0:01

Welcome to Contractor Cuts , where we cover

0:03

the good , the bad and the ugly of

0:06

growing a successful contracting company

0:08

.

0:13

Welcome back to Contractor Cuts . My name is Clark Turner

0:15

.

0:15

I am still Jared , flo . Thanks for joining us

0:17

again .

0:18

So last week we talked about

0:21

we started the

0:23

two-part series about how to be spending

0:25

time during your week . Last week we

0:27

covered the two office days that we

0:29

suggest , and this week we're

0:31

covering what you should be doing out in the field

0:34

right , when and how

0:36

you should make decisions to go to your job site . When

0:38

I am going to be on site , when I'm not going

0:40

to be on site , when

0:42

all of that , and then also when I get on site what

0:44

are the things I'm doing ?

0:45

What am I doing ? What ?

0:46

should I do when I'm on site and what should I not do

0:48

when I'm on site ? And so we've

0:50

taken two weeks to kind of divvy up . This

0:53

is what I do in the office and

0:59

now this week , this is what I do on site when I should go , when

1:01

to can push it and try and keep your

1:03

day blocks happening to where I'm

1:06

on job sites . Monday , wednesday , thursday

1:08

. I'm in the office . Tuesday , friday Second

1:11

half of Friday is a flex time and

1:14

trying to set up your days to where I

1:16

go to the job site on these days to

1:18

do these tasks , to ensure that

1:20

this quality and these people are

1:23

accountable . And then when I'm

1:25

in the office , I'm doing these tasks to make sure that

1:27

I keep everything organized and running and proactive

1:29

.

1:29

Yeah , well , where we started with this in

1:32

the podcast about your office

1:35

days is , you know

1:37

, time blocking or day blocking , excuse

1:41

me . And the value of that

1:43

when it comes to the job site

1:45

stuff is if you

1:47

don't have a specific time

1:49

frame or a framework around

1:51

when you go to job sites . These

1:54

days are my job walk days

1:56

or , like we said before , fridays is

1:59

a flex day that I have stuff

2:01

that I intend on doing in the office that I

2:03

will get executed , but I also have space

2:05

available if I need to hit a job site . If

2:09

you don't have that

2:11

framework around your week

2:13

, then job site walks

2:16

, going to jobs , just becomes everything

2:18

. Yep , right , it

2:20

feels like if I'm not going to

2:23

a job , then I'm not doing my , something's

2:25

going to drop , there's a problem or whatever . But

2:27

also when a client

2:30

calls you with an emergency , most

2:34

of the times those emergencies are not

2:36

emergencies to us . Right

2:38

, they find a hole in their sheetrock

2:41

and that's a major emergency to them

2:43

, but to us it's like I

2:45

can fix that and no one will ever know . Like it's

2:48

not a big deal . But

2:50

what feels like customer service is

2:52

when the client calls you and says , hey , I've got this problem

2:54

, I need you out here . Will you come out here Dropping

2:57

everything that you're doing , postponing

2:59

what you had planned and going and making

3:02

sure that you're giving customer service to that client

3:04

? Yep , right , if I have a

3:06

plan around when I'm

3:08

going to be walking jobs , I can say

3:10

to that client absolutely

3:13

, I'm . I want to get that taken

3:15

care of for you . I'm planning on being at

3:17

your property tomorrow when I'm doing my property

3:19

walks . Would it be okay if we talked that 95%

3:23

of the time the client's oh yeah , if you're going to be here

3:25

tomorrow , no problem .

3:26

Yeah , yeah , yeah .

3:27

Right . But if you don't have that , then

3:29

the only solution that

3:31

you have is either to tell the client to kick

3:34

rocks it's not a big deal , just chill out

3:36

or drop everything that you're

3:38

doing . Postpone that . Estimate

3:40

that you were trying to get out the door . That's been

3:42

late for a week already and you're

3:45

going out to this client's house and you're

3:47

walking it to say , hey , it's okay , it's just

3:49

the sheetrock , I can fix it Right . So

3:57

there's a huge value in the beginning of what we're about to talk about is not just planning

3:59

your office days where you have space provided

4:01

for doing the office things that you don't like and don't

4:03

really want to do , right , you

4:10

also have . A byproduct of that is that you also have days that are

4:12

planned for you to be on site , and it helps you be able to be proactive and to be able

4:14

to give a space to your client where you're going to

4:16

take care of them , but it's done within your

4:18

timeframe and not reactive .

4:20

Yeah , Well , and we say at

4:22

least three field days , which are Monday

4:25

, wednesdays and Thursdays in our

4:27

calendar and again take the

4:30

way we do it and make it yours . That's fine . But

4:32

the reason we do that is and

4:34

we're going to break this down but Mondays we

4:36

are walking every active job

4:39

in person . On Mondays We'll

4:41

talk about what that looks like . But , preemptively

4:44

, every CEA that we have

4:46

a client , a client engagement agreement meeting , every time

4:49

we sit down with them before a job starts , we tell them this

4:51

, we say listen , client , mondays

4:53

is when I do a completion walk on

4:55

your job . I walk Monday . What

4:57

did we do last week ? I know that this

4:59

stuff was getting done and I'm assessing the

5:01

job . I'm talking with my crews

5:03

, I'm assessing that stuff and then on

5:06

Tuesdays I'm going to put together invoices

5:08

and payment for the crews and invoices

5:10

for you . So if you have any questions

5:13

, if you need to , just you

5:15

want to walk a job site with me Mondays

5:17

, I'm out there , guaranteed . So if you ever

5:19

it's a Thursday afternoon you're like hey , I

5:22

got some questions . Clark , when are you meeting

5:24

? When do you walk to the house on Monday ? Shoot

5:27

me that text . I'll say oh , monday , you're on the schedule

5:29

for 1130 am . Great , can

5:31

I meet you there ? Yeah , let's walk at 1130

5:33

on Monday . So my clients all

5:35

know , monday I will be

5:37

there and outside of a fire

5:39

happening , they know great . I've got time

5:41

set aside then that I can get

5:43

his attention on the job site and

5:46

we can walk it together . Now obviously

5:48

they can't make it , they want to walk a different day , stuff

5:50

like that's going to happen . But it gives

5:52

them a spot to where Saturday at

5:54

8.30 pm , they're not saying hey

5:57

Clark , big question , what are we doing about this , this and this

5:59

?

6:00

And I'm like they already know you're going to be out there on Monday

6:02

.

6:02

They will say , hey , I'm just going to be

6:04

out here on Monday when he walks in We'll

6:07

talk through it . So , again , the preemptive stuff of

6:09

why we frame these weeks is we tell people

6:11

this Crews know I'm walking at Monday

6:14

, we'll see a crew . Whatever's

6:16

done by the end of the day Monday gets paid on Tuesday , yeah

6:19

. Or it gets marked complete

6:21

on Tuesday for payment . And so we'll

6:23

have crews text and say what time are you coming

6:25

on Because I'm trying to get this paint job done . Great

6:28

, I'll push this to the end of the day to make sure I can sign off

6:30

and get final pictures on that paint and

6:32

the crew's working around , knowing

6:34

that I'm coming , my schedule and

6:36

getting it ready right . And I show

6:38

up on Monday , walk the job site and the crew says

6:40

, hey , I need full payment site . And the crew says , hey , I need full payment , I'm

6:42

going to be done with the paint by Thursday . I need all of

6:44

that by Friday . I say , well , per

6:47

our agreement , per what we've discussed

6:49

, whatever's

6:55

done on Monday is going to be paid on Friday and that's all I can do

6:57

, because I'm also receiving payment the same way , and so that allows them to know I

6:59

got to bust it on Saturday and Sunday to get

7:01

this done , so I can get paid this week on this

7:03

money .

7:05

So that's the way that we've

7:07

chosen to set up kind

7:10

of how many times we're going to be on job sites

7:12

, the way that we communicate with the clients

7:14

. But that's not for everybody , right

7:16

, there's variations around that . So

7:18

let's talk about so how often

7:21

should we be going to a job site

7:23

?

7:23

Yeah , so that is a question

7:25

that is not one that we can

7:28

give advice on . Yeah , we can tell you how

7:30

we do it , but also there are

7:32

so many intricacies to answer that

7:34

question because if you are doing

7:36

a flip for an investor who's out

7:39

of state and we have two weeks

7:41

of demo because we're doing major demo

7:43

on it , I might go out there once at

7:45

the beginning of the demo , in the middle of it and at

7:47

the end , and so that's maybe once a week that I was visiting

7:49

during that stage . Right , but

7:52

I've got pictures from

7:54

my crews . I FaceTime once with a guy with

7:56

a question . I know what's going

7:58

on out there , I don't need to be there .

8:00

It's fine to remote manage that job .

8:02

Now , if you're a contractor , that is a high-end

8:04

contractor , with me and my crew . I do one

8:06

to two jobs at a time , but

8:08

I'm charging high , high-end numbers because

8:11

the client is paying for me to

8:13

be on site almost all day , almost

8:15

every day . Right , if that's part of what I'm

8:17

selling as my product , then that's what I've got to

8:19

do and I'm going to

8:21

be there every single day . But I can't be running 12 jobs

8:24

at the same time because I can't be at 12

8:26

different places all day , every day . And so

8:28

, depending on how

8:30

you're selling your product and

8:32

your product , is you managing the job

8:35

right ? Get that straight . Your product

8:37

is a new kitchen . That's the end result

8:39

. The product is me getting

8:41

the crews organizing and managing

8:43

getting this job done . What

8:45

I'm selling and what I'm setting expectations

8:48

of my customer are based around that

8:50

. If you want to pay me a

8:52

lot of money to do your kitchen

8:54

where I could have done it for $20,000 less , but you want

8:56

me there every day , deal .

8:58

I'll be there every day .

8:59

I'll make an extra $20,000 this month and be there every day

9:01

and say no to these other jobs and so figuring

9:04

out how often you should be there . There's

9:06

not a rhyme or reason on it . Now

9:08

we will go through what

9:11

. When we coach our project

9:13

managers and the guys that we coach , when

9:15

you have to be there .

9:16

Yeah , right .

9:16

And so let's talk through those , those scenarios .

9:18

Well , and and before we get to that spot

9:20

, the the thing that I and kind of how

9:23

we arrived at that is

9:25

that I think that there are a lot

9:27

of people in the industry that

9:29

have been doing it a long time

9:31

and their thought

9:34

, philosophy , way that it works it's worked

9:36

well for them is that they're onsite every

9:39

single job , all the time . They're

9:41

able to manage it , oversee it , circumvent

9:43

problems , deal with the client

9:45

, and that's how they function

9:47

. They're there every day , all day , and

9:51

the reality

9:53

about that is there's a lot

9:55

of time that that contractor

9:59

is on site and there's

10:01

no reason for them to be there . They're just walking

10:03

around , they're looking at the things , but there's there's a . There's no reason for them to be there . They're just walking around

10:05

, they're looking at the things , but there's a .

10:07

They're like the El Jefe .

10:08

That's right , but there's an inefficiency

10:10

with the time in that right . And

10:13

so when we looked at it , we were like , well , we

10:15

don't want to do that because we can be

10:17

more efficient with our time . But we also

10:19

looked at well , if we run the pendulum

10:21

the other direction and we're just going

10:23

to remote manage and we're going to have

10:26

our crews on site , we're going to send them a digital

10:28

work order and they know

10:30

what needs to be done , and then I'm just going to show up

10:33

at the end of the job to sign off on everything .

10:35

That doesn't work either there's no quality control Right

10:37

, there's no quality control .

10:39

And what's funny is that when we

10:41

tell people we're not on site

10:43

every single day , they assume that

10:45

we're the pendulum the other way . Yep , right

10:48

, and what we did is we said how

10:50

do we get the best of both worlds

10:52

to have efficiency so that we can

10:54

increase the bandwidth of our project managers

10:56

, the bandwidth of our company , but

10:58

still maintain the level of quality control

11:01

dealing with our clients , customer

11:03

service that being on site every day

11:05

does , and so that's how we got to this

11:07

place , of kind of what we do .

11:10

Right , so let's run a couple scenarios . Well , let's

11:13

first lay out kind of our day . So Monday is

11:15

our site walk days and that is a day that I

11:17

am gathering data , I am

11:19

taking photos , I am looking

11:21

at everything that I need to do on

11:23

the job site this coming week

11:26

, what needs to be ordered , because , as

11:28

we talked about last week , tuesday I sit down and

11:30

I'm going through my software . So on Mondays

11:32

, mondays are different than Wednesday

11:34

, thursday .

11:35

I've got to gather the data

11:37

to know what to do in my software on

11:39

Tuesday .

11:39

I'm not doing estimates ever on Mondays . I'm

11:41

not doing any sort of write-ups

11:44

of estimates . I am literally

11:46

Monday morning checking my emails , getting

11:48

back , making sure everyone's covered , and

11:50

I'm going to all my jobs and so I can . I

11:52

show up the job site one . I'm assessing

11:55

the work that's been completed . I'm looking at my

11:57

jobs you know my iPad's out

11:59

and I'm saying , okay , have the software up . We're

12:01

supposed to be doing this . Your work order says we

12:03

should be halfway through the paint . We haven't even started paint . What's

12:05

going on ? What's happening here ? So I'm taking notes

12:08

. Right , I'm not even at this point . I'm not even

12:10

updating the software . I'm taking

12:12

notes as to what I see , what's

12:14

different from my expectations , where we're

12:16

at . I'm taking photos of everything and

12:19

I'm starting to figure out where

12:21

we're currently at , from where I thought we

12:23

were at , and to either we're

12:25

ahead of schedule , right on schedule or behind schedule

12:27

.

12:28

Ahead of schedule is rare , yes , but

12:30

it happens .

12:31

So Monday I'm assessing that stuff

12:33

, I'm walking it and I'm answering

12:35

questions for my crews . I might

12:37

also line up for crews

12:40

to walk it with me on Monday , so maybe

12:43

drywall starting on Thursday Well why don't you ? meet

12:45

me out there on Monday . I'll make sure I got my order

12:47

right to make sure the drywall is here for you , but

12:49

let's do a walk and I'll show you what we're doing . So I've

12:51

got that date . I know I'm going to be there . He wants

12:54

to get his eyes on it before he starts on Thursday ? Right

12:56

, let's

12:59

go meet out there on Monday . So I'm meeting

13:02

with my current crews , even if they're

13:04

not there . They're halfway through paint , and

13:06

paint is on pause for two days . I'm

13:08

walking in and I'm on the phone with them . Hey , tell me about this . Tell me

13:10

about this . What's going on with this ? I'm getting

13:12

all of my answers

13:15

put together for that job and

13:17

that might take an hour , two hours , even on

13:20

the job site . Now , that's

13:22

going to be on . Those large jobs that you're

13:24

in the middle of , jobs that are starting

13:26

, jobs that are finishing , are going to be a little more simple , though

13:29

that finishing a job is never simple , but it's

13:32

. It might be . Hey , we've got one , one

13:34

crew that's finishing up , so I need to walk it and make sure that

13:36

they're okay , it might be a 20 minute

13:38

visit at most .

13:39

Yeah , um , but we'll also . That's that's

13:41

Monday is where we will earmark clients

13:44

. This is where we prep the client's information

13:47

and expectations . I'm

13:49

going to be walking your job every single Monday

13:51

. Questions , problems , uh

13:53

, resolutions that you need we can

13:55

handle that . I'm glad for you to show

13:57

up and walk the job with me so that I can

14:00

answer any questions for you . If you've got problems

14:02

that you need solutions , we can handle that at

14:04

that time .

14:44

So that's what I do on Mondays . Monday

14:46

is more health of my current

14:48

jobs , making sure everything's good

14:50

and everybody knows

14:52

the marching orders for the week . And

14:55

then Wednesday and Thursday are open

14:57

days . So those are new

14:59

estimates , revisions

15:01

, and I need to go visit a property

15:03

to get my eyes on it . This

15:06

is also , hey , my drywall

15:08

is now starting on Thursday . I'm going to be

15:10

there Thursday morning to receive that shipment

15:12

, because the last two times our

15:15

sheetrock showed up Brusted

15:17

up . And so I'm going to be there to receive it

15:19

. So I'm going to go ahead and schedule on Thursday to make sure I'm at

15:21

one , two , three main street .

15:22

But I've also sent a work order to my my

15:24

sheet rock crew . They're showing up that day

15:26

, so I'm going to go through that work order

15:29

with them and make sure that there's no questions , that

15:31

they know exactly what and where we're putting sheet

15:33

rock .

15:33

Yep , and so I might be visiting

15:35

those job sites on Wednesday and Thursday . But

15:38

it's less of mission

15:40

control and it's more task oriented

15:43

. It's more I'm meeting this crew . Oh

15:45

, this client , now that we're in here doing

15:48

this work , now wants to add on a back porch

15:50

that we're doing . So

15:54

let me swing by and kind of get new numbers wrapped around that . So Wednesday and Thursday

15:56

are task oriented , specific

15:58

reasons to visit , whether it's an estimate

16:01

, whether it's a meeting a

16:03

new crew , final walks

16:05

with the crew . Maybe I

16:07

walked in on Monday . The paint crew is at 90%

16:10

and by Wednesday they're going to be done . I'm going to

16:12

schedule to come walk in on Wednesday because if you're done

16:14

I want to sign off on it .

16:16

But if I need you to make some touch-ups , I want to be on

16:18

site versus call you back out there and draft a drive

16:20

back out .

16:21

My rule of thumb is starting a crew

16:23

, finishing a crew or when

16:25

I'm for sure going to be out there . Yeah , I'm always

16:28

going to be out there every week to check on progress

16:30

, but especially on any new

16:32

crew . I'm going to be out there almost every day , right , starting

16:34

a crew that I've never

16:37

used before . I'm out there the day they

16:39

start . I'm trying to figure out how to swing by on Tuesday

16:41

as well , even though it's an office day and I'm

16:43

going to be visiting very frequently

16:45

and I'm going to be hovering to make sure

16:47

that everything is going well and they are who

16:49

they say they are . Now

16:51

, if it's a crew that I've been with for eight

16:53

years , those guys I

16:55

can get started . I still walk the

16:58

front end with them If you've been with

17:00

me for eight years . It's not a matter of trust at this

17:02

point . It's a matter of clarity of the work

17:04

order . So , I'm walking it with

17:06

my crew saying , okay , this is what we're doing , this

17:08

is why it says this , and oftentimes they're

17:10

giving me feedback Well , I don't see

17:12

anything about the doors on here . Oh , you're right , I left that off

17:15

. Okay

17:23

, let me do a change order real quick with the client . But I'm doing those front walks with those crews and make sure that they understand

17:25

the translation of the work order that they've gotten as clear . As I've been on the work order , sometimes I've missed stuff . Sometimes

17:27

they have questions of what I want . So I like

17:29

that front end walk with the crew , even

17:31

if it's my longtime crew . Now do I need

17:33

to check in every single day with them ? Not

17:35

with those guys , those guys know exactly in the marching

17:37

orders and how to get paid and their job is to

17:39

get in and out and they'll call me with questions . But

17:42

again , Monday , Wednesday

17:45

, Thursday , I'm planning all that stuff

17:48

. That's kind of the layout of the days

17:50

. Let's talk about a good

17:53

job site walk versus a bad job site walk

17:55

. Let's start with the bad . On

17:58

Mondays or on Wednesdays , when

18:00

I can get in and out in 30 minutes and it takes

18:02

an hour and a half , that's a bad walk

18:04

. There is something to say about relationship

18:07

with your crews . Show

18:09

up with a box of pizzas , two or three

18:11

pizzas . Show up and bring them lunch

18:14

on .

18:14

Wednesday Box of chicken , biscuits , something , yeah

18:16

, whatever it is .

18:17

Do that and give 10 minutes of conversation

18:19

about their life . That's great . If

18:21

you're sitting there for 45 minutes just

18:24

talking about life , why

18:27

?

18:28

And here's the deal . That's okay , Spend

18:30

that 45 minutes . You can't do it every day . Yeah

18:33

, that

18:35

relational , that 45 minutes . I

18:38

can think of plenty of times that I was out on a

18:40

job site and my guys were taking their

18:42

lunch break . Right , They've got their microwave

18:44

that they pull out of their , their van or whatever

18:47

and they're warming up their stuff and they invite

18:49

me to come sit under a tree with them and have some food

18:51

.

18:51

I'm like , yeah , I'm going to sit out here with them and hang out for a

18:53

little while If I've , if I'm proactively

18:55

running my schedule , I know I got

18:58

to be out of here by one Cause I got to get to that estimate

19:00

by one 30 . So yeah , I can , I can chill .

19:02

I was going to .

19:02

I built in some time to swing by Chick-fil-A and get lunch

19:05

. I'll just sit here with these guys . That's great , Right ? And

19:07

so you know if you can say yes

19:09

or no to spending that extra .

19:11

Uh , the conversation time

19:13

and the the getting to know you connect

19:15

in connecting time , yeah

19:17

, One of the one of the things for me , when I think about

19:20

doing job walks , that

19:22

I think this kind of dictates

19:24

a lot of the the other , the other things

19:26

that happen on job walks that make it a good or bad

19:28

one . The why why

19:31

am I going there ? What's the purpose

19:33

? Right ? Am I going to

19:36

complete line items out , to get people paid

19:38

and to be able to invoice ? Am I going

19:40

there to help a crew close out ? Am I going

19:42

there to help a crew start ? Or am

19:44

I just going there because it feels like I

19:46

should go there ? Yeah , right , that's

19:50

the place where you have some inefficiency

19:52

where you walk up on a job site you didn't check

19:54

beforehand and you forgot that flooring's

19:57

going in today and tomorrow , so it's not going

19:59

to be anywhere near done today and

20:01

I'm on the job site , I walk in and

20:03

then the floor guy comes over and talks to me for 30

20:05

minutes . I spent 30 minutes to an hour

20:07

on a job site that I had no executable

20:10

. I had no why of why

20:12

I was there , right , and so

20:14

I think that that is a

20:16

that is a place for me that I always looked at . Of

20:18

why am I going here ? Again

20:22

, because the industry standard feels

20:24

like . What feels like work is crank the truck

20:26

and drive to all my jobs . But

20:28

if I don't have a why that I know

20:30

I'm going to execute this thing

20:33

, then I'm most

20:35

likely I'm going to waste my time . I'm not saying you

20:37

don't need to go to a job site just to spot

20:39

check . I think there's some value

20:41

to that . But if you're just going to go

20:44

because it feels like that's what you need to do

20:46

, you need to back up and say wait , I

20:48

have to go here tomorrow

20:51

. I have to the flooring's finishing tomorrow

20:53

. I have to be here tomorrow . Why am I even going

20:55

today ?

20:56

Why am I even going today ? Well , and when I sat at my

20:58

desk on Tuesday and I'm laying out my

21:00

calendar for the next seven days and

21:02

I've got not a lot going on on

21:04

Thursday , I might put hey

21:07

, you know what , I'm going to do a check-in on that job on Thursday

21:09

. It's planned , I've got space for it

21:11

. I'm going to be kind of near there

21:13

on an estimate . Anyways , I'm

21:16

going to go and plan that to do a pop-in . That's fine to do . It's when

21:18

I'm doing it because it came up today

21:20

that I should go out and do it and I don't know what I should be

21:22

doing with my time . So I'm just going to hop in the truck and go and

21:25

, honestly , I enjoyed going

21:27

to job sites .

21:29

I would rather drive to a job site than

21:32

do the thing that I know I need to do at the office .

21:34

Yeah , a nice drive with a good podcast

21:36

showing up on the job site to hang out with some

21:38

guys that you like . That

21:40

sounds a lot better than sitting there and updating QuickBooks

21:43

.

21:43

And so .

21:44

I get the pull of that Build in those times

21:47

, If that recharges your batteries and you enjoy

21:49

that great Thursday . I'm going to hit

21:51

these two jobs , job sites , but there's

21:53

a why . Yeah .

21:54

Right , I'm doing this because it's something

21:56

that I need . It's great , I'll have eyes on

21:59

site . I'm building relationship . The interesting

22:01

thing about the , the , the building , the , why

22:03

um , that means that you have a

22:05

specific , executable a thing

22:07

that you're trying to do most of the time . Um

22:10

, if I'm looking to pay people , if I'm looking

22:12

to get paid , if I'm building an estimate

22:14

, if I'm doing an estimate revision , all

22:16

of those things require me

22:18

to have detail and accuracy

22:21

, right . And so there

22:23

there are two things that were absolute

22:26

no-nos for me when I was doing job walks

22:28

. I can't do

22:30

a job walk for for me , we

22:32

my department did a lot of

22:34

walks on properties that were vacant , right

22:37

. So I would . A lot

22:39

of times I would go in and do a job walk on

22:41

the phone talking to somebody else , and

22:43

I spent three

22:46

times as much time as I needed to . I'd walk

22:48

through the house seven times , right

22:50

, and I'd still miss stuff because I

22:52

was distracted . And

22:55

the other one was a star pattern

22:57

walk . I go in and I go

22:59

to the living room and then I look over and I see

23:01

the fireplace and I go to the fireplace and then I look

23:03

into the kitchen and I look at that cabinet and then I go

23:05

up the steps in the kitchen . Right , it's

23:08

this like complete . There's

23:11

no efficiency to it . This

23:14

isn't an exact science , but it's something that I came

23:16

up with that I trained my PMs on and I called

23:18

it the right hand technique Go in the house

23:20

, put your right hand on the wall , walk around the house and

23:22

never let go of the wall . For the most

23:24

part Again , not exact science is variables

23:27

. Don't eat me up in the comments over this one but if

23:30

you do that , you will walk around and you

23:32

will see everything in the house and you will do

23:34

it in an organized fashion . If you do that , on

23:36

the front walk , the middle walks and

23:38

the final walk , there's a level of efficiency

23:41

that you've saved yourself a ton of time . You

23:43

didn't get down the road and go crap . I forgot to look

23:45

at the freaking dishwasher , right , or whatever

23:47

. Yeah , and you .

23:49

we get drawn to those , the larger

23:51

sections , like the kitchen , because like , okay

23:54

, there's a lot that's going to happen in here , but

23:56

you're missing that one or two things

23:58

that need to happen in the living room . If we're doing the right-hand

24:00

walk , where I'm walking in , all right , first

24:02

I'm in the living room , let's sit here . What has to

24:04

happen here ? All right , let's keep going . And

24:07

so you're making sure that you're catching the balls that

24:09

would have been dropped otherwise .

24:11

I think that's good .

24:20

So a good job site walk what you're talking about

24:22

, having that efficiency when we're walking Along with that . Let's talk

24:24

about what we should be doing in the software on the jobsite and what we shouldn't

24:26

, and so the ProStrux 360

24:30

is all web-based , so it's

24:32

like an app . You pull it up on your phone

24:35

or iPad is amazing with

24:37

the software , but you pull it up on the iPad or your phone and

24:40

you've got all of your jobs right there in front

24:42

of you while you're on the job site . What

24:44

I want you to do in the software

24:46

while you're on your job site is only four

24:48

things . Number one If

24:51

you have a change order that's needed when I'm on

24:53

the job site . If it's one or two

24:55

line items , a single , one off

24:57

thing that needs to be a change order I'm going

24:59

to pull up my software , I'm going to add the add the change

25:01

order , I take a picture of it , upload

25:03

it into the software and

25:05

I might even send it to the client .

25:07

And I can go . I can literally create that line

25:09

item as a change order , send

25:12

it to the client in a minute and a half

25:14

. Yeah Right , very , very easy to do .

25:21

I'm not writing scopes , I'm not writing details , I'm not writing the long estimates , I'm not

25:23

even writing more than a one to two line change order . If it's a large

25:25

change order , I want to sit down , I want to think

25:27

about it . Oh , we , actually one

25:30

thing that I always missed was hey , they want to

25:32

do a change order because they want to do extra , extra

25:34

renovation in the basement . Was hey , they want to do

25:36

a change order because they want to do extra renovation in

25:38

the basement . Well , my cleaning just doubled the amount of size my

25:40

dumpster I need a second one of those now , and so all of

25:42

those other line items that I normally would be thinking about sitting

25:44

behind a desk because I forget about . I

25:47

forget about , I'm just- .

25:49

Out of a good intention

25:51

of I want to get this estimate

25:53

revision to the client as quick as possible

25:55

.

25:56

Yeah .

25:56

Right , it's a good intention . Yeah , I

25:59

think that you know . One of the ways that I look at this is

26:01

anything that is

26:04

going to require me to be focused

26:06

on details , that if I miss

26:08

it , it's either going to cost me money , reputation

26:11

or both . Yep , Right , anything like

26:14

that you need to earmark to a time

26:16

that you've got space in the office or

26:18

wherever it is . I don't care if it's Starbucks

26:20

office time , not job site time

26:22

.

26:23

Yeah , so one to two line item change

26:26

orders . I'm great with on site

26:28

. The next thing I want you to take pictures and

26:30

upload them on site , because when

26:32

you go to visit five houses in a day

26:34

and you sit down the next day on your camera

26:37

and you're like looking at your camera , roll thinking

26:39

which kitchen is this ? Which bathroom

26:42

is this ? I want you to sit there Again

26:45

. Ipads are great , Phones are great . You sit there

26:47

, you open up the job . You can either

26:49

upload straight from your camera

26:51

, roll into the job or you can even use your phone from

26:54

the photo spot . So you hit

26:56

take pictures and you can go around and take pictures and

26:58

they upload into the software . I'm

27:01

doing it all at once . It's on the

27:03

job and so when I sit down on Tuesday

27:05

it's in the picture section already

27:07

uploaded in the job . I can send my invoices

27:09

and pay my crews by looking

27:11

at those photos that I've already uploaded .

27:13

Well , and when I , you know , training my project managers

27:15

, I always told them if you

27:17

are on site , you

27:19

are required to have pictures . Why

27:23

would you go to a job and

27:25

not take pictures , right ? I don't care

27:27

what the status , if you're on the front , you know

27:29

, doing an estimate , of course you're taking pictures . If

27:31

you're doing a final walk , of course you're taking pictures

27:33

. But if you're in the middle , take pictures

27:35

while you're there . It doesn't

27:38

take any time . Literally , you go through , click , click , click

27:40

, click , click , upload into the software . It doesn't take

27:42

any time , it's very simple . But then

27:44

, two days later , when the client's like , hey

27:46

, what's what's going on ? Somebody broke

27:48

into the front door . Like , not

27:51

according to these pictures , right

27:53

, I mean , there's , there's a lot of benefit

27:56

to that and it costs you little time , yeah

27:58

, there's a big scrape down our hallway .

28:00

Well , I took pictures when we left on Tuesday

28:02

or on Monday and no one's been at your

28:04

house and there wasn't a scrape , so maybe check

28:06

with your kids . Right , Right , so yeah it's

28:08

the CYA , along with all

28:11

the other reasons . You'd want to have pictures to be able to build

28:13

estimates or change orders and that sort of

28:15

thing by looking at them . Yeah , uh . The

28:18

third thing that I always want to do in

28:21

the software if I'm on job site are small

28:23

work order updates . Right , if I'm walking

28:25

a house with my painter and

28:27

he's like , what about this , what about this , what about this ? I think

28:29

that's all it's supposed to be included in this

28:32

. Does this price still work ? Yeah , that's , I

28:34

just want to make sure that's what you wanted me to do . I'm going

28:36

to pull it out , I'm going to add those details

28:39

into the line item description and I'm

28:41

going to resend a work order . Now , it's in writing

28:44

that he's doing that stuff , but I can

28:46

also in that same thing .

28:47

Yeah

28:50

, I mean those are kind of covered . I didn't know those were covered

28:52

when I originally looked at this . Instead

28:55

of 2,000 , I really needed to be about 24

28:57

to make this work . Yeah

28:59

, I can do that for you and I can adjust that number and

29:01

I can resend a work order out to them . And

29:03

it's simple , it's not complicated

29:06

and you're not having to remember

29:08

an enormous amount of details

29:11

to do that right . You go in

29:13

, you edit a line item , you change a dollar amount

29:15

and when you do that

29:17

at the top of the software I love this

29:19

part of it If there's a work order out there

29:21

and any information

29:24

gets edited that's associated with a work order

29:26

, it's going to pop a ribbon , a red ribbon , at the top

29:28

of your software that says hey , your

29:30

information in your software is not accurate

29:33

to what your guys have in a work order

29:35

. You need to update a work order to them . You

29:37

go to the work order page and you'll see that

29:39

it'll be highlighted . This one needs to be sent and

29:41

it'll literally say this one needs to

29:43

be sent because there was a data update

29:45

right or a information update

29:47

. This one needs to be sent because there was a monetary

29:50

change .

29:51

This one's sent because it's a different time .

29:53

Yeah .

29:53

You switch days on it so you can . You can

29:55

know oh crap , I got to send these . We've got a work

29:58

order section on the job card where you just

30:00

go to the work orders tab and you

30:02

could say sent , sent , pending , like you need

30:04

to send this one , and you just go in and hit send . Boom

30:06

, they got it .

30:06

Yeah , and

30:17

a part of the reason why we say , um , we want our guys doing work order changes and updates on

30:19

site . they're very easy to forget , right there's not a place

30:21

to earmark those things right , and we have

30:23

trained our crews in our subcontractor

30:26

conversation that we had at the very very beginning

30:28

. If you don't have an updated

30:30

work order for what you agreed to do

30:32

at the dollar amount you agree to do it , we

30:35

recommend that you don't do the work Because if

30:37

that guy got fired

30:40

, got hit by a bus and whatever , the only

30:42

information we have as the company

30:44

is that it was $2,000

30:46

. I know that he said he'd give you 24

30:48

. I never saw it . We have no

30:50

record of that . I can only pay you 2,000

30:52

. And

30:57

so now we always built relationships with them of like . If I did a good job of making sure the work

30:59

orders got to them , the crews would work with us . But the

31:02

standard is if you don't have an updated work

31:04

order , don't do the work yet

31:06

right and the crews hold our guys accountable . Yeah

31:08

, but do it on site . If I'm having a conversation

31:10

with a guy and he's like , yeah , I need an extra

31:13

$ bucks and I can make that happen . Save

31:16

, send , it's done . Yep , right

31:18

, he's got an email . He's got the updated work order

31:20

. The software is accurate to it .

31:22

You're good to go . I mean a real one that happens . A lot

31:24

is , I'll walk a job with my

31:26

crew and we'll look at

31:28

it you know , towards the end of the job

31:30

. Everything's looking great and

31:37

I had a haul off line written there and there's less than half a truckload sitting in the

31:39

garage of haul off . Yeah , and I'll say I'll look over . I mean the crews

31:41

that I know that have no problem with haul

31:43

off . I'm like , hey , if I threw an extra 100 bucks

31:45

, can you haul this stuff off with you ? Yep , well , I had 300

31:47

bucks budget for my haul off crew he says

31:49

yeah throw me 100 bucks to do that . I can pull up the

31:52

software , go , haul off , change it to it to

31:54

$100 that I'm paying , assign

31:56

to crew . When I assign it to the crew

31:58

and now this is getting technical we

32:01

want one work order per job

32:03

for the crew . So what it does , that crew already had

32:05

a $2,000 work order . I add a $100

32:07

, haul off , I go , haul off

32:09

, assign to that crew , send

32:11

it's sending a new work order for $2,100

32:14

. It replaces the old one one yep

32:16

, and it adds that hundred dollar haul offline

32:18

on his new updated work . Right , and that's

32:20

the the . The verbiage on that

32:22

in the emails is this is the

32:24

most recent and accurate work order that we're

32:26

all working off . Yeah , and that way I've

32:28

sent that he's getting paid that hundred bucks . I don't

32:31

remember anything . I just made 200 bucks

32:33

on the haul off because he's handling it

32:35

and he's got an accurate work

32:37

order that I can now pay . So

32:39

, yeah , crew updates like that we love

32:41

doing on-site and

32:43

the last thing that is this is an important

32:45

one .

32:46

This is an important one .

32:47

So important . So making

32:50

notes and tasks in

32:52

the software while you're standing on-site . So

32:54

those are two separate things . The notes are

32:56

logging conversations I had , logging

32:59

information I had . We have a job

33:01

log where anything that happens on the job is

33:04

just an audit trail of

33:06

what's happened on the job . You go in there and add

33:08

a new note . Talk to the customer . They

33:10

said that they were going to do X , y and Z . I

33:12

now have a written note

33:14

timestamped for that time , that

33:17

in three months from now I can pull back and be like look , we

33:19

talked about this . I wrote the note down that we talked about

33:21

that . Now it's not a signed

33:24

verification . It's not a contract , but

33:27

it is a lot of CYA and it helps

33:29

me when I sit down on Tuesday to look in and say

33:31

, okay , oh , that's right , I need to do this .

33:33

I need to add that Again if you had to come in

33:35

and take over a job for a project manager

33:37

. You go in and you read through that and you've

33:39

got oh , okay , they talked about that right there , okay

33:47

, right .

33:47

And it just helps educate what the status of the job is and what has happened along

33:49

the way . And that's the notes with the tasks and again , that's . That's a different

33:51

section of the software . We have tasks which are

33:53

really your to-do list , that are automated

33:56

, tied to jobs , and you can build

33:58

them for each other or for yourself . But

34:00

I could be standing on site saying , and

34:02

I'm talking with my flooring guy , let's

34:05

say I'm talking with my cabinet guy . I'm like , when are these

34:07

cabinets going to be done ? When can I get the

34:10

granites measured Right ? And

34:12

you say , hey , well

34:14

, it should be done by Wednesday . On this , I'm

34:16

going to have my software out . I'm going to add task

34:18

order granites or order

34:21

measurements tomorrow , and so

34:23

when I sit down on Tuesday I can say , hey , that's

34:26

a task due on Tuesday . Because I sit down on Tuesday

34:28

, it pops up and says , clark , time to order

34:30

a templating for the granites

34:32

. Great , that's right , I got to do that for that

34:34

job . And so now I'm picking up days

34:36

as opposed to forgetting . I show up

34:38

on Thursday oh , the cabinets are already in . I need

34:40

to get the granite guy out here . Well , I just lost

34:43

three days of progress on the job

34:45

because everything can't get done after

34:47

the granite , until the granite's in Right . And

34:49

so tasks .

34:51

Same thing with you know , let's say you're

34:53

on a job site and whatever it is , you

34:55

know , requires

35:02

a large multi-line change order , right , it's not just a singular thing , it's something that you

35:04

need to focus on . You need to figure out the details . You don't want to forget anything

35:06

. Right , go into the software , create a task

35:08

. And you can

35:10

create a task that says you

35:13

know , create change order for termite

35:16

wall , right . But then underneath

35:18

of that there's a notes in the task that you can

35:21

say client said this , I saw this

35:23

the wall measures X . You

35:25

know you can put in some of those details . Then and

35:28

now , whatever day that you put

35:30

that on for you one of your office days

35:32

, you go in and your task list is right there

35:34

and you can open it up . You've got the information

35:37

, you've got the details , but now

35:39

it stops that 1130

35:41

at night and we're like crap , I didn't , oh , I forgot

35:44

to write what were the measurements of that

35:46

thing . It gives you a . The

35:48

creating those tasks are are the

35:50

um building the work

35:52

that you need to be executing on your office

35:54

days , yep .

35:55

I mean , you go to the notes , you hit the little

35:57

microphone on your phone and you just talk into it and

36:00

it just types it all out of what you need to do for

36:02

that task . Yeah , super simple . And it allows

36:04

you on Tuesday to sit down and not

36:06

have to rack your brain trying to remember what happened

36:08

on Monday . Yeah , so those are like the

36:10

only four things I want you to do it in the software

36:13

while you're on site . I want your mind around

36:15

what assessing , planning

36:17

, looking , note taking , doing

36:20

these four things on site and then

36:22

, when I get to get to the office on Tuesdays

36:24

and Fridays , I'm going to do all of the other stuff we talked

36:26

about last week in terms of invoicing

36:29

and paying guys and all that sort

36:31

of thing . That's right . So

36:34

that's what we do on job site days . If you listen to this podcast and

36:36

the one before it , it's taking you through

36:38

how you should be spending Monday through Friday

36:40

of your time on job sites

36:43

versus in the office . If

36:45

you have any questions , we'd love to answer them . I know

36:47

that there's a lot of intricacies

36:49

that we've kind of iced over in terms

36:51

of , well , what about this and how about this , and what happens

36:53

when this happens , yeah , reach out to us .

36:55

We'd love to chat with you about it

36:58

.

36:58

Go to ProStruck360.com . If you

37:00

want to use the software , you can sign up for free . You

37:02

get two weeks for free on any level , and

37:05

then you also have a free version that's forever free

37:07

. That's just estimates and

37:09

invoicing and online payments . If

37:12

you want to talk with Jared or I feel

37:14

free to go to ProStruck360.com , hit

37:17

, contact us . We'd love to reach out and have

37:19

a conversation about anything you need help with . If

37:21

you're interested in ProStruck Alliance , we'd love to talk

37:23

to you about that too . Yep , all right . Thanks

37:26

so much . We'll talk to you guys next week . See you next time .