How Cardinal Crest simplifies processes with Selections

Bre:

Welcome to “The Better Way,” a podcast by Buildertrend. Here you’ll learn to simplify and establish processes that will make meaningful changes to your company and help you to achieve your goals. There’s a better way to run your construction business – the Buildertrend way. On this season of “The Better Way,” we’re doing things a little bit differently. We know you don’t want to just hear from us – you want to hear from other pros.

That’s why in addition to our experts, we’re also inviting industry leaders to help teach best practices for successfully implementing software and getting your team on board. On today’s episode, get insights on selections and an overview of the templates Joe Christensen and Adam Shaeffer use to make their processes easier for their team and their clients.

So let’s talk selections with Joe and Adam from Cardinal Crest Design Build.

Joe:

That’s good. I like that.

Adam:

Thank you for that.

Bre:

If anyone out there needs a jingle.

Joe:

You got it.

Bre:

Bre Ferris from Buildertrend. I am your gal. And I would like to start this off with asking you what success have you seen with the Selections feature?

Adam:

OK.

Joe:

You going to take it?

Bre:

No pressure.

Adam:

I’m going to take it.

Joe:

I’ll back you up.

Adam:

Thanks, bro. OK, so a little perspective, right? If you’re first time tuning in or don’t know much about our company, I think it’s important to set a precedent or set a perspective of where we’re coming from with our feedback on this topic. So we do $12 million to $15 million a year. Quantity wise, that’s about 10 to 15 homes. Our average sales price is $1.2 million. We have an in-house designer, interior designer, and we also have an in-house draftsman. So we do design and build all of our homes. That’s not to say that we don’t work with outside interior designers or architects, but that’s just how our team is built.

So selections, this is probably one of the most difficult parts of our jobs. And I think Joe and I, because it’s so integrated within our own company, we might have a little bit different perspective where it might be a little bit easier for us to manage because we have in-house personnel that are over these selections and manage them. Granted, I’m going to try to take the perspective, big picture, of the majority of builders that are out there when I’m answering some of these questions, but take that for what it’s worth. That’s my perspective.

Joe:

I think that’s super important because if you’re a builder who has an interior designer, you’re going to rely on that interior designer – oh, no, sorry, a builder that doesn’t have an interior designer. Excuse me. You’re going to rely on that interior designer to create your spec book, your scope of work. And you’re going to rely on that interior designer to have – either she’s going to have a submittal of a door that the owners approve, or she’ll have power to just approve any of it. And you’re going to rely on that, and then you’re going to have to manage that.

Adam:

Oh, yeah.

Joe:

Now, what we noticed, at least in our market 12 years ago in Kansas City, is that when we first started, like Adam has said in the past, Adam and I were the architectural designers. We were the draftsmen; we were the interior designers. We did it all, and we did like those aspects of the company.

And we also realized that every build, big or small, requires some type of designer that’s doing the drafting, even if it’s a remodel. A bathroom remodel needs a design, some type of CAD design or I don’t know – graph paper design, if you will, be really simple. And it needs somebody who’s in charge of interior design. Now, that could be all one person, or it could be subbed out to other people. But no matter what, as the GC, you’re in charge of all of it. You are the one who’s going to manage it. And the moment GCs – or project managers that are working for GC or whoever – have this mentality like, “Well, that’s the designer’s fault.” I mean, one of our first disaster jobs was, truthfully, our fault. We could totally say the designer was horrible or tough, but that’s our fault for mismanaging him. We let him build his way and not the better way.

I mean, it’s the truth. So that’s where what we have done with selections and the Selections tab is we’ve kind of just taken the bull by the horns and said, “Listen, if it’s our in-house design or your in-house design, that’s fine. But we do have a selection process.” And we’ve used the Selections tab and organized it in a way through milestones and schedules and built out the selection like you build a home so that then it’s familiar and it’s the same. It’s process; it’s templated. So every time you open up our Selections tab, every sub, every project manager, interior designer, whoever is familiar with this tab. I’m going to go 90 degrees real quick off that topic, but still on selections. Why this is so important today: 30 years ago, and we’ve visited a lot of builders that we know that have massive selection rooms.

Thirty years ago, the only way to get selections was to pile through catalogs, and you had massive selection rooms with samples and all kinds of crap, and it was really cumbersome. And honestly-

Adam:

Or it was the power of three.

Joe:

It was the power of three. But those rooms actually made it easier.

Adam:

Oh, yeah.

Joe:

I think because people got exhausted with selections. They relied on the designer, and they said, “OK, whatever, you do it.”

Bre:

It’s overwhelming.

Joe:

It’s overwhelming. But now we have the opposite of overwhelming. It’s the paralysis by analysis situation. We have Pinterest, Instagram, all the inspiration in the world at our fingertips. And so we are often given the task of “I want my house to look like this; I want this.” And really the middleman of all supply and distribution has been kicked out from the internet or just been flipped on its head. Truthfully, it’s hard to say, “I can’t get that,” because price can buy you anything now. You can literally get anything that you see a picture inspired by. You could recreate it. You could find the supplier. They might be around the world. So that complicates the supply – well, it complicates selection when you’re a true custom builder, and you’re not going to use the power of three.

Honestly, if you’re a power three production, semi-custom builder – dude, I don’t know how you’re not using Selection tab because then it makes it even easier.

Adam:

So much easier.

Joe:

But anyway, I think the big thing is that’s why the Selection tab is so important and why it must be used. It is a customer service management portal, designer portal, architect management portal to round out all these different options into what the bottom three best are that they like. And we’ve organized it in a way that I think is very intuitive that we could probably talk about a little bit more.

Bre:

You do template?

Adam:

Oh, yeah. For sure.

Bre:

OK. You do template.

Adam:

Yeah. So it starts with organization on the template for our selections. But if I were to kind of back up just a hair…

Bre:

Back it up, Terry.

Adam:

Well, maybe not. I just forgot the thought.

Joe:

We were backing it up.

Adam:

Let’s not back it up. Let’s keep going forward.

Joe:

Bring it forward.

Adam:

It starts with organization. And what Joe had mentioned, the way that we organize our template selections is by deadlines. And our selection deadlines are associated with our milestones that we have throughout the production of the home. So you’ll see in our selection templates, you will see it very heavy on the front end because we do want all of those. We do want the majority – OK, let me back it up. This is what I forgot.

Bre:

Here we are.

Adam:

We require our homeowners to make all selections before we swing a hammer. So before I sign a contract, we will have documented a selection for everything that’s going to go on in the home.

Joe:

Just to interrupt you for a second, and then I’ll let you get back to it. I think why that’s important is because everyone is two to three selections or choices from the final one. It’s just the way it is, the way our minds work. We’re going to say: “I want this. Well, you know what? Maybe now I want this.” And you might go back to the first one, but it’s important to have an initial decision before you start because then when you start the construction, it’s just going to be minor changes. And you’re already so confident in the overall design, it’s so much easier just to go boom, boom, boom. OK, you know what? I’m just going to tweak it here, and now it’s perfect. Go ahead.

Adam:

Yeah. And it helps twofold, right? One, I have a selection, but on the other side, I’m also presenting a more realistic budget for the home. If I’m requiring my customers to make selections, then I can define that scope of work. And I can have a good budget for the home, I feel like.

Joe:

And stop builder creep.

Adam:

And stop builder creep, which is a real thing. And for those of you who don’t know what builder creep is, that would be a builder – I’m going through the progress, the construction of the home. And at any point in time I may say as a builder, “Hey, I’m really sorry, your home is now $30,000 over.”

Joe:

You’re overbudget.

Adam:

And there is an explanation. He can present an explanation, but it’s kind of like I’m slamming it on you. We don’t want to do that to our clients. So when I’m talking with builders, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the story where they’re like, “Dude, I’ve started the home. I’m framing it, but I don’t have light selections. I don’t have this from the designer. I don’t have this. I’m going to have to reframe X, Y, Z.” It’s a real issue. It totally is across the board.

Joe:

And I get this question all the time on Instagram when we do these Q and As. Often, you kind of highlighted this, people always ask me, “How do you make a home classic? What makes a classic home?” And really, it just made me think. It starts with organization. I think about a home that’s being built that way, and I think – not purposeful, not intentional. You’re going to miss out on so many little design ideas that are easy because you’re scrambling. You just have to consistently play catch-up. And obviously, we’re big proponents – you’ve got to have a pre-construction process with selections upfront. Otherwise, you’re just guessing. You’re hoping that somehow, they’re not going to choose something that throws off everything.

Adam:

And I feel like the normal mindset for builders is to say that can’t happen, that’s unrealistic. But I promise you, if it is a part of your process and you are vocal about it, you communicate that early on – “Hey, all selections need to be done before I start construction” – the architecture with the design elements, they will just marry and you will create that timeless home that we’re all striving to create.

Joe:

Really intentional design.

Adam:

For sure. So back it up, right? Starts with organization. And the way that we’ve done it is through milestones and deadlines, but we also use selections. And all of this is templated. We also use the Selections tool as how we communicate our systems and processes. So when someone signs up with Cardinal Crest, they’re going to get the welcome-to-the-team email, and then they’re going to get the Buildertrend invite. That’s Day One. As soon as you sign a PSA with us, a pre-construction sales agreement, you’re going to get the invite to Buildertrend because it is a better way. So part of that, there will be two selections that will be available that are on the template when they sign up.

And in our welcome to the team, we give them direction on how to access those two selections. The very first one, it’s called Cardinal Crest Introductory Content. This is on every single one of our homes. And it’s going to go over communication, so how we communicate – and the homeowner has to approve that. It’s documented that we will not respond to text messages after 5 p.m., and we will take 48 hours to respond. There’s certain direction that we do need to give our clients on how they communicate with us.

Bre:

It’s setting an expectation.

Joe:

I mean, you’re setting the expectation, and it does it at the very beginning of saying, “Hey, this is how we build, and it’s going to be a better way to build.” We keep saying that.

Adam:

I know. It’s so natural.

Bre:

I mean, what a unique take on that. That is amazing. And what a way to get your owners in from the get-go.

Joe:

Well, and I think Selections, what’s cool about Selections is that it’s the one spot in Buildertrend you can make completely customizable. It’s very programmable, and it’s very open-ended. And I think that’s why people avoid it, because they don’t know how to organize it at first. But just like how Adam says – right at the beginning, they get to know that hey, change order requests go through Buildertrend through the app. We’ll train you on how to do this. But we don’t accept change order requests through text or email because we’re going to lose them. And we do that because of past problems. “Well, yeah, he said he was going to do that, and he was going to give me the price, and I was OK with whatever I was going to pay. But he didn’t put up the change order, and that’s his fault because I texted him and I got a text of it.”

And so we had to outline, listen, you can’t build your way. You’ve got to build our way. And it’s through Buildertrend, and here’s our communication. And they sign off on those things, and they know early on. And we also release, as Adam says here, we release selections bit by bit because it’s our Selection tab. Just the categories because it’s through the milestones, we’ve probably got 25 milestones, maybe less. But we release it in little – because as you expand those categories, then it opens up to multiple selections. Multiple. I bet you all selections that you can hit “approve” or “decline” on, there’s probably what?

Adam:

One hundred eighty-seven.

Joe:

There you go. So you have to chew that by little pieces and release it slowly. But that’s one really important one I think you’re highlighting is selections doesn’t have to be what tile you’re picking out, what’s the door, what’s the finish selections? But it also is, for us, a little bit of our process. Hey, you need to select and approve how we communicate, how we build this home, the different things, our process. So they just know. Because you can put it in a contract, but let me tell you, a lot of people don’t sign that. A lot of people sign that contract, and they don’t read it. There’s certain aspects we want them to read and approve, and through Buildertrend, you can do that. Through the Selection tab, you can do that really easily.

Adam:

For sure. So then on Day One, when it is that scheduled meeting, we do go over all of those things on that first Selection tab in person. We have a conversation about it. That way it’s there. But then the next one is construction financing. We need to start talking about how we’re going to finance this. So those are the first two. And then it starts kind of diving into the selections for the home. Just like what Joe was saying, I mean, I’m sure that there are countless builders out there that want to elevate their game. How do I get into the next level?

I’m building this million-dollar home. How do I get to the $2 million range? Or I’m building this $700,000 home, and I want to build homes with more unique features in them. I want to build a better-quality home. I promise you the easiest way to get there is through the Selections tab. We have used it as an educational tool for our clients. There are so many options to select for a home. There are thousands of ways to have the hardwood flooring laid throughout your home. There are hundreds of ways to set up your HVAC system in your home. But most clients don’t know all of these different ways.

So we put tons of information in there, and there’ll be a cost TBD. And we want them to ask the question – if they’re interested, kind of ideas. So what we’ve learned with that, and it wasn’t totally intentional this way, but this is what we’ve learned: Our clients, they upgrade their homes way more by using the Selections tab, and it becomes more custom to them. They feel as though they have built their own home and they’ve designed their own home, so you get way better buy-in from the homeowner if you’re using that Selections tab.

Joe:

I think, yeah, as they go through – because we have it built and organized, like Adam is saying, through milestones. And it’s intuitive through milestones on the way you kind of build a home. As they go through the selections, it unearths – unearths.

Adam:

Love it.

Joe:

All these…

Adam:

Dig it up. Dig it up.

Joe:

They dig up all these buried bodies they might have in their mind.

Adam:

Whoa. Shoot, bro. That was morbid, dude.

Joe:

Too much. Too much thoughts.

Bre:

Wrong podcast.

Joe:

I know.

Bre:

It’s not true, friends.

Joe:

Wait till midnight show to do that one.

Dang. OK, this is the Halloween version. But it unearths these ideas that they didn’t know they even wanted. I think of some of the selections that are on there. There’s a selection for a water softener. Some people have never used a water softener or have one, but they do experience the problem with hard water. You would be shocked – if you have hard water, and you have a water softener, you’re like, “Duh, how did this person not know?” Well, guess what? Half of our clients or more don’t know exactly how a water softener works and what problems it solves in their house. And so all these little details we’ve added in have been from past clients, from past things.

Generators are a huge thing right now. We’ve done a lot of generators. That’s a big thing. People are like, “Hey, what’s a whole house generator? What do I need to have if my power goes out? What’s the different things?” We can go on and on for little details that are very custom, but all of a sudden it’s educational like, well, do I need that? Does it solve a pain point? Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it does. And then all of a sudden you have this platform, when you build it out in the template like we have, that’s selling for you, and you’re not even having to sell it. It’s just on there. They’re at home, watching a movie, enjoying a glass of wine, opening up Buildertrend and say, “Well let’s see what kind of selections we need to make. Joking, and then all of a sudden diving into it and being like…

Bre:

Holy moly.

Joe:

Oh, I do need a water softener. What is this? I do need home automation in my blinds because I’m looking at it now, and I’d love to have those blinds shut at 5 p.m. every day or whatever. So you’re not even having to do this. And I think even for designers, there’s just so many options. It’s hard to capture everything. And we really don’t want – I think some of the worst words that I can hear of a client is like, “Man, I wish we would’ve thought about that,” after we build their home. And they’re like, “Yeah, I wish we would’ve done this. I wish I could have had this option.”

And it’s like, hey, during that pre-construction, we need to unearth this. And people do it in different ways. I’ve heard people do surveys with their clients and have interviews, but I really feel like this Selections tab, when you have all these options. And a lot of them, you don’t need to have pricing with them because that could burn you. We’ve learned that lesson to have standard pricing that you’re like, nothing’s standard. But it’s educational, and it gets the mind going of how am I going to use this home and how do I want to present it to my friends and family and whatnot.

Adam:

And with our templates, the way we have it set up, Joe and I, we’re the owners of the company. We have the notifications turned on so we know when our clients are actually making selections because we get all the notifications. And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard builders say, “We’ll get 150 notifications from Buildertrend today.”

Joe:

Damn it, Bobby, again.

Adam:

But the thing is, I’m like, “Get over it, dude.” That’s how you know that your homes are progressing. So it’s the easiest tool. Just look at your phone, and then you get all these notifications. You’re like, “sweet.” You don’t have to open every single one of them. But you know that activity is happening. And then there’s assigned individuals within our company that also get those notifications. And that’s the most important or most powerful tool about selections is I know when the clients are being active, and I know when they’re not being active. So early on, we can tell this client needs their hand held. This client is capable; they can get through this. It is just a time management strategy that helps us understand how much time it’s going to take from our employees and whatnot to manage each individual customer that we have.

Bre:

And I think we’ve organically kind of brought up a few points already, but from your perspective – we have customers who are using selections, but they might not be getting the most out of it. Where do you think that you might be going wrong or where those missteps might be coming from?

Joe:

Well, OK. I’m not sure this is going to answer the question, but it’s on the top of my mind of what I’m going to say. I don’t know why I do intros to my thoughts sometimes.

Adam:

I mean, it helps all of us. We’re all on the same page now.

Joe:

Does it?

Adam:

You’re not going to answer the question, but you are.

Joe:

I’m going to give you an introduction.

Adam:

There you go.

Joe:

I don’t know why everything in my life needs an introduction.

Adam:

Great question, hold that thought. I’m going to go on some…

Joe:

Gosh, it is going to answer your question.

Bre:

Eventually it will.

Joe:

Eventually it will. So I think one way they go wrong is to think that it’s only a tool to select tile, to select finished selections. And I think we’ve touched on that, that it can be used to educate, it can be used for sale upgrade. It’s a customer service tool for people to really feel like they’ve got all these options. And then beyond that, when you dive deep into selections, the power of when you have it all built out right, and you put in a price for upgraded countertops and maybe it’s something really nice and it’s $10,000 and you’ve done it all correctly where you’ve said, “OK, my markup on selections is 30%, and that was a $10,000 upgrade.” And you’ve marked it out correctly and whatnot, or your margin should – let’s say. And when you put that all correctly in Buildertrend and they accept that, you could transfer that over straight to the budget, into the Budget tab and the POs, and it’s going to show you what is profit, what’s allocated to just the countertops.

And now you’ve collaborated. The true power to Selections is it’s this ultimate collaboration tool with design, education, processes. Because now the finance department knows, OK, we’ve got to watch out for this. This is what we’re doing here. And when they bring over those – because they select them, and then you’ve got to bring them over. It kind of helps everybody to understand these are the things that people have brought over, and these selections are going to be made. And now you have financing control. You have your project managers who are going to be able to see they upgraded the countertops. And when you template it, all of a sudden they know, wow, I can always find the upgraded countertops in this section.

And that’s why you have to have it templated. So then it’s familiar to every single person. And that’s why I would even force – like when we use outside designers, we’re going to put their designs in our Selections tab. And we’re not going to make it unique for them because we’re building the home. Ultimately, it’s our butts on the line if they suck. We’re going to have to make them better. And the client will say it. You’re the master organizer.

Adam:

Just to piggyback off that. When the homeowner, and every builder has been in this scenario: “How the heck did we get to $1.2 million?” The Selections tab, if it’s used properly, it’s that road map. And that’s why we’re not bending the rules when we are working with outside designers who really are inspired. And they pick some really, really cool stuff.

Joe:

And we love them when they’re inspired.

Adam:

We love it when they’re inspired. But we want to make sure that the cost of that $35,000 countertop that they’ve selected is on Buildertrend for the homeowner to approve, which will automatically update their project running total. And then I can print it out, and they can see line item by line item.

Joe:

It makes a beautiful road map of how we got there.

Bre:

It’s gorgeous, a single source of truth, really.

Adam:

Oh, yeah. Right. It’s way easy for me to have that sit-down with the client and explain how we got to that point. It’s incredible.

Joe:

Yep.

Bre:

Awesome. Yeah, it’s like a Swiss army knife almost.

Joe:

Yes.

Bre:

And I’m just here for analogies. That’s really the only reason I host.

Joe:

I love it.

Adam:

Incredible, dude.

Bre:

Yeah, yeah. But I mean, honestly, you can use a piece of it. You can use all of it. Whatever you need. Oh, hold it.

Speaker 4:

I have to fix this monitor. It went to sleep.

Adam:

I saw that.

Bre:

I was like, that might be part of it. I think it was when I started-

Adam:

I feel like I cut you off and you were going to say more.

Bre:

When you started talking about dead bodies, it just…

Joe:

I threw it off. How long ago did it cut off?

Adam:

A little bit ago.

Speaker 4:

It’s OK.

Bre:

We’ll CGI it.

Joe:

Do we need to start back in?

Speaker 4:

Let’s go all the way back to the beginning. I haven’t even been recording. I totally…

Adam:

He’s incredible. He’s been thinking about your thought in the beginning.

Joe:

Oh.

Adam:

He’s like, “Yes, dude. I want the Cardinal Crest podcast.”

Speaker 4:

Take it back to dead bodies.

Joe:

Oh, crap. I have a way. OK, I – actually, hold on. What were we just saying? You said…

Adam:

Like a road map.

Bre:

Swiss army knife.

Adam:

Swiss army knife.

Joe:

There was something I was going to say, and I forgot it. But I loved it.

Adam:

It actually gets so tough.

Joe:

It does.

Adam:

Now that I’m thinking about it.

Joe:

What, selections?

Adam:

Yeah. And integrating. You have to integrate pricing into all that. It needs to communicate with your Budget tab.

Joe:

It’s a lot of work. Selections is a lot of work. And I think the big thing is that in the end, it’s like the common theme that you guys – Buildertrend does say, “You need to take it bit by bit, piece by piece, and first do what’s intuitive to you and something that you’re going to use.” I think sometimes people listen to us and they’re like, “Oh, yeah, I’m going to do Selection tab.” And maybe I’ll follow up with them because we talk to a ton of builders. And I’ll follow up with them, and they’ll be like, “Dude, it got too overwhelming.” I’m like, “It’s because you tried too much. You just got too crazy with it.” And you’ve just got to slowly – it’s going to be organic. It’s going to be slow. And then eventually, the fruits of your labor will really happen over a small amount of time as you’re plugging and chugging through it. I’ve got to remember that thought. I can’t remember what I was going to say. I don’t remember.

Bre:

I think you bring up a good point, though. There’s a little bit of a learning curve, and you didn’t just one day come in and have 187 choices. You have to start from somewhere.

Joe:

It’s morphed.

Bre:

But once you’re there, I mean, you’re there.

Joe:

No, you’re right. And it’s true. I think–

Adam:

But can I make it better? A hundred percent.

Bre:

Always.

Adam:

I feel like every day I’m like, I need to make an adjustment here. I have on my page four, phase seven of what I want to do to improve my business – there’s a whole list of what I need to do to improve my Selections tab.

Bre:

So who typically, because I know you have your designers and things like that, but who typically owns that Selections feature? Or is it going through a few different–

Joe:

There’s usually just two people. The architect, our design lead or pre-con lead, which happens to be our architectural draftsman. So he’s the pre-construction lead. And then the interior designer. Those two people are integral for us during the selection process to keep the schedule going. And that’s the other thing. I’ve talked to other builders going back, and they say their pre-construction schedule is just a nightmare. It’s all over the place. And ours is pretty consistently six to seven months because we hold people – you’ve got to have a schedule for them, but they lead that charge.

And sometimes, like Adam has said, some people require sit-downs in multiple meetings, and others can do it at home. And that’s convenient about Buildertrend. Once you have it built out, then it kind of lives and breathes on the internet, and they can do it themselves. But it’s going to take a while. Like you said, it’s bit by bit. You start seeing the successes. And gosh, we’ve been using it for 11 years. And it’s still, it’s taken on seven to eight different forms. We completely have rehashed it so many different times, and it’s a heavy lift.

Adam:

Totally. And maybe a strategy for some builders is, hey, let’s figure out how to use this internally before we make it live to our clients.

Joe:

Oh, totally.

Adam:

And I think that’s going to be the most appropriate way to start using selections. Get with the individual. It is a team effort to really tackle the selections. Something that I did when we were first building it out: I totally used an Excel sheet, and I totally tried to map out everything before I started inputting it into Buildertrend. Now with the years of experience, I’ve figured out ways to copy and paste and arrange things a lot easier now on Buildertrend. But at first it wasn’t that easy for me. And so map it all out ahead of time, or at least the big headings, the big topics that you want to touch. It could be as simple as selection houses. Make it something simple like that. And then get all of your tile selections in one location. Get all of your hardwood flooring selections, get all of your lighting selections in one location. That would be extremely useful just for your team, your core people within your company to just have instant access wherever they are to that information.

Joe:

I got my thought back.

Adam:

Yes.

Joe:

Lightning struck my brain.

Adam:

I hope no one dies.

Joe:

No one died. There’s no bodies. So something that’s kind of unique that we might do – because we do a pre-construction effort and process, we only use the Selection tab during the pre-construction. I say only use it, but it’s only active during that time. As soon as they finish the pre-construction selection process, that Selection tab becomes static and just nonliving. So I guess somebody dies here.

Adam:

That’s the contract scope of work.

Joe:

They now become…

Adam:

That’s what the selections is.

Joe:

It’s just the speck book. And it’s just the shell of a man there. I’m using all these morbid things. I got it. It’s just my theme. This is my theme now.

Adam:

He loves Halloween. He absolutely loves Halloween.

Joe:

I freaking love Halloween. Let’s not even get into that.

But what’s beautiful about that is that you can go back and see, OK, here’s my thoughts during the pre-construction. Here’s what I was designing. Here’s what I was choosing during that time. I had this type of tile. I chose this type of door. I chose these upgrades and plumbing fixtures, and these are the things I want. And we can also see the comments that they commented to us. And we haven’t really touched on that. All the comments that they’ve said to us, the comments that we’ve said back, the comments our subcontractors have jumped on. I love it when that happens – super collaborative. That’s what I really want. Again, that’s a magic that really happens when that’s going on. And we can see we have a history of everything that happened.

Now, why it’s static is because we have learned this lesson. It’s too robust once you build out selections to keep it live. It is too difficult to have people changing their selections during construction. And you just get a little tiny notification along with 30 other ones in Buildertrend that somebody all of a sudden accepted a tile selection that you thought was done and over. So that’s when we said, OK, after contract or right before contract, we’re going to shut that off. You’re now done with those. And if you want to change a selection, you totally can. You can make all the changes you want that your heart desires and your pocketbook can take. But you’re going to have to do it through a change order request. And not that we’re going to punish you, and it’s like a change order at that very moment, it’s going to cost so much.

But we’ve got to understand in our minds, it is now post contract, and this is how we follow these steps. We know we decided pre-construction during the selection phase, and now we’re going to change something, that tile. And that change order supersedes anything that was chosen beforehand. And it might have a price to it. It might not. It might be a credit. It might be like, hey, you chose some crazy marble chevron pattern tile all over your primary suite bathroom, but now we’re going to go something really simple. And those result into a credit. And again, it’s tracking. I think that’s big.

I’m sorry, I’m trying to formulate my thoughts. It was a nightmare when we weren’t doing that. There was a time that selections were more living during the process of construction, and we were missing when people were making comments because it doesn’t formulate through a typical email. We were missing when they were selecting things, and we were like, “Freak, we didn’t even know they selected that.”

So setting up a timeline in systems and controlling when they can select things, and then when you have to move on and have another vehicle for those changes, was huge. And that’s what we decided. We said, OK, a contract, anything now that has to be changed has to go through the change order process. And you have to educate clients that that is not all bad because as soon as you say that word, that’s like the dirty word in the room.

Bre:

Little taboo.

Joe:

Yeah. Change order, you’re going to get me. Oh, damn it, that’s when you’re going to really screw me.

Bre:

But again, you’re setting that expectation from the beginning, which I think sometimes stresses our builders out a little bit. They’re like, “Oh, we don’t want to seem like we’re a-holes for this.” But I mean, it’s for your own benefit. And in turn for your client as well.

Adam:

One hundred percent.

Joe:

They cannot be in the driver’s seat. The only thing they get to decide is a design, and maybe their interior designer architects can. But they cannot decide how your process is. They do not know better. And I love all our clients.

Bre:

You’re the expert.

Joe:

But we’re the experts. Anytime you let a client decide how to build, those projects were disasters. And we went through that. That’s why this process – really now we feel like, although we tweak it a ton, it’s gotten to where it is because we look at our failures and be like, they were in charge.

Adam:

Oh, yeah.

Bre:

You’re in a good place now. No longer a shell of a man?

Joe:

No longer. More of a living organism. I am cells and nucleus.

Adam:

I think another thing, too, that we’ve learned with selections is, it’s extremely important. If you’ve got multiple employees, and you have individuals that you’re going to put in charge of this aspect of what we’re discussing today, the selections, you need to be meeting with that group of individuals. Our pre-con team, we meet once a week, and we discuss the issues that we’re having. We discuss every home that’s under construction. And then we also talk about feedback. Hey, how can we improve our current processes? And so for us, what we noticed when I started delegating with the selections where I kind of set the bones, I guess – I started delegating to my employees. I hate saying the word “employees.” They’re my colleagues.

Joe:

Team members.

Adam:

They’re my team members. Because I learn so much from them. And I hope they learn a little bit from me, but I learn so much from their feedback. When we started delegating and really handing it off to those employees, you would see them start to elevate in their performance because they would take extreme ownership and run with it and make it even better because they were managing it.

Bre:

Pro tip.

Adam:

Pro tip. But that was important for us, and it started making that change in what we could produce and what we could accept from a job standpoint and how much can we trust the employees that we have. Those that excelled in the task that we gave them, they’re totally still around.

Joe:

This is going to go back to a prior thought. We’ve worked with outside designers and architects, and even when you have the Selections tab – I’m just trying to think and put myself in the shoes of other builders and their perspectives and their situations. I can guarantee this has come up because we’ve experienced this, of this moment of, even though the owner has hired someone to be in charge of the selections, the owner will still say, because they’re opinionated and it’s their home, will say, “Well, I didn’t approve that. Where do I go and see that? Where did I see that I approve that? Or you approved that, or you did it.” And that’s the beauty about selections, because all of us have spec books or we have spec packets, and we have a spec packet. And all it is a bunch of freaking words and model numbers and jargon that sucks. It’s just like, I don’t want to read it even. It’s just a mess. Not a mess. It’s beautifully designed. Adam is so good.

Adam:

Stop, man. Come on.

Joe:

I’m sorry. It is beautiful. The document is beautiful. It’s got perfectly placed white space for all you design graphic designers.

Bre:

Specifications are now live in Buildertrend, by the way.

Joe:

Oh, really?

Bre:

Specifications, yeah.

Joe:

That was a weird really.

Adam:

Really?

Bre:

Really.

Joe:

Well, you don’t say. Are you sure about that? So what I was getting at is at the Selection tab is where your specifications can come alive because all of a sudden – I’ll use this popular, a plumbing fixture, a Delta Trinsic faucet, a kitchen faucet, and there’s a model number to that. I know that in my mind. I know instantly. And any builders that use that, or plumbing suction house people, will say, “I know exactly what that looks like.” And they probably memorize the model number even. And that’s how we get really visual, and we’re like, “Yeah, I know exactly what that paint skew is. I know exactly what that tile is because we get repeatable selections.” But the owner doesn’t. And so that’s where the real powerful tool is in the Selections tab is you can put so much meat inside there.

You can put, OK, a Delta Trinsic model looks like this. Here’s a picture of it. Here’s a link to the Delta website. Here’s a video on how you clean it. And guess what? Here is actually how you maintain it. And if you have to replace it in five years, this is what Delta says to do. There’s so much stuff that you can embed in there that make things all of a sudden lightning fast where your homeowner’s manual is pretty much that, too. It’s your tip.

Bre:

Pro tip.

Joe:

Yeah. Pro tip.

Bre:

No. 2.

Joe:

Once you build it in, they will select. Sorry, it’s so lame.

It was better than bodies. But it is so robust. It can be so cool. And you could do so many things inside there and link to so many selections. And I mean, again, educational. If you’re a builder who maybe all your houses are this passive house or they’re super energy-efficient, and there’s builders who that’s their brand. If I’m talking to one of those builders, and if they’re listening now, I would say you have to use selections.

Adam:

Oh, yeah.

Joe:

And what I would do is the Selections tab would be your educational tab. You’d have links to YouTube videos, like this is how we build a wall section. These are the types of details we have on every wall section. I want you to click and accept this and watch this video because you could see – you’re selling yourself. And if you’re an ICF builder who does only insulated concrete forms, I would be educating people on that.

This tool is beyond just tile and pricing. There is, there’s so many things you can use it for. And I think we kind of touch on all those because we’ve used it for so long. We educate people with it. We use it for legal terms and conditions. We use it for selections and organization. We use it for finance and project management. And we also use it for our schedule because selections ultimately are tied to schedule. But as you first get into it, it can be used for tile and that will be easy, or it can be used for just educational in terms and conditions. And you can build into it slowly.

Bre:

Get out what you put in.

Joe:

Right.

Adam:

It’s a weird thing because think about production. There’s like 10 different ways you could install an interior door. There’s four different ways that you can square up a home. There’s multiple ways to actually build a home, but when it comes down to it, no matter what, I need to know the interior door style panel. I need to know the interior door hinge. The selections are that constant that you have to have the information for that specific need or that specific line item that is extremely specific, where there is really only one way. You have to have those selections. So if there are any templates, I feel like that could almost be where I don’t necessarily have to tweak. There’s an extreme effort to input all of this, but–

Joe:

You could make it very generic.

Adam:

You could make it very generic. Like a schedule template, I would need to tweak that once I upload it and I really get all the scope of work.

But your Selections tab can be very generic, and it can be very specific. And homeowners can approve and decline items at home, and you don’t need to be present for it, which is incredible.

Bre:

Amazing. I feel so enlightened. It’s awesome. It’s awesome to hear it firsthand by some of our super users and just to be able to, I don’t know, really visualize, picking up what you’re putting down.

Joe:

We get excited about it because of the pain points.

Bre:

No, I–

Joe:

We’ve had a lot of pain points with it. We’ve had a lot of issues. And it’s truly solved a lot of those issues the more we tweak it.

Bre:

I feel the passion.

Joe:

Yeah. We are really passionate about it.

Bre:

I love it.

Adam:

Well, I mean, it is the better way because we’ve experienced firsthand how it alleviates stress in our lives. And I think that’s the biggest purpose why we try to seek outside tech to help improve our lives is we want to live better. We want to have a better family dynamic.

Bre:

Calm that chaos.

Adam:

This business, it’s extremely difficult to turn it off at five o’clock and go home and be present with your kids, be present with your wife.

Joe:

Sometimes impossible.

Adam:

Sometimes impossible. But Buildertrend has allowed us to live a more stress-free life. And that is beyond. I mean, that’s worth every penny. It’s worth every penny.

Bre:

You said it best. Oh, gosh. Well, today has been amazing, and I appreciate, and I know everyone here really appreciates you guys taking some time out of your busy, hectic lives and coming to chat with us. And I can’t wait for this to get out to all of the listeners out there across the land. I appreciate you spreading the good word.

Adam:

Amen. Amen, dude.

Joe:

Amen.

Bre:

Amen. Amen.

Adam:

Well, we appreciate Buildertrend.

Bre:

All right. Thanks for listening to “The Better Way.” If you’re a Buildertrend customer, schedule a training session to learn more tricks for applying software within your business. All listeners, be sure to rate, review and subscribe to “The Better Way” wherever you get your podcasts. Visit Buildertrend.com/podcast to sign up for the email notifications when the next season drops, and explore our original podcast, “The Building Code.” Don’t miss our next episode, where we’ll talk about courses, guides and other resources that will help you grow as a Buildertrend user.