Steve: Welcome to The Tim Faller Show where production is paramount, and we discuss the tools, time and people associated with getting jobs done and making a profit.

Steve: On today’s episode of The Tim Faller Show. We will be talking about production system shifts with the help of special guest Tim Faller of Remodelers Advantage, alongside Tim Faller and co-host Steve Wheeler. Here is The Tim Faller Show.

Tim: Hey everybody, I’m feeling really special today, so welcome to The Tim Faller Show. Steve and I, periodically we’ll just do a podcast all on our own. a lot of different reasons for that. But I do want to encourage you to go ahead and send in ideas, topics and, suggestions to me at Tim at Remodelers advantage.com. I promise I won’t make you be the guest.

Tim: if you want to be, that would be wonderful. But, maybe I can find a guest that will meet the needs that we have. So I picked this topic today because there’s a great deal of shipping going on in companies these days. So some of them have elected, you know, maybe because I can’t find what I’m doing.

Tim: Air quotes here. Good help. and so companies are moving more towards a all subbed out project manager model. And then there’s others that not as many, but others that I think are having trouble just chasing down the subcontractors that they have because they’re so busy. So they’re actually moving back a little bit toward doing more, sell, perform work or maybe managers on site and what we typically call the lead carpenter systems.

Tim: And then what’s interesting in the last several years is that we have this thing that we’re calling hybrid, because there’s really no other way to describe it, no other name for it. Where a company will have project managers and lead carpenters, to do the work. And so for many people, this is all very confusing. So I thought it’d be fun to just spend some time talking about it.

Tim: Maybe I can help you see that you’re not crazy for thinking about a shift. Maybe I can help you get a jump start on making something happen and actually make it successful. So, Steve, let’s get started.

Steve: Yeah. So, Tim, you know, you and I will just kind of work through some of the questions around this topic. And, you know, the first thought is, you know, why are why all the shifting currently? Why? And, you know, is this unique? As you see, you.

Tim: Know, I, I don’t know that it’s unique in the sense that, companies are always changing. And I’m going to tell you right now, you always have to be changing. If you set one thing in place and think you’re going to be in that one place for 30 years, I think you’re mistaken. Or, you know, you’re not going to grow with what’s going on.

Tim: But I think the biggest challenge right now is just the huge growth that we’ve experienced. in the sales side of this business. And then coupled with that is the lack of what we would typically call skill people to come in and do the work. And so companies are really struggling to keep up with the demand that’s been put on us by the ability to sell a lot of work.

Tim: And so those things right there have caused companies to go like, what are we going to do? We we’ve made commitments to our clients. Now we have to produce these things. And then, as I suggested in the intro, there’s also this challenge of all of our trade contractors, if they’re worth anything or facing the same problem, they can’t find the skilled help that they need and their work has just blossomed as well.

Tim: And so this challenge is how do I, you know, control all this growth with a what seems to be a limited amount, people power, to get the work done.

Steve: Yeah. So, when I mentioned kind of is it unique? Maybe, is it unique to your experience, let’s say five years ago, 7 or 8 years ago? I can’t really say ten years or more because we’re getting toward the recession time. But, like, just in the past maybe five years, have you seen people question their production systems as much as they’re doing right now?

Tim: No, probably not. And it probably really is a direct result of right after all the Covid impacts. And things like that. And then all of a sudden there’s this big, boom in the remodeling world that’s still going on right now, probably going to slow down again at some point. Which companies have to watch out for. They have to be careful that they don’t get overstaffed or something.

Tim: And we’ll talk about that a little bit more. But I think it really is the, the, intensity of the growth is probably nothing I’ve ever seen. I’ve seen growth. It’s been 30 years or so that I’ve been yakking about this stuff. I’ve seen growth, but not nearly as fast as what we’re seeing now.

Steve: Yeah. So if we get into, just, you know, you did an overview of the different systems, but let’s get a little more clear on each system. So when you look at lead carpenter, project manager and hybrid, give some clarity and definition for each.

Tim: Okay. So the lead carpenter system originally started out as one person on site with help as they needed, and they typically handle one job at a time. But the basics of it are that there is a lead carpenter that manages the job, so they interact with the client, they do the paperwork, which now, of course, is turn to computer work.

Tim: And they also did the construction, at least the carpentry side of it. They manage the subs on site. They they take care of all of the on site management. And so what’s evolved a little bit is many, many lead carpenters now are running a couple of jobs at one time, which when I was first in that they were only doing one.

Tim: And then the other one. The project manager model is more typically where you have strictly project managers who handle all the management side of it, setting up the subs, making sure all the paperwork is complete, doing all the change orders, those kinds of things. And then the peer system is that the company uses only subcontractor or trade contractor labor.

Tim: And so framing demo everything, electrical, plumbing, everything is subbed out. They might have 1 or 2 sort of labor or helpers on staff to clean up job sites, or just make sure material gets delivered if it if it got missed in the delivery. And so it’s a project manager and all subcontractors. And then the hybrid system actually has a couple of different varieties.

Tim: The first one being when companies get to a certain point in their existence, many of them they they want to move from that lead carpenter system a little bit because they need better manage of these jobs. Maybe the jobs are bigger, but they still want to have in-house carpentry, and so they’ll have a project manager that might manage 3 or 4 projects, maybe five.

Tim: And then they also have lead carpenters that do all the carpentry work on site. And so sometimes their team, sometimes there is a flow of skills back and forth, that kind of thing. And then the second part of the hybrid is the companies who do large small jobs and relatively small jobs. And so they’ll have lead carpenters on staff that do the kitchens, bathrooms, small additions, maybe a small house renovation.

Tim: But then they’ll have project managers who do the million dollar projects, the big whole house renovation where there’s just so much going on, they’ll lead. Carpenter doesn’t function well in that kind of environment. And so there might be two different ways that a company sort of experiences these, this hybrid system.

Steve: And when people use the term, these self perform that’s mostly around the lead carpenter system.

Tim: Yes. And it and, and what’s interesting is that some folks are self performing things like tile and floor installation and drywall and paint. They typically have this, about electrical and plumbing because of the codes and so forth like that. There there are some companies that are still doing all of that where they may shift a little bit and start subbing out more stuff.

Steve: Yeah, that’s going away a little bit more that I’ve seen with lead carpenters mostly, handling, you know, the light demo framing and, finish. But, so not to divert. How about the pros and cons for each as you define them just now? Maybe just some a quick overview on what are the pros and cons as you see it for each other.

Tim: Since the big pro for the lead carpenter system is that, you have someone on site, 95% of the job, there’s an immediate access for the client. They’re all the little things that sales design seems to forget sometimes to get into the project, get done by your team member because they know they have to be done. And so they just do them, you know, they just get them done.

Tim: the con with the lead carpenter system probably is the struggle with labor dollars. It’s probably hitting, you know, it’s just hard to stay inside of that labor range. I think there are ways to do it, but it’s probably the biggest challenge for companies that have lead. Carpenter Systems is just keeping those jobs on budget in terms of labor.

Tim: And and the other thing just right now is there’s just not enough of them to go around. There’s so much work going on. You abso almost absolutely can’t go out and just hire a qualified lead carpenter. They have to start as a carpenter and work their way up. And so it’s it’s one of those things where we just don’t seem to have enough of them to, to make it work.

Steve: This is where you have good clients need. Oh, no. Is this where you say in the lead companies? Is is this where you identify a lot, a lot more? I guess, lack of training in different companies. Yes. Where?

Tim: Yeah. So typically people are promoted into that lead carpenter role without really understanding how to manage your job, per se. They’re good craftsmen. They don’t manage the job very well. And then, of course, you end up with lots of, of of challenges. There. Yes. That’s of course that’s a challenge with the whole industry as well, because we’re pushing people to be something that they’re not in many, many cases.

Tim: So the project manager model, one of the great benefits of that is if you have a good manager, the jobs are typically run a little more smoothly, a little more organized, and they can do 3 or 4 jobs at a time, typically. And you know, if you got that client that’s coming to you and saying, hey, I just I have to be done by Christmas.

Tim: And it’s already October 1st, and you don’t have a lead carpenter available to do that. It’s a little easier to sneak a job in under the project manager model because they’re not physically working on siding. And so that’s one of the great advantages, of course, that can be abused, where we just sneak too many jobs in. And then then you have, you know, a lot of trouble.

Tim: Now, the con for the project manager model is you don’t always have somebody on site, although there are ways to overcome that. But I think the other the other thing is, is that you’re sort you’re relying on your trade contractors to, sort of be your representative, not just in front of the client, but like cleaning up the job site quality control, those kinds of things are sort of left in the hands of your trades so that when they leave the job site, at the end of the day, you know it.

Tim: It’s acceptable to the client. And because the project manager just can’t be there every day beginning and end if they’ve got 4 or 5 jobs going on. So there’s just a little bit of challenge, with that, I’ve told many people that, you know, 15 years ago I would have said, you can’t do it this way. You have to have a lead carpenter on site.

Tim: I was wrong. Many companies are doing it. They just have really good, systems in their. Then I think with the hybrid systems, you know, the benefit is you do have a lot more. You have that manager who really manages everything, manages the client, but you also have control over your craftsmen. And so they can be on site when you want them to be there.

Tim: And again, going back to that idea of the lead carpenter system, all those little things that get forgotten, like somebody forgot to, you know, talk about whether there’s going to be a threshold between the old wood and the new wood. What are we going to do? Well, you know, an in-house employee that does the craftsmanship can go, this is what we always do, and they just go ahead and take care of it.

Tim: I don’t know too many cons at this point because they went. By the time you get to this point, your systems are generally developed well enough where you can, work. One of the cons might be just the expense of having both, the expense of having really good craftsmen and then the expense of having really good project managers because they are not cheap.

Tim: It is not a cheap way to run a business. But of course, you compensate for that by selling the job appropriately.

Steve: So I don’t know if this is off topic, but in terms of the the you mentioned the cons of the project manager, and to me, coming from somebody, my company was the lead carpenter system and it was always, yeah, focus on control. I can control the cleanliness of the product and, do you see that the strength of a company’s mission, vision, core values, all of those things trickling down the management of the subs that can kind of, pull from that, kind of that, then companies that’s not as strong in those in their message may, miss it on, you know, the management of the subs.

Tim: Oh, definitely. And I think the, the challenge is getting it out of your head that you have no control over a subcontractor. I think that’s a mental game. Yeah, that we play in that project manager model. In other words, they’re independent. You know, legally we can’t tell them, you know, when to show up and you know, this and that.

Tim: And the other thing and so we’ve talked ourselves right out of the idea that they can actually work within our system. They can do what we need them to do. For example, I’ve taught I think we had a podcast with someone from Hogan where they talked about change orders and how if a sub does something without a written change order, they don’t get paid, you know, and and it’s that simple.

Tim: And and they have their subs working with them to do it the way they want it done. And so now that’s been generated over many years of, of getting these things. But I think you’re right. The challenge is when you want to go in that direction, you really have to think about how do I and I’m doing air quotes again here, train my trade contractors, my subcontractors to help me succeed.

Tim: And and it really is a training mechanism. It’s not just a, it’s not just a letter every year that the owner of the electrical company signs and says, yes, we’ll clean up. That’s not it. It’s getting the team, the crew, the mechanics, all bought into. This is good for them and it’s good for us. But yeah, it’s very, very I don’t know, assertive training, if you will.

Tim: Yeah. Or your trade contractors.

Steve: Yeah. So, how about switching for the wrong reason? So we have the cons, but I know the people that sometimes maybe, are not strong with us meeting or that’s just a piece of why their slippage is out of control. They go, well, we need to go to Cost Plus, because I just can’t get my head around this estimating thing, you know?

Steve: And that’s nothing against cost. Plus it just it can be a knee jerk reaction. So what do you see for each one? Be a knee jerk reaction for changing, which may not be the right reason.

Tim: Yeah. So I think the you know, you think about the lead carpenter system, I mentioned that one of the biggest challenge is, is labor control and labor costs. And so we’re going into an estimating setting. We say, I think it’ll take this much time for us to do that framing. And then our, our lead carpenters are not able to either do that or very worst scenario, they don’t care and they just don’t work hard, which I don’t think is true for most companies, but I’m sure it could exist.

Tim: And so maybe the knee jerk reaction is, you know what, I’ll just sub it out and then I’ll get better pricing. Well, the reality is that you’re going to get a fixed price or a more fixed price, but if you’re still estimating it incorrectly, then it’s not going to fly. anyway. And I think the other side of it too, is we can give up on the training of our team as well.

Tim: And so perhaps we really do want to have in-house carpentry because of the control. But we’ve just given up on trying to help these people be more efficient. And, you know, it’s not easy. I’m going to guarantee you that’s not easy. But it can be done to bring people in where it can meet up, with your estimating.

Tim: And so the knee jerk reaction might be to jump to project management, as opposed to, the lead carpenter and then maybe going the other way, it just fits the same model where we’re getting these poor results. Maybe we’re walking through with a client towards the end of a project and there and the, the, the punch list for a kitchen is 50 items long because our trades didn’t seem to care.

Tim: Yeah. Well, here’s here’s the other thing. With the project manager model, it is easier to change trade contractors than it is to change lead carpenters. Right. And so if you have a trade contractor that’s not helping you, it doesn’t make any sense just to keep paying them right. It breaks a whole lot more sense to go find somebody that will do it for you.

Tim: And I do want to tell you one little story. I was in Anchorage, Alaska, one time. I was talking about lumber yards and getting deliveries and things like that. And I said something like this. You know, if your lumber yard won’t help you out, go to a different lumber yard. And one of the people timidly raised their hand, they said, Tim, there’s only one in town now.

Tim: This was a long time ago, and there may be more now, but you know, you may be in a small town where you don’t have a lot of choices for your trade contractors, but hopefully many of you are in that area where you can go find trades that will really, really, really, really help you.

Steve: Yeah. So, how about, so let’s talk about what to look out for. When you said so, you made the decision, you know, like we’ve we’ve got a switch from the lead carpenter system to project management. What should we look out for and what’s the process look like in general?

Tim: You know, yeah, I think one of the things that I mean, there’s a whole list of things to be really, really observant of for one of them is maybe you need a and I’m going to I apologize for this stereotype, but a better grade of sub contractor. In other words, you’ve been able to get by with this guy that does a pretty good job because you’ve always had somebody there to kind of make sure it looked good.

Tim: You might need to go to a trade contractor that cost you a little bit more money, but they do, exactly what you want them to do. The second thing would be you’re going to need more than one sub. You know, if you’ve got 5 or 6 jobs going on, you can’t have one sub framing all of them or one sub doing all the trim.

Tim: It just doesn’t. Especially if they’re smaller projects, just doesn’t seem to work out in terms of scheduling. I think the third thing is just to watch out for your scopes of work, and particularly as it relates to your trades, because, again, what are all those little things that were just picked up by somebody and nobody seemed to pay attention, just knew that’s what you had to get done?

Tim: Well, the trade contractor doesn’t know that. Not only that, they’re not getting paid for anything that’s not in their scope of work. And so your your contract with your trade has to be much more complete. And it has to include things like cleaning up at the end of the day. And what does that mean. And then communication standards like who when does the sub, when is the subcontractor required to call the project manager.

Tim: and let them know when they’re if they’re going to be there or not going to be there. What what are those. And those are things that are typically left out. But every technical thing but also then those, those more subtle things that we have to make sure are in the contract with the, with the, with the trade.

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Steve: so you get the trade agreements. Is there anything else in terms of, budget or just, you know, the planning of the project?

Tim: Yeah. So I think pretty common practice nowadays is to do what’s called a trade walk. If you’re using all trade contractors, typically there’s a slot in the planning of the project to do this thing we call a trade walk. And we get the trades out there to the job, and we get them to help us figure out what are their challenges, because, again, you want them to come into that job knowing what has to be done and that they’re comfortable that the price they gave you, with the exception of unforeseen conditions, will actually, cover everything that they’re going to find when they get in very common.

Tim: you know, example is do we need a sub panel? You know, it’s like almost no estimate or unless they know electrical backwards and forwards can tell you that you need a sub panel. Right. It’s just yeah. One of those things the electrician walks in on the first day it goes up. You need a sub panel. That’s $1,000 more.

Tim: Now we’re in this bind with with the client getting a change order and those kinds of things. So getting them in, early on and getting them to help you. Right. The scope. And so what I’m recommending is that you go into the meeting with your scope already written, and then ask them to add anything that they think might be part of the job that you might not have.

Tim: And then one step beyond that might be actually putting a price on there and saying, hey, here’s what we think it should cost. If that works for you, sign right here and away we go. So that that may be a little bit further down the road. For a lot of.

Steve: Us, that is more of a sales question, but do you see any change in value in terms of talking to the client. And now, you know, they’re they may be a little more upset that there’s not a bunch of team members with their logo on their shirt on the job site. And it’s, you know, what are we hiring you for kind of question.

Steve: So how do you see that playing out with that switch?

Tim: Oh, that is such a great question because you have to start at the beginning of the sales process. Yeah. Resetting expectations. And this is going to be one of the hardest things to do because one of your sales pitches has been we always have somebody on the job site when someone else is here. And if you’re subbing everything out, that’s not going to be true.

Tim: But again, going back to 15 years ago when I said you couldn’t do it, I know you can. And so what people are doing is they’re they’re setting the expectation of what the project manager will really do. And they’re setting the expectation that our subcontractors work with us regularly. They know our standards. we do an inspection at every step of the way.

Tim: We have weekly meetings with you to make sure you’re being taken care of. All these kinds of expectations need to be set and the expectation that’s particularly troubling right now is what we typically call the schedule. Because with trade contractors, it is a little bit harder to say this will only take three days because they get backed up someplace else.

Tim: Now, you may have to have 4 or 5 days in for that phase that you typically would have done in two days, because you can control it. And so then it has to be said there will be days when no one will be here, and you have to have it set where that ending date for the client is much more realistic to the way that you’re going to be running that project.

Tim: Expectations are huge. The more I think about these jobs. Yeah, it’s almost all about expectations.

Steve: Yeah. so before we switched from Lee Carpenter to PM, is there anything else to think about?

Tim: Yeah. So I think if you currently have a lead carpenter system, one of the things that does happen and this cost you a lot of money is you’ll bring trades in, like to do trim and they won’t quite finish. They pull off or maybe something needs to be fixed. And your lead carpenters who love to do carpentry will just put their tools on and do what’s left in the trade contractors job to do.

Tim: bill you by the hour trade contractor gets their money because that’s a contract and it ends up costing you a lot of money. So there has to be a shift in attitude that says, we’re going to make sure the trade finishes everything. We’re not going to let them leave stuff for us. And if they do, we’re going to make sure they get back and take care of everything.

Steve: Yeah. All right. So now we’ve decided to shift from the project manager to lead Carpenter. We want to sell perform more because these subs aren’t cutting it. So what do we look out for when shifting here?

Tim: Oh, wow. I think I think the biggest thing is getting the right people into that lead carpenter role so that they they do care. They aren’t just craftsmen, but they they care about the dollars and cents for the job. They care about planning. They care about client and the client and the experience. And then, oh, yes, by the way, they’ve got a nice set of tools and they’re they’re good craftsmen as well.

Tim: And this is one of the reasons why it’s so difficult to do this is because those people are not, you know, just out there growing on trees now, kind of getting back to what we were talking about earlier in terms of training subs, some of these things, many of these things can be trained into good craftsman, provided that they have a sort of a normal inclination that way.

Tim: In other words, there’s a tendency for business owners to feel like everybody can be trained to think about money. In other words, money is a huge motivator. So therefore, if I just help people understand the budget, they’ll be great. Well, it’s not true. And so you have to kind of get in like one of the questions I like to ask if I’m doing a training of a bunch of carpenters, I’ll go like, how many in the room have a budget for their family, and before you and your partner or your spouse go out to eat, you go into your budget and you say, I only have $50 left in entertainment, dear.

Tim: So we can only go to this kind of restaurant. And it’s like one person out of 100. And so, you know, if that’s the case, if nobody cares about a budget, eat at home. Are they going to care about a budget on your job? Probably not. They’re probably going to say, you know what? It is, what it is.

Tim: And so what do we not say, right.

Steve: No, 90.

Tim: But if you meet up with somebody who is a natural planner, they are looking ahead. They care about how much money gets spent based on a budget, that kind of thing. And they’re a craftsman. You can train them to be your kind of budget person. It’s just you have to look for things other than, can you, can you build a curved staircase because that person isn’t necessarily going to be a great Lee Carpenter?

Steve: Yeah. How about, labor cost estimating for the time it takes to complete work?

Tim: Yeah, we do a whole segment on this in the estimating seminar. Just you have to use data, and I’m just not a big fan of going to your lead carpenters and saying, how long do you think, you know, 20ft of baseboards you take? Well, first of all, they’re going to guess at it. They don’t know. Number one, they’re set up costs.

Tim: There’s tear down costs, there’s cleanup costs, there’s all these other costs. And so the thing you have to do is you have to start looking at it from a data standpoint and saying, you know. So in other words, you’ve got a big job going on. And so you tell let’s say it’s Tim, your lead carpenters. Hey Tim, we’re trying to get a baseline line on what it cost to run baseboard in a job that’s 300,000 and more.

Tim: So would you detail out how many man hours it takes you to run all the baseboard in this project and get them to track it that way? Now, it’s not going to come across on the timecard that way, because it’s just trim on the time card interior trim, or a time mechanism of some kind. But if you get them to track it, then you can start putting real data into your estimating system that that mimics the way your team does things.

Tim: Now, obviously, it’s a little more challenging when you get to things like framing, because it isn’t just framing, it’s framing first floor, it’s framing second floor, it’s framing roofs. Some roofs are more complicated than others and things like that, but you really have to work with that data. Otherwise you’re just going to be guessing. And I have a expression that I use a lot and said the older I get, the better I was.

Tim: And, you know, and if we’re and I can tell you right now about, you know, 20 by 12 decks I built in one day, you know, I 20 by 12, I built in one day. Now, I didn’t tell you that the footers were done, and I didn’t tell you that I had six other people helping me. Right? Yeah.

Tim: And so, Yeah. So the better, you know, if I put a day in for labor, boy, would I ever be messed up in terms of estimating. But using lead carpenters, you really have to think about not just guessing what their labor is going to be, but you really have to estimate to their labor, not to what you think it ought to take.

Steve: So and also in terms of now, this is basically with with both systems, lead carpenter to product manager and vice versa. one is potentially, laying people off or bringing people on. So the question is, you know, you’ve got four carpenters in your company or six carpenters. how feasible is it to say, well, we’re going to turn them into project managers or, you know, we need to let them go.

Steve: I mean, do you see a common trend on what people do in this scenario?

Tim: Yeah, ten they tend to look at the existing team and say, we’re going to turn you into a project managers if you’re a lead carpenter. And again, I go back just to the idea that not all great lead carpenters make great project managers and not all great project managers make great production managers. It’s not a, logical leap because they’re very different.

Tim: Yeah. So if you’re thinking about doing that, I would, you know, if you if the choice really is lay them off or make them project managers, I think the idea is to look at can they learn the management skills that are really necessary to be a project manager? Can they multitask? I know some people say there’s no such thing, but, you know, maybe not multitask, but shift from one task to another quickly is what you really have to do when you’re a project manager.

Tim: Can they can they handle that chaos? And if they can then then that’s really good. If they can’t, if they don’t seem to be, there may be some kind of, way that you can have one project manager and then the others stay as lead carpenters and maybe get a little bit more into that hybrid. Let them be the skills they just may have to do more things that they don’t like to do.

Tim: Like big fires and clean up and, you know, tear out and maybe lay some flooring every now and then or, or whatnot like that. So it may be that they have to just chip in. I think the big challenge is whatever system you like to use, you’re going to have to keep people working. So you have to develop your marketing and your sales so that you keep the people busy, that you want to keep busy.

Steve: And you just mentioned what I see is one of the main reasons people want to switch is you know, that whole idea of keeping people working. But yeah, so and then, you know, with the other way, we have to bring a number of people on. So, you know, you’re incorporating for, training, hiring and, yeah. So, you know, as we start to wrap up, what what what can we what else do people need to know?

Steve: A when they’re starting to even think about this shift? But, you know, just the overall process. I mean, maybe just break it down into a few steps of, hey, you’ve identified a problem, and now I’ve got to start really thinking, if I’m going to do this or not.

Tim: So I think, like a lot of things, you kind of need to decide what’s my comfort level. Do I want to have control over all the carpentry? If so, then we’re going to start with a pure lead carpenter system, and then at some point we’re going to shift over to that hybrid system when either jobs get way bigger and when I say way bigger, I hate dollar amounts because it’s, you know, in, you know, Podunk or wherever the dollar volume.

Tim: Yeah. Jen might be 35,000, 40,000 New York City. It’s going to be 500,000. You know, it’s just dollars. Are difficult. But when you get to those jobs where a good craftsman can no longer manage all the details, then it’s really good idea to go to that hybrid system and become, you know, have that project manager if you’re comfortable with all trades.

Tim: Project manager system gives you a lot more flexibility. And, you just have to make sure that your trades are are really helping you with that. I think the other thing is the big thing for me with all systems is don’t get complacent. Find the 5 or 6 key indicators that will tell you this is working or it’s not working.

Tim: Labor costs would be one of those, I think with your trade contractors, are they getting the jobs done within their budgets or is there always a change order that you can’t charge the client for? In other words, are they always expanding their income and you’re not getting, you know, paid for it? Those are just a couple of them.

Tim: Yeah. There may be some, you know, surveys and stuff that you can do to, to check not mental health so much as morale. You know, how’s the morale of our trade contractors and our in-house employees. Those. But let’s find those indicators that will tell you things are slipping. Because this is where I’ve seen the biggest challenges that that people find a system and they stay with it and then they start going on, you know, four week vacations and, you know, spending a lot of money on things.

Tim: And systems do not run on their own. You have to keep putting energy into them to make them work. So find those indicators they don’t tell you when slipping and pay attention to them.

Steve: Yeah. And I think one important thing maybe to tack on to that is and this is simply my opinion, you can tell me, if you think different differently, but you know, doing it with tell in the water. And that is not the hybrid. The hybrid is not telling the water. The hybrid is a delineation. Define difference in terms of the way you operate.

Steve: And, you know, people are like, I think, yeah, we’re going to try a few jobs cost plus. Well, you know, that takes a big shift in terms of the way you’re tracking a project. And you know, so it’s not just, hey, on this job here, we’re going to try it out, you know, and see how it goes. It can be a recipe.

Tim: You know, there’s a there’s a way that our brains work that if we don’t make a commitment to something, it almost always fails. Yeah, but if we make a commitment, that first job, maybe it doesn’t work very well. But if the commitment is this is the way we want to do it, then we start investigating what happened, what what worked, what didn’t work.

Tim: We do that. That’s the other thing. Debriefs. We do a debrief, autopsy, then the job. Oh, we need to do better at our trade walk. Okay, let’s let’s enhance the trade walk a little bit. That should give us the results that we require. But if we’re always looking at it like, I don’t know if I want to do this or not, our tendency is to not dig in enough to make the changes that we need to make.

Tim: And that’s again, I keep saying the most important everything’s the most important thing. But that’s our key factor, is do we try to figure out what’s not working and what is work and, and improve? both of them along the way.

Steve: Yeah. So before we kind of wrap up here, Tim, you’re a year into it, right? And you’ve set some KPIs on what you’d like to achieve or what you thought would be the outcome of shifting. is there any time where you say, it’s probably a hard question, but, you know, you’re hitting some of the KPIs, not all of them.

Steve: Like, is there a time where you go, well, this isn’t working out or, you know, how how do we know, you know, we’ve made the right decision, the intention, like you said. And the commitment is a big thing.

Tim: You know,

Steve: How do we know it’s a it’s been the right shift.

Tim: This is going to sound a little bit like a commercial, but the reality is, when we’re too close to a situation, it’s really hard to see why something’s not working and why it is working, for that matter. And so things like our, roundtables, whether it’s the owners groups or production management, things like independent consultants, books, systems, all kinds of other ways for you to look at this thing and see how what that other entity, whatever it is, help you see something that you’re missing.

Tim: And I’m not saying just wholesale, you know, shift after a year because you probably got a lot into it already. There may be just one little thing. And I’ve seen this over and over and over again where companies struggle, they work on it, they work on it, they work on it. And then there’s one little thing. It might be one manager that comes in and boom, things start working.

Tim: It might be changing that one person or that one thing and things shift. Unfortunately, it’s hard to see that from the outside, so it may be someone that comes in or it may be joining a peer group like we have that that group can help you see where things aren’t working well, and maybe they would recommend you shift based on what they can see.

Steve: Yeah, that second set of eyes can be assume teams. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. Well this has been fantastic Tim I want to thank you for joining us. And I want to thank all of our listeners always for listening to another episode of The Tim Faller Show.

Tim: And remember The Tim Faller Show. We’re working hard to eliminate that nasty little phrase. It is what it is.

Steve: This has been another episode of The Tim Faller Show. I want to hire Tim and fast track your growth. Visit remodelers advantage.com/consulting to learn more. And if you’d like more information about roundtables, our world class peer advisory program, please send me an email at Steve and Remodelers advantage.com. And of course, don’t forget to subscribe to the show and comment on iTunes.

Steve: Thanks for listening. We’ll see you next week.