Resource roundup: Online courses, guides and more to help you grow

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, learn everything there is to know about the valuable resources Buildertrend has to offer to ensure business success with Zach Wojtowicz. He is the director of customer success and co-host of “The Building Code.” Thank you for joining us here today for “The Better Way.” And I am with my lovely co-worker, Zach Wojtowicz. Zach, how are you doing today?

Zach Wojtowicz:

Good, Bree. How are you?

Bre:

I’m doing well. I took your job here as the host.

Zach Wojtowicz:

I was just about to ask. How does my seat feel to you?

Bre:

It feels great. And honestly, I think I’ve broken it in pretty nicely.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Speaking for myself, you look way better in it than I do.

Bre:

Yeah, I do. Absolutely. That’s funny. You’re not the only person who said that.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Are you prepared for your mom to send you clips of you on the internet?

Bre:

Absolutely.

Zach Wojtowicz:

That was the first thing that happened to me, and I was like, “This is odd.”

Bre:

I’m famous.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah. I don’t know if famous – I’m not sure I’m pulling fame levels, but it certainly happens. And it’s not unusual to our friends on “The Building Code” that listen, that moms get a lot of shout-outs. So we know they’re listening.

Bre:

Amazing. Well, hi, mom. Geez. I mean, yeah, I think it is pretty fitting that this series is “The Better Way,” and now I’m hosting. I think we nailed that one.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah. Shout out to the marketing team. They always make us look good.

Bre:

Awesome. All right, so this episode, we’re going to talk about some resources. We are talking resources. So let’s get into it.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah.

Bre:

All right. So we know through experience that Buildertrend, just implementing the program can be tough. It can seem like a lot to chew at once. So success doesn’t happen overnight. Why is it so important to take advantage of resources to see that long-term success with our platform?

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah, that’s a great question.

Bre:

I know it is.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Wow, she’s taking a victory lap, ladies and gentlemen. I know it’s a great question. No, I think it’s really important whenever you decide to make a change in your business that you really understand it’s not for today. It’s not even for next week; it’s not for next month. It’s going to take a significant amount of time to actually see the benefits of that. Now, there’s ways to have quick wins, things that can change pretty quickly and tighten up processes and efficiencies, but nobody is under or shouldn’t be under the expectation that you just bought a software that can do a lot and you’re not going to master it. You think back to when you’re in school or whenever you do something, or even when you started your business, it took time to really start seeing the results, get what you want.

And it took effort. It took planning. It took a little bit of other people to actually support you. And so resources at Buildertrend are a way for you to not be alone and have people who have done it before, experts on the phone who have talked to other businesses, who have seen what other customers have been successful with. And you also are busy. You’re running a construction business. There’s things happening on the job site, and every day can be a fire, is what people will often describe it as. Change orders, deadlines being missed, software vendor didn’t show up. It gets really complicated really quickly. So you need to also make time to access those resources. And so at Buildertrend, we recognize we want to respect our employees’ work-life balance. We’re an 8 [a.m.] to 5 [p.m.] central, so we’ve invested a lot of our money into digital resources and other ways to fit people’s schedules.

There’s a lot of things that we offer to our customers, and it’s kind of shocking when they come to Buildertrend University and we talk about some of these things, like, “I didn’t know that we had that.” And it just comes down to being really aware of what we are putting in, even your subscription prices, including some of those additional things that can help your learning and get you going early and even later. I mean, just because you use scheduling doesn’t mean that you’re done. There are more things you could be doing even with that schedule that you might not be aware of. And so we want to have different ways for people to always have access, to keep expanding their understanding of what the software can do.

Bre:

Right at your fingertips.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Right at your fingertips.

Bre:

We’re like an onion, a nice blue onion. We’ve got layers, baby. Layers on layers. But that is what we’re here for. We’re here to help you unpeel those layers.

Zach Wojtowicz:

That’s right.

Bre:

Yeah. I’m going to have to probably trademark that analogy. So let’s talk through some of these different training and resource options that we have, and what are some of the benefits of each?

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah. Absolutely. We’ve got a ton, and I’ve had the benefit in my career here to really help develop these, some really talented people. Shout out to those folks for really driving this. And so I’m speaking for them in a lot of cases. But the No. 1 thing we’re going to start with is Buildertrend Learning Academy.

Bre:

Huge.

Zach Wojtowicz:

And this is something that as we continue to add more features, it’s going to be a huge and even bigger benefit for our customers. We’re doubling down on what we refer to lovingly as the BLA over the course of this year. More specific content, more things that are kind of tied to actual use cases of the software, more variety for different types of contractors even. So what is BLA? BLA is an online learning platform powered by a vendor called Skilljar. And what it lets you do is really chunk down specific courses about how to onboard the software. So if you went to BLA today, we’ve kind of broken it up into things like an onboarding guide. If you’re new to Buildertrend, we can give you recommendations of what does the software do, what did you really get? And it’s led by some of our best people in these courses, kind of like your digital learning assistant to walk you through their perspective on how to implement the software.

But then we also just have certifications. If you’re a project manager and you want to just get your certifications, kind of acknowledge that you are a Buildertrend expert, you can take these courses that are a series of courses that kind of encompass what a project manager would do, or a selections coordinator or a bookkeeper. So we really want to try to tie it to the audience so that they have content that’s relevant to them.

Now, there’s always overlap. A bookkeeper might need to use bills and POs in the budget, but so would a project manager. Then we also have things on there as well, which are just feature-specific courses. So they’re maybe not a certification, and there’s no acknowledgement of a badge or anything. But if you’re just like, “Hey, I’ve got an hour and I want to know more about what the schedule can do,” we’ve got feature-focused learning paths for you to follow so that you can get more depth out of it. It’s all just a way to get inspiration or work at your own pace or get an idea of new things that are happening. And then one of my new favorite things about BLA is we have a live training schedule.

Bre:

Yeah. We do.

Zach Wojtowicz:

This was an initiative to recognize that our builders, our customers, ask consistently to talk to other builders. So it’s kind of serving two focuses. One is how do we get a group of 15, 20 builders who are thinking about the same things, have different approaches of their business, to come to the live webinar to talk about a topic? Those are hosted by a Buildertrend expert, and they facilitate conversation. Here’s how Buildertrend recommends it; customers, what do you like to do with these things? It kind of creates this community. And we’re starting to get a following. We’re starting to get a lot of repeat customers come back, and even just some of our best presenters have a little bit of like, “I always go to Taylor’s webinar,” and says, “I love Taylor.” So we wanted to take some of our best coaches that we’ve reserved for kind of their book of business, but now we can put them in front of hundreds, thousands of people. We had 2,000 live-event registrations last quarter, in quarter one of 2023.

Bre:

Holy moly.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah. Now attendance rates aren’t – it’s not like 2,000 people showed up, but it’s still-

Bre:

They’re thinking about it.

Zach Wojtowicz:

They’re thinking about it. Right. And always my philosophy is more content is good content. You never know what’s going to stick. You’ve got to have a variety of educational resources. We all learn differently. And there’s some other things even we’re not doing, like sandbox environments and guided learning through a different piece of the BLA that we’re also still exploring. So there’s always something cool that we can do with technology. We’re a tech company. We want to invest in technology and make those learning experiences better.

When you get on the phone with a coach, then, the more you absorb, the more you can apply. You can be like, “We saw this on this resource. Now, coach, tell me how I can navigate that and actually implement it.” Which should hopefully shorten your ability to expand into the software because there’s kind of different – former educator. And when you think about learning philosophy, boring stuff, but it’s like the first thing you’ve got to do is understand what it does. Then you’ve got to be able to apply it. We want our people to be coaching builders on how to apply it. But a lot of the early incubation time of getting to understand what the software does can be done through the BLA.

Bre:

Gosh. So well done.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Well, we try.

Bre:

Yeah, we try.

Zach Wojtowicz:

We do all right.

Bre:

Yeah. And we kind of went over a little bit of an overhaul with the BLA. I would say now it’s as intuitive and as user-friendly as it’s ever been. It’s an amazing resource. We have people call in all the time about it. Sometimes if you get stuck on a question, I’m not going to say to reach out to our support team and they’ll help you, but they might.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Always, always plug the help.

Bre:

Yeah. It is an amazing resource. And the certificate courses, you actually get a certification emailed to you, so you have – I mean, the proof is in the pudding there. You get an actual – print that thing out and put it on your wall.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah. You walk in and are like, “I’m employee of the year, and I’m certified in three Buildertrend certifications. No big deal.”

Bre:

Amazing. Amazing. So yeah, we’ve got the Buildertrend Learning Academy. Can we talk a little bit about the help center? It’s a little bit different. I think sometimes people might get those confused and think they’re one and the same, but those are two separate entities there.

Zach Wojtowicz:

That’s a great point. We spend a lot of time planning out the content for the BLA versus what we would see in the help center. The help center is your true help desk, your online help desk. So should be shorter articles, a lot of videos that kind of work through specific problems. It’s more about trying to solve a very specific question. So I look at it – BLA, in a lot of ways, is a tool for the customer success coaches and account managers to really help consistently deliver the experience. Then the help center’s for the support team and any customer who really – I keep getting these types of FAQ questions. And so they both have a lot of value. They’re both there to help our customers. But an adept user, someone who’s really good at using Buildertrend, is sometimes going to run and, “Why doesn’t it work like this?”

That’s the help center. It’s there to be like, “All right, here’s the technical back-end documentation of how this thing comes together and what you would do it for.” BLA is really about adopting to learning, exploring new things in a safe environment and really giving customers that guided learning experience without a person needing to be there for them. So we look at them as different. And there’s crossover, but ultimately they’re going to have different uses when it comes to the day-to-day operations of what a customer is. I’ve talked to customers quite a bit about our digital resources. We try to research content, like what would be helpful for you? And we’ll put help center articles in front of them. So we try to really align it around. I had a customer that was like, “Yeah, you guys need a course in the BLA that talks about how to get your subcontractors involved,” because that’s something that builders struggle with consistently.

And so we’re working on a plan to improve those types of adoption things. So then even for the builders, we can extend how they get their people more bought in, too. It’s not just for the initial onboarding person; it’s for other folks for whom we can be making that process easier. And then the help center, we should have a sub and homeowner help center for that as well. And we do, but we’re consistently trying to update it based on what technical things are happening with a homeowner as well. I was going to say home builder. Just squeaked out of me.

Bre:

Awesome. Yes. And so Buildertrend Learning Academy, just to kind of recap, really gives you that solid foundation, that understanding of either specific features or that role-based information. That help center is there to you whenever you need it. Same with the Learning Academy, but you can access that online whenever you need. And more for those FAQs, more for why is this happening? I understand what I’m doing, but just not quite sure why I’m not getting to the point where I thought I would be.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Exactly. And the best part is you can access them in the same spot. Drop down in the top right-hand corner, you’ll see BLA, you’ll see Help Center, and now you know. And you’ll see those two. If you go to the help center, it’s easy to get to the BLA. And if you go to BLA, you can get back to the help center. So once we get ya, you ain’t leaving.

Bre:

Yeah. It’s falling into our trap. All right. BLA. Help center. We’ve got a few other resources as well, such as Onsite Consulting and Buildertrend University. If we could go into both of those, kind of what those look like separately. And when might one be better than the other?

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah. Well, there’s base costs in your subscription that covers these free resources, and I think we have best-in-class training resources for different options. But in a lot of ways, every customer is going to have a unique situation. And so we have additional services to help give different experiences for builders who are ready to dive in and make further investments into the software.

Those two paid services are Buildertrend University and Onsite Consulting. They have a great track record of helping builders get to value out of the software quicker and make connections with other builders. So I was an onsite consultant. I traveled for about 18 months for Buildertrend. The entire purpose of the Onsite Consulting platform is that secondary user profile of the software, the rest of your team, is really, really key to a successful implementation. It’s easy to train one person, but getting a dozen people to use it consistently, having standard operating procedures actually kind of make Buildertrend the cornerstone of your business that kind of controls the flow of information from new sale all the way to project close. That’s a tall task.

And so you may want an expert who has done this at a high level, in person with a lot of other builders. And that’s what Onsite Consulting delivers. Dan Lipari was on here earlier talking about this idea of desired outcomes and goals. Those are always kind of shifting, and what an onsite consultant does is they dive deep and they really try to get to the granular things that we’re trying to achieve, create a standard operating procedure document along with your team, a workflow chart, and then they come out to your business and they train people on it. And they deliver that experience. And the feedback we get – I can think of a dozen builders that before Onsite Consulting, were just hitting those natural human roadblocks. How do I adopt software? How do I change the mindset in my room?

Sometimes it’s nice or it’s necessary to have a third party come in and say: “Hey, you’re behind. You have to hold people accountable. We have to implement the software, and you’ve got to buy in. You’ve got to have things.” But if you have the right resources in place, and you have expectations that you’re documenting and making it part of a policy – is just the adoption of that becomes a lot smoother. It becomes a lot clearer for people.

And the one thing I’ve learned about implementing software is you have to share the plan. You have to show your work, in a sense. Otherwise, people are just going to go back to their natural habits. So Onsite Consulting is a big soft spot. I don’t get to do much with it anymore, and I always feel a little – I helped start it up. But I have a ton of pride in what it’s become, and we’ve got some amazing consultants that have been on other episodes of “The Better Way” as well. So if you want to hear what they’ve got, go check those out. And then BTU is when you come to us, come to good old Omaha, Nebraska.

Bre:

Very exotic. Very exotic.

Zach Wojtowicz:

We’ve got one of the best zoos in the country, so there’s plenty going on. Come in the summertime; there’s a lot going on. And that’s where you come to us, and we basically crash-course Buildertrend. We go through and teach you a lot of the ins and outs of how Buildertrend works in a classroom with opportunity for workshopping. You can meet your coach, do some one-on-ones. And one thing we did to tweak the formula – in the past, it was kind of a single experience, and we got a lot of feedback like, “I’m this type of builder or I do this type of work, and it doesn’t apply to me in the courses.”

So we have taken action to specialize our BTU. If you go to our BTU events page, you’ll see a lot of different BTU types now. That’s because we want people to come to the BTU that’s going to benefit them the most and meet them where they’re at and really give them an experience that is made for them. So we’ve got a super user conference, and it’s really interesting because we’ve got these people who are like, “I know Buildertrend. I’m a super user.” And they come here, and we kind of humble them a little bit. We kind of show them there’s always more, and we’re changing things pretty consistently.

Bre:

BT onion. BT onion.

Zach Wojtowicz:

That blue onion, just the layers never stop. Tagline that one. And that’s what’s great, though, is they come to Omaha, we get to network with other builders, you get to meet, it’s a ton of fun, and there’s always a great buzz and energy in the office at that time. It’s one that is, we’re going to continue to lean into and experiment more and more. But we’ve had a ton of success over five years here, and between Onsite and BTU, the adoption speed. So we measure a lot of how fast people take to the software after coming to one of these events or doing Onsite Consulting. And there’s something like 70%, 80% faster to adoption or getting across further engagement with the software. So the ROI is immeasurable.

Bre:

I mean, we have stats to back it up, everyone. We’re not just talking.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Right. We’ll show you the dashboards.

Bre:

Yeah, we will.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Just all of it go in there.

Bre:

I mean, we’ve covered a lot of great information about some of those resources. So if I’m either newer to Buildertrend or kind of feel like I’m plateauing as an owner or internal user, what have you, how do I know which resource might be best for me?

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah. That’s a great question. It always comes down to that reflection period of what am I missing to do the things I want to do? And it takes a mindset shift in your own business of how do you approach your day-to-day. I think in construction what’s interesting is you have this process of building a home. The project closes; you move on to the next one. And the builders who really take a more holistic business view and analyze what are my goals, what are the things I’m working toward that I want to optimize, can guide you down a path of very specific targets of what you’re trying to do with the software. So it’s very common for a builder to be like, “I want to use all the software.” And it’s like, “That’s a little unrealistic.”

Bre:

It’s a lot.

Zach Wojtowicz:

It’s a lot.

Bre:

It’s overwhelming. Yeah.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah. So if you’re like, “I want to use all the software,” the first thing you’ve got to do is, “Well, what can the software even do?” And if you don’t have an answer to that question, I would always recommend going to BLA and help center. If you feel like you have a good use or a good understanding of the software, then it becomes, “How do I get to the next level? How do I continue to look at my company metrics? How many jobs am I adding? How fast are my projects progressing? How much staff have I added in the last year?” That starts to get you to that next part where it’s like, “How do I leverage the software to continue to enhance those metrics, get better at those metrics? How do I go from building 10 houses a year to 20 houses a year, 30 houses a year?”

And if you want to do that, you’ve got to optimize efficiency, which is what Buildertrend is really for – to get everything in one place and have a process. Once you get to this point where you’re like, “I have processes, but I’m not sure how to implement it,” then I’m telling people, “Go check out Onsite Consulting, check out BTU.” Because you can hear from other builders about how they set up their processes and what they do and get new ideas. There’s no bad place to start. I’ve had brand new clients do Onsite Consulting, too. It greatly expedites, but you kind of have to have the right mindset. If you’re not willing to change things or you want it to just work for you, it’s not quite how software works. It’s not like there’s just code monkeys in the back changing things – onions, code monkeys, the whole thing, right?

It’s affecting all of our customers. So we have to be willing to tweak what we can do with the humans or a business process or handoffs or any of those concrete things that you do that maybe are a little wonky. How do I get a receipt to a person in the office without having to drop it off at their desk? We have a solution for that. You’ve got to follow these steps, though. That’s where Onsite Consulting can be really powerful because we can help you navigate and document, but then also train all in one swoop.

Bre:

And I think, too, with that, is don’t be afraid to bring that up to your coach or your account executive at any point in time. They’re a great resource to help figure out – usually, they know where you’re at before you do. But they’re a great resource to bounce off ideas or figure out what that next step might be. And they’ll go through that with you and make sure that we get you to the right spot. We’re not going to sugarcoat things. And if you might not be ready for something, they’re going to tell you that. Or if there’s something that you’re maybe not thinking about, they’re going to tell you that as well.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Absolutely.

Bre:

Don’t be afraid to lean on them.

Zach Wojtowicz:

It’s our obligation to let you guys know what’s available. And the other thing is, great point, we want our reps and coaches as resources to also hold our customers accountable. It’s not to tell them what to do. It’s just that when we set these goals, we have these conversations; we do these things. It’s also about giving us information to say: “Hey, you told me this here. I think I have a recommendation of how to get you there because you’ve been stuck for a while.”

Bre:

Because we care.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Because we care.

Bre:

We do it because we care.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Sometimes the best relationships are the ones that might tell you something you don’t want to hear, but it’s the truth and-

Bre:

It’s how we grow.

Zach Wojtowicz:

And then we have things to help facilitate and get you where you want to go.

Bre:

Absolutely. Oh, man, that’s some good content here today.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Hey, that’s all we do. We just pump out content. We’re ready to roll. It’s a ton of fun to talk about this stuff. And I’ve heard it firsthand, reps will send me calls from coaches or from builders like, “This got my guys to buy in.” And that’s where you can get really creative. We’re making this content for the people who are implementing, but there are tons of ways that I’ve seen builders use it in their office. At their weekly meetings, they’ll have a Buildertrend 10-, 15-minute block. They’ll watch a video together. They’ll talk about what they like and how does it go. So you can use this content we’re creating and actually embed it into your discussions as a business, and you’d be surprised at what that does for adoption because a lot of it is just people feeling like, “I don’t really know.” But if you actually consistently bring it up, you build a culture, you build this concept, and then you’re really drinking the BT Kool-Aid.

Bre:

Oh, yeah. And it’s the best flavor there is.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Is it onion flavor?

Bre:

Is it onion flavor?

Zach Wojtowicz:

I saw it on the internet. The blue onion water.

Bre:

Yeah. Delicious. So obviously this whole episode is resources, what’s available to help get people to the next step and foster that learning about the program. So can builders succeed at going at it alone without using any of these resources that we provide?

Zach Wojtowicz:

For sure. I mean, I’ve seen it. I’ve talked about this on “The Building Code” a lot, and it’s truly genuine. Construction is kind of like a quilt of experience. There’s a lot of people with different backgrounds. I met a guy at IBS who was like, “Yeah, I actually started a tech company in Silicon Valley and sold it. Now I do building for a retirement hobby.” Which I’m like, “Wow, good for you.”

And there’s some very intelligent people across the industry that understand software, understand how to do these things. But if you’re just starting out as a business, in a lot of ways it’s just gathering ideas and concepts. There’s tried and true principles to really facilitate the expansion of software use. But my reply is like, “Yeah, you can go it alone and you can do these things and figure it out. But you also could lean on people who have done this before, who can lend a hand.”

A lot of times there’s this kind of perception like, “You’ve got to be this rogue, independent person.” But most people have someone who’s guiding them or helping them along the way, whether it’s a business consultant or a friend or maybe a partner in the business. That’s how I like to think of Buildertrend. We really want to be a partner with our customers because we do have this benefit of having so many different types of builders that we can say, “Hey, I have a guy that I know that did it this way. I’m going to position or propose it to you and see what you think.” And more times than not it’s like, “That makes a ton of sense.” And so really lean on us to get you where you want to go. That’s when the relationships are really quite beautiful.

Bre:

That was so touching.

Zach Wojtowicz:

This is my official campaign for president.

Bre:

2024, Zach.

Zach Wojtowicz:

I don’t think I can. I won’t be old enough.

Bre:

Nevermind.

Zach Wojtowicz:

2028 coming to you.

Bre:

When you’re 36, maybe. No, that is amazing. And I lost my train of thought, but … I was going to say also, just like companies and the world and the construction business is always adapting, so are we. We’re trying to make sure that we’re getting you the best tech, the best features and the best support and resources as possible, too. So we might roll out a new update or a new feature completely that you don’t feel super comfortable with quite yet. And again, that’s where those resources come into play. Reach out to us. We’re happy to help. Otherwise, we usually have the help center and everything pretty updated, so feel free to check that out as well. But I think that is a great plug there.

Zach Wojtowicz:

We appreciate that. As my good friend Charlie will say, we’ve got to pump those numbers.

Bre:

Pump those numbers. Well, Zach, I think we covered a lot of great information today. I appreciate you coming in. Well, I don’t think you had a choice. But I took your spot as host, so I thank you for joining us.

Zach Wojtowicz:

It’s an honor. I was joking before we went on air. I actually really prefer being the interviewee, so if you need to make a change to the guard, you have my recommendation as long as I can come on every so often and just ramble.

Bre:

Absolutely. I would love nothing more.

Zach Wojtowicz:

All right. Love it.

Bre:

Awesome. Well, thank you.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Thank you.

Bre:

Thanks for listening to “The Better Way,” where we dove into all the resources that Buildertrend provides digital, in person, with Zach Wojtowicz. Please be sure to rate, review and subscribe to “The Better Way” podcast wherever you get those podcasts at. Visit Buildertrend.com/podcast to sign up for the email notifications when the next season drops, and explore our original podcast, “The Building Code,” where it is co-hosted by Zach, whom you just heard from today.