Building a successful business with Arcadia Homes

Tom Houghton:

You’re listening to “The Building Code,” a better guide to run your business. I’m Tech Tom.

Paul Wurth:

Oh man. I’m Paul. Welcome to another episode.

Tom Houghton:

We have two special guests joining us today on the podcast from Arcadia Homes. We have the president of Arcadia Homes, Jeremy Schumacher, and vice president AJ Foard joining us. Welcome guys.

Jeremy Schumacher:

Thank you guys, glad to be here.

AJ Foard:

Hey there. How are y’all?

Tom Houghton:

We’re great. We’re doing well. It’s freezing here.

Paul Wurth:

It is. Yeah.

Tom Houghton:

But-

Paul Wurth:

I feel like we talk about-

AJ Foard:

60 degrees down here.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah. We talk about the weather a lot.

Tom Houghton:

That’s good. But that’s a good segue into where they’re located man.

Paul Wurth:

Oh good, yeah.

Tom Houghton:

Yes. So you guys are based out of Charlotte, North Carolina, correct?

AJ Foard:

We are, like I just said, it’s about 60 degrees. It feels good temperature wise, but we can’t get ourselves away from the rain it seems for the last few weeks. Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

Well-

Jeremy Schumacher:

Makes it tough to build outside.

Tom Houghton:

Yes.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, exactly.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

Well, we’re in zero or single digits here, so also makes it tough to build outside.

AJ Foard:

That also makes it tough.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah, absolutely.

Paul Wurth:

Well, we’re doing a podcast though. So if we can’t build.

Tom Houghton:

Let’s talk.

Paul Wurth:

Let’s talk about building.

Tom Houghton:

Great.

Tom Houghton:

So you guys just won a very important award. Before we dive in, we want to highlight your success in the industry. You guys just won the NAHB Custom Home Builder of the Year Award, which is fantastic, congratulations on that. And by the looks, the listeners can’t see what’s behind you guys as we’re FaceTiming across, but you have a whole bunch of awards behind you. So.

Jeremy Schumacher:

We didn’t even-

AJ Foard:

We didn’t even realize that.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, whoops-a-daisy.

AJ Foard:

We call that the wall of power.

Tom Houghton:

The wall of power. That’s good.

Paul Wurth:

Is that where you have your client meetings.

Jeremy Schumacher:

We do, we do.

Paul Wurth:

Smart.

Jeremy Schumacher:

We actually situate ourselves like this. So that’s a… No, it isn’t a matter of beating our chest or talking about how good we are, things like that, but it does add some credibility to our longevity and what we’ve been able to accomplish and some of the recognitions that we’ve been fortunate enough to have.

AJ Foard:

Yeah,

Paul Wurth:

Totally. How does one get awarded the NAHB Home Builder of the Year? Do you guys submit yourself or was it somebody submitting for you or how does that work?

Jeremy Schumacher:

Well, so every, I guess, applicant has to submit for themselves, but we were I guess I’d say encouraged by a number of folks really over the last five, six years at least that we really should be submitting. And to be quite honest, we didn’t necessarily think of that as an award that we would aspire to when thinking about the national custom builder of the year, we’re very proud of what our reputation is in the Charlotte region. And just hadn’t thought in those terms, and then some more national representatives from the National Association Of Home Builders recommended that we apply and thought we’d have a good shot at it. So we really just applied for the last two years and we were fortunate enough to be one of three finalists last year and then won it this year.

AJ Foard:

Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher:

So we’re pretty excited about that. And so what we’re perhaps most proud of is not just a lot of the building aspects that go along with the application for that award, but a whole lot of involvement in our community, which was, we think, a pretty good factor in the decision making process for that. And we’ve always been a pretty big steward of our community and giving back to the community. We think that was a pretty big part of it.

Tom Houghton:

Awesome.

AJ Foard:

That’s right.

Paul Wurth:

That’s really important. It’s important to, our company ethos here as well, we give back. But for people who haven’t started doing that within their own business. How did you guys start getting involved in community? Can you remember what your first steps were and what does that look like now?

AJ Foard:

Well, it was started by the founders, Mike and Robbie, and they just always had a heart for people. And whether it’s the Leukemia Society or teaching F3 or taking guys on a missions trip or just building a playground at an orphanage, they were always doing that. And those are the kind of people that they hired and surrounded themselves with. And when you get a lot of people at the same heart, it just happens. It just flows. Everybody’s bringing something to the table and it’s something that we encourage our whole team to is to bring what they’re interested in or something that they can affect them personally or somebody they know. Whether it’s meals for somebody who’s going through a tough spot or counseling or building a playground.

Jeremy Schumacher:

We also have a lot of our clients who have foundations and charities and they’re either their own personal foundations or charitable organizations that mean a lot to them. And so we’re very, very supportive of our client’s organizations as well and so there’s as you guys know, I’m sure, there are no shortage of opportunities for things like that and so we just keep our eyes open for those things and make sure that we’re doing our part.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah. I guess that’s what my question was is do you guys set a budget or a number of things you’ll do a year because that’s what we do. I mean, we have a whole committee here that takes all the submissions and we want to do it all obviously, but you can’t. So we select the ones that make sense for us. And then we have a budget. Is that your game plan as well?

Jeremy Schumacher:

We do. We have a budget and we try to have a game plan and there are certain organizations that we know each year we’re going to be supportive of and contributing to. Not incredibly rigid about it. You know what I mean? I think it’s really on our heart or on my hear or AJ’S or somebody within our organization’s heart that we really want to support something, we’re going to.

AJ Foard:

We’re going find a way to do it.

Jeremy Schumacher:

That’s right. So, and quite honestly, of course there are financial contributions that we make. And a lot of times that’s what an organization needs, but just as much of our contribution is our time, volunteering.

AJ Foard:

Time, treasure, and talent, you can contribute your knowledge, your subbase, your money. There’s lots of things you can do.

Tom Houghton:

That’s awesome.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah.

Tom Houghton:

You guys, I want to talk more about what sets you apart, especially in this giving aspect, but we also like to get a profile on your business. Specifically, one question we always ask everybody is how they came up with their names. So Arcadia Homes, can you give us the origin story of that?

Jeremy Schumacher:

Yeah. It’s like AJ mentioned, there were, there were two founders of the company 26 years ago. Almost exactly 26 years ago that AJ and I have over the last five years taken over the operations of the company. The two founders are still around. They are actually co-owners of the company with us still. And so, one thing that I liked about the fact that the name of the company is Arcadia. So, one of their last names of Salamone and the other one is Bowers. So Arcadia is nowhere in their names and they quite intentionally did not have it be one of their names or both of their names for a few reasons.

Jeremy Schumacher:

One, they wanted to ultimately be able to have a succession plan and not have it be weird if the name isn’t one of the guys in the company anymore. The bigger reason was they always knew that building a custom home, they’re not building their house. It’s not a Schumacher house. It’s not a Foard house. It’s our client’s house.

Jeremy Schumacher:

And so they didn’t really want it to be the last name of one of them. They wanted it to be it’s our client’s house. And yes, it’s an Arcadia-built home, but it’s their home. It’s not ours. And so I thought that was a pretty cool thing. And so the name Arcadia, it’s actually a decently interesting story. When Mike Salamone was at the bank, literally setting up a bank account to start this company 26 years ago. And he had recently himself moved to North Carolina. He’s sitting there and it’s what is now Bank of America or what was absorbed by Bank of America but was called North Carolina National Bank. There was a little pamphlet there that he was just reading while he was sitting there waiting on the banker and they didn’t have a name for the company.

Jeremy Schumacher:

They just knew that they wanted to start a company. And within that pamphlet, it was describing sort of some of the, I guess, romantic history of how North Carolina was founded and discovered and all those types of things. And one of the founders of North Carolina referred to it as Arcadia, which meant this perfect and peaceful place. And so he likes the sound of it. And also of course, what it referenced.

AJ Foard:

And being the builder, the construction side of the business, a perfect place is pretty darn hard to produce. It could have been a great place, an awesome place, a happy place. But we’re going for perfection. And that’s something that Mike always says, we strive for perfection. We accept excellence. So he always kept the standards high.

Tom Houghton:

It’s good.

Paul Wurth:

It doesn’t hurt that it starts with A. Back then there was a phone book.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

AJ Foard:

That’s true.

Paul Wurth:

That’s good.

Tom Houghton:

The front of the phonebook.

Jeremy Schumacher:

The truth is he might have made that whole romantic story up, it was haberdash.

Jeremy Schumacher:

Is it weird that Arcadia is spelt with two A’s at the beginning.

Paul Wurth:

My dad’s a chiropractor and it’s AA Chiropractors.

Tom Houghton:

Right. However you get to the top of the list back then.

Tom Houghton:

For those listeners who don’t know what a phone book is, we’ll put a picture in the show notes.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah. There we go.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher:

Yeah.

Tom Houghton:

Good stuff. So give us a fast forward to today. Give us a look at what your team looks like. Can you give us background on your company, how many homes you’re building, what your team looks like from there?

Jeremy Schumacher:

Okay. So we’ll probably both chime in on this, but again, company 26 years. So Mike and Rob, who we mentioned, founded the company. About five years ago, AJ and I took over the reins of the operations. AJ actually has been here for what 15 years?

AJ Foard:

15. 16 this year.

Jeremy Schumacher:

AJ manages all the construction operations, the operations of the company like that. I manage all our business, finance, marketing, sales, business development, things like that. So basically we joke around and say, “I make all the promises. He keeps them.” That’s why-

AJ Foard:

I take my hat off and he’s just safe and I don’t have any hair left,

Jeremy Schumacher:

But we are and I mean this and nobody can hear us. So we’re saying this genuinely, but we’re unbelievably blessed with our team. And so we’ve got a team of project managers in the field and we ask a heck of a lot of them. And quite honestly, Buildertrend is a big reason why we’re able to, because when a home is under construction in our world, there isn’t a project manager to manage the finances and then a superintendent to manage the construction part of it. Our project managers are very all encompassing, well-rounded folks where they are the client interface. If there are any, whatever, additional sales questions, change orders, pricing, all those types of things, they handle those things.

Jeremy Schumacher:

And of course the day-to-day management of the construction operation, they pretty much handle it all. And their ability to do that on multiple projects, really just two or three, has a heck of a lot to do with the interface, of course, with Buildertrend and not only our internal interface with the purchase order system and all the budgeting and the scheduling and everything else, but the customer interface is an enormous.

AJ Foard:

Trade interface.

Jeremy Schumacher:

Yeah, exactly. All the trade interface. So anyway, so that’s a really big deal as far as the staff being able to operate in the field. And then in the office, we’ve got an estimating and specification writing team, a pre-construction management team and of course, accounts payable and accounts receivable. We find that our team overall, relative to the number of projects and the volume that we do, we probably have, I think, it’s about 20ish projects under construction right now in the 60 million range. And we find in some of our, in our Builder 20 group and other folks that we talk to that our overhead, or I guess our staffing is a fraction of what most other companies are that don’t do as much volume as we do. And just honestly, we say this to everybody, including in our Builder 20 group. Buildertrend has a lot to do with that. A whole lot to do with that.

AJ Foard:

Yeah. That’s accurate.

Paul Wurth:

Wow that’s amazing.

Tom Houghton:

Thanks for that.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah. Thank you for that. But that’s one of the things that most of us from Buildertrend do not come from the building industry. And when you look at the building industry from just a business point of view, the lack of systems, the lack of efficiency, the lack of, outside of Buildertrend, just this is how we do this is pretty amazing.

AJ Foard:

It’s unbelievable.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah. If you apply the mindset the two of you have with a vehicle like Buildertrend to get that process done in duplicate, then this is what you get.

Jeremy Schumacher:

I’m telling you, especially when we’re in our Builder 20 group, and we speak with other builders that are good, big reputable builders.

AJ Foard:

Former custom builders of the year, we got like five of them in our group. And because of those meetings and our transparency with it, a lot of the guys are starting to implement it. They’re getting excited about it like we are.

Paul Wurth:

That’s good we appreciate that.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

But what we’re really, I mean, look, we are all here. We’ve got a big office in Omaha, Nebraska. It takes a lot to do this. We have 515 employees. We are a for-profit business, but I will tell you, honestly, the goal from the founders down is to really elevate the business more than anything else. Elevate the industry. Like we want everybody to get better. We want the reputation of a home builder and a contractor to not be, “That guy’s going to screw me” but, “This is going to be a great experience. And this guy is a great business owner.”

Paul Wurth:

And so we feel like we’re doing our part there and it feels great that you guys are a great example and you’re sharing your story. So.

Jeremy Schumacher:

We’ve put our whole effort into it. And we’re very aware of the fact that we got plenty to learn still. And we’re open-minded to the fact that we’re going to continue to hopefully learn and grow and get better at it. But one thing for sure is that we’re committed to it and we’ve gone all in and we know that’s what it takes too. If you just halfway want to try it or think it might work, it’s probably not going to.

Paul Wurth:

Totally.

Jeremy Schumacher:

You have to show the rest of your folks, our employees and staff that we mean it and that we’re in it because the fact of the matter is there’s a lot of our industry that might be reluctant, especially folks that have been around a while and have a way of doing things and a little bit more of an old school type of approach that they don’t feel that commitment. It’s just probably not likely at all to happen.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah. That makes sense. So how many people do you have total full-time right now?

Jeremy Schumacher:

22.

AJ Foard:

22. Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

And you guys are the bosses, the managing partners, along with the-

AJ Foard:

Yes. Yes.

Paul Wurth:

Okay. So can you talk a little bit about your theory or process behind managing people? Because I think that’s something that a lot of construction and business owners could really get some advice on. And it’s as simple as do you guys do check-ins? Do you guys do reviews? Do you guys have some of cadence with feedback or can you guys just give us some general idea about your philosophy there?

AJ Foard:

Yeah. I’ll take this one. Yeah. It starts with the people and then Jeremy and I try and put the very best tools around the best people. And then we’re pretty relentless about the training, whether it’s project management, customer interface, Buildertrend, managing water. Whatever it is, we are constantly training and we are surrounded by a bunch of great guys, great employees. And we listen to them. When I sit down at one of my construction meetings and I’m leading it. I literally have 150 years of construction experience sitting around the table that’s proven. And so we’re doing all these prototype, one-off complicated, awesome, custom builds.

AJ Foard:

And you can’t know everything. You just can’t. And so I’ve been hearing, I didn’t even come up with this.

AJ Foard:

One of our guys came up with this. He’s been saying it’s not you. It’s we. It’s not you, it’s we. And so while each guy is responsible for his own projects. We come in together and, and look at the project as a team, whether it’s on the design side or on the construction side or on the finish side. And we have specific points where we bring the entire team in and it’s like a party to vet and check those homes. And it’s a lot of fun right now. It’s fun coming to work.

Paul Wurth:

That’s great. So even though you have different project managers responsible at the end of the day, their compensation, and I guess their responsibilities, responsible for their job, but it’s still this we approach.

AJ Foard:

Yeah, absolutely.

Paul Wurth:

Like if this guy’s got a problem or that gal’s got a problem, it’s still the same.

Jeremy Schumacher:

And that’s one thing, again, I say we’re very blessed for this nobody’s defensive and no one has an ego about the fact that this is my project. Get out of here. We’re old. They truly do all want to help each other because they realize that help’s coming back and it’s going to benefit them as well. I think it’s been a really, really good culture that’s been established. And we’re lucky too, that we have, knock on wood, basically no turnover, the only change or attrition in our staff is really addition as we’ve grown a little bit. But we really are very, very fortunate that the bulk of our staff, anybody who hasn’t been here for at least 10 years, it’s simply because we’ve added some staff.

Jeremy Schumacher:

But we really, I think it’s still true, actually, I know that it is, but believe it or not and especially in this industry it’s unique, but in the 26-year history of the company we’ve never had construction personnel leave our company to go to another company.

Tom Houghton:

Wow.

Jeremy Schumacher:

Literally zero times.

AJ Foard:

Now we did feel the recession and we did have to contract. And there’s another example of the culture. We got Mike Salamone, he came in and he said, I don’t know what’s happening right now but if you have an opportunity, I want you to take it. Because nobody knew what was getting ready to come down and hit everybody. But that was him. He wasn’t trying to hold on to people he was like, “If you get an opportunity, go, we want you to be successful. And I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

AJ Foard:

He told us that before it all started, which was unbelievable.

Paul Wurth:

That’s crazy.

Tom Houghton:

That’s great.

Paul Wurth:

So if I’m listening to this podcast and I have just started my construction business. I plan on building over the next year. I want to hire a few people. What is your advice? What can I do to start building this type of culture that you guys have? I mean, did you guys consciously do this?

Jeremy Schumacher:

The three that AJ and I always say to each other when we’re thinking of potentially hiring somebody is smart, humble, and hungry. And those three qualities are first and foremost, of course there’s some prerequisite experiences and things like that.

Jeremy Schumacher:

But we generally think, as long as they’re somebody who has a certain prerequisite level of experience, that they’re smart, humble, and hungry, we could probably work with them.

AJ Foard:

They could have the best resume in the world. But if we get a sense that they’re not trainable, they’re not going to like working here. We’re all always learning from each other and try to get better. One of the things Jeremy always says, “If you’re standing still, you’re going backwards in this industry, you’ve got to keep going forward just to keep up.”

AJ Foard:

So if we find somebody and we’re getting a feeling like they think they’ve got it all figured out, that’s a red flag for us.

Jeremy Schumacher:

And by the way, we hold each other to the same standard. If I’m acting one day, like I might have it figured out, he’ll make sure to remind me that I don’t and vice versa.

Paul Wurth:

That’s a good point.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

Tom and I have that.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah. Exactly. Good stuff. Did you have a question about?

Paul Wurth:

Yeah. So one of the things I had noticed. You guys had mentioned that you get your trades involved. That is a difficulty for a lot of our clients, for reasons we probably can all imagine. So were there anything that you guys did different or any tips or tricks you have out there for getting your sub-trades involved in using Buildertrend?

Jeremy Schumacher:

Well what we don’t have is a tip on it being easy, because it’s not. And you guys know that, I’m sure you’ve heard that time and time again. The biggest thing, and AJ deserves the credit on, he absolutely spearheads all of this stuff, but just being persistent and we’re fortunate enough to have enough work going on and have enough of a history and a reputation where there’s a lot of trades and vendors in our area that were interested in doing what it took to stay involved.

Jeremy Schumacher:

But like I said, AJ was just absolutely relentless for years in the training and spending his own time and our guys’ time and saying, “Look, we’re not just saying, ‘Hey, you have to use this system, figure it out.’ We’re saying we’re going to have a training every single Wednesday morning at 9 a.m. at our office. You don’t have an excuse. Don’t tell me you don’t know to use it, because we’re going to spend our time training you.”

AJ Foard:

So we learned the system so well that we were intentional about having our key trades come in, that we’re going to have to operate in the system and standing shoulder to shoulder with them and running classes. We’re having them bring their computer, their tablet, their phone, showing them how to load it on and then showing how do you find a selection? Where’s the schedule? How can I look at every task I got on that schedule or globally on the job? How do I approve a purchase order? How do I ask for payment on a purchase order? And, as we bring new trades on, once we think they’re our kind of people, same thing. “Hey, we use Buildertrend. It’s awesome. You’re going to love it. And oh yeah, by the way, we’re going to show you just how to use it.”

AJ Foard:

And I think that’s the biggest difference. Your training sessions are great and Buildertrend University is awesome, but for us getting a familiar face in front of them where they could be transparent, like, “I don’t know how to do this” and sitting down with them and showing them sometimes what a desktop is.

AJ Foard:

We’re starting that basic.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah.

AJ Foard:

And then going from there.

Jeremy Schumacher:

And then when you notice you’ve done all that and you feel comfortable that you’ve done your part on that, then you can feel more comfortable saying, “We have done our part. We have offered you enough opportunity to learn how to do this.” So then you can feel, okay ripping the Band-Aid off and saying, “You don’t use it. You don’t get paid.”

Jeremy Schumacher:

So you can’t just say those things and you can’t just be that rigid if you haven’t stood beside them and said I’ve given you every possible opportunity.

AJ Foard:

Not in this climate, no. If you make it hard for somebody in this climate with this much work, they’ve got 10 people waiting to do the work. They’re, gone. They’re like, “Hey, how about see you never? If you’re going to be this rigid and this caustic about a system that I’m not even sure how to use. I can just go right down the road and have work waiting.”

Paul Wurth:

Yeah. That’s a really good point.

AJ Foard:

That is.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah. And I love that. So, spend your time, be patient, spend your resources, but at a certain time, when you feel really good about that, it’s time to say, “Hey, this is going to make both our lives easier. Let’s do this.”

Jeremy Schumacher:

No doubt. And so of course that applied with the trades as we just now described where we knew we’d put the time in. And we knew that internally, even before we ever embraced or engaged with trade, AJ and I spent I don’t know how many after hours, hours training ourselves on this and doing Buildertrend University so that we knew that we could say to them confidently that here’s how it works and we know that it works and you’ve got trust us and all these sorts of things, but the exact same thing applies internally where we’re also training our people and helping to motivate them to get on board with all this. But because we knew we put in that time, because we were competent enough that it was going to work. We were also, in that regard, able to rip the Band-Aid off and say, “Look, we’re doing this. You’re onboard or you’re not.”

Jeremy Schumacher:

And everyone ultimately got on board. I’m not saying it was easy. I’m not saying there wasn’t some reluctance, but everyone got on board.

AJ Foard:

Jeremy has a great example just for paying invoices. I’ll let you speak to that. It’s the perfect example for how Buildertrend just-

Jeremy Schumacher:

Well I think it might be what you’re referring to, but the whole purchase order system was certainly a new concept at Arcadia, but even in the custom building world, at least in the Charlotte market, I’ll say. To the point that the accountant for our company, it’s not an Arcadia employee, an off-site accountant, who had been the accountant since day one would just adamantly say, “You can’t use a purchase order system. That’s not for custom building that’s in an online.”

Jeremy Schumacher:

We actually think it’s more important in custom home building to have a purchase order system like this, because everything we do is a one-off.

Jeremy Schumacher:

We have to clearly fund what is happening and what the cost is and who’s doing it.

AJ Foard:

That’s right.

Jeremy Schumacher:

And all those things prior to the work happening, it’s actually in our minds more important.

AJ Foard:

Let me interrupt real quick. Five years ago, before we implemented the purchase order system, at least once a week, I had to have a conversation with a project manager who I knew, loved and trusted and a trade partner who’s been with us forever. Who’s as honest as the day as long. And they’re saying the opposite when it comes to money.

Paul Wurth:

Right.

AJ Foard:

PO’s solve that. I don’t have those conversations anymore.

Jeremy Schumacher:

Yeah. It doesn’t always eliminate the tough conversation, but you just have it before the work happens.

AJ Foard:

Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher:

“What do you mean a hundred dollars?” “Okay. $70.”

Jeremy Schumacher:

Okay. Whatever it is, at least you’re having that conversation before the work happens and not it’s already done and now you’re over a barrel or he’s over a barrel. Nobody wants that. Or if we had already known it would have cost that, we might’ve been able to talk to the homeowner about payments for this or whatever. And now we can’t and we’re eating it all those types of things. So anyway, so many benefits there, but then we said, we don’t need invoices anymore. Why do we need invoices? The way that this workflow works, we don’t need invoices. Same kind of thing. It was such a paradigm shift, including for our accountant. If you’re not going to be able to do that, I said, “Watch.”

Jeremy Schumacher:

And it’s been a couple of years and we’re doing twice the volume that we were just two and a half, three years ago with the exact same internal staff from an APAR standpoint and-

AJ Foard:

And the quality of life.

AJ Foard:

Our AP’s quality of life. It was a big job to get everybody paid by Friday, huge job. And so you knew to let them work, they had their zone, they had their system. And if you get in the way of that, they let you know real quick, you got to go. It’s not the time. And now it’s not easier, it’s just their quality of life is better. It’s better because they don’t have those, there’s not this burden, this feeling of never being able to get it done. And then the POs system made that happen.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah. When you look at, again, if you look at custom building from outside and construction, just as a business, you say, “Wait, so you guys just have an idea about how much this is going to cost and you verbally agree to it. And at the end, everybody argues.”

Paul Wurth:

It’s like, it doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.

AJ Foard:

No.

Paul Wurth:

And I know that’s not how everybody does it, who doesn’t use a PO system, but it’s like what it is.

Tom Houghton:

It feels that way.

Paul Wurth:

So.

Jeremy Schumacher:

I mean, it’s a problem. I mean, I know that you’re somewhat generalizing and that’s how we would describe it as well.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher:

But it’s probably not that far off.

Paul Wurth:

Right. That’s crazy.

AJ Foard:

To be able to be able to memorialize the conversation that you’re having with a grader, how much did you say? $2,000? Boom. Approve it. You approve it. We’re good to go. All right. We’re not having another conversation unless you’re going to breach $2,000, otherwise we’re good.

AJ Foard:

And I’m gone.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher:

And again, because we’ve gone down the path with them, the way that we did, like we were describing before. We can look him in the eye later on and say, “Buddy, you didn’t have a PO. I don’t know what to tell you.”

Paul Wurth:

Yeah.

AJ Foard:

And this is something else that I would recommend for new guys. Let the trade and the project manager learn hundred dollar lessons so they don’t have to learn thousand dollar lessons later.

Tom Houghton:

That’s good.

AJ Foard:

Let him get close enough to the fire where it hurts, but it doesn’t burn them. And so if they do $500 worth of work and they don’t get a purchase order and you’re, you’re having a struggle, let them learn that $500 lesson.

AJ Foard:

It only takes one because $10,000, $20,000, $40,000 lessons are out there waiting to be learned that we don’t ever want to participate in.

Paul Wurth:

That’s a great point. It’s good stuff. We’re going to bring you guys to Omaha and teach a class.

AJ Foard:

We’re set. We got a whole agenda, man.

Jeremy Schumacher:

Yeah.

AJ Foard:

We’ve been teaching these classes for five years.

Jeremy Schumacher:

And as long as we just do it during the College World Series, we’re in.

Tom Houghton:

Done.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah here you go. We’re are in.

Jeremy Schumacher:

And I’ll just do a quick little plug. If my East Carolina Pirates are playing it, I guarantee I’ll be there.

Tom Houghton:

There you go.

Paul Wurth:

You get a free ticket if they make it so done and done.

Tom Houghton:

Nice work. Well, thank you guys for coming on the podcast and showing us how you use Buildertrend to give you a better way to run your business.

AJ Foard:

Wait, that’s all you got. We can go man for another 25 minutes.

Paul Wurth:

I was going to say.

AJ Foard:

I was just getting warmed up, man. Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

This definitely feels like a recurring guest for sure.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah, absolutely.

Paul Wurth:

Maybe we’ll do a little road trip down to see you guys.

Tom Houghton:

That would be great.

Paul Wurth:

Paul and Tom on the road.

Tom Houghton:

That’s right. Coming soon.

Paul Wurth:

There you go.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah. We’d love to join you at one of those meetings at 9 a.m. on Wednesday. We’ll be there.

Paul Wurth:

Exactly.

Jeremy Schumacher:

There you go. It’s only like 67 degrees warmer here right now.

Tom Houghton:

We’ll take it.

Paul Wurth:

We are in for sure.

Tom Houghton:

Well, thank you so much, Jeremy and AJ for joining us on the podcast and again, sharing your insights into the business. We really appreciate all that you do. Again, congratulations on your award and thank you so much for being a customer of Buildertrend. We really appreciate it.

Jeremy Schumacher:

Absolutely. Thank you guys.

AJ Foard:

Thank you guys for everything you do.

Paul Wurth:

Appreciate you.

Tom Houghton:

Love what you heard. Don’t forget to rate and subscribe to our podcast so you can hear from more guests that will benefit your business. Also, please check out our show notes page for more information on what we discussed on this episode. You can find it at buildertrend.com/podcast. Thanks for listening. And we’ll see you next time on “The Building Code.”

Paul Wurth:

Appreciate you.