Onboarding basics: Why construction tech isn’t as daunting as it seems

Zach Wojtowicz:

What’s up everybody? Welcome to “The Building Code.” I’m Zach Wojtowicz.

Charley Burtwistle:

And I’m Charley Burtwistle.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Buddy, look at you all Building Coded out.

Charley Burtwistle:

I know. And these are from my own closet. I didn’t have to use the spare Charley drawer in the studio of additional clothes that they leave laying around in case I forget. So, yeah, I’m excited.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Recently we’ve moved our recording to Thursdays, and it’s a little off schedule, so sometimes we forget to dress for “The Building Code” …

Charley Burtwistle:

I’m getting used to it.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah, me too.

Charley Burtwistle:

I’m getting used to it now.

Zach Wojtowicz:

I’ve just kind of defaulted to always wearing Buildertrend gear. I don’t know if you’ve noticed that.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Because I just never know.

Charley Burtwistle:

Repping the brand.

Zach Wojtowicz:

It’s easier to always be on brand.

Charley Burtwistle:

Well, that’s because you get so much Buildertrend stuff because you get to go to all these cool events and they give you free stuff. I’m less fortunate.

Zach Wojtowicz:

It must hurt that the marketing team just has a favorite. And it’s one of us.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah, I’d be lying if I said it didn’t, but we’ll bounce back. I’m just lucky to be here. I’m very excited. Today’s a great day. We actually got a compliment from our CTO this morning about how much he enjoyed “The Building Code.” So, nothing like getting you fired up and motivated. Then a nice message from a C-suite member saying they like your work. So, John, shout out. Appreciate it. We’re here because of you. And a very exciting episode today.

Zach Wojtowicz:

That’s amazing. That’s amazing. So, who do we got today on “The Building Code?”

Charley Burtwistle:

Today we have Brad Robinson, who is the president of Bradford Remodels and just an absolute legend around the CS floor. He was a recommendation from one of our reps, and you should see the email that they typed out hyping this guy up. Obviously, very, very well-known, and I’d say a lot of people look to him as kind of like the ideal Buildertrend user. So, I’m very, very excited to have him on today.

Zach Wojtowicz:

That’s right. Let me shout the floors for sending in the recommendation. We love to get these from the CS floor, and we have people that they want to spotlight. So, yeah, he has got a lot of Buildertrend business. He is a custom home builder in Atlanta. We know the Atlanta market well. We’re going to get into some fun stuff. So, without further ado, let’s get him on here.

Hey, Brad, welcome to “The Building Code.” It’s so great to have you here. You’re a legend on the customer success team, but why don’t you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself?

Brad Robinson:

Thanks, man. Appreciate you guys for having me. My name’s Brad Robinson, owner of Bradford Custom Homes & Remodeling down here in Atlanta, Georgia. We are a concept to keys design build contractor. About 50% of our business is new construction. The other 50% is remodeling and amongst a great group of guys and builders here in the Atlanta market. So, thanks for having me.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah, we’re excited. Like Zach was saying, you’re kind of a legend on the customer success floor. Everyone loves talking to you, says you’re Buildertrend’s biggest advocate. So, we had to have you on here. And correct me if I’m wrong, I know we’re here today talking about Bradford Remodels, but you actually have a few different accounts with Buildertrend, is that correct?

Brad Robinson:

Yeah. It’s funny because you don’t know how technology’s going to impact your business until you really integrate and use it. We’ve been pretty fortunate that with the success that we’ve had at Bradford, I’ve been able to put a few other companies together. One is a retail renovation company. We do mostly fixture, furniture, and equipment installation for large retailers around the country. So, I’ve got a pretty large group of guys doing that and executing on a daily basis.

Then most recently, we’ve partnered with Pella, great partners down here. And we’ve stood up a home exteriors company. So, we’re doing windows, siding, roofing, and that’s our Lake City Exteriors company. So, without the technology that we utilize in Buildertrend, it just wouldn’t be possible to do, especially at the scale in which we do it with each one of these companies.

Charley Burtwistle:

Well, that’s super exciting and very happy to hear about your success and new ventures. Dialing in a little bit more on Bradford, can you tell us a little bit about how that company started and maybe how it’s progressed along the way? And maybe even zooming back a little further, how’d you get your start in construction?

Brad Robinson:

Tomorrow is my 40th birthday, and I didn’t realize 2006, how long ago that was.

Charley Burtwistle:

Like two years ago, right?

Brad Robinson:

The years fly by, right? So, funny enough, I was slinging paint at a Sherwin Williams when I was 19 years old and happened to meet some really awesome guys and was managing some pretty big accounts just on a day-to-day basis. One of the guys said, “Hey man, you ever want to jump on the other side of the counter?” And I was like, “I never thought about it, but why not?” So, I took a chance and started selling painting, just like trade, and learned it and was managing jobs, learned how to do more and more and more until I said, “You know what? We can do this on our own.”

And a good buddy of mine, we started a company and operated a painting company for other builders primarily and spiraled into drywall. We started building things and then I got licensed. Then all of a sudden it’s like, well, now we’re building everything. So, I kind of stepped into a little bit of a retail design space for a bit and took off into that, had a blast doing it and then just said, “Man, I really, really want to get back into building. It’s where my passion is.” And so, 2018, and bam, here we are today.

Charley Burtwistle:

That’s amazing. And you built Bradford up. You’ve been so successful in a short amount of time. Have you launched the other three businesses in the last few years or was it all at once? I’m really curious how you’ve grown so quickly.

Brad Robinson:

I think that Bradford was really created … It was created through friends and relationships and, “Hey, can you come and do some work at my house?” Or you’re looking at an investment piece, and you’re doing that component and you kind of just build this whole thing. It’s like a snowball effect. So, Bradford was created through doing all that stuff. Then I actually still had my relationships intact and was still working with a great partner of ours now, in an employee relationship with them and kind of bootstrapped it a little bit, but we made this amazing agreement to kickstart Anchor Retail, and it just was natural and it progressed and then as Bradford continued to grow and things were just happening there, I mean I don’t even know how many windows we put in all these homes and how that turned into, “Hey, let’s fire up Lake City, and let’s focus on home exteriors and let’s bring that expertise that we have from here to there, and let’s see how that goes.” That just took off.

So, we’ve been incredibly fortunate. I mean, I’m very blessed and the team that we have is second to none. I’d put my team against everybody. I think most guys would say that we’re a hungry and loyal group of guys. So, I think it’s really just the team that we have, and it speaks proverbs.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah, I think that’s really interesting because a lot of the people we have … I’d say the two common themes of guests that we have on the show are people that are trying to do everything. They’re keeping their funnel very, very wide, and people that are very intentional about only doing very specific types of jobs. And it looks like you’ve kind of found a way to cross both buckets at once. You’re like, “I’ll have a specific company do this specific job, but stay really, really focused in that vertical and be really intentional about what we go after and what sort of jobs we do.” So, it is an interesting kind of cross dynamic that I don’t think we’ve had on the show before.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Well, we will joke with people. It’s like, “Oh, your third time on ‘The Building Code,’ fourth time.” You might be the first person we’ve had with four counts on “The Building Code.”

Brad Robinson:

Yeah.

Zach Wojtowicz:

So, you got a special place there. What I was going to say before I rudely interrupted you is, Charley, you would love … He has a policy that when someone comes onto the team, they send them to Omaha for Buildertrend University.

Charley Burtwistle:

Oh, really?

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah. So, when you say you’re all about investing in your team, that’s pretty cool that you kick them off by coming to join us here at Buildertrend and get them started with success.

Brad Robinson:

It goes a little bit further than that. Usually, the first two weeks that anyone steps foot in this building, they’re going to be pretty much head down focused on processes, understanding the systems that we have in place and how those work and the reason why. We’re big why guys. It’s like, why do we do this? Why do we do that? And what is its relevance to one end of the story or the other, whether that’s customer success or quality control or any part of the process? We’re intentional about those things and I think that they pay dividends at the end of the day.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah, absolutely. We’ve had a lot of people come on and talk about that. I’m always really impressed with how a lot of the homegrown building companies recognize that they got there by those investments. So, it’s awesome that you make that investment in a lot of different ways, and it’s something that… We’ve had multiple guests on like Timothy Wingate. He’s a consultant we talked about. That’s his first question to his clients about, “What do your training programs look like?” Because a lot of contractors aren’t doing that, but it helps retain, it helps make them feel comfortable, supported, all those things. Kudos to you. I just love hearing those things that you’re doing down there. It’s awesome.

Brad Robinson:

Appreciate that.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Now, we brought you on today because we wanted to talk a little bit about your onboarding process with your team and also your story with Buildertrend, given that you’re such a great client of ours. You’ve grown so quickly, you’ve got all these businesses, but why Buildertrend?

Brad Robinson:

It’s interesting. Because of my history and my background, I’ve had experience working in Procore. I’ve had experience working in some of these other platforms, but there’s not a platform that is digestible like Buildertrend is to our end user, our customer, and that’s most important. That doesn’t necessarily throw any shade on how it performs for us as employees or for our team. It does a great job there, too. But when we realized how much our customers enjoyed using it and how important it became in our sales process and how important it is actually to our customers to have one single platform to get all the information that they need.

We have very busy customers, right? Our customer is a busy professional. They come to us for a specific reason. They don’t have time nor do they want to be invested in the day-to-day of building a custom home or tackling their large scale remodel. They just don’t. So, Buildertrend solves that, and it’s very simple, and for that reason, it’s the clear out-front choice for us.

Zach Wojtowicz:

That makes a ton of sense. Given your custom home background, it’s like you cater to an audience that kind of has high expectations. They’re making an investment. They’re not cheap. So, having that customer experience baked into your process goes a long way. We’ve had some surprising conversations about stuff like that. We have terms like the customer journey, and we’re seeing that more and more as a reason that people invest in a software is we want to make it an experience, not just I’m building your house.

Brad Robinson:

Yeah. I’ll admit early on, we were so focused on product, we just wanted to deliver the best product. It was so important that it eclipsed the experience for us. We realized that after a couple of trials, I would say, where we didn’t deliver on experience, we had to take two steps back and understand if we were using all the systems in the right way. And we weren’t. We made a lot of micro adjustments along the way to get us here. It wasn’t just one fell swoop, we integrated it. It’s been one adaptation or evolution after the other that’s gotten us here. And look, even our onboarding process for new people, that continues to evolve because we want to see the fastest ramp up time we can to where you can stand in front of a client and make them feel confident about the systems that we have in place.

Charley Burtwistle:

I would actually like to… If we could dig in a little bit more on how you onboard new employees to use the product. Zach’s entire job at Buildertrend is trying to figure out how to onboard new customers of us on how to use Buildertrend, and you’re kind of taking the next step further. It’s like, “Okay, I know how to use it and how do I get my employees to use it?” You mentioned sending people out to BTU and spending a couple of weeks kind of learning the systems and the processes, but what exactly does that look like? Do you have set training plans for them? Are they taking advantage of the online resources Buildertrend has, or how do you ramp those employees up?

Brad Robinson:

Yeah. I’m going to digress just a bit and say that the typical candidate for someone who comes to work in our company is very self-motivated. They’re hungry a lot of times and they know how to be resourceful and find the information. I wish that our onboarding process was more regimented. I’ll admit as busy professionals, and I think they say that the world’s busiest job is a custom home builder.

Charley Burtwistle:

I believe it.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah.

Brad Robinson:

But I want to invest. I want to spend time with my people. I want to make sure that they know that we’re dedicated and committed to them. But the reality of it is, “Hey, your first week is I’d like for you to sit down, and I’d like for you to try to digest as much about who you think we are as possible. And then I want you to leverage the Buildertrend training videos within the platform. And over the course of the next week or so, we’re going to begin to work in, let’s say, a sales process. We’re going to begin to integrate you into the sales part of this platform, and you’re going to begin to prepare proposals in the system and then present them back to us as we go.” And then as ride alongs start, they’ll begin to develop these and then they bring them to me when they’re at 80%, and then we continue to refine them.

Then we get to a place where … In this most recent group of guys that came through, we actually had them develop their own personalized templates, so that they understand how to manipulate the HTML code that is the formatting in the system, so that they understand that level of it. Because my best asset is my people, and I look for people that can bring creative ideas to us and how do they make us better? Not who can I hire to tell them to punch keys strokes, right? Yeah. I want the system to be able to be so fluid that they can train themselves in it, but I still want their input and feedback. Otherwise, I mean, I would be nothing.

The icing on the cake and the reward for all that hard work through onboarding is you get to go to the next Buildertrend University, and you get to let your hair down a little bit and rest and relax and meet the people behind it and meet other contractors that are out there that are experiencing the same things you are.

Charley Burtwistle:

Gosh, I love that. It actually reminded me, Buildertrend just hired a new CTO two or three months ago. He’s actually a big fan of the podcast, a shout out John Walker if you’re listening, but he spoke at our last town hall, and he talked about his mindset kind of coming into Buildertrend, and he kind of had these three main phases where he was like, “Listen, he first two weeks I’m not going to do anything but sit around and listen and learn about the company and then learn. I’m going to dive in and try to figure out exactly what everyone’s trying to solve, the issues they’re trying to have, how we’re operating as a business. Then I’m going to come in with my advice.”

So, it’s not just coming in guns blazing trying to figure out what we need to fix, how we’re going to fix it, how we need to operate, it’s taking the step back to realize, “Okay, here’s how we’re currently operating. Here’s how I think we can do it slightly better.” So, the fact that you kind of enable and facilitate and ask for that from your employees is, “What can we be doing that we’re not currently doing? How can we make this better? What would you do?” I think that just speaks to the growth mindset and why you’re so successful as a business is it’s not just you making the decisions, but you’re asking your employees and your coworkers to help you with those.

Zach Wojtowicz:

I always tell people because I have the pleasure of getting to hire people on my team, and it’s like one of my favorite things. It’s like, “What’s the secret? How do you find good people?” And I’m right there with you, Brad. The number one thing I look for is curiosity. I call it the spark, right? Do you have the thing that I know when you come to work, you’re excited to explore new possibilities because they just bring so much additional value to you? I don’t know everything. I can’t see everything. I can’t be everywhere. But if they’re as invested in trying to figure out what the next path is, it’s like curiosity just creates this entire environment of iteration, improvement, never settling. It just feeds this flywheel effect of growth, which I’m right there with you.

If you can see it and the way they come and want to attack problems, and they’re just curious, what if we tried this? It makes it a lot of fun, too. I’m sure your houses reflect that as well when you’re going through and designing. It’s like, “What if we tried it like this?” Or you bring that even to your own client base, that’s probably pretty infectious. Does it translate into even your client experience as well?

Brad Robinson:

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, one of the things that we really pride ourselves on is that we’re a transparent company through and through. So, we’re transparent at the customer relationship, but we’re transparent on the business level. We talk about our pain points on a daily basis. We’re very collaborative when we’re at this conference room table. Most everyone knows where each other’s issues are, and what we allow for is open dialogue on ways to solve those problems. So, we don’t keep anything a secret here. I mean, everything, there’s no closed doors in this building. So, again, it just speaks to our people being our most valuable possession because they’re each other’s input. While some of it may not always be applicable or you may not have experience to speak on it, an idea is an idea, and I don’t want to close out anyone’s ideas for any particular reason without having to hear it first. I want to hear it at least.

So, that’s just something that we’re really cognizant of. I mean, everybody has problems. Every business has either, A, a customer that has become a challenge for them or a process that’s become a challenge. I’m not going to limit who has input on that particular problem. It’s like, “Hey, if your customer buildings have gotten behind, have you tried this approach? Have you done this? I’ve had success doing that.” And that’s important. I think that it kind of speaks to the overall philosophy that we have in our company, which is we have a startup mindset every day. We’re never going to rest. We’re always going to consider ourselves a startup.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah, I love that. You touched on something there that I wanted to circle back to, and I think it’s kind of a good segue here of everyone not just is facing problems, but oftentimes is facing the same problems. I know we at Buildertrend often put ourselves in this box, in this mindset of we have to be the only people in the world trying to figure this out. That’s just never the case. As much as you’d like to think that you’re one of a kind. Everyone is kind of trying to solve the same things and it goes across industries. The problems you’re talking about are the same things that we’re trying to figure out as well, too.

The leaning on other contractors in your community, you had mentioned one of the benefits of Buildertrend University is coming out, not just learning about the software, but talking to the other clients there. I was wondering if you could speak a little bit more to what the experience of the Buildertrend University, sending your employees out or when you came out yourself, the takeaways and what you found beneficial from that experience.

Brad Robinson:

Yeah. No, so I mean, I tell every guy that goes up there, “Go up there and be curious. Ask a lot of questions. Become engaged. Make sure that you’re participating and asking questions. But more than anything, try to meet new people. Try to understand how different markets are performing or things that you’re seeing or that you’re hearing in other markets that might make sense for us here. So, go up there with your ears open.”

I’ll tell you that my experience in going up was really cool because I met some people that I absorbed some ideas from that I never thought about and the way that I approached the business. I just didn’t. And I learned a lot from them. And the networking is really the byproduct. I mean to me, yeah, it’s great, I love getting to meet the people. I love the content. I love looking at or hearing pieces that maybe I just wasn’t aware of or I can implement this little piece and that’s going to solve that little thing. But the people for sure. Everybody has got such a different business model that if you just spend five minutes maybe over a drink after it’s done, it’s like you’re going to learn something just by listening. It’s super good.

Charley Burtwistle:

And on that note of the connectivity and everything, it’s getting close enough now that we can start plugging this. We have the International Builders’ Show coming up in a few months, and I think you mentioned that you’ll be out there, correct?

Brad Robinson:

Oh yeah. We’ll be there for sure.

Charley Burtwistle:

Well, then I would just encourage everyone listening, even if you’re current Buildertrend client, swing by the Buildertrend booth. We’ll have different lounges and everything set up to connect with people. I think we have a happy hour every day, so have a couple drinks. Get a chance. Zach normally has a pretty long line of people wanting autographs, but hopefully you can make your way through the crowd to see the one and only Zach Wojtowicz while you’re there, but definitely looking forward to catching up with you out there as well, Brad.

Brad Robinson:

Yeah, man, that’ll be a good one.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Well, and speaking of, we also happen to know you’re a CBUSA member as well, which is …

Brad Robinson:

Yeah, YEAH. I was going to say the Buildertrend University is a one-off kind of thing, unless you just are really hungry to go to Omaha all the time.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Hold on. Omaha.

Charley Burtwistle:

Easy.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Not that bad. It’s not Atlanta. All right?

Brad Robinson:

I had to throw in one joke.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah, that’s all right. I always say Omaha is a city that we will exceed your expectations. Because you don’t really have any.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah.

Brad Robinson:

You know what I didn’t know when you go to Omaha is that you actually fly to Iowa.

Zach Wojtowicz:

What? Oh, yeah. You’re right.

Brad Robinson:

The airport is not in Omaha.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah, Carter Lake. Shout out.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah, huge shout out.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah, the swamps.

Brad Robinson:

No, the things you learn in Omaha.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah, our good neighbors are right next door.

Zach Wojtowicz:

That’s right. Yeah. Shout out to Iowans. We don’t give them this love.

Brad Robinson:

Hey, I was just in Iowa last week. I felt like it was a beautiful place.

Zach Wojtowicz:

It is. We will forget about that football team, but it’s fine. It’s fine.

Brad Robinson:

Yeah. I mean, the Pella factory is there.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Oh, is that why you’re out here?

Brad Robinson:

Oh, just gorgeous. Yeah, they took us up for a VIP visit last week. It was amazing.

Zach Wojtowicz:

That’s awesome.

Brad Robinson:

Big shout out to Pella of Georgia and Pella. Those are great guys. They really are as good as they say they are. But I want to talk about CBUSA because I think that this is probably one of the most influential programs that we have gotten involved in since our inception. And I’ll say, yeah, it’s great to get rebates. It’s great to have the national vendors on your side. It’s great to be competitive in a way that your competitors cannot be, who are not a part of CBUSA. But for all that it’s worth, the real value in CBUSA is the other contractors that are in your market, that one-on-one or those events that they host and the time that you get to spend with them one-on-one. It’s a group of guys that really are the best of the best, and I’m actually really proud to say that we’re a part of it.

Zach Wojtowicz:

That’s awesome. We’ve had several members of the CBUSA crew on “The Building Code.” Charley and Ryan Lipchek have a bit of a star crossed romance, bromance going on.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah.

Zach Wojtowicz:

So it’s awesome. And Steven as well down in Atlanta, also an alumni. I actually just was with him in Austin for Power 30, which is CBUSA’s event. Brad, are you going to make it to Power 30 next year?

Brad Robinson:

We’re working on that spend and we’re working on our diversification of spend with vendors, so I’m going to get there, yeah. But Steven, one of the best guys maybe I’ve ever met.

Zach Wojtowicz:

At the final event, we had some Tacomas and Cowboys hats that they gave us as gifts, and Steven showed up all decked out ready to ride the bowl. Let me tell you, he fit the part. He looked great. It was a lot of fun.

Charley Burtwistle:

You guys got cowboy hats as gifts?

Zach Wojtowicz:

I didn’t get one. I got the shirt, but not the cowboy hat.

Charley Burtwistle:

I was going to say, why have you not worn that yet?

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah. Well, I did see Scott Siegert in the shirt today.

Charley Burtwistle:

Wow.

Zach Wojtowicz:

And I was like, “Where’s the cowboy hat?”

Brad Robinson:

Nice. I’m jealous.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah.

Brad Robinson:

Austin, the year before you guys, they all came back with different stuff. I’m like, “Man.”

Zach Wojtowicz:

We’ve got to get you out there. Come on. We’ll get you there, Brad. We’ll make it happen. All right?

Brad Robinson:

We’re working hard over here.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah. Love it. Love it. Well, I would also be amiss to say you’ve spent a lot of time with our customer success team. I know you’ve worked with Amelia and Josh really closely, so hopefully we’ve been taken care of you there in my department. So, shout out to you guys and having that relationship with Brad, and it’s a lot of fun to kind of hear on the CS team, the close relationships we have. We really appreciate your business.

The last thing I want to ask you today is a little bit about if you were new to Buildertrend, what advice would you give someone getting started?

Brad Robinson:

Oh, man. When I first started using Buildertrend, I was really hesitant to jump into the finance side and dealing with cost codes in a significant way and doing it the right way. I would say if I could go back and do it all over again, I would every single … Your very first project that you can get in the system, do it the right way, end to end. Because the sooner you get started, the more value you’re going to realize. I think oftentimes we all pick and choose the parts of software that we want to use, and 90% of the time you’re going to leave something off the table that you don’t realize how much it can change things for you. That was the biggest thing. Going into it and going whole hog into the finance component for us was a big deal. I think after we really did that, I think we were lighting up dark green on everything after that from that point forward.

Zach Wojtowicz:

You’re referring to our ability to track your health of your Buildertrend account. And if that’s not tantalizing to talk to your account manager, I don’t know what is.

Brad Robinson:

What are those big boots that you serve up there? What is that Belgian bar?

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah, Crescent Moon. Yeah, they do have the Das Boot there.

Zach Wojtowicz:

The Das Boot. That’s right. Talk a little bit about your Buildertrend health over a giant glass boot in a basement, in a bar in Midtown Omaha.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah, Omaha. Exceed expectations.

Zach Wojtowicz:

What better plug can you make?

All right, Brad. That’s about as much time as we have today, but we’d love to have you back. It was great to meet you in person.

Brad Robinson:

Absolutely.

Zach Wojtowicz:

You’re always welcome here on “The Building Code,” and thanks again for being a customer.

Brad Robinson:

Cool, man. Thank you guys very much. Appreciate it.

Charley Burtwistle:

See you, Brad.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Signed, sealed, delivered. Another episode of “The Building Code.” Charley, what’d you think?

Charley Burtwistle:

Well, Zach, I think as always, very, very motivated from that interview. I definitely get why Amelia shot him over. That was just a great all in all interview, great guest, great episode. I think the way he views his business and his employees and his opportunity is inspiring. I think a lot of times all of us have a habit of getting stuck in a rut because it could be a really successful good rut, but having that growth mindset of what can we do better? How can we improve? How do we think outside the box? Was a good message just for me personally to hear, to kind of take back to my work 20 minutes from now when I go back to my desk and my real job on how can we think differently and how can we improve stuff? So, I thought it was good. Excited to meet him. I know he said he was going to be at The Builder Show this year, so we’re going to meet him in person. And obviously an incredible Buildertrend user, CBUSA member, just all in all kind of has the whole package there.

Zach Wojtowicz:

And really, if any of you are planning to go to IBS, we’d love to meet all of you, our listeners out there. It’s a lot of fun.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah, I was just kidding. Zach doesn’t actually have a lot of autographs. He’ll be sitting by himself in the corner, so very …

Zach Wojtowicz:

That’s also not true. I work quite hard at IBS. They’re like, “If we’re going to take you, we’re going to get our money’s worth.”

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Okay?

Charley Burtwistle:

You do work hard. I’ll give you credit where credit is due.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah. You’ll see I have a bit of a reputation for being a grinder.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah.

Zach Wojtowicz:

We’re going to get after it. Well, it’s a couple months away though, so we don’t want to spoil it too much. We’ll have some exciting stuff later in the year, I’m sure, about our IBS plans. But yeah, I love talking to our friend here, Brad. It was really fun to get into a lot of different topics with him. He’s truly like a Buildertrend super-duper user. He’s got connections to some of our sister companies. He’s got multiple accounts, he’s got different types of business. He knows our CS team. Love talking to him about all those things. Really love how he approaches his team. A lot of alignment. I’m dead serious when I talk about the hiring of people who are super curious, is something that resonates really well with me. I think that’s kind of the thing that helps connect teams together is that they’re trying to solve problems together and they take ownership to get those problems solved through by just asking questions and being genuine.

So, it’s great to hear he recognizes that, and I just got a lot of personal joy getting to meet someone that our team takes so highly of. So, thanks a lot for coming on “The Building Code” today. Any closing plugs?

Charley Burtwistle:

I don’t think so. I’d say if you have a spare second and want to help Zach and I out, you can go and give this podcast a quick like, review or subscribe. We always benefit from those and love seeing them. And if you don’t have time, don’t do it.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Wow.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Whatever you want.

Charley Burtwistle:

I’m not in charge of you and your life. Do whatever you want.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Enjoy yourselves out there. Thanks again, everybody.

Charley Burtwistle:

We’ll see you next time. I’m Charley Burtwistle.

Zach Wojtowicz:

I’m Zach Wojtowicz.

Charley Burtwistle:

Peace.