Our powerful partnership with The Home Depot featuring Frank Blake

Zach Wojtowicz:

It’s “The Building Code.” Welcome back, I’m Zach Wojtowicz.

Charley Burtwistle:

And I’m Charley Burtwistle.

Zach Wojtowicz:

We have quite an episode today, which we don’t get to say a lot, which we’re having The Home Depot.

Charley Burtwistle:

The Home Depot.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Come on and talk about our newest Buildertrend integration. We have Frank Blake from The Home Depot. He is the general manager of outside sales at Home Depot, and he’s going to talk to us a little bit about the integration itself, why it’s so big, why we’re so excited about it, and we’re going to have a lot of energy. We’re going to get really pumped up. Charley, how are you feeling?

Charley Burtwistle:

This is something that’s been coming down for a long time. I want to get into it right now. We’ll save some firepower for Frank. But yeah, this is something that I think both Buildertrend and The Home Depot are super, super excited about. I’m hoping that both of our shared customers will be super excited about it, and all the listeners out there will be excited too. A lot of excitement.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah. There aren’t many other words that would describe it, but just to give a little bit of detail, we have a partnership with Home Depot where we’re going to be integrating the Pro Xtra program with our Buildertrend cost catalog to open up all types of possibilities. I don’t want to spoil much more than that, keep the audience dangling a little bit. Build that hype.

Charley Burtwistle:

It is quite literally a game changer for Buildertrend customers, for Pro Xtra’s. And I would like to say for the construction industry as a whole.

Zach Wojtowicz:

We’re making waves. Let’s get Frank in here and let’s talk all about it. Welcome Frank Blake to “The Building Code.” Thanks for joining us today. You’re a three-time returning guest, but for our new listeners out there, can you tell us a little bit about yourself, your background? What do you do here at Home Depot?

Frank Blake:

Yeah sure, Zach. Thanks for having me, man. I’m excited to be back on my favorite podcast and to be here with you and your listeners and your customers. And you’re right, it is my third time and one of the things that it made me think of is if you’ve ever seen the show “Saturday Night Live,” they’ve got that club for five-timer hosts.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Oh, you’re already trying to get to five?

Frank Blake:

Tom Hanks and John Goodman and a few other folks that have hosted the show five times. So having got five under my belt here on your podcast, but I think three, if it’s not a record, I definitely feel like it’s an exclusive club. And look, I’m thrilled to be back especially today because we got a lot of really cool things to finally share with the team because we’ve been teasing them for a little bit. But first, to answer your question. So my name is Frank Blake. I work for The Home Depot here out of our store support center in Atlanta, Georgia. And I’ve been with the company now 17 years.

Charley Burtwistle:

Wow.

Frank Blake:

17 years next month, I should say. It’s not in the bag. I should probably knock on some wood and not count my chickens ‘til they hatch, but I’m coming on 17 years.

Frank Blake:

And I started with the company right after I got out of the US Army. I did some time overseas in Iraq, came back and started working in store 1504 in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and here 17 years later, I’m the general manager of outside sales for The Home Depot team. Which means I am on the same team as all of our professional account representatives. They have portfolios of all of our largest, most complex, most important and most valuable customers to The Home Depot all across the country. And so that’s what I do. I love it every day. I’m thrilled to be here for 17 years, but even more thrilled to be back for my third time on your show. So thanks guys for having me.

Charley Burtwistle:

Absolutely. And Zach and I had just started, took over the podcast. I think this is like Episode 8 or 9 for us. So you’re kind of like right behind us, you almost have more experience on the pod than we do. So we’ll take all the constructive criticism you have, after the episode, as a…

Frank Blake:

Well I have been making some notes already, Charley and I’ll save it till after the show. But look, so far you guys are doing well. And I think good things to come. You guys are going to do a great job. I have no doubt.

Charley Burtwistle:

Appreciate it. So like you said, there’s super exciting stuff to get in today, obviously with the new integration. Before we get there, just a little bit more on your background, 17 years is a very long time. Obviously the position you’re in now, working on really exciting stuff with some really valued customers across the country. Can we just take a brief second, maybe the history of Frank Blake. So rewind 17 years, how’d you get to kind of where you’re at now?

Frank Blake:

Much as I would love to talk about myself and my history for the next couple hours, I have a feeling that would have your listenership plummet. So I won’t bore everybody with too many of the details of my journey, other than to say maybe two key things. The first and foremost I would say is really appreciating and living our Home Depot values every single day. And so as a company, Home Depot is a values-based organization. We have a set of core values that guide every decision we do. And I can tell you that it makes a huge difference for me to know that at the core of our DNA, we really appreciate entrepreneurial spirit. Entrepreneurial spirit is a core value for The Home Depot, and I think a key reason why our two great companies are able to come together. Because we both approach customer challenges and opportunities with that entrepreneurial mindset or building strong relationships.

Frank Blake:

You can’t do anything for 17 years without really investing in relationships and investing time with your customers and your partners. And so The Home Depot values have been instrumental in my mind for why I choose to continue to work at The Home Depot every single day. Number one. And then the other point I would make is, I would not be anywhere near where I am today in the company, or in life, if a tremendous number of world-class leaders at The Home Depot, hadn’t put their arm around me at some point and either given me some really hard criticism, given me some really great feedback, given me some encouragement when I needed it, or just generally helped me out throughout my career.

Frank Blake:

And so there’s been a tremendous investment in leadership development and career coaching from so many people at The Home Depot. I’m tempted to name names, but I know I would leave some folks out. But if you’re out there listening, chances are, I’m talking about you because I wouldn’t be here without you. And so those are really the two things if you said, “Hey, what’s the secret to 17 years?” I’d say look, “We are a phenomenal values-based company where people can apply their basic goodness and ingenuity to be successful.” And also I’ve just had a lot of great mentors, coaches, bosses, leaders, developing me and helping me along throughout the way.

Zach Wojtowicz:

That’s awesome. Well, let’s get to the news of the day, which we’re excited to share that Buildertrend and Home Depot are integrating. That this is a long-term partnership that we’ve been at this for a while. Like you said, a lot of people to name, can’t name them all. So we won’t even attempt to do it. But can you talk a little bit about how did we get here? Where did this partnership start and how did it develop and the integration that we’re releasing to our co-customers today?

Frank Blake:

Yeah, I’d be happy to. Look, I’m really excited about it. It’s something that we have been working on behind the scenes for a very long time. And really, it all began over a shared goal. And our two companies share a goal to equip our Pros with what they need to effectively manage and grow their business. So we understand that all of our shared customers, they in themselves are great entrepreneurial success stories, their businesses, and they need help to manage and grow their business. And as leaders in the space, Buildertrend and The Home Depot, we each bring our unique perspective to the table. And we both understand very deeply the challenges and opportunities in today’s construction world.

Frank Blake:

Now together, The Home Depot and Buildertrend provide job management software and an exclusive online integrated experience to save our pros time and money. And so we really wanted to help our Pro Xtra members ease their job management pain points and drive planned purchases with The Home Depot. So now when a customer links their Buildertrend account with Pro Xtra, they will be able to sync their purchases and lists on both sites and continue to use their Pro Xtra benefits.

Zach Wojtowicz:

And I think it’s important to kind of point out, it’s not even just on the purchasing side. There’s a lot of benefits, even just from the planning of the space. You’re going to be able to get the materials that you buy frequently and use it at the start of the job and be able to get the details and even the cost coding side of it. Frank, my background’s in consulting. So I’m in the program all the time. And…

Frank Blake:

Zach I would have thought your background was in broadcasting. Wow, man, your voice is so silky smooth.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Get this guy at least on two more podcasts, no more than five. Okay. But we’ll negotiate the terms. I appreciate that Frank. It’s interesting just because this is something that our customers have been asking us for a long time, like tie into vendor databases, I want to be able to get the details, estimate off of it. Provide selections, be able to tie it to my purchases. We’re really tying a lot of things together within the catalog, even beyond just the material purchasing side of things. I think it’s important to iterate to our customers. There’s a lot of value in this in many ways that everybody at Buildertrend and Home Depot are excited to talk about.

Frank Blake:

What I’ll tell you is, if you kind of zoom all the way out, I think our world has gone very far down the path of sort of this virtual universe, right? And we’ve got a lot of things that happen online now. We’ve got a lot of things that happen on a computer or in the cloud, but ultimately all of those online experiences, all of those virtual job management tools, I mean all of that is amazing. But there’s a lot of activity that still happens in the real world, especially in our industry, on the job site, on the construction site. And I think what’s great about the integration that has been underway for a long time with our two teams working really hard together. I think what’s great about it is that it really is marrying up that virtual world and that physical world where now the products that you purchase at The Home Depot and the products that you need for your job site and construction site will be seamlessly integrated into that virtual and computer-based reality that you guys have created that so many of your customers depend on to run their businesses.

Zach Wojtowicz:

And for a lot of our listeners, obviously we have a lot of people that shop at Home Depot, we have a lot of people that use Buildertrend that I’m sure their ears are perking up, they’re also very excited. I don’t want to get too in the weeds, but Frank, if you could just take a couple minutes and explain like, why is this a game changer? Like what pain points is this going to solve? And why should everyone be as excited for this integration as us three on the podcast, or right now.

Frank Blake:

The first is that with this integration, product purchases on homedepot.com and Buildertrend are synced to provide a seamless experience. So what you see and interact with in one experience, you will be able to see and interact with in the other experience. And so we’re creating that seamless integration first and foremost. The next thing that I would mention specifically is that Buildertrend’s quote, send to Home Depot cart feature makes checking out with any exclusive Home Depot discounts, a breeze. And so now you can be in your Buildertrend experience and send items that you need for a project or a job site directly into your homedepot.com shopping cart. And it happens seamlessly and in recognition of your loyalty through our Pro Xtra platform, your loyalty to the business. And so any pricing or other benefits that you get along the way, those transition seamlessly as well. And then the last thing is Buildertrend also offers customers the option to import their most commonly purchased Home Depot items into their Buildertrend cost catalog. So again, it’s kind of that seamless forward and backward integration between both platforms.

Zach Wojtowicz:

I think even the best part about this is what does it cost our customers. It’s included, it’s free. It’s just a matter of sinking up your account and signing up for a Pro Xtra account if you don’t already have one.

Frank Blake:

It’s the best price in town, as I say that, right? So, I mean, if you said what’s the added cost to our joint customers for that functionality, not only is there no added cost, but we’ve got folks that have been Pro Xtra loyalty members for years. And what they’re experiencing now is just a continued evolution of that platform. It continued improvement and investment in that platform and really bringing on new features, functions, benefits regularly. And look, we’ve done a lot of enhancements to Pro Xtra. And I think it’s probably one of the most impressive examples of The Home Depot core value of entrepreneurial spirit. But honestly, of all of the business tools, of all of the enhancements, of all the capabilities, I genuinely believe that the Buildertrend integration in Pro Xtra is the biggest game changer we have done to date.

Charley Burtwistle:

There you go. Print the t-shirts. Biggest game-changer The Home Depot has done to date. No, that’s awesome Frank. What are some of the like, I guess, results or what are we kind of hoping to come out of this partnership? Obviously, this is kind of brand new for both of us, we’re all very excited about it. Looking forward a year from now, where do we see this at and kind of what are we hoping to see out of this new integration?

Frank Blake:

It’s a great question, Charley. And so I kind of break it down into two buckets and the first thing that I’m looking for in the next year and the metric that I’m tracking very closely, that really underpins and determines, has this been a success? Is it working the way we want? The No. 1 metric that I think everybody will be pointing to is how many times I’m invited back to the show. And so if this is my last, Then there’s a pretty good chance it’s not going well.

Frank Blake:

That aside, the next bucket of metrics that I would point to is back to the beginning of our goal of helping our customers be successful. And at The Home Depot, we’ve got a thing that we call the inverted pyramid and the inverted pyramid is really our leadership philosophy. And it’s not that the CEO is in charge and that all the people in the corporate office are in charge. Actually it’s the opposite. And here for our business, even though we are a 100-plus billion dollar operation, our customers are the boss and what we’re working on and trying to improve every day is the experience for our customers. And so I think if you said, “Hey, what are our hopes for this short-term and long-term?” I’d go back to the beginning and say, “Look, it’s about saving our joint customers time because as a contractor, time is money.”

Frank Blake:

And so if we can save you time, if we can make your life easier, if we can have our software integrate as seamlessly as it does now, then that is going to save everybody a ton of time. It’s just going to make running their business easier. And if running their businesses is easier, then that’s more time that they can spend on the job site or more time that they can spend with their customers. And so ultimately, Charley, my answer would be, look, I’m in this for saving our customers time and money and being on the show at least two more times. So those are the things that we’re looking for.

Charley Burtwistle:

You’re Just going to speak it into existence at this point. We’ll see you next week, Frank, you’re back.

Frank Blake:

I’m here. You guys know where to find me, apparently.

Charley Burtwistle:

And I can say I’ve had the experience of working with customers in the beta and the feedback’s been really, really positive. And so, I can’t wait to see the iterations and that we’re going to continue to develop it even better offerings as we continue to go. And so if you are already using it, thank you. And if you’re just getting started, remember to reach out to our support team, we can coach you how to get set up, how to get everything going, how to import your list. It’s intuitive enough that it shouldn’t take too much time, but we’re always here for you if you need it to get kind of you up and running. And even if you’re not using Pro Xtra today, it’s really easy to get started or you can get started with Buildertrend on it as well.

Zach Wojtowicz:

And another really interesting thing I want to double back on Frank, that you mentioned in your last answer there was just how closely your PARs work with their customers and listen to their feedback. But on the last episode of “The Building Code,” we actually had one of our user researchers here at Buildertrend, Catie Brown, come on. And she talked about some of the user interviews that they’ve been doing and just how they take that feedback in and listen to it. So when you’re talking about The Home Depot customer is the, are the boss and they’re the ones driving the decisions that hits home and relates to literally exactly what we were talking about over here at Buildertrend. So how does that feedback loop kind of work on your guys’ team? Like how are you taking in customer feedback and listening to them? And as you mentioned, they’re the boss, they’re the top of the pyramid.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah. I always say that the Pro business, the construction business, it’s a team sport, but it’s also a full-contact sport. And so it’s a full-contact sport where our Pro account representatives they’re out there in the real world, on the job site every day, meeting with customers and getting their feedback and really asking great questions so that they can help them be more successful. And I think one of my favorite things to do is ride along with our PARs and customers.

Charley Burtwistle:

And there’s a lot of great conversation and there’s conversation around product, pricing, fulfillment, but there’s also this underlying conversation that always comes up around streamlining operations and building in efficient processes. And I think that you guys at Buildertrend have built such an incredibly powerful tool that helps our joint customers run their business. Then it’s just a natural extension of that listening exercise and treating the customer as the boss to say, “Okay, well, look, if you love the Buildertrend software, which you clearly do, and you’re looking for ways to kind of streamline and build efficiencies into your existing business processes, and we’re here because you’re buying our product and you’re using our product to do the jobs that your customers need you to do well, then putting all those things together, it just makes sense.” And, and that’s kind of how we got here.

Charley Burtwistle:

Do you have a favorite aspect of the new Home Depot integration if you had to choose which part? Because a lot of moving pieces to it and I’ll share you mine, but I’m curious to see what your favorite aspect of the integration is.

Frank Blake:

Yeah. I’ve thought a lot about that, and that’s like asking me to pick my favorite child and I have three children, but my favorite Buildertrend and Home Depot integration, Pro Xtra component for me really, it’s the seamless product purchasing. And the fact that now you don’t have to like jump between platforms like, oh, I manage part of my business over here and then I manage the other part over here. Now those two things come together. And I think to me, that is far and away the most important. But again, I have my favorites as I just mentioned. So I don’t know how about you guys?

Zach Wojtowicz:

Well, I was going to say, “It’s like trying to pick your favorite podcast host and episode that you’ve been on, right?” I mean, it’s just impossible to figure out.

Frank Blake:

Well, no, I honestly got to tell you Zach. You guys, I don’t know how, it feels like you’ve been doing this for years so I would say very confidently, especially knowing that if I want to come back, it’s probably going to be at your invitation. Again, you guys are the best. So I think you guys are the best hosts of the show, at least today that I can say.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Charley’s more the diva, if I’m being honest. He picks and chooses what happens. But yeah …

Charley Burtwistle:

A lot of drama behind the scenes.

Frank Blake:

Yeah, I get that vibe a little bit. I can pick up on that vibe.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah. Data scientists are notoriously known for being …

Zach Wojtowicz:

Difficult.

Charley Burtwistle:

Extroverts and yeah.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Way too analytical.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah. The favorite child discussion, favorite feature discussion. I was actually sitting in on a demo the other day of the integration and the thing that blew me away was just how easy it was to link the two accounts. Like I was expecting like, OK, I’m going to have to go through all these different login processes and like sign up with a whole bunch of different emails and confirm. It’s like, no, you click a button, it takes you to a login page, username password. And then you’re right back in Buildertrend. And I was like, wow, how on earth did we manage to pull this off?

Zach Wojtowicz:

Because we are Buildertrend.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah, you’re right. Shout out Buildertrend, shout out developers.

Frank Blake:

I think you guys should change your slogan or your t-shirt, it should say, “The impossible is your specialty.” Right? You guys are doing things that I would have thought are impossible, but you’re making them happen every single day. If I could, just because I know a few other folks who I think the impossible is also their specialty and look, these shows are fun for me and I love Pro Xtra. I love Buildertrend. I love being able to come on, and I feel a little bit guilty because it feels like I’m taking credit for a lot of people’s hard work. And so if you would just indulge me, I’d like to say a special thanks to Holley Cunningham and Chris Berg and Merrill Bachouros because they and a lot of other folks here at The Home Depot have been really working very, very hard on this. And it feels like I get to take the victory lap, but honestly they deserve all of the credit for the hard work that has gotten us here on behalf of our customers. I just wanted to say to them, thank you very much.

Charley Burtwistle:

There you go. Absolutely. If we’re doing shout outs, I mean the Corp Dev team, which Zach just recently joined, obviously has been working on this for a long time.

Zach Wojtowicz:

I’m not taking any credit on it. That’s why I joined like very, very recently. So …

Charley Burtwistle:

We won’t shout out Zach, but David Arnold and Michael Vandevoort, Mickey Pike, those guys are, and I mean I hear the names you just said are names that are constantly floated around the Buildertrend office as well too because those guys are, they’ve been working on this for so long and so hard. So it was really cool to see it come to fruition and get to take credit for it on the podcast here where I did zero.

Zach Wojtowicz:

I want to give a shout out to the product people too. Dan Dvorak, Austin Smith, Sarah Biben. They all did a ton of the work on the actual creation of it and the execution. So it’s incredible, we have a lot of great people on both sides of that we just get to talk about. Hopefully they’re listening to hear their shout outs. They deserve it.

Frank Blake:

It’s a team sport guys, right? It takes 10 hands to score a basket. And we’ve had a lot of folks working very hard on this. And I’ve mentioned on one of my other numerous appearances on the show. Every time I interact with folks from your office in Omaha, you guys just have a lot of really nice people. Everybody that I’ve interacted with in the Buildertrend team, they’re all just very nice folk.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Nebraska nice. It’s a real thing.

Frank Blake:

Oh, I didn’t know that. Put that on the t-shirt.

Zach Wojtowicz:

That one might already be. It’s like “Nebraska: The Good Life,” “Nebraska Nice.” We’re trying to get people to come here and just see how nice we are and maybe they’ll stick around. You keep going back to Atlanta, but I get it.

Frank Blake:

Yeah. I have some things I can say about Atlanta t-shirt but I’m just going to hold them for the next show, maybe.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah. We’ll turn off the recording button and we’ll discuss after this. Zach and I have been pitching t-shirt ideas for eight episodes now, so maybe we’ll find…

Zach Wojtowicz:

Still hasn’t happened.

Charley Burtwistle:

Finally, get some to come out here.

Zach Wojtowicz:

For the production notes, just pointing it out anyway.

Charley Burtwistle:

Well, cool. I think that that pretty much about does it for us. Frank we’re getting close to time here. Is there anything else that you want to kind of leave our listeners with or any final sendoff notes here?

Frank Blake:

No, only to say thank you. Right. And I think one of our core values is excellent customer service. And I just want to say thanks to all of our joint customers for trusting us with their business, trusting us with the products that they need to run their small business or large business to put food on the table for their family. And it’s not lost on me that everybody’s got a choice and for the customers that are choosing to use Buildertrend, for the customers that are choosing to be members in Pro Xtra and work with The Home Depot and work with us together, I just want to say thank you very much and a heartfelt thanks for your business. And yeah, that’s it.

Charley Burtwistle:

Well, awesome. Thanks again, Frank. Third time on the pod. Special every single time.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Let’s recap. Let’s decompress. What are your takeaways?

Charley Burtwistle:

Well, my biggest takeaway was, I don’t know if I’ve ever felt better about myself than I currently do right now. Hearing his perspective, obviously a really knowledgeable guy, knows a ton about the industry, him like dropping that line about this is maybe the most innovative thing we’ve ever done. Just got me fired up. What an awesome experience to be a part of and so excited to see like where this goes, like it’s here, it’s now. No more talking about it.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah. We’re going to get clients using it. We’re going to see what the impact is going to be. We’re going to be measuring it. Thanks.

Charley Burtwistle:

We will have all sorts of data.

Zach Wojtowicz:

We will be able to tell exactly what people are using it for and then continue to improve on it as well. And that’s an important piece is Buildertrend is always listening and trying to get more opportunities out there. We’re really excited to get this in our customers’ hands. It should be live now in your account as I mentioned in our conversation with Frank. Reach out to us, we’ll get you going. There’s no reason to hesitate. We’ll get things up and running. I mean the one thing I didn’t get a chance to talk about is this should alleviate a lot of workflow issues that I’ve experienced, where I’ve seen people struggle with invoice management and receipts, and it is such a painful experience.

Zach Wojtowicz:

And the coolest thing that I’m excited about is your purchases at Home Depot, whether it’s through the online store or through the store itself, those receipts are going to flow back into Buildertrend. That’s going to be a game changer just on the paperwork front and make people’s lives so much easier when it comes to handling the most difficult part of their business, which is what did I buy? Where do I record it? How am I doing from a job costing standpoint? Going to be absolutely epic.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah. I was thinking about it a little, that a lot while he was talking about just all of your experiences and you mentioned them on the pod before, onsite consulting and going out and helping different customers streamline their business. That’s all I kept thinking about, was this is exactly what Zach is always talking about, how hard it is. And this is solving that problem. Like when we asked him what his hopes for results or like takeaways a year from now would be is I just want to make this easier and more streamlined for customers around their business. Like save time and money. Okay that’s a pretty good goal. I think everyone can all agree that if that’s what we do, then this is a successful integration.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah. Well, we’ll continue to keep our eyes on this integration and reporting back on its impact. But thanks again for Frank, for joining us today.

Charley Burtwistle:

For our listeners out there, hopefully you’re excited about this new integration as we are. We’d love to hear your feedback. We got The Building Code Crew out on Facebook that you should definitely be a part of. You can also reach out to anybody on the Buildertrend team or your Home Depot PAR as well too. But that about does it for us on this episode of “The Building Code.” I’m Charley Burtwistle.

Zach Wojtowicz:

I’m Zach Wojtowicz. We’ll see you next time. Later.