Applying commercial processes to residential construction with Steve Tankersley

Tom Houghton:

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

Paul Wurth:

Hey Tom. Paul here.

Tom Houghton:

Hey Paul, how’s it going?

Paul Wurth:

Good, good.

Tom Houghton:

Long time, no talk.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah. Obviously, everybody knows it’s been a strange time since beginning of March 2020. And if you’re listening to this in 2022, let me tell you something about COVID.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah. Give you a little history lesson.

Paul Wurth:

You should know about it. Let’s hope it’s over by then.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

But yeah, haven’t seen each other in a while.

Tom Houghton:

I know.

Paul Wurth:

Well, we got a good one.

Tom Houghton:

We’ve got a great one today. Joining us today is Steve Tankersley from Tankersley Construction. They’re based in Northern California, in the Folsom area. And we’ve got a great podcast. We’re going to be talking about lots of things. About organization for your business. We’re going to talk about managing growth, analysis, and job costing. Super important things.

Tom Houghton:

So, you’re going to make sure you listen to the entire episode. Because like I said, we’re covering lots of great information. And Steve has got some great insight for this.

Tom Houghton:

Let’s start off just by talking to Steve about how he got started. So Steve, give us a little background on your business.

Steve Tankersley:

Hey. So yeah, we started the company about three and a half years ago full time. Before that, my wife and I had always been in commercial construction. And always saw a need in the industry from the difference between commercial construction, residential, and the lack of professionalism, and organization, and project management altogether.

Steve Tankersley:

About three and a half years ago, we took the leap and started this business full time, and it’s been pretty crazy since. Really our goal is to try to apply that large scale commercial project management experience to small, residential homeowners, and smaller commercial property owners. Everything. Some of the same principles we applied in $100 (million), $200 million projects to $10,000 to $100,000 projects.

Paul Wurth:

That’s a really cool concept. Obviously, that’s close to our hearts here at Buildertrend because we’ve been pushing for more organization, more processes, more systems in the residential world. And so, it’s good that you saw that as well.

Paul Wurth:

How have you found that working? Is that a differentiator for you and your company?

Steve Tankersley:

Yeah, it’s huge. We actually found Buildertrend when we first started. I was so used to these other big project manager software systems at our old companies, and we were looking for something that we could use and implement rather than our Excel spreadsheets and emails. And my wife, Heather, she actually found Buildertrend, and it really keeps us all organized on one place, and gives us that differentiator with our competition.

Steve Tankersley:

It’s working out great, to answer your question. People are impressed from day one, because I can pull up a project, and show them what we’re doing. And just that thoroughness really protects everyone, protects the client, and protects us on a project to make sure that everyone’s best interests are met, and we’re documenting things appropriately.

Paul Wurth:

So, you’re definitely selling the organization. Your organization’s organization. Because I think that’s one thing that there’s many, many companies that are very organized, and have great systems, but they don’t even see that as something that they should be selling during the sales process. And the perception of construction, especially residential, if you are organizing UF systems, you should be talking about them during the sales process, for sure.

Steve Tankersley:

Yeah. I’ll actually bring my tablet to a sales presentation or a meeting. I don’t really call it sales presentation. Initial meeting, I’ll go there and talk to the client about their project. And they ask, “Well, maybe what sets you apart? Or how was your process?” And I go, “Have you ever heard of the software called Buildertrend?” And usually they haven’t. And so, “Let me show you.” And pull it up. “Here’s a project. It’s about two miles away from your house. It’s going on right now.” I can pull the daily reports. I can pull up the schedule. I can show them how the whole process looks on an actual project in real time, and what they can expect.

Steve Tankersley:

And usually they’re pretty floored. People will say, “I’ve never seen anything like this before.” And especially in construction, residential construction. And a lot of times, we work for a lot of people who work in construction. We work for large project managers, army corps people, and they love it, right? It’s what they’re used to in their profession. And just like any other project management, whether you’re building a space shuttle, or building a house, right? You got to have systems in place. And this gives us that system where you can use it in that sales process.

Paul Wurth:

That’s great.

Tom Houghton:

It sounds like you’re applying some large-scale project management stuff that you’ve learned to the residential side. Is that correct?

Steve Tankersley:

Yeah. A little background about myself, I grew up in construction. My dad was a plumber. And grew up with a pipe wrench in one hand, and helping him out through high school. And then, he told me not you. “Well, don’t go into the trades. You don’t want to do that.” And I was like, “Well …” And I like construction. I think that he was giving me some flawed advice, but he said, “Go to college.” Right?

Steve Tankersley:

So, I went to college for construction management. And then while I was there, I was a carpenter for a home remodeling company in town. Then, it went from there. I got my degree in engineering and construction management, and went to work for some really big companies. Some of the biggest ones in the world. And tried traveling all over, and I said, “I really don’t like this.” And don’t like being disconnected from my home, and working on these really big projects. I wanted to scale down and start this company.

Steve Tankersley:

But on commercial construction, we’d have RFIs, and submittals, and document change orders. And I noticed when I was in residential construction working through college, nobody really did that. It was on a handshake, or maybe you’re lucky an email or something on a napkin.

Steve Tankersley:

And it wasn’t just being documented, and schedules weren’t being followed. I don’t know any other way to do things. And so, we do it the right way, and we follow that process. And it’s time-consuming, but it really helps us execute projects smoothly.

Paul Wurth:

I’ve always wondered why, and it may be an easy answer, but why commercial construction is so much more organized, so many more processes and systems? The easy answer would be money, right? They’re much more high-revenue-type projects. Like you said, you were working on $100 million, $200 million jobs.

Paul Wurth:

Maybe also, there’s a lot more hands in the pot when you get into the larger commercial, so you get like more of the architects, and engineers, and things like that. You might have a business. An owner of the building, you’re building for a GC and the subs.

Paul Wurth:

What’s your take on that? Why hasn’t residential made the same shift to project management software, having a place to do everything, having a system?

Steve Tankersley:

Well, I think that, No. 1, it’s the expectations of the industry. Commercial construction, the expectations have evolved so far with detailed specifications, and procedures, and manuals, and pay applications, and all these large entities that require these things of their contractors.

Steve Tankersley:

So, I think No. 1 is the expectations of the client, and expectations of the industry overall. I see that shifting. I see more companies like ourselves evolving, because the expectations of the consumer have evolved. I think people are just expecting more documentation. There’s so many more choices. There’s so many more different building materials and processes in the last even 10 years that they require mock-ups, they require detailed procedures for installation. Just things have changed so much in that regard.

Steve Tankersley:

And I think the industry is shifting to that direction, to more contractors like ourselves. And I see more and more each day. I just don’t think anyone’s really, until the last maybe five to 10 years, really even started to apply tools like Buildertrend to our industry that can actually facilitate these things.

Steve Tankersley:

Even in commercial construction, just 10 years ago there wasn’t a whole lot of project management software out there. Now, there’s so many more options.

Steve Tankersley:

To answer your question, I think that it’s really the consumer expectations mainly. And just in general, the level of quality and detail required now with all these new products.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah. We talk about this all the time on the podcast that it’s got to be a little shocking for a consumer to, if they’ve never gone to the residential construction process, when they meet a GC and they’re getting bids on pieces of paper just handed to them for $100,000 projects, or change orders are just discussed, and then there’s no record of things, it probably is … In this day and age, with everything electronic, and you pay everything online, and there’s DocuSign, to run into a contractor that doesn’t have any of that’s got to be a little concerning.

Steve Tankersley:

Yeah. And that’s …

Paul Wurth:

And that’s an advantage for you guys.

Steve Tankersley:

Yeah. In this day and age, a lot of what’s going on in our industry is you have two buckets of contractors. You have guys who are really skilled carpenters or skilled tradespeople. And they might not be so skilled on the computer side and the documentation side and organizational side.

Steve Tankersley:

And then, you have people that are really skilled in that side, but maybe not so well versed. So, if you can marry those two together, you have a really successful company. Which is what we’re seeing with our company. I’m not a master carpenter by any means. I can do a lot of things, but we hire better people than me to work in the field, and we’re overseeing the operations. It’s hard to have someone maybe who is a great project manager and a great carpenter. You got to be able to separate those things. And in our industry, you’re seeing a generational shift I think.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah. Let’s talk about your team a little bit. Because you kind of alluded to it there. I know you’re a family-owned business, and your wife, you mentioned earlier, she works with you as well.

Steve Tankersley:

Well yeah, a little bit of background. Heather and I, my wife, we met about I think 12 years ago. And we were both in construction and in commercial construction, and she was with an electrical subcontractor managing work, and I was with a prime contractor, and we were on a job together. Asked her on a date. Flash forward, we have a couple kids together. We’ve been married almost eight years now.

Steve Tankersley:

And so, we always worked in construction. She’d be on one job, I’d be on another job, and we always brought our work home. So, when I started this company in 2017, she was always in the background on day one. She was helping us push forward with the financials, and just all the backend stuff while she was doing her other project manager job.

Steve Tankersley:

And then eventually, we grew to the point where it was like, “Hey, we need to either hire someone, and would love to have it be you.” And she left her job to join us.

Steve Tankersley:

One of the things about us is we’ve always been in construction. It wasn’t something that she just picked this job up and learned it, right? So, she was a really good hire from day one. For our company, she actually runs our operations. I stepped away from the day-to-day management of our project managers and our projects. I still manage some projects, but she’s really overseeing our larger projects, and overseeing our project managers. And then with that, we also have two other project managers, a construction coordinator, and a production manager overseeing the operation side of the business.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah. It’s unique. So, you’re three and a half years in. Typically, we’re talking to companies that are six, 10, 15 years in business. For the listeners out there, what are some of the challenges that have been in the first three years? Maybe some things you didn’t expect, some you did. And what are the next three years look like for you guys?

Steve Tankersley:

Yeah, that’s a good question. Some of the challenges coming up from day one is we didn’t really know where this was going when we started the business. And we had a plan, but we didn’t know how it was going to take off. It’s taken off really quickly, and so, it’s No. 1 is managing growth, and making sure we don’t grow too quick, and lose track of things.

Steve Tankersley:

So, we’re really trying to dial in our growth, and control that. And making sure gross revenue projects don’t get out of hand and unmanageable. We really do that by qualifying our clients, and making sure that everyone’s the right fit. They’re a right fit for us, and we’re a right fit for them.

Steve Tankersley:

That’s really been actually one of our biggest challenges. Another really big challenge we’ve had, and every contractor has, is field labor, and just trying to get the right guys in the field. There’s lots of different people out there, lots of different personalities, and you get them all when you’re in this industry. So, that’s definitely been a challenge.

Paul Wurth:

When you were setting things up, and maybe this isn’t a decision people have to make, but did you make a decision between fully subbing everything out or hiring? Or did you have a plan for that? What does a GC go through? What are the positives or negatives with that?

Steve Tankersley:

Yeah. All the commercial companies I worked for in the past, we always worked for a lot of union, and companies that we sell or perform our carpentry work. It’s always been important for me to be a builder. Maybe not a broker. Nothing wrong with being a broker, but we want to build stuff. So, it’s important for us to know what we’re good at, and to know maybe what we’re not so good at.

Steve Tankersley:

So, we still inform pretty much anything with wood is what I say. If it’s demolishing wood, if it’s building, framing, installing cabinets, any kind of carpentry work, windows and doors, we’ll usually do. Drywall to some extent. We’ll do almost everything to some extent, but we really focus on carpentry work.

Steve Tankersley:

We came to that through a trial-and-error process over the last few years, and settled on that. The reason why we do like to self-perform, really it’s to be able to control, No. 1, control our schedule. Carpentry work is always your critical path, so it’s your demolition, your framing, you’re siding, your windows. We’re really trying to control that critical path. We tell clients we’re on time and on budget, and we really try to stick to that.

Steve Tankersley:

And also, it’s we control our quality. If we just had a job site where it’s all run by subs, maybe we don’t have someone in-house there really quality control checking things. So, control our schedule, control our quality. And then, it also helps us control our costs. Even if you’re a GC and you broker everything out, and inevitably there’s something that needs to get done you’re not going to hire a sub for, are you going to hire a sub to install base for it on a 10 by 10 bathroom? Probably not. You need to have someone in-house to be able to do those things.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah, that’s good. You mentioned completing projects on time and on budget. And obviously you’ve been doing this for a couple years now. How difficult was it to say, “Hey, this is the bar that we’re setting to,” and actually delivering on that?

Steve Tankersley:

Yeah. One thing I learned over the past few years is when building a schedule, owners of companies, estimators tend to look at what can I do? What can I perform? It’s not what you can do and what you can perform, it’s what your team can do.

Steve Tankersley:

So, I learned that the hard way, and getting frustrated when I put two days in a schedule or activity, and took four days. And I could do it in two days. That’s the kind of mentality of a lot of estimators and company owners.

Steve Tankersley:

One of the challenges really with that has been setting manageable expectations in our schedule that allow for maybe a little bit of slippage, but reasonable like, “Yes, we can do this in this amount of time.” There’s a fine line between having manageable schedules and too much float, or being way too aggressive. So, just finding that rhythm with our team, and what we can perform, and how fast we can do it.

Paul Wurth:

I think that was a great point. Did you essentially interview the employees, and go through scenarios? Or is each project, do you ask their input on how long it’s going to take them? Where’d you find that balance?

Steve Tankersley:

Yeah. It’s a trial and error, right? You got to have someone working on your team for a little bit of time to understand what their production capacity is, and how fast they work. Because you have some guys who will just blow through things, and have mistakes, and have to go back and redo it. You have guys that are really meticulous, and maybe there’s not as many mistakes, it takes a lot longer.

Steve Tankersley:

Bringing the crew on, and understanding our process. I try to get buy-in on the schedule from our team whenever I can. I’ll call up our lead finish carpenter, and I’ll say, “Hey, we have this bathroom. Here’s some plans. Hey, how long do you think it would take to install all the base, and crown that bathroom?” Get their buy-in on that schedule instead of just giving them durations.

Steve Tankersley:

And same with our trade partners. It’s important for us to have them write their durations on their proposals. So, the painter would not only gives us a price, but he also gives us his working days required to complete the project. And that way, they’re giving us their input, and we’re asking for it, and we’re putting it in our schedule.

Steve Tankersley:

So, it’s also important to be able to vet those things. A lot of times, if you ask your painter how long it’s going to take, he might give you an unrealistic duration. And you say, “Really? Can you dial that in a little bit?” And usually nine times out of 10 they’ll say, “Yeah, I can take a day off that.”

Paul Wurth:

Oh, good. You had mentioned something that is an industry term, slippage or float. Do you want to go ahead, and first maybe just tell everybody what that is in residential construction, and then what’s your philosophy around that?

Steve Tankersley:

Yeah. So, float’s defined as a schedule duration that it can maybe slip a day or two, and it’s not going to affect the final completion date. When you talk schedule, you have a critical path. And on your critical path, let’s say it’s framing windows, drywall, any of activities delay one day or accelerate one day, it’s going to move your whole schedule one day, and your completion date one day the other way.

Steve Tankersley:

There might be activities on there that can float around a few days. So, maybe the plumbing fixtures can go three or four days in either direction, and it’s really not going to affect your schedule. That’s called flow. I’m using slippage as a interchangeable term on that one.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And so, I believe Buildertrend just came out with a new feature that actually allowed that to be in the schedule. But it’s important to have flow. I guess that’s what you just said. Is instead of changing the entire schedule and the end date, you want to give framing three days on either side of it, and building that in.

Paul Wurth:

And so, I guess the follow-up question would be for you, is it always just three or four days, or is that part of the process of asking the trade or the employee? Or do you just throw two days on everything? What’s your philosophy there?

Steve Tankersley:

I don’t have to ask for every single activity or what it is, it’s just we have a lot of experience in our company, and what things take, and we’ve done a lot of similar projects. You do one residential kitchen that’s very similar. We can go back and look at what that schedule is like, and meet those expectations.

Steve Tankersley:

A lot of times, we’re building the schedule based on prior projects. But if there’s a unique item, and I have the opportunity to talk to someone about it or have their buy-in, I’ll by all means get that buy-in.

Steve Tankersley:

In commercial scheduling, we would have whole schedule meetings. We’d have the whole team on in the office with post-it notes and we’re starting. While our finished date is May 1st, and we have to start on January 1st. What do we have to do to make this work? And we’re all buying in, and we’ll get buy in.

Steve Tankersley:

I love to do that residential construction. We don’t always have that opportunity to do that, because everyone’s pulled a little more thin. But we really try to apply those techniques. Looking at the end date and backing our way into that. And how can we make that end date?

Paul Wurth:

Makes sense.

Tom Houghton:

One of the things I think sounds like it sets you apart a little bit is you’re doing some data analysis. You’re looking at how projects previously were performed. I’m assuming you’re using technology to do that. Could you share how did you come up with what to look at? What’s the most important thing to look at to make sure that you’re continually improving on your process?

Steve Tankersley:

Yeah. I think it’s important for contractors that you really need to keep track of your time, especially if you yourself perform work on a job. We use our time sheets. Our crews actually will code their time to carpentry or plumbing. And then, they code it to a job.

Steve Tankersley:

So, if you’re not job costing, you really should be. So, you go, “Oh, you know what? Let’s look at that similar project. We did a bathroom just like that. Let’s see how long it took for rough framing. How many hours we have.” I can tell you the hours of every single project from since we started this company, and how many hours for each trade is taken. So, I can go back and do that analysis at any given time. So, it’s really important to be job costing if you haven’t already so you can understand that.

Tom Houghton:

A follow up on that would be how did you arrive at that model of we got to be job costing, we got to be watching all this stuff? And then, what are you doing specifically in terms of technology to make sure you’re staying on top of that?

Steve Tankersley:

Well, I arrived at that because my wife, Heather, is much smarter than I am, and she insisted we do that.

Paul Wurth:

There you go.

Steve Tankersley:

To answer your question is we needed to do it, she implemented it, and we’ve been doing it since day one. And we also, we track it for our worker’s compensation, and it helps us with that. Get some lower rates by actually tracking the trades that we do. Instead of coding everyone to carpentry, but doing plumbing one day, we need to code that appropriately. So, it helps our worker’s compensation rates. But it’s just something that we’ve always done since we’ve had employees.

Paul Wurth:

Maybe a good final question, because I know we’re running out of time here, but this is something we believe in, I think Tom and I have talked about it since we started the podcast, is construction is in need of more business practices. It needs to be a strength within construction, especially residential, so it can uplift the entire industry, in our opinion.

Paul Wurth:

Let’s say you’re listening to this podcast right now, and you’ve already got your business started. And you’re one of those ones on the other side, I’m a great craftsman. I lack some business skills. I want to get better at that side of it. What’s your advice? Where do you start? And I’m putting you on the spot, but that’s where you started this business is taking that approach. So, what would your advice be?

Steve Tankersley:

This is a shameless plug for you guys. I really like Buildertrend. I’m really happy with it and how easy it is to use. I’ve used a lot of construction software over the years, and Buildertrend’s by far the easiest to use.

Steve Tankersley:

We use every feature in Buildertrend. There isn’t a feature we’re not using. But we started off the first year, we were just doing daily reports and schedules. And we didn’t even touch the financial side of it. If you can just get your hands on Buildertrend, and just do a basic schedule for your clients, and give them a login portal, and they can see some daily reports, anyone can do that from their phone. If you can go on Facebook with your phone, and you can use it, you can use Buildertrend I think.

Steve Tankersley:

The financials and all that can be overwhelming, and maybe you don’t dig in that. Taking small pieces. Just use little features of it. I’ve encouraged a lot of contractors in our area to use Buildertrend or similar software to really dig into that. And just present that to your clients. Because I think the norm that we’re going to in the next 10 years is going to be expecting some sort of document control, an app. If I can tell clients I have an app for our projects and I show it to them, their mind’s blown, right? And so, there’s so much you can do. But just my advice is take it in small pieces.

Paul Wurth:

Good advice. Yeah. That’s something we talk about when we onboard our clients is not trying to take it all on.

Tom Houghton:

That’s great advice.

Paul Wurth:

You need to be realistic. You need to make it fit for the current workflow and employees that you have, the profile of your company. You can expect to do a 180 overnight. So, good advice.

Steve Tankersley:

Yeah. And I think the most important thing you can do as a contractor for your client is not only deliver a schedule at the start of a project with some level of detail, but keep it updated during the project. Because some of these projects might be six months long. We have projects running towards seven months right now, and we update those things every single Thursday. So, it doesn’t become a dinosaur, and something that’s just filed away, it’s a living, breathing document.

Steve Tankersley:

Because at the end of the project, you want to have a record of how this went. If it went great, it went great. If it went sideways, well, why’d it go sideways? And you should be living and dying by your schedule honestly.

Tom Houghton:

That’s great advice. Really good stuff.

Tom Houghton:

All right. Well, that’s all the time we have, Steve. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today, and sharing your knowledge. I think if our listeners take one thing away from you, it’s that your organization and your commitment to figuring out how to make your process better, that’s what’s driving the success in your business. We wish you continued success. Keep hunkering down. Keep finding out those spots that continue to make your business even better. Because you’re doing a great job of it so far, so I think the listeners definitely got some good nuggets for today.

Steve Tankersley:

Thanks guys.

Paul Wurth:

Steve, you guys on Instagram, where can they find you on Instagram, and hit you with a follow?

Steve Tankersley:

Instagram, it’s Tankersley Construction, T-A-N-K-E-R-S-L-E-Y.

Paul Wurth:

Underscore construction. Yep, that’s your handle. Go follow them. Some really cool pictures of projects. And support the podcast by following all the guests.

Steve Tankersley:

Yeah, thank you.

Tom Houghton:

That’s right. Thanks, Steve.

Paul Wurth:

All right. Thanks Steve.

Steve Tankersley:

All right. Take care, guys.

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.

Tom Houghton:

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.