Proactive client communication with R.B. Gallup of Gallup & LaFitte

TOM HOUGHTON (T.H.):

You’re listening to “The Building Code.” Your guide for a better way to run your business. I’m TOM HOUGHTON

PAUL WURTH (P.W.):

It caught me off guard. I’m P…

T.H.:

Are you going to do it?

P.W.:

I’m PAUL WURTH

T.H.:

There we go. The reason we’re doing initials today is because of our guests R.B. from Gallup & LaFitte. They’re based in South Carolina and R.B. is joining us today on the podcast to share about their business, the processes they’ve been going through, some things that make them unique. We’ve got lots of great topics of discussion today, so let’s bring R.B. on the line. He’s joining us via FaceTime. So R.B., thank you so much for joining us today on the building code.

R.B.:

Glad to be here. Thanks for having me.

T.H.:

We’re happy to have you. And again, let’s start off just first off, let’s talk about we typically ask backgrounds of company names, so Gallup & LaFitte, family business, your R.B. Gallup. Let’s talk about that a little bit.

R.B.:

Yeah. My family, my parents started the company in 1995 and referred to it as Gallup and Gallup, then it was my mom and my dad, and my dad was a residential plan designer. And my mom was an interior designer. They saw a need coming from before. Previously, they were real estate brokers and they saw a real disconnect between clients and the custom building process. Builders were not very customer friendly, and they didn’t make the process seamless. There was a big disconnect on having house plans designed and then going out and creating those houses. It often wasn’t a smooth, fun process along the way, so they came up with the Design-Build model for their company and started in 95. Since then, it’s kind of taken off and we’ve done well. In 2010, I became a builder and came on board and around the same time, Robert LaFitte did as well.

R.B.:

And so we became Gallup & LaFitte about 2013. We moved from Gallup and Gallup to Gallup & LaFitte. I’m a part owner with Robert LaFitte and my father, so we’re all a three owners and we worked together. My father still designs our plans. My mother’s retired now, but we have two interior designers who work with us. Our whole process is to provide a seamless process from plan design, through construction and interior design as well, so the client has an organized and hopefully positive experience instead of being frazzled by the million choices they have to make.

T.H.:

Yeah. A lot of options there in the home-building process, so glad to hear that you’ve got a good system place for that. Let’s talk a little bit more your background specifically, because I know that we chatted a couple of weeks ago on Instagram Live, but to share with all of our listeners here, you were the youngest home builder ever to receive the designation of Certified Master Builder in the state of South Carolina. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? Talk about putting the bar really high for yourself.

R.B.:

I don’t know if it’s that… I know I have a chip on my shoulder coming into this business as a very young builder, and I’m someone whose parents have been successful. I didn’t want to drop the ball or appear that I was just taking it for granted. So I’ve always had that proven mentality to go out and try to make a name for myself as well. I thought it was very important to get some education and credentials on the front end, and I try to do that with stuff like going to Buildertrend and education on the way, trying to always improve our process and not be satisfied with the status quo. It might be a result of my chip on my shoulder, but it’s advantageous for our business, I think.

T.H.:

Absolutely.

P.W.:

I’m very intrigued by that idea of you coming in and being really young. What are some of the challenges when you’re young in this business and your parents own it? Is that just sort of interactions with the subs and trades or just really everybody?

R.B.:

Yeah, I would say it’s just, building is… You could go to school for construction science, I did not. You could go to school for construction science and many things, but you really don’t learn until you’re out in the field, doing it. And I just think it was just a time in the saddle, just working, building houses. And I told my wife, I got comfortable being a project manager around three years in, and then when we hit about five years, I felt just confident. I felt really good and it’s just about time and just hard work, and trying to stay consistent with it. You get in and it’s hard to tell people they’re doing something wrong or they need to correct something, if you’re the young buck who just started. And it just takes time and you have to build relationships and try to build up confidence in your subcontractors and vendors that work with you.

T.H.:

Yeah, definitely. One of those things that definitely takes time is your processes, right? So obviously coming into an established business, there’s already processes put in place. You obviously joined, so there’s already kind of some expectations there. Tell us about your process. What did it look like before you came on and then after implementing technology? You mentioned obviously, you’re a user of Buildertrend. What did that look like post that process?

R.B.:

I think it was about the time we started Gallup & LaFitte. I want to say that was in 2013, when Robert, myself and my father actually formed a partnership and changed the company to Gallup & LaFitte. We had a lot of projects, we looked at what we did during a planning session and we said, “That is just a ton of work.” I think we were drawing income off of 30 projects that year, which was realistically too high. It was too high at the time, but we saw, this could get out of control really quickly if we’re not organized. So we went to Buildertrend then. I think that was, probably about six years ago since we started and before then, it was loosely the same practice. We practice open book accounting, we share schedules with our clients.

R.B.:

We did all of those things, but it was very one-on-one and it works if you’re building five projects or so, maybe at max. But, not now we run about 12 to 15 projects at a time and it allows us to organize our team and our employees and kind of have a 30,000-foot-view on it. Then also, really the big thing is proactive communication with our clients. It really irritated me when I first started that we would be running the schedules, the projects would be going well, and I’m just getting constant phone calls, “What’s going on at the house?” All the clients were always asking what’s happening? What’s this? It dawned on me that they really weren’t trying to aggravate us or say we’re doing a bad job. They just didn’t know, so now, with Buildertrend, we can give them our schedules, keep those updated. And the big thing is the daily logs.

R.B.:

We hit them with a daily log, I would say, at least three times a week and our clients love it. A lot of them are out of town, but even if they’re not, they look at the pictures and they see the progress, and we tell them what’s happened, what’s coming up, and kind of any notes or roadblocks we need to address. We try to hit all those with the little updates. It’s just very proactive. No one ever wonders what’s going on next. They’re just excited about seeing the stuff go in and following along.

T.H.:

That’s great. Real quick, just about that process of the daily logs, because I know something came up earlier today in a conversation with another client about daily logs. How did you get to that cadence? You said you’re doing them three times a week, I think you said.

R.B.:

Yeah, and I hate to say it exactly three times a week, but it’s multiple times a week. We try to update them at least weekly, so we’re not going to do one every day for every single project, but we’re going to keep them updated multiple times a week. Our project managers are rotating. They work on about four to five jobs at a time and they’re updating them as they’re there. It’s really helped us in a lot of cases, catch stuff. The client might go, “Oh, I see you’re getting ready to do tile. I’m changing my herringbone pattern in the shower to a different style or whatnot.” Really helps them kind of understand what’s coming up and it’s helped us catch a few things that we might not have seen because it’s given us that kind of checks and balance.

T.H.:

Sure thing

P.W.:

When you were going through the sales process and you were unique in that you had just started a new part of your company, so you’re taking fresh eyes at everything. Were all three of the owners involved in the sales process of evaluating Buildertrend? Did you bring any other key stakeholders in during that process?

R.B.:

Well, I was the champion of interviewing the, there was about three partners at the… our three programs we looked at, at the time, including Buildertrend and I definitely have the best handle on technology, and they know that, but I really had to push to get buy in from the other two partners. And my dad is actually extremely progressive. He’s always been trying to push the company forward and he was one of the first people to draw plans on the computer in 95. In South Carolina, that wasn’t a big thing, so I got that progressiveness from him. Then Robert LaFitte is a custom builder. He’s been a builder for 25-plus years and built some amazing projects, but he’s a little more old school, so I think it took a while to get buy in there.

R.B.:

It was difficult when it was us three working, but when we started hiring project managers and now there’s three project managers, and two interior designers, and a bookkeeper who works with us. It all kind of fell in place and we presented it and we’ve got a lot better participation and that’s our system. Without it, we wouldn’t be able to organize the whole team, so it helped us scale tremendously. I don’t know how we would have scaled our company up without a tool that we can kind of manage the team with.

T.H.:

Let’s talk about your projects a little bit, what do you have going on right now in the process? Where are you at in the build process on the called projects? What are you looking forward to? How are you handling… I know one part that’s near and dear to your heart, also to my friend PAUL WURTH here is the sales process. I know Paul’s ear definitely perked up there when I mentioned the sales process. Let’s talk about your current projects and your pipeline going into those.

R.B.:

Right, so design-build has really helped us keep our pipeline. That’s an excellent way to think about it. The average builder has to quote plans. People come to them with plans, they have to bid against other builders and that’s the project. We sit down with the client, the first meeting and establish a budget. Now, this is a ballpark budget. We say we’re going to be within maybe a $100,000 of this price, and that’s what we’re going to design to when we agree that it’s realistic and we’re shooting towards the common goal. From there, we ask for a simple deposit, so we ask for a little skin in the game, and it allows us to schedule our design starts. When we start a design, we do about one or two designs at a time and we usually stay about 30 to 45 days out on starting a new design.

R.B.:

So we’re working on a design that takes us approximately 45 days out of that. We have a contract and then we’re already scheduled on the start of the construction. We’re really able to plan two to three months out when we’re going to start the house, so we’re able to project, I think, farther ahead than most because we have this design deposited and a small waiting list that allows us to say, Okay. Well, we’re designing this house now, it’ll be built next month and we have this deposit.” That will start the design next month and so forth, so it really allows us to kind of keep our pipeline moving and we can tell quickly if we need to change things up or whatnot to generate some more sales.

T.H.:

So speaking of sales, I know one part of that, obviously, is marketing getting your name out there. We know you got a website and we’ll definitely put it in the show notes here because you have partnered with Buildertrend and our web services team to work on your website, and I think you’ve got the new website launching here soon. I’d like to ask you really quick, what led you to the process of saying, “Hey, we need to update the website?” That’s the first question. Second question is, why did you choose Buildertrend for that process and what’s it been like?

R.B.:

I think everyone says the minute a website is created, it’s out of date and it’s true. We were working with a firm that was local before, and I feel like they were just not up to snuff on some of the technology that’s commonly used for basic websites these days. We’ve kind of pivoted to where a website doesn’t have to do too much for us. It’s a portfolio that shows off our pictures and it needs to look good and kind of show our work. It’s a landing page that kind of reinforces our signs or social media and our referrals. Once we kind of demystified it and said, “It’s not this big, crazy thing, we have to seek the ultimate design on,” and at the same time, I found out Buildertrend created websites. Well, I knew you all have a firm grasp on technology and your customer services is great, so I figured why couldn’t they handle our website as well? And it’s been a good process. It’s been very simple, straightforward, and I think it’s been a pleasure working with the team there.

T.H.:

That’s great to hear.

P.W.:

I just want to give the audience a little bit of idea about your price range and what part of South Carolina, because you had mentioned you had some maybe second homes.

R.B.:

Well, we’re starting to see more second homes. We’re in the middle of South Carolina, so Columbia is the capital and we build a lot of our houses on the way to south side of Columbia until Lake Murray. A lot of people are attracted to South Carolina. They see the Charleston area and the coast, let’s just call it the coast, and then they see the upstate, some beautiful mountain areas. Both of those places come with a certain cost and cost of living and we are right in the sweet spot in between, and literally, geographically too. So people who visit the two areas, looking for a nice place to vacation or, a lot of times, retire, end up landing on Lake Murray because it’s just a beautiful, big clean water Lake. It’s warm water, it’s very well taken care of.

R.B.:

And your dollar goes a little bit further here. Most of the range of homes we build in would be in the half million to $1.5 million range, just for the house. And the lot cost are really going up, so it’s… in some ways, it’s harder for people to build on the lake because of the higher property taxes, but we’re getting to do a lot cooler projects every year because you’re not going to buy a $300, $400,000 lot and put a $300, $400,000 house on it. You’re going to make sure your property value is reflective of where you are.

P.W.:

I was just wanting to tie that into your sales process. Does that tweak it a little bit, having to maybe even do your first phone call over the phone or through a Zoom these days, because they’re not, maybe right in your local area to come in for that first meeting?

R.B.:

Yeah. We had one of those, I think, maybe one or two Zoom sales meetings over this COVID period. I think a lot of it is word of mouth. In this area, people end up checking out the local, maybe the golf courses, so… Our my father actually lives in one of the local golf courses and everyone knows them there, so if anyone steps foot there, that seems to be a good in for us. Then they see our signs, just putting good signage up on these lake houses, and we put big signs up on the lake, so tasteful, nice signs with our logo on the lake.

R.B.:

People are boating by these beautiful houses, that’s all they do all day, is drive by them and say, “Oh, I like that one. I like this one.” Just having your image out there. Then maybe they check out the website and give us a call. But if they can call us, the design part really helps because we can walk the lot with them and meet the real estate agent, meet them, whoever’s involved and be the guy who can help give some answers on the area. And that’s been a real good foot in the door with out of town clients because they’re here and they don’t know anything about the area. They don’t know what’s involved in building on the lake, and there were a lot of requirements to keep in mind.

T.H.:

You mentioned trying to be proactive with your communication with the clients. You’re doing that through daily logs, but it sounds like you’re starting that from the very beginning of the process too. Could you go into more detail about how did you come up with the process? Can you walk us through a little bit more of the steps of what that looks like, in order to make sure you’re ensuring that you’re delivering a great customer experience?

R.B.:

Yeah, and I think that’s the challenge you’re always trying to refine. I think we’re always trying to improve our process and our customer experience. I heard something on another podcast the other day that, the more houses you build, the longer your tail gets. You don’t want to be tripping over your tail.

T.H.:

True.

R.B.:

It’s so true, so you got to finish strong and that’s a big item. You’ve got to be responsive and it starts with the first call. You try to qualify the people online and see if you’re a good fit. You set up a meeting, you give them a next step, say, the next step is you’re giving us a deposit and we’re going to schedule your start on design. And then when we start the design, we have a three step process on the plans, where we’re not designing a beautiful house and then redoing it all at the end. It’s like a building block system. Then it starts from the contract.

R.B.:

We enroll them into Buildertrend and immediately start communicating with them in messaging. We get them trained that your project messaging is going to come through Buildertrend and we tell them it’s… helps us keep organized, where all of our emails are not scattered throughout. They’re organized by project. Then on the back end, we can see what our PMs are doing and quickly run to a problem that we have something that we all need to huddle up on and help them with. It gives us a more unified experience, which I think is important. A lot of people are maybe even starting with the marketing. They’re seeing, I’m doing a lot of Instagram stories and they’re seeing those, so they’re, somewhat feeling, maybe a personal connection. They’ve seen the stories, they’ve met me. They met Robert, whoever is involved, and then they don’t want to then be rushed through a factory. They want to have that personal connection along the way. And you kind of have to be that chauffeur and take them through the process.

T.H.:

That’s awesome. And just a quick plug for Instagram. If people want to follow you on Instagram, they should follow it, just at and then Gallup & LaFitte. Correct?

R.B.:

That’s it, @gallup_and_lafitte-

T.H.:

We’ll post that in the show notes too, so that way, if you’re driving somewhere, don’t try to type that in. Just wait, go click on the link. You can find it at buildertrend.com/podcast. We’ll put it in the show notes and that way you can link right to their Instagram.

R.B.:

Yeah, everybody wants to know how to pronounce Robert’s last name. They said, “Who is this French man?” But you search, Gallup and it should pop right up.

T.H.:

There you go. Perfect.

R.B.:

Yeah.

T.H.:

Good stuff. Well, I love that working on that proactive communication and offering your clients a personal connection with your business. I think that definitely must set you apart down there, with the other builders around in your area. Some great tips for our listeners to make sure that they’re implementing that in their process as well.

R.B.:

Yeah, I think the next thing I’d like to implement more to… You hit on the customer experience and I think that’s… You’ve always got to be watching that, and improving it, and trying to do that by having increased systems and better organization, but also want to get more client feedback. In the past, that’s been informal, and I’ve taken some clients out to lunch, and we’ve discussed it and kind of pick their brains, but I think we’re going to start trying to do more of these surveys. Buildertrend actually has a template. We don’t use all the functions and I hear that from a lot of people, but you can kind of grow into them. The surveys would be one that… It might be tough to put yourself out there and want to know honest feedback on things, but that’s how you improve. I think it’s the next step.

T.H.:

It totally goes back to expectations, and I think if you’re communicating those as well as you are upfront, that your process for the communication part of it in saying that, “Hey, we use Buildertrend to communicate. We use Buildertrend’s messages, and so that’s how you’re going to have all project communication come through there.” Setting that expectation for the client that way they understand, “Oh, this is how this relationship works.” I think if you have that and then have that touch point of sending out a survey before the project is started. Hey, how was the starting process? For the couple… five questions. What do you think about working with R.B.? What do you think about our design process? And getting that feedback back from your clients is crucial to make sure that you’re keeping a good temperature on the relationship, because you don’t want to get to that point in the relationship, where all of a sudden, they’re upset or you’re upset and you have no idea how you got there. Using the surveys for that feedback is crucial.

R.B.:

Oh yeah. If you’ve been in this business long enough, I always tell some of the younger guys, our PMs and said, “Don’t take anyone’s kindness for granted.” A lot of times, it could be very easy to think that a client who’s happy along the way, always nice, ready to see it. There’s nothing wrong there, but you have to… you got to bring your ‘A’ game every time because you don’t want to lose them at the end. You to keep them happy. I think any business, customer-facing’s got to be focused on that.

T.H.:

Absolutely. Well, R.B., thank you so much for coming on the podcast today and just sharing your experience. We loved hearing about your process, like I said, delivering exceptional customer experience. I think you guys are do a great job with that. If you’re listening to this podcast, again, don’t forget to follow them on social media. Don’t forget to go check out their new website. Appreciate again, your time coming on the podcast and sharing your experience.

R.B.:

Yeah, thanks guys. Enjoyed it.

P.W.:

Thanks R.B.

T.H.:

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.” Appreciate you.