wonder what I don't know why my floor's messed up.
Well, did you read the care and maintenance sheet? Well, I never got that. Right. [snorts] Well, that's the
salesperson's job. I think that should go into, you know, being part of the sales aspect, you know, is educating
and commercially it is because because that's what we have to provide, right?
Um Ben does come in here and say that maybe you
don't have to be an installer to sell, but you do have to know enough to be knowledgeable about the products and the
installation process. And Paul came in here just to um
reiterate what he was saying earlier. Says that think of the largest carpet
job, but an owner also wants sheet vinyl in a small bathroom. Be a master artisan
elite carpet installer and a proficient and resilient and you could still get it done. And I've been on a job where we
were in there to install sheet vinyl and it was in a bathroom, right? And I mean,
we did the entire the entire condo and then they were like, "Oh, now they also
want this shower. Can you price this out for me?" And then that was one of the ones where
we had to do because my tile guys were on a different project for us at that time and it's like I
can't slow them down over there because then that one's gonna get backed up. Sorry.
just having an understanding and you know to I want to add to I wanted to add to what uh started the
conversation with with Kevin from what Kendall had said is that u it's a it's a two-way street right um you as an
installer if you're getting ready and starting a new relationship with a salesperson ask them some simple
questions you'll find out what kind of salesperson they are pretty pretty quick right just you don't have to be condescending or anything just ask them
why why this product there why did you sell them that, you know, and then you'll find out pretty quick is, "Oh,
cuz that's the color scheme or because that's the what they wanted or they wanted really wanted this pattern."
Yeah. Or or you'll they'll say something like they've already had bad experience with XYZ product, so we shifted gears to
try to give them a better performing product for the area, right? And that's the salesperson that I want to work with
and want to work for. Um, and the reason I say that is
I work with some sales people now through other flooring stores that are really good at selling. However, we've
been working with them a very long time now, but I've watched them grow because
I was willing to share information and they were willing to listen. [clears throat] If they're not willing to listen to the
little bit of information and the knowledge that you have as an installer to help them get better at what they're
doing, then I would I don't want to say walk away, right? You got to give people a chance, but
they need to be willing to grow their knowledge base as well as you increase your skill set and your knowledge base.
And you can you find the right you could do it together, you find the right people, then that creates that relationship that
is now I get a phone call. I'm like, Jose, what do you what do you want to do here? I'm not I'm not selling the job.
What do you mean? What do I want to do? What? Like, well, what do you think is the best? And and
we'll talk about it. She's like, "Oh, you know what? That's right. We got this product right here. You know what? I'm going to send you the specs. Look at it.
Take a look and give me a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Let's let's proceed." And
[clears throat] I don't have to haggle with them anymore. We just work together and do
work. Yeah. And Jose says right here that he hates the shortcuts that sales people do
to win a job because because of that the installer has no budget to make it
right. And that's where if you are that good of a salesperson,
you should know what a change order is. Yeah. And in instead of making the installer
eat some stuff because and I know Jose's a great installer, right? So, he's going to be like us. And it's not uh we'll
never be like, "Well, we're just going to skip that step." Sometimes it's like, "Well, we're going to do what we have to do because my name is on that job."
Yeah. I I didn't have floor prep into the bid, so you guys are just [laughter] going to have to. Yeah. So, I can't I can't tell you. I
subbed a lot and I can't tell you how many times I would pick up a thousand square feet of, you know, a floating
product and get one bag of skim coat RX with it, [laughter] you know, and it's
like, did you guys add any more floor prep into it? And what I ended up doing,
especially with one of the groups that I was working with, was telling them, "Look," because there was a lot of times
where the customer got sticker shop after the fact because I would bring in
another four or 500, sometimes a $1,000 prep bill, you know, because we removed the old carpet and the sub wall was
jacked. And you know, so I started telling them, look, you guys got to add this into a bill into the bill as a
possibility and tell them that this could happen, you know, and warn them
and just say, look, you know, we don't, you know, we're not in the business of charging this because just to do it, but
if it if it needs it, we want to absolutely do it so your pull will perform properly. That that way they're prepared, right?
They're like, "Okay, I don't want to do." No one wants to do when you talk about moisture mitigation for us, man.
Like people are like, "Oh, you need to do that." And it's like, "I don't want to do this. I just want to go in and install the floors." Yeah.
Right. But if it's something that we need to do, we just need to do it. Exactly. Do you know how sad I I got telling a
couple clients at some point? Even one of them is is a a residential guy local from, you know, from the local
community. It's like, "Brother, we have to we have to mitigate." And to tell a
homeowner who set a budget of X amount that, hey, you just doubled your budget
because of this, otherwise we we cannot install what you've already purchased.
Yeah. It is is is heartbreaking. And and we did had to tell a church one time, too, and that was
like gut-wrenching dollars. Like the the dollar amount in the square footage was just like there was no turning back. And
it's easier to give money back to a prepared client, salesperson, uh,
installer than than it is to not prep them for the whatifs. And Oh, yeah. Every time.
And And I don't know one installer that wants to carry 70 bags of leveler in, [laughter] then the next day carry two
150 cartons of flooring in. So, I mean, the money the money will be
great, but I mean, I'd rather not, you know, right? So
yeah, see that's that's why that's why you have a specialty crew that just does that every day and then you don't have
to worry about doing that. That's true, right? [laughter] The the specialty stuff. There we go. There we go. Yeah. Yeah.
Just like now it's the the the heat weld side is so bad they have a crew that comes in and lays the flat and then they
have a guy that comes behind them and heat weld because nobody else knows how to. [laughter]
Brother, I got a I just heard that. I just heard that the other day. I ran into a crew and they said, "All we
do is heat weld." And I said, "What do you mean?" They're like, "No, that's it. That's all we do.
We just go in and and we do the welds and and we walk." I I was blown away.
Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. It's been going on for years, man. It's And that's just that's just as bad as
saying, "Hey, we we've got we've got a repair crew. All they do is just repairs." I hear that all the time, too.
Slippery float, man. It's like it's like you know how many problems you have to have to have a crew that just does
repairs every day all day period. I mean you you want to talk about
leadership if I was leading that company I'd be like we got a major problem here and we got to fix it and let's figure
out where it starts and where it ends. Exactly. You don't know how to heat weld. Do you
even know like seam integrity and stuff? Right. because that kind of goes hand in hand and you're just looking at
who are we pointing the finger at if something goes wrong. Yeah. If you have a failure, you have two crews. That's crazy to me.
And and Kevin, how old was the guy that that said that's all he did?
Uh like our age. Yeah. So that's my
Yeah. Like like 80 82. I'm logging off. I can't take this abuse.
No. So, I mean to that that's my point like that's a dying breed, right? Those
guys I mean you you guys Daniel, you know, Raul, guys like that, you guys are younger and and and killing it. But a
lot of those guys that are running around just doing heat welding and relying on these other guys to just lay
the flat stuff are older and nobody else, you know, in that region is willing to learn the heat weld side of
it either because they're scared of it or they just can't grab grasp the technique. You know,
I mean, it is scary. It is. But may maybe that maybe you just like uh pointed out another flaw in it
is that maybe for the people who are staying busy who would invest the time into learning more are just too busy to
invest the time because they're put in a position to either uh you know have way
too much work or none at all. Um oh you get a rated bro.
Who's who's that? East. Yeah, that's East. It's dark.
Sorry. You scared now? No, I just thought that they closed the building with us in it, so we might have
to stay tonight. I mean, there's plenty of sets in here, so I could find like a bedroom set and go lay down. But [laughter]
but yeah, maybe that's an issue, too. And um the this older cat that's just doing the welding, he's he's at the back
end. He's like, "Oh, this is easy work. Of course, I'll do it." You [clears throat] know, it's hard.
It's hard not to accept easy work when you know you're at that age where you don't want to do the heavy work anymore
or you or physically can't, right? Yeah. And and I wanted to go back real quick to this. You know, somebody talked
about um you know, ex-installers make great sales reps. You know, I think
that's very true. Every every sales rep that I ever met that was an ex-installer
definitely was a great sales rep. However, one of the other problems we have with that with them not going into
sales afterwards is they have to work so long installing because there is nobody
to install. Yeah. So, they're stuck installing until their retirement age. So, they aren't able in
their, you know, late 40s, early 50s to cut out and go into the sales side of it
because there's nobody to do what they do. Jose says that he remembers that a residential
repair was way short because he didn't uh put
