How to build a successful team: Legend Homes
Andy Ferguson (Vice President) and project manager – and new dad! – Joe Crider of Legend Homes, join us on The Building Code this episode to chat about building a strong team.
Legend Homes started in 2006. While it may not have been the best year to start a home building business, things worked out okay for this company. They didn’t yet own any lots, so the Legend Homes team luckily didn’t have much baggage to weigh them down. This startup time also allowed them to focus on honing their skills and get even better at what they do.
Honing Skills and Hiring the Right People
In order to get business during this latest U.S. Housing Bubble, the team at Legend Homes knew they needed to be very good at what they offer. So, their skills–combined with the willingness to remodel whatever customers asked for–carried them through. Today, Legend Homes employs 15 people and will complete around 25 homes custom homes this year – a $30 million volume!
“All our staff are very good communicators and are very good at working with our customers,” Andy explained. “We built our team with people that can help us pull that off. It’s all about the people that have the intangible skills that you can’t teach.”
Making the Leap from Spreadsheets to Buildertrend to Empower Employees
If you’d seen the Legend Homes’ project management and employee onboarding processes nine months ago, “it might be pretty comical,” says Andy. There were a lot of three-ring binders and paper copies of estimates and bids, and they had a purchase order system based on an Excel spreadsheet. If someone wanted to double check anything on a project, he or she had to physically drive to the office and check the binder. When Joe started at Legend Homes about one year ago, he noticed right away that something wasn’t quite adding up.
As Legend Homes began to grow – and started to hire new, younger employees – they realized they didn’t really have a way to train and onboard. From changing project management processes to adding a more robust onboarding method, the Legend Homes leadership knew it all needed to happen … they knew there had to be a better way to do business and communicate with employees.
Now, nine months later, it’s hard for the Legend Homes team to believe they ever did any of that without the help of Buildertrend. A big issue for the team was communication – getting the information to the correct people in a timely fashion. Because they knew the communication gaps needed to be addressed fast, the Daily Logs feature was the first Buildertrend tool they implemented, and this changed their business overnight.
Using Buildertrend University for Faster Adoption
To deep dive and get a better understanding of Buildertrend, Andy and Joe attended Buildertrend University, our two-day user conference hosted at Buildertrend HQ. Both of them highly recommend it to anyone on the fence about attending. Meeting a lot of different people and spending valuable one-on-one time with their Buildertrend Coach made the whole event worth the travel and time away from their office. “It didn’t feel like I was going to a paid conference where they just wanted me there for the money … it was a very a personal and first-class experience,” shared Joe. Interested in attending Buildertrend University? Join us in Omaha or on the road!
Links and more
Legend Homes
Daily Logs
Buildertrend University
The Better Way, a podcast by Buildertrend:
Looking to improve how your team plans projects with the top residential construction management platform this year? Pick up Buildertrend project planning pro tips on the newest season of โThe Better Way, a podcast by Buildertrend.โ Subscribe and stream all six bingeable episodes on your favorite listening app now.
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Tom Houghton:
Youโre listening to โThe Building Code,โ Iโm Tom Houghton.
Paul Wurth:
Iโm Paul Wurth.
Tom Houghton:
Weโre going to bring our guests, Joe and Andy from Legend Homes on in just one second. But first we want to tell you about an exciting opportunity we have called Buildertrend University on the road. Weโre calling it BTU on the road for short, thisโll be taking place in Dallas, Texas on October 3rd, 2019. Itโs a one day event for you and your team to learn more and how to optimize your usage of Buildertrend.
Tom Houghton:
We have a limited time early bird discount available right now, so if you go to the website, buildertrendu.com/dallas, youโll see that the limited time pricing there depending on when youโre listening to this episode if I already be gone. So as soon as you listened to it, go check it out. Youโre actually going to hear from Andy and Joe, share their Buildertrend University experience at the end of the episode.
Tom Houghton:
So make sure you listen all the way to the end, to hear their thoughts and their takeaways from Buildertrend University. Now letโs get started with Joe and Andy. And joining us on this episode, weโre chatting with two individuals from Legend Homes, Andy Ferguson, vice president and Joe Crider, heโs the division manager there. Theyโre based out of the greater Nashville area. How are you doing guys?
Joe Crider:
Doing great. Thanks. Appreciate you having us on.
Andy Ferguson:
Good to see you.
Paul Wurth:
Well gentlemen, good to have you. We talked a couple of weeks back at Buildertrend University, we talk about that a lot on the podcast, but thatโs where we meet a lot of our clients which is why we love doing it here in Omaha. So at the end of this show weโll talk to you, maybe weโll ask you fun facts about your trip to Omaha.
Andy Ferguson:
Yeah.
Paul Wurth:
But we were talking, you guys have a great story, so we thought itโd be really cool to bring you on. And as we talked about, when we were discussing the podcast, I think our listeners love hearing about fellow companies, how they started, some challenges they face today, some wins they have, stuff like that. So we always ask for a company profile, do you want to give us a rundown?
Joe Crider:
Yeah. So our company is Legend Homes. We have about 15 employees. Weโll build probably about 25 homes this year with about a $30 million volume. Weโve been in business since 2006, back in 2006 there was a couple of us and weโve just been growing steadily ever since.
Paul Wurth:
So 2006 thatโs when we started as a business. So about a year and a half or two years later, a huge boom and building happened, right? Or the opposite of that?
Joe Crider:
Yeah, not part of us, we had a boom in remodeling about that time.
Paul Wurth:
Yeah, thatโs right.
Joe Crider:
There you go.
Paul Wurth:
So a lot of people think that thatโs really smart. So is that how you guys survived?
Andy Ferguson:
Yeah. We honed our skills and pretty much anything people would pay for, we did.
Paul Wurth:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Joe Crider:
Sure.
Paul Wurth:
So what was that time like for you guys? 2006, you build your business based on building new homes. Thereโs some concept of like, โHereโs our process, hereโs how weโre going to go, design this stuff, hereโs how weโre going to sell it, hereโs how weโre going to produce it,โ and then everything just changes.
Andy Ferguson:
Yeah. And for us, it was a terrible time for our industry. For us it wasnโt that bad only because we didnโt own a bunch of lots at the time, so we were just starting out, we werenโt carrying a bunch of baggage. It really helped us hone what we do and at the time to be successful and to survive, you just had to be really good. There were still a few people building and a few people buying homes and we just had to be very good to attract those folks.
Paul Wurth:
So you guys were leaning off and thatโs very similar to our story at Buildertrend. I think when that happened there was only five or six of us here, so we hunkered down and just got through it and learned a bunch of lessons and then weโre better for it today, so thatโs good to hear. Do you still remodel today? Or are your laser-focused on home building?
Andy Ferguson:
We do not do much remodeling, weโll do it occasionally for clients, but generally speaking we just do custom homes.
Paul Wurth:
And so is that pre-sold custom homes or are you doing specs as well?
Andy Ferguson:
So weโll do about 60% pre-sold homes and 40% specs, really our bread and butter is the pre-sold homes, itโs really who we built our staff around and all of our people, our project managers, our designers, that whole staff is built around that customer experience and building custom homes.
Paul Wurth:
Well letโs talk about that, so what was your vision for building the staff? Because a home builder, I think can go a lot of different routes, obviously bringing on full-time employees is a big overhead, right? With everything that goes with it. Some people have their salespeople be the real estate agents. Some people outsource designing, some people outsource architecture, I meant interior designer. So did you guys have a plan and what does it look like today in terms of staff?
Andy Ferguson:
Thatโs a great question. I think our business and working with clients, itโs such an intimate process, so weโll work with clients for well over a year from the pre-construction phase through construction to after construction. And so all of our staff are very good communicators, great people, people, persons and just really good at working with clients and thatโs our main focus itโs just making that experience very good. And so weโve hired and weโve built our staff based on folks that can help us pull that off.
Paul Wurth:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). And so โฆ Go ahead Joe.
Joe Crider:
So weโve recently brought a lot of folks that maybe donโt have any building backgrounds but theyโre just really excellent communicators, theyโre college athletes. Itโs a similar mold that you guys pull their work there at Buildertrend, itโs the same people that have the intangible skills that you can teach because what we do every day itโs pretty easily taught, takes a little bit of time, but the communication is really probably the hardest thing that we do on any day. Well thatโs really where Buildertrend helps out or is helping out a lot of estimate.
Paul Wurth:
Thatโs a great nugget to take out of this episode is that. And do you think thatโs a trend happening in construction? Or do you feel like thatโs still pretty unique to take people outside of construction and just plug them into your systems because theyโre good communicators and understand business, that kind of thing.
Joe Crider:
I think thereโs really two types of construction businesses out there, especially in the residential, thereโs the guy in his pickup truck who runs this whole business out of his house. And then not that or more professional, but itโs just a different type of profession where weโre taking young college educated folks with a lot of building experience, but understand the technology, understand how to leverage technology to make us more competitive than the next guy.
Paul Wurth:
Thatโs awesome.
Andy Ferguson:
I think thatโs the future of home building right there. Leveraging technology itโs integrated into so many other parts of our lives. It just makes sense that weโre using it to do this as well.
Paul Wurth:
Well, and thereโs a skilled labor shortage, right?
Andy Ferguson:
Yeah.
Paul Wurth:
So at certain point you need to make a shift from trying to have in-house labor and thatโd be your hiring to just somebody who understands technology and business and communication and just apply your process, right?
Andy Ferguson:
Yeah. I love your tagline on your website. It says building a luxury home should be a luxury experience. I like that because it โฆ Right? Doesnโt that look good?
Paul Wurth:
Thatโs good.
Andy Ferguson:
Well done guys. Weโll make sure we put a link to your website in the show notes page so that people can check it out, but whereโd you get the tagline?
Paul Wurth:
The tagline?
Andy Ferguson:
Yeah.
Joe Crider:
Yeah. I think it really comes back to just what we do everyday in terms of just making it a great experience. That gets back to where we were just talking about as far as hiring great communicators, our clients are all really successful. So our clients are CEOs, theyโre doctors, whatever they do theyโre extremely professional in their field.
Joe Crider:
And theyโre used to having really great experiences wherever they go, whether itโs restaurants or buying a car or whatever they do and whatever they consume, theyโre used to that being a great experience. And so our approach in our businesses to make what generally people will come to us and theyโll assume that building a home is going to be a terrible experience because theyโve heard that time and time again from friends or maybe theyโve actually had that experience in the past.
Joe Crider:
And so they, they come to us most of the time, assuming itโs going to be a terrible experience. I think by kind of our processes, by our people, weโre just trying to make it fun, make it enjoyable and make it extremely easy for our clients.
Andy Ferguson:
Yeah. Just to illustrate that a little bit, a couple of weeks ago, I was finishing a house for a client and she asked me, she said, โWell, have you started another house yet?โ And I thought, โMan, what a great compliment.โ She thinks that I am only building one house, little does she realize Iโm involved in 12 other projects. But for her to think that my only responsibility is to build her custom home โฆ And Iโm not the only one that does that, our whole team makes our clients feel that way. I think thatโs really what is a luxury experience, like that exemplifies.
Paul Wurth:
Thatโs a great point.
Tom Houghton:
Thatโs incredible.
Paul Wurth:
Yeah. Making them feel like that is super unique. Thatโs really great.
Tom Houghton:
That is.
Paul Wurth:
I want to go back to one thing before Tom moves on, because heโs going to make me move on. You have a long sales cycle as it were, right? You meet with somebody, you guys do a design.
Joe Crider:
Yeah.
Paul Wurth:
A very hot topic in the industry right now is charging for design. When and how do we charge for estimates? How do we charge for design? What is your take on that? Whatโs your process?
Joe Crider:
You know, one thing I guess we have the luxury of is, weโre not bidding against other competitors a lot. We generally, when a client comes to us, theyโve usually been in some of our homes or they know of us, when they come to us we pretty quickly get some type of architectural deposit or construction services agreement to say, โHey guys, weโre going to do this work for you, weโre going to walk you through the process of designing a home, weโre going to spend time with you to help develop construction specs, weโre going to work with you to develop a site plan and weโre going to essentially build this package with you and itโs going to cost maybe $10,000 or $15,000, but thereโs a fee associated with it.โ If at the end of the day, when we deliver pricing to them, if they say, โHey, this isnโt going to work out.โ No problem. The deposit would be, non-refundable assuming that we go to contract, we then apply that deposit towards the contract price.
Paul Wurth:
And if you do that, how many homes do you guys build a year for pre-sold?
Joe Crider:
For pre-sold letโs say 15.
Paul Wurth:
Okay. So letโs say you present a prospect with that just round numbers, $10,000 deposit a hundred times a year. How many people just walk away because of the deposit?
Joe Crider:
I would say 10%.
Paul Wurth:
And thatโs probably a healthy 10%, right? Because they probably arenโt that serious?
Joe Crider:
Sure. And part of that process is really understanding expectations on the front end, before we ever even put a bunch of work into it, itโs really understanding, โOkay, what you the client may be describing, we think is going to be in this price range. Does that feel okay? Are we talking about the same thing?โ And so really understanding and having realistic expectations versus putting a lot of time and effort on everybodyโs part only to find out in a few months that, โHey, weโre thinking two totally different things.โ
Paul Wurth:
Itโs that qualification we talk about, which is super important in construction.
Andy Ferguson:
Yeah.
Paul Wurth:
Just so youโre not spinning your wheels on everybody.
Andy Ferguson:
Yeah.
Joe Crider:
And particularly if someone says, โHey, weโve got a budget of X,โ weโll steer them to a particular area.
Paul Wurth:
Got it.
Andy Ferguson:
Yeah.
Paul Wurth:
Iโve seen some Nashville homes on a TV show. My wife, not me watches, โKeeping it Cavallariโ with what is that Jay Cutler and Kristin Cavallari?
Joe Crider:
Come on Paul. Oh itโs okay.
Paul Wurth:
Yeah, just donโt tell anybody, but Iโd kind of do like that show. But those are some monster houses when they drive around.
Joe Crider:
Itโs a beautiful area down there.
Tom Houghton:
Itโs a beautiful area.
Joe Crider:
So my wife just told me, it was all over the news here that they just moved. Iโve never seen the show, but they actually just moved into a neighborhood where I originally met Andy and I was working for another builder at the time. This was 10 years ago, but that is one of the neighborhoods that Legends built a bunch of homes in, Iโve built a bunch of homes in and weโre building in four or five other communities just like that at the same scale and magnitude but itโs pretty impressive market here, for sure.
Paul Wurth:
It really is. Yeah.
Andy Ferguson:
I was just down and actually in Franklin earlier this year. And I thought it was beautiful even for โฆ I was down there at the end of January and of course in Omaha in January, it looks horrible outside but Franklin still look beautiful. So-
Joe Crider:
We actually live in Franklin, the bulk of our business is really South of Nashville and Brentwood and Franklin. So itโs really where we operate most of the time is in that area. So-
Paul Wurth:
Beautiful. Letโs peel back the curtain and talk about your business and the processes that you had in place a couple of years ago and how thatโs evolved if you donโt mind. Could you give us a snapshot of how things are running maybe about four or five years ago?
Andy Ferguson:
Sure. And even nine months ago-
Joe Crider:
Yeah.
Andy Ferguson:
Itโd be pretty comical if you saw how we operate, which I consider to be a great business. It was in large part due to lots of three ring binders and lots of various Excel spreadsheets and all kinds of various programs that were not linked together. Whether itโs paper copies and binders of estimates and bids or a purchase order system, based on an Excel spreadsheet or design selections all plugged into a three ring binder. So generally our systems were very antiquated and paper-based.
Joe Crider:
Yeah, I guess up until several months ago, when we really started to use Buildertrend if you wanted to double check to make sure that you have the final information on the selection, the only way to really do that was to call the office or drive to the office, pull out the binder and look at it.
Paul Wurth:
Wow.
Andy Ferguson:
Itโs hard to believe we were doing that.
Paul Wurth:
And so when you guys talk about bringing in young professionals and when they walk into an office and see that maybe this antiquated system, what was their reaction to that? Were they pushing you guys to like โReally, isnโt there a kind of a better way to do this?โ
Joe Crider:
I guess maybe when I joined-
Andy Ferguson:
I think Joe was shocked when he joined the team about a year ago.
Joe Crider:
Yeah. I have a pretty extensive background in operations and I did home building, I went to join the military, I was in the Marine Corps for six years then I came back to Nashville and ended up linking back up with Andy. And I just felt like there would be a much better way to do this. And thatโs where we got back into Buildertrend. And I think to answer your question though, Paul, when we brought on all these new folks, we also realized that we didnโt really have a good system to train them.
Joe Crider:
And we didnโt really have anything that we could hand over to them and say, โHereโs our process and hereโs how you should manage a project.โ And so now with Buildertrend especially using templates and having schedules laid out, I can take somebody right off the street tomorrow and we would have a much better implementation plan for somebody with no construction experience or somebody with a lot of construction experience. You know, every builder does think differently. So weโre now using Buildertrend to help codify the way that we do business. Itโs just kind of an institutional knowledge up until now.
Paul Wurth:
Thatโs a big benefit that we probably donโt do a good job of speaking to in a sales process, just because thereโs so much weโre trying to cover, but I think itโs something people realize is that, instead of Andy having to like or Joe you having to like just download out of your head for four months, this is how we do this, this is how we do this. Itโs just like, everythingโs done in here and itโs labeled change orders, right? And thereโs a manual and thereโs a video. So check it out.
Joe Crider:
Well. And Paul, I think you hit the nail on the head. What itโs really become eye-opening for us is we now have the potential to grow a whole lot easier. And so back dealing this older system that weโve been doing, it was almost like additional growth just seemed impossible because it would involve teaching new people these very cumbersome processes that it look to be like, we just had mapped out our growth-
Paul Wurth:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Joe Crider:
โฆ and once weโve changed, itโs been very eye-opening as we start to implement various parts and pieces of Buildertrend to see that growth is going to be easy at this point.
Paul Wurth:
Thatโs awesome.
Andy Ferguson:
Yeah. Producer, Brooke just showed us a photo I donโt know if you guys are okay with us sharing this on the show notes, but thereโs a photo of a whole bunch of binders. I think maybe you guys see it-
Joe Crider:
Yeah.
Andy Ferguson:
So yeah. Weโll post that on the show notes if you guys are okay with it.
Paul Wurth:
Weโll caption that before Buildertrend.
Tom Houghton:
Yeah.
Joe Crider:
Itโs okay, weโre embarrassed but yeah, you can show it.
Paul Wurth:
Yeah.
Andy Ferguson:
Well I think a lot here will relate to it.
Paul Wurth:
The reality is, is that today 80% of the market is still there.
Andy Ferguson:
Yeah.
Paul Wurth:
And what we always preach to people is like, โWeโre not here to judge, weโre not here to be somebody who says youโre doing something wrong or even that your systems are antiquated.โ The adjective I was thinking about is like, theyโre customized to how you guys do things and itโs hard to teach somebody your custom workflow and the way you guys do it. And everybody can get better, our company can get better every day. So it starting to become very obvious to building construction companies like there is a better way to do this. It doesnโt take that much. It doesnโt cost that much. And like your savings are out of the window or crazy. That was a bad-
Andy Ferguson:
What do you mean the out of the window?
Paul Wurth:
Out of the window? Out of control?
Andy Ferguson:
Out of control.
Paul Wurth:
Out there?
Andy Ferguson:
I donโt know.
Paul Wurth:
VP of sales everybody.
Joe Crider:
Yeah.
Andy Ferguson:
The cool thing is if you do look at the photo of all the various notebooks, weโre really doing anything different or operating out of Buildertrend, weโre still using a PO system. Weโre still categorizing all of our selections, weโre still scheduling. We were just doing it in a much different way with 15 different systems. Weโre now able to just put it all into one program.
Joe Crider:
Yeah. I think one thing about Buildertrend when we first started is, you guys have selections and all these really awesome tasks. My first thought was, โOkay, this is how they intend for this to work and thatโs work.โ But after going to BTU, what I really realized was itโs really adaptable to the way that you run your business. And thereโs no โฆ Buildertrend, doesnโt have a specific workflow that it has to follow to be able to use the system, whatever workflow that you develop is really how you should use builder canons. And I think you donโt really know that until you get in there and start using that.
Paul Wurth:
Yeah. Thatโs a great point, Joe. And quite honestly, itโs an internal struggle weโve had for a long time of, do we create the workflow and make a new company change their workflow? And like, this is the way we do it or do we keep it super flexible and know that if we donโt talk to them and explain that itโs super flexible, we might lose some people there? So it is an internal struggle for us to always think about like, what is the right way? I donโt think there is a right way because thereโs advantages to both.
Paul Wurth:
Some people do come to us for our consultive, โHey, you guys obviously know what youโre doing because you work with 15,000 companies like me and youโve been doing it for 13 years. So you tell me how to run selections.โ And thereโs other people who come to us and go, โHey, weโre comfortable with our process, just adapt that process to your software because everybody here knows how to do selections our way.โ
Andy Ferguson:
It seems like the system now works for either path-
Paul Wurth:
Right. True enough. Yeah.
Joe Crider:
I think the thing for us too is we built some really detailed customs and then we also built some specs homes that are at a lower price point that donโt have as much that changes to them. And so we almost need different processes for different projects because the client has an input and how well the project can run and we really need a framework, not an absolute system. Weโre not a production builder, we canโt build the exact same way every single time. And so for a company like us, Buildertrend, doesnโt give us a lot of flexibility. And then I think too having met our coach and he has really helped us say, โHereโs some other clients, this is how they do it.โ And heโs given us some really good ideas on how we could update a process or make a process better by using Buildertrend.
Paul Wurth:
Thatโs great.
Joe Crider:
Can we give our coach a plug?
Paul Wurth:
Yeah. Who is it?
Tom Houghton:
Yeah.
Joe Crider:
Griffin Gum.
Paul Wurth:
Oh, Griffin. You probably like him because heโs from the Southeast as well.
Joe Crider:
We do.
Paul Wurth:
Yeah.
Joe Crider:
We are related.
Paul Wurth:
I donโt know, I think heโs from South Carolina.
Tom Houghton:
I think so.
Paul Wurth:
He married-
Andy Ferguson:
North Carolina.
Paul Wurth:
North Carolina. Yeah. He married into Omaha. Iโm sure thatโs probably still a point of contention in their marriage after the winter-
Tom Houghton:
Probably.
Paul Wurth:
โฆ after the winter we just had.
Tom Houghton:
Yeah.
Paul Wurth:
But heโs a great guy. So Iโm glad. Yeah. Give him a shout out. I had two things there though. So the one misconception is, templates are for production builders. The reality is, is that templates just save you time because theyโre a framework, as you said, Joe, โFor the next home.โ Even though that home might be wildly different in the schedule or the actual selections or the actual details of the purchase order, youโre still going to need framing and framingโs still going to need to come before drywall, right?
Joe Crider:
Yeah. And thatโs a great point because when we first started, we built this really detailed schedule and then we created a template. Well we got to the next job and we had some unexpected delay and it just got so cumbersome, we deleted the schedule and started over. So what we made then was a 10 or 15 activity schedule. And then that is our template that every job follows, just like you said framing comes before installation, installation comes before drywall. And then we use the schedule as the project manager and the field update. I sit down and we review two weeks schedule, we solidify whatโs happening for two to four weeks and then thatโs where we really get in and manipulate the system and make it work for the individual projects.
Paul Wurth:
Yeah. Thatโs great advice because I think there is some misconception there. And so thatโs another good nugget from this one for everybody. Tomโs probably going to make me have to stay on schedule whatโs next Tom?
Tom Houghton:
No, this is all good. And I was thinking from an outside perspective, I think a lot of clients will relate to where you guys were at, which was you were using the software but you werenโt leveraging it to its maximum capabilities. So what was the changing point for you guys that said โWeโve got to do something,โ and then I guess now if you can fast forward, so this is a two-part question, sorry, but tell us what was the crux of you saying we got to make a change and leverage this more? And then where are you at now?
Joe Crider:
Well, a lot of it just came about when I started, I think when they handed me a โHereโs how we do our schedules,โ and it was a paper schedule and โHereโs where all your selections are,โ and it was a binder this thick full of printed copies that had multiple stamped finals on it and I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing in the field. We just realized that thereโs got to be another way to do this and there has to be a technology to do it. And we did have an account we were using co-construct and one of the downsides was that it wasnโt functional from a mobile phone. And so I would say up to 15 people that are in our company, four or five are at the office every day.
Joe Crider:
And the rest of us, myself included come to the office maybe once a week because we do everything remotely. And so for Buildertrend when we resigned back up, it was really about the functionality of the mobile app. You know if Iโm going to ask or weโre going to ask our teams to do stuff and update it on a day-to-day basis from the field, they have to be able to do it from the iPhone.
Paul Wurth:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Joe Crider:
We could tell them to go back at night and pull up the computer and do all that stuff. Itโs just now you might as well just do paper, itโs just as difficult.
Paul Wurth:
Yeah. That makes sense. So how did you approach onboarding and then teaching all of your people? Did you two take the lead in sort of like, โThis is how Buildertrend works let me explain it to my guys and girls,โ or did you get everybody in a room and learn together?
Andy Ferguson:
I think we started โฆ Iโll back up one thing, I think the other thing just to dovetail on what Joe said is we also sat down, maybe it was nine months ago and just talked about what were the bottlenecks in our company. And as this as an overall theme was, the building of the house, the actual physical construction really isnโt that difficult, but what was really โฆ We were struggling with in our business with just the processes of getting information to the guys building the houses.
Andy Ferguson:
You know, how do they know theyโve got the right information? How can we help them schedule and just trying to improve our processes. So that really pushed us towards, โOkay, we want to eliminate some bottlenecks and improve processes.โ We really then went back and started looking real closely at Buildertrend.
Paul Wurth:
Yeah.
Andy Ferguson:
I think the first thing that was just looking back was that the first thing we implemented was doing daily logs and I think thatโs a consistent theme that we hear on the podcast and how guys can jump in. And I will say for me personally, the Daily Logs changed our business overnight. And just having that ability for me, Iโm in the office 90% of the time and I had no vision of what was going on in the field unless I got in the car and drove out to the site.
Andy Ferguson:
And so which led to really long hours, working on the weekends and all of a sudden with the guys doing daily logs, it really transformed the business. And all of a sudden we had a tool to communicate from everybody in the field to everybody in the office. And that started the light bulb went off then that, โOkay, weโre on to something big here as far as being able to just improve the communication across our entire team.โ
Joe Crider:
Yeah. I guess just to answer your question about implementation I would say that one, thatโs probably something that we could do better and we were due for another sit down but I think the most important thing is just an incremental approach. So Daily Logs, pretty easy to pull up the app, take a picture, write a few notes and then weโll push out, โHey, start checking the weather box on the daily log.โ
Joe Crider:
And then itโs like, โHey, start using this tag,โ or we decided we want to be able to, I guess to-do list this is another example, weโve decided weโre going to try to-do list to do a hold a weekly production meeting. And some of it, weโre just figuring out as we go and then when we feel like weโve got a process that works, weโre kind of sitting down on whoever it most impacts because the folks that are issuing the POs arenโt the same folks that are building the schedule. We havenโt really spent as much showing them all the process of POs. Yeah.
Paul Wurth:
Right. Thereโs like a concept of you donโt have to teach everybody everything. Thereโs a role-based concept of rolling out software and especially Buildertrend, right? Like get the people in there who need to know POs. Your guy in the field maybe doesnโt need to do that unless he issues POs in the field or bills, but he doesnโt have to know how to develop them. If he just needs to have be able to go look at which ones they are or approve work done by the drywall guy, right?
Joe Crider:
Yeah. And I think the other thing too is you just get a couple of things implemented and all of a sudden everybody sees the value in it. And then they just click theyโre like, โOh, this is really cool. Now I know where to go to find the information.โ And the software is so intuitive that it doesnโt take a lot of training and itโs like watching my two year old pick up the phone and be able to stop and start his videos without ever having any training or really even know how to use it.
Paul Wurth:
Yeah.
Tom Houghton:
Yeah. Thatโs awesome.
Paul Wurth:
Yeah. Itโs great for our UI, UX team, they continue to work on that ease of use. I think they always talk about if itโs the first time you ever see it, we want it to be something you can do like two or three things with.
Tom Houghton:
Yeah. And weโll put UI, UX definitions in the show notes, for those of people who are not in the design-
Paul Wurth:
Yeah. Thatโs right.
Tom Houghton:
โฆ product-
Paul Wurth:
Hey-
Tom Houghton:
โฆ update videos.
Paul Wurth:
โฆ do you guys see Tomโs recent update videos every month?
Andy Ferguson:
No, Iโm not [crosstalk]
Joe Crider:
[crosstalk] probably not.
Tom Houghton:
Oh, gosh. There are-
Paul Wurth:
Where do you find those in the system?
Tom Houghton:
So in the help center.
Paul Wurth:
So you go to the top right of your app. If youโre on a desktop click on the question mark.
Tom Houghton:
Yep.
Paul Wurth:
Go to your help center. So Tom, every month does a really great video about all the new features weโve done.
Tom Houghton:
And we also give a sneak peek at features that were coming soon.
Paul Wurth:
At the new features coming out.
Tom Houghton:
Yeah. That weโre working on.
Paul Wurth:
So check out the upcoming-
Tom Houghton:
Recent updates videos.
Paul Wurth:
โฆ recent updates videos. And Tom is in a Santa Claus hat at one point. Was that December?
Tom Houghton:
That was probably December.
Paul Wurth:
Yeah. Youโre not getting a straight cut and drive video with Hollywood Tom, heโs going to put a spin on it.
Tom Houghton:
There you go.
Paul Wurth:
Theyโre entertaining.
Andy Ferguson:
Weโll definitely check those out.
Paul Wurth:
Check them out.
Tom Houghton:
Okay. Thanks. So back on track, letโs wrap up with your experience at Buildertrend University. What was your favorite class that you had here?
Joe Crider:
You know, Iโll jumped in, I guess, first off on the experience, one, I would highly recommend it to anybody thatโs looking to get deeper into Buildertrend we just had a fantastic experience. One of the biggest things was just meeting a lot of different people and I guess our best class was really the time we spent with our coach was when we were really able to take a deeper dive into things we talked about in classes and things we were thinking about and we were blown away with our coachโs ability just to listen to what our problems or issues are and basically help us plug into the Buildertrend and how Buildertrend can help us solve those problems. Youโre just very intuitive.
Andy Ferguson:
Yeah. I saw it. I think the other thing for me really was it didnโt feel like I was going to a paid conference where they were there to take our money. I literally felt like I was going in where there was a big group of people that are really best in interest in our successes not only our own business that we get the most out of the program. Unfortunately I canโt remember exactly who they were, but there were two questions that I had. One was like a little software glitch I was having and something else.
Andy Ferguson:
And I talked to those folks on the first day. And then on the last day, they both came and found me and they gave me a response or a solution to what the problem was. And I didnโt see him write anything down, I didnโt see him take any notes but they really paid attention to what was going on and what our questions were. I think just because of that, it was a first-class experience and I would definitely go back.
Joe Crider:
Yeah. It was a very personal experience. I definitely walked away with the feeling of that just Buildertrend in general was much more than just a software, it really felt like a partner to our company that was really interested in helping us do better.
Andy Ferguson:
Yeah.
Paul Wurth:
Thatโs amazing. Thatโs really why we created Buildertrend University is that we wanted to break that wall down.
Tom Houghton:
Yeah.
Paul Wurth:
We didnโt want to be the guys who talk to you when they need your renewal and hit you up for every new upgrade and that relationship, we talk internally all the time about being your non-equity business partner. And this is a way for us to really display that and itโs a credit to our people here.
Joe Crider:
So we felt that a hundred percent when we were there.
Andy Ferguson:
Yeah, for sure.
Tom Houghton:
Awesome.
Paul Wurth:
And we have a bar.
Tom Houghton:
That helps too.
Andy Ferguson:
And the bar was nice too.
Tom Houghton:
Yeah. The bar was nice too.
Andy Ferguson:
It all works together.
Tom Houghton:
Yeah, it was good. Good. All right guys. Well, letโs wrap up. Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today and sharing your Buildertrend experience. Weโre so glad that you guys came up and joined us for Buildertrend University and then we wish you continued success in your business and thanks for your time.
Paul Wurth:
Yeah. Itโs amazing that you guys are doing so well. And just for us to be a little part of it, it makes us feel really great and letโs keep building together anything we can help you get to whatever goal it is, letโs go to 50 million, a hundred million and then the moon.
Joe Crider:
Yeah. Well, Paul and Tom, thanks. We appreciate it. And I would say that Buildertrendโs a lot bigger than a small part of our business now, particularly going forward over the next few years, so weโre really excited and we appreciate you guys.
Paul Wurth:
All right. Come back to Omaha-
Tom Houghton:
Yeah.
Paul Wurth:
โฆ soon.
Tom Houghton:
Or weโll come visit you guys.
Paul Wurth:
Oh, well yeah, weโll be out there.
Tom Houghton:
Yeah.
Joe Crider:
Yeah, anytime.
Paul Wurth:
All right. Appreciate you guys.
Tom Houghton:
Thanks.
Paul Wurth:
Thanks.
Tom Houghton:
Love what you heard? Donโt 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 weโll see you next time on โThe Building Code.โ Appreciate you.
Andy Ferguson & Joe Crider | Legend Homes
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