Building customer relationships to last with Paul Ledet

Zach Wojtowicz:

What’s up everybody? Zach Wojtowicz here on “The Building Code” with my friend, and colleague, and my best friend, Charley Burtwistle.

Charley Burtwistle:

Wow. BT buds, Zach and Charley. I’m Charley Burtwistle, a very honored co-host of “The Building Code,” here.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Just really flourishing in our relationship. Thought I’d share a little bit of love here on the intro.

Charley Burtwistle:

I appreciate that, Zach.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Who do we have today, Charley?

Charley Burtwistle:

We have Paul Ledet coming to us live all the way from Thibodaux, Louisiana. He works for Chris Ledet Homes, who is his father, founded the company 40 years ago. I think their 40th anniversary is coming up this year, so very, very long standing business, has a big impact on the community down there. Hopefully, we get to dive into that a little bit, just kind of the client relationships that they have and how they’ve managed to keep this business going for 40 years.

Zach Wojtowicz:

They’ve been with Buildertrend for a long time, too. So, I’m interested to kind of hear the genesis of how they got started and where they’re at today. As we know, it’s a process. So, let’s get Paul in here and let’s start talking about it. Paul, welcome to “The Building Code.” We’re extremely excited to have you here today. You’re a bit of a legend here at Buildertrend. I was talking to some people before the episode and I was like, “Yeah, we have Paul from Chris Ledet Homes,” and they’re like, “I know him, I trained him seven years ago.” And all these people knew who you were. You’ve been to Buildertrend University multiple times, so-

Paul Ledet:

Yeah.

Zach Wojtowicz:

This is special status on “The Building Code” today [crosstalk 00:01:34].

Charley Burtwistle:

Honestly, on us for not getting you on sooner.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah.

Charley Burtwistle:

Absolute-

Zach Wojtowicz:

Great point.

Charley Burtwistle:

Absolute pleasure, Paul.

Zach Wojtowicz:

On Danielle.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah, our coordinator over here. For those of our listeners that aren’t lucky enough to know you, can you tell us just a little bit about yourself and your background, Paul?

Paul Ledet:

Yeah, man. Well, thanks for having me. And that intro’s pretty funny. I would say everybody there at Buildertrend, I’ve probably talked with everybody. I mean, they’re like family to me, and they’ve really pushed us along. And we’re where we’re at today for everybody there, so we thank y’all, of course. So, a little bit about me, I guess, I started, well, our company’s a 40 year old company, almost. Might be 40 next year. My dad started it long ago and I started with him about 10 years ago. I have a construction management degree and I graduated from LSU, Geaux Tigers.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Knew it was coming.

Paul Ledet:

And then, I went to work in New Orleans, and I just hated it. And I was fishing a lot, and I was working, and my dad was like, “Look, why don’t you just move home? I can keep you busy for one year,” and I just took a leap of faith and moved down here from New Orleans, and then we worked for about a year and a half, and then we ended up finding Buildertrend up in Las Vegas, and that’s where we kind of started with Buildertrend.

Paul Ledet:

And then, that kind of just became my baby for the next several years. And we’ve really started to implement each part of the program and with our customers in the way we do business. About four years ago, I took over from my dad and now I’ve got him working for me, which is nice.

Charley Burtwistle:

There you go.

Paul Ledet:

But, I mean, we got him 40 years of mistakes, is what we call it. A lot of experience, so, yeah, and that’s good. So, I’ve now been here and what I thought was just a one year, maybe a stepping stone, ended up being 10 years. I think this is my 10th year now, that I’ve been here and got a nice little family that are born and raised here. I have two little girls and I got a third girl on the way.

Charley Burtwistle:

Congrats.

Paul Ledet:

So, pretty excited. Yeah. Two dogs and kind of starting to really put some solid roots here, or back here, I should say. And we’ve really been enjoying it.

Zach Wojtowicz:

I got to ask, I just love hearing the stories of how these construction companies get started. I mean, 40 years is an incredible amount of time that your dad put in.

Paul Ledet:

Yeah.

Zach Wojtowicz:

What brought them to home building? I mean, what got him there?

Paul Ledet:

So, he’s an accountant by trade, and we’re a big oil field town here. Obviously, back in the eighties, Houma-Thibodaux was a pretty popping area and he worked for this big oil field company, and they put them on a boat, put him at the bow of the boat and getting seasick-

Zach Wojtowicz:

I got a CPA for this?

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah.

Paul Ledet:

Yeah. And just hated it. And they stuck him in a cubicle, and he just didn’t like it. And so, he went into real estate and he had a brother-in-law that was in the business, kind of in home building, and they were like, “Yo, Chris, you can do it.” And then, he just kind of started doing it. And he just based it, he knew numbers-

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah.

Paul Ledet:

And then, he knew customer service. And you got to know my dad, I mean, he has been cutting grass since he was nine years old. He used to carry a little push mower on his bike, and he was always driven. That whole generation is a kind of a different breed. And that’s kind of what he built it on was, he knew numbers and he knew customer service, and that’s kind of where it took off.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Was there-

Paul Ledet:

The he started building.

Charley Burtwistle:

Those are two key parts of running a good business, though. I mean, it shows obviously, at work. The formula’s there. I’m not sure he probably thought someday my son will be putting me at the desk again to do accounting or whatever it is you’re having to do these days. But that’s an awesome story.

Paul Ledet:

Yeah. No, and it really has been awesome. The first two years, we both didn’t think that we were going to make it together.

Zach Wojtowicz:

I can’t imagine.

Paul Ledet:

I think after about six months of starting, I just said, “You got to just let me fail. You got to just let me go,” and I would think that was the best thing we ever did. We kind of just… Kind of let me stumble. And then, I really, I mean, I’m not just saying this, but I think Buildertrend was kind of a pivotal point for us because we were just all over the place with office, just junk, and paper, and billing. It was a mess and it just made things easier for us to where we weren’t down each other’s throats the whole time. And it gave us our space because, obviously, we can work from wherever. Go ahead.

Charley Burtwistle:

And, obviously, it’s paid off for you guys. You know have a very successful business. You’ve mentioned customer service a couple of different times, now. I was actually on your website today doing a little research and that’s something that you guys really stress in a customer-facing type marketing promotions and stuff like that is a customer service, the client relationship. How has that kind of aspect of your business contributed to the longevity? One, 40 years, but also the successfulness of your company?

Paul Ledet:

So, I’ll give you an example of kind of way my dad kind of built his whole business off of is obviously Hurricane Ida just kind of ripped through our area. The high wall passing, maybe 10 miles away from here.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Wow.

Paul Ledet:

And we had several calls in our office, “Hey Chris, you built my house in 1978 or something like, 1981. And can you help us, just direct us on this, or direct us on that?” And there’s probably a hundred phone calls like that. You feel bad, you try to help them all. And I’m sorry if we didn’t get to everybody yet, but that just goes to show you where people are calling in knowing that Dad was always there, or Chris Ledet Homes is always there even if it was just to give information or pass on anything, identifying what roof we put on their house in 1990, or we have all of these files that we just continue the service after the sale.

Paul Ledet:

And that was one thing that my dad always harped on. We want to be a place where people can call us back and help get their five-year-old refrigerator replaced if they’re not capable of doing it on their own, or setting up service calls, or whatever it may be. And so, that’s kind of played a really big role in our success, I think.

Zach Wojtowicz:

I love hearing there… When I was traveling for Buildertrend, I would talk to these businesses and there’s so many stories like this, where you have family at the center of it, community. I don’t think construction gets that reputation broader, across the public, but when you find a builder who has that culture and that impact, it is truly heartwarming. I mean, I’m kind of getting emotional about it.

Charley Burtwistle:

Right.

Zach Wojtowicz:

It’s weird, but that’s just incredible, and it just goes to show that with the customer, and we always preach it, but preach that Buildertrend, we want to help people with everything. How has Buildertrend fit into that? It’s important to be accessible, but there’s balance, of course. And Buildertrend obviously has technology capabilities. How do you guys use it? What does that look like for you now with the way that you do things and the way that Buildertrend maybe changed it?

Paul Ledet:

I knew Buildertrend was a go from the start. Just from our first interview at Las Vegas was just open arms. And that’s kind of how we treat our customers, “Whatever you need,” and people are always like, “Well, what does it cost?” “It costs nothing. Just call me. We just want to be a soundboard for you.” And that’s how my relationship developed with Buildertrend. “Hey, look, we’re here. If you got questions, whatever, open arms, whatever,” and it just was great. And that’s kind of how we were able to have that relationship with y’all and I guess, going forward, how it’s changed with our customers, I will say though, that technology is a double-edged sword because the intention I find with technology is, or what happens is, you kind of lose a lot of face-to-face or one-on-one phone conversation, and if you’re not aware of that, and sometimes I have to remind the girls or myself even, “Hey, just pick up the phone and call them.”

Paul Ledet:

And oftentimes, that goes a lot further than a message through the program. Now, I will say though, we have a lot less of those conversations because everything’s so streamlined and so organized. I find that we’re grabbing less issues where a one-on-one conversation is-

Zach Wojtowicz:

Needed?

Paul Ledet:

Necessary.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah. They’re just happy.

Paul Ledet:

For the most part, people are just happier.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah.

Paul Ledet:

So, it’s good. And so, it really fit in our dynamic, and we just had to make sure we’re still having that engagement with our customer face-to-face or on the phone call.

Zach Wojtowicz:

We were just talking to our last guest about that exact concept. He was a digital marketing specialist who helps contractors. And we were talking about the automation of the construction industry. And we were just discussing, this is so funny, how do you balance the coldness of convenience, speed, and that’s kind of what customers expect, is a fast experience with the hand-holding, making sure they’re taken care of, making it feel like they’re being received well.

Paul Ledet:

That’s right.

Zach Wojtowicz:

So, it sounds like you guys have found that balance, though. That you’re still able to call people, but you’re not just ignoring them, either, giving them nothing that-

Paul Ledet:

That’s right. Usually, the phone calls just to have a conversation and talk it out. I’ve got a guy right now that I’m like, “Look, you can put whatever you want through the program, but like, man, don’t be afraid to pick up the phone and call me.” And what we started doing is offering people, we have different stages that we’re picking selections out, and we’re kind of grouped them in five or six groups or whatever, and we starting to offer like a round table meeting if they want to talk it out, their finishes and just are unsure things. And no one’s really taken us up on that, but just having that out there, has opened up the door for just general conversations. It kind of take that rigid, just… Because we’re like an oiled machine, and sometimes you still got throw that personal aspect in it.

Charley Burtwistle:

That’s a really interesting concept of a very, very specific part of the home building process. Any other kind of ideas or new concepts that you guys are toying with or introducing selections at this point, works really, really well. Or, “Hey, a phone call here works well,” or where do you guys think maybe some areas that some builders maybe failing or misstepping with the relationship with the homeowner, where you guys have found kind of a unique solution to that?

Paul Ledet:

I would say that they miss out on the ability to be transparent with their customer. I find that the more transparent you are with having your selections or allowances open and available, and my vendors are uploading quotes that they can view, I mean, that goes a long way for an owner to be able to, a flooring selection, to be able to click through there, and they can see, basically, exactly the labor amount, the flooring amount, the square footage, the labor rate, the flooring rate. And they just gives them a better sense of trust, I suppose, and I know not everybody does that and that may be a weird concept for some builders, but when you open that door to have that trust and communication, I find that the jobs, generally, go a lot smoother, to make sure they’re getting what they paid for, so that’s what I would say.

Zach Wojtowicz:

I’m intrigued, you said your vendors log in Buildertrend and upload the quotes? You don’t do it for them?

Paul Ledet:

I don’t do it for them.

Zach Wojtowicz:

There’s going to be a lot of builders like, “How did you manage that?”

Paul Ledet:

Look, we’re not a 100%, but we’re, I would say we’re probably 80% where-

Zach Wojtowicz:

Hey, wow.

Paul Ledet:

They do and it’s nice. And they’re bidding for us, and uploading bids, and stuff. Look, it didn’t happen overnight. It took a couple of meetings, and some beers, and some training, then go over, and look we have the best of the best, I would call them our working partners-

Zach Wojtowicz:

Partners.

Paul Ledet:

Our subs and vendors are some of the best crews that we have in the area. And once they kind of, and I use the word buy in, not financially, but just put in the time, they’re realizing that it’s a savior on them, too. And it’s a really clean. I got one, my floor guy, who he and I are friends, we actually do the podcast together, Josh. And he was probably one of the first vendors that really kind of, they took off and they were like, “I mean, it’s amazing just the level of efficiency,” and that’s when it kind of clicked for me like, “If everybody did this,” it just takes a lot of work off of us.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah. That makes sense. Zach and I both kind of shared a glance, I think, when you said 80% of your vendors are logging in and you have that kind of-

Paul Ledet:

Yeah.

Charley Burtwistle:

Relationship with them. Yeah. I wouldn’t be surprised if you have some people reaching out to you after this episode to get some advice.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Like, “How many, how many beers did it take?”

Charley Burtwistle:

Exactly. How many beers did it take for you to get them to do this? And also you did mention-

Paul Ledet:

Yeah.

Charley Burtwistle:

You did mention the podcast again. We were talking about before, I feel like you have to give it a shout out now.

Paul Ledet:

Yeah, man, check it out, “The Wasted Hour.” You can find us on any major platform, if you want. It’s nothing about building, but it does give my friend and I, I mean, and the people that we’ve had on, have a lot of good insight, which I would think help any-

Zach Wojtowicz:

Business owner.

Paul Ledet:

Anybody in business, whether you’re a builder or whatnot, so yeah thank you.

Charley Burtwistle:

Heck, yeah. “The Wasted Hour.” I’m going to check it out for sure.

Paul Ledet:

Check it out.

Charley Burtwistle:

Back to home building and the client relationship, now. You’ve mentioned a few key aspects of the entire build, whether that’s the initial bidding process, the selection process, we even mentioned kind of the lead process a little bit, as well, too. Where do you find that the client communication and that relationship gets put to the test the most? Is it when you’re initially reaching out to them trying to sell them? Or is it when, “Hey, you need to pick out these selections, we’re going to put them in your house,” where do you find kind of the biggest test there?

Paul Ledet:

The relationship would be the punch-out phase, probably. I mean, that’s the-

Charley Burtwistle:

Interesting.

Paul Ledet:

That is the ultimate test, and it just gets people are ready to move in, and we’re ready to be done. We kind of get relationship fatigue. You’re dealing with somebody 8, 10 months, 12 months, a custom build. They’re kind of worn out. I wouldn’t admit that we were worn out, but we’re trying to get these subs and get these things wrapped up, and tensions are usually high, so I would say that would be definitely the part where it gets put to the test.

Zach Wojtowicz:

What, what do you do to try and ease their anxiety in the punch-out phase? If that’s kind of the Moment Zero where it’s like, “We need to execute,” what are you doing to help alleviate the tension?

Paul Ledet:

Well, the last two years have been pretty weird with COVID. Lots of loose ends that are way more loose ends than normal, things taking lead times, are taking forever and you try to move them in without appliances and stuff. Managing their expectations is the key, but even then, we’re trying to manage them and we’re wrong several times because we rely on information, too, but really just trying to manage their expectations and trying to set deadlines, but not, “Hey, look, we’re trying to commit to this two weeks, but we want it to be finished before you move in.” That was a real tough one for us this past year. We’ve had a few stack on each other, mostly due to COVID and then tremendous amount of loose ends that they were ready to move in, and we’re ready to have them move in, and that was a tough one, but mostly we do pretty good.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah. The managing expectations, and just time frame, and things like that, I feel like that’s a common theme, obviously, especially the past year that Zach and I have been hosting the pod here, that we’re talking to, from the suppliers, to the home builders, to the subcontractors, to the owners, everyone that we talk about, what a kind of key aspect that is. How much of the like scheduling and layout of the build process do you guys expose to the homeowners? Do you keep that pretty close to the chest or do you have them reference that quite a bit?

Paul Ledet:

It’s visible and they can see the whole project from the beginning to the end, from the start of the job. Lately, I’ve been telling people, the last year and a half, that this is just a guide-

Charley Burtwistle:

Right.

Paul Ledet:

And this is what our expectations are. This is what we’ll strive for, but the world’s just really different right now. And I would say that a 100% of our customers have been pretty cool about it, and they understand. And then, we just had the hurricane rip through here, which kind of even made it worse, but I think what it’s doing is it’s giving people a lot of patience. We’ll see how long that lasts.

Charley Burtwistle:

Right.

Paul Ledet:

Because usually it doesn’t last very long.

Zach Wojtowicz:

That was what popped into my head, you’re mid-construction and hurricane hits, what happens? What do you do?

Paul Ledet:

Well, I’ll tell you what I did for the first four weeks. Well, I’ll tell you, I left here. I kind of freaked out on Saturday morning, right before the storm hit, the day before the storm hit, went to Houston. My wife and I got a two-year-old and a four-year-old and my wife’s pregnant now, I just woke up to like, I got to out of here.” Well, I also left seven projects here that I knew we had them all set up ready to go, but I drove back Monday morning. I was in Thibodaux for 9 a.m., right after the storm hit, so they were clearing the roads in front of me as I was pulling in. And then, they shut down, you couldn’t get into the city parts of our town.

Paul Ledet:

And man, I mean, hundreds of phone calls, roof’s leaking, tarp my roof, and I called my roofer and we tarped roofs probably a week and a half, probably did a hundred rooms, maybe more, mostly with all my neighbors, and my friends, my previous customers, and just try to get them. And that’s what you did for a whole week. And then, you’re just in survival mode. I mean, it’s terrible. The first three weeks you’re just trying to pick up your friends’ places, my brother, my parents, anybody you can help with. And it’s pretty cool, our community kind of came together. We were without power for 14 days.

Charley Burtwistle:

Wow.

Paul Ledet:

And so, luckily, I had the forethought to, I’ve got some projects down in deep Houma that didn’t have power for 20-something days.

Paul Ledet:

And some of my crews are ready to go back to work, so I had generators and fuel and you had to get all that laid out. And then, you’re trying to see, because during Katrina, you lost some major sub-base overnight, they picked up and left. We were very fortunate that all of our subs and vendors have been or are back on track with us, for our new builds. I tried to explain to my customers that we’re going to stick in new construction and not try to tackle those because we’re getting, and it’s so heartbreaking, you want to help build some of these communities and where the people’s houses flood, but you just can’t help everybody. And we’re just not geared up for that, but it’s heartbreaking to have to tell so that people, “no,” so the last month, I’ve been telling people, “no” and trying to help people that we can, and trying to not be insensitive to the construction that we have-

Charley Burtwistle:

Current customers.

Paul Ledet:

Going on.

Charley Burtwistle:

Right.

Paul Ledet:

Because they were nervous. “Is Paul going to just pick up and go work on whatever?” But, no, we just trying to have that balance for help out who we can and continue on the way we’re doing business.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah, that’s pretty powerful to even think about having to make some of those choices and obviously, just the overwhelming demand out there for-

Paul Ledet:

Yeah.

Charley Burtwistle:

These things is tough.

Paul Ledet:

Yeah, man, it’s giving me chills thinking about it. When you’re in it, you don’t really… It was probably the first time I talk about it, but it’s heavy, trying to decide who you can help. It’s tough coming out of a hurricane like that. And that was pretty ravaging. Thibodaux, where I live, I mean, we had a lot of roof damage, but you get south of here, it was pretty bad. Lots of things just leveled.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah, we had an episode, and I don’t know, three or four episodes ago with Bill Gray from New Zealand, and he talked about similar natural disasters, his was hurricanes and just going from-

Zach Wojtowicz:

Earthquakes.

Charley Burtwistle:

You’re right. You’re hurricanes, his was earthquakes, I got my disasters messed up. But yeah, the going from everything is fine to every house for miles and miles needs some type of repair and overnight, is crazy for people like us in Nebraska, to think about.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Tornado. That hasn’t happened.

Charley Burtwistle:

Oh, geez. You can’t just say that.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Oh, no. What did I do? And with that, it’s not really in the script, necessarily, but it’s interesting in that episode, we talked a lot about how building has to adjust for those things. I mean, now when you’re building your homes, are hurricane things considered when it, codes is what the word I was looking for [crosstalk 00:25:47].

Paul Ledet:

Yeah. So, they changed the codes mega after Katrina.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah, I was going to say.

Paul Ledet:

And pretty much any house built in the last 20 years did fine.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Interesting.

Paul Ledet:

I mean, you had some cosmetic damage, but nothing structural, but some of these same places that were built pre-Katrina, were absolutely decimated. So, the codes are working, which is what you want.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Great.

Paul Ledet:

Everybody kind of complained about it, drives up building costs, but if you’re going to be 20 miles from the coast… We had a 130-mile-an-hour winds here, it needs to be able to sustain that.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Right. Yeah. That’s interesting about just the wave effects. If it happens, you change and it’s like, “Oh, yeah. Okay. I see why we changed them now. It makes sense.” It doesn’t feel like it’s a good investment at the time, but here we are.

Paul Ledet:

Yeah. So, I mean, but we did well. I mean, all my projects did very, very well. Almost no damage on any them. My house did fine, so we were very fortunate. I was very fortunate, I would say.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Did Buildertrend play any facilitation to help kind of communicate these things while the storm was kind of ramping up? Where’s that place?

Paul Ledet:

The downside of being a web-based builder is that you need web, and we didn’t have internet.

Zach Wojtowicz:

We’re working on offline mode. Let’s make it happen. At least to let it upload later.

Paul Ledet:

We had nothing. I mean, I even thought I was like my car has Wifi in it. Well, the satellites and AT&T towers here were just absolutely destroyed, so it took a long time for us to… I mean, we were in the dark for three or four days. Couldn’t get in touch with customers, couldn’t get touch with anybody, family. You had to go drive by the house, but 24-hour curfew. It was intense. But, now look, once I got the slightest glimpse of internet, things started to roll in and things started to kind of… It was only three or four days afterward.

Zach Wojtowicz:

You’re actually like, “Can we go back to the dark where I didn’t have 400 emails in my inbox?”

Charley Burtwistle:

Notifications had to have been blowing up.

Paul Ledet:

Yeah. It was pretty bad. A million voicemails, but yeah, we got out of it and things are starting to kind of get to normal, somewhat.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah. The Saints are coming back now in New Orleans, right? Things are getting back to normal.

Paul Ledet:

Yeah. Yeah. That’s right.

Charley Burtwistle:

The next topic area. Well, Paul, we’re getting pretty close to time here. This has been an awesome interview and awesome episode. Fantastic to talk with. Before we let you go, any final remarks or things you want to leave our listeners with?

Paul Ledet:

Look, I think it’s important if anybody’s early on in Buildertrend to know that keep leaning on those guys at Buildertrend, they’ll help you out. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for, I’m trying to think of some of the names, well, Taylor Henne for sure, was an extreme bulldog for me, really pushed me over the edge on Buildertrend.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Sounds like her.

Paul Ledet:

And then just keep leaning on everybody. You all are there to help and take it to the next limit because it has to be worth it. It’s a lot of work upfront, but it’s easy once it’s all done.

Zach Wojtowicz:

There you go. Love it. Well, appreciate the time, Paul.

Paul Ledet:

Yeah.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah. We’ll let you get going here. Appreciate it.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah. Thanks for coming on. Best of luck to you and your family, and-

Paul Ledet:

Yeah, man.

Zach Wojtowicz:

We’ll see you. What your next BTU attendance.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah, man. I’ll be there in October. Well, in short period of time, two weeks.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah. We’re excited to meet you in person. We’ll see you there.

Paul Ledet:

Yeah, man.

Zach Wojtowicz:

See you, Paul.

Paul Ledet:

We’ll see you then.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Wow. A lot of ground covered in that episode there, Charley.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah, absolutely. That was my first time meeting Paul. I understand why he’s such a legend around the Buildertrend office, here.

Zach Wojtowicz:

We’re going to need to put Hall of Fame, of our best users. And I think he probably would-

Charley Burtwistle:

We’ll put them up there.

Zach Wojtowicz:

We’ll have like a nomination ceremony, the whole thing-

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah.

Zach Wojtowicz:

To just get people in a room and fight it out about who belongs in there.

Charley Burtwistle:

I love that. Yeah. We could do like a whole, like award ceremony for it. It’d be great, but-

Zach Wojtowicz:

The budget’s going to be outstanding. We’ll talk with Danielle, our producer, we’ll get our director involved. We’ll get the whole thing. And just this outro is taken a little too long on this particular piece.

Zach Wojtowicz:

What did you learn from Paul?

Charley Burtwistle:

Well, one, I was, it’s not really how we started the episode, but towards the end there where we just started talking about building during a hurricane, something that we never really think about here, and obviously, incredibly sad that much destruction can happen, but hearing Paul talk about how, just how much he wants to give back and help as many people as you can. I think that relates really, really strongly to what we originally talking about, which is just client relationship, caring about the people that you work for and making as big of an impact in the community as you can. So, I thought it was inspiring to hear him talk about what he does and you can tell he just like truly loves it, but very, very interesting episode, interested to hear what your takeaways were, Zach.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah. There’s so many people out there that we’ve talked to on the podcast and other users that I’ve been exposed to that have such similar stories, similar backgrounds. I always just, I love hearing people when they start these companies and they’re not in construction and had nothing in it. You hear it time and time again. And like how many industries are out there? Can you just like break into, but there’s so many important, needed skills in order to execute and construction that I think it’s a really cool thing in the construction industry of all these people have different experiences, right? Walks of life, different levels of education coming together and delivering dreams to people. And wow, there’s not a lot of places or jobs that are like that. That’s the really cool part. When we talk to people like Paul is you can just see it and who he is and the way that their company operates.

Zach Wojtowicz:

And there are countless listeners, builders out there who are the same way. And it’s just really, really awesome to get talked to people like, yeah, that was a heartfelt statement, but I, you know, I completely agree. It’s something, something in the area of the fall weather, the pumpkin spice lattes are just making me flowing today, bringing me a little, little soft. I love that. Well, Paul will be in Omaha here in a couple of weeks for a Buildertrend University. So excited to see him. If any of our listeners out there are interested in learning more about Buildertrend and meeting be in Zach. If you don’t want to come here or the draw, the BTU, I started laughing before I could even get it out. If you want to come have a meet and greet at the next Buildertrend University, we will be here. But thanks again, Paul, for being on the show today, I think that about does it for us. I’m Charley. I’m Zach, and this is “The Building Code.”