Inside Buildertrend: Creating opportunity through learning

Zach Wojtowicz:

Welcome to another “Inside Buildertrend” episode. I’m Zach Wojtowicz.

Charley Burtwistle:

And I’m Charley Burtwistle.

Zach Wojtowicz:

This is “The Building Code.” I should have started with that.

Charley Burtwistle:

This is “The Building Code.” And I like how you let me do the intro one time, four weeks ago.

Zach Wojtowicz:

That’s not true.

Charley Burtwistle:

With Russ, and apparently you didn’t like the way it went, and you’re just taking it from here on out.

Zach Wojtowicz:

That’s not true at all.

Charley Burtwistle:

I thought I did a great job. I gave you a good shout out on your promotion.

Zach Wojtowicz:

All right, well on the next one, Charley will do the intro.

Charley Burtwistle:

I think people probably really liked it.

Zach Wojtowicz:

I’m noticing a theme of just Zach, could you talk less?

Charley Burtwistle:

Well, I’m trying to be subtle about it. People have been liking, reviewing and subscribing to the channel and a lot of the reviews we’re getting are, what is Zach doing?

Zach Wojtowicz:

More of Charley.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah, which is not at all true. We have Taylor Henne in the studio today, kind of a legend around Buildertrend. She has helped form some pretty substantial and impactful services at Buildertrend, including online payments, Buildertrend University, onsite consulting, BT on the road. A lot of different things that she is here to talk about today. Super excited to have her. Taylor, how’s it going?

Taylor Henne:

Charley, thank you. That was quite the intro. Thank you for having me on the show today, guys.

Charley Burtwistle:

Thank you. Those are what intros are like when I talk.

Taylor Henne:

Wow. It’s a little different than Zach’s intro.

Charley Burtwistle:

Exactly.

Zach Wojtowicz:

I may not say anything the rest of the episode, you two have a great conversation. I’ll just let it roll.

Charley Burtwistle:

No, no, no, no, no, no.

Zach Wojtowicz:

I’m just kidding. You know I can’t help myself anyway.

Charley Burtwistle:

Exactly. Go ahead and kick us off. I’ll let you ask the first question.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Well, Taylor, your accolades speak for themselves. You are well known across the entire building. We want to talk about how we make learning fun here at Buildertrend. We’ve got some exciting things in the works that we’re going to let you talk about. Before we do that, tell us a little bit about those experiences that you’ve had. What have you been doing in the last six months, a year? And how do you help our customers here at Buildertrend?

Taylor Henne:

Well, I feel really blessed. I’ve been with Buildertrend for over six years, so I got to see us grow so many different initiatives and gosh, I used to be employee 90 and now we have hundreds of employees. Going from knowing everybody in the office to just being a part of just giant things as Buildertrend has grown has been my favorite part. All of it’s been my favorite part but in the last six months, we’ve had some exciting things about trying to get our customers educated, not just by doing trainings but also offering things externally that they can attend or subscribe to, not our podcast.

Zach Wojtowicz:

You can do that.

Taylor Henne:

Webinars. Although yes, you can subscribe to the podcast as well. But no, I think that one of my favorite things about the job is that I actually get to be really hands on with our customers. A big role of mine is hosting Buildertrend University, where our customers get to come to our office and actually hear from the best at Buildertrend, go through almost nine different classes. It’s really hands on. They can really level up their account. But actually getting to know the customers and seeing them network with each other is definitely one of my favorite parts about it. Just even just getting to know our customers, not just talking about Buildertrend, but just that they’re real business owners, and they’re not just listening to us on the other end of the phone, trying to learn how to click a button. It’s really nice to see them talk about how their business ran and how to get Buildertrend into it has been really insightful, really helps me actually build a strategy around the content that we actually give them.

Charley Burtwistle:

That’s what I was curious about. Obviously, BTU is incredibly successful, a ton of people come to it. If you’re listening, and you haven’t come to it, definitely there’s ones all the time. You can definitely sign up for the next one. How do you guys choose what sort of content you’re going to present, what those classes actually entail to kind of tailor that so that the people that are coming kind of get the best experience possible?

Taylor Henne:

Yeah, without going too much in depth, there is a lot of strategy to it. Buildertrend University is targeted for people who are already using it and are logging in every single day. It does make an impact in their business already but it’s where we need them to see so much more potential that it has because buildertrend is so robust. When you first sign up for a Buildertrend, it’s hard to show the true value of what it is. Buildertrend University is really people who feel like they’re are using it pretty well, actually come and they’re like, “Oh my gosh, wow. There’s just so much more to this. I had no idea.” And really building a business model, and your standard operating procedures is kind of more of the feel for a Buildertrend University. It’s not just like, “Hey, you’re using this feature.” It’s like, how can you use this feature in your business really well? And really developing your operations and processes about it is really kind of more of the content and the strategy with Buildertrend University.

Charley Burtwistle:

We have a ton of other offerings too, of course, that I think it’d be worth touching on that have to come to Omaha to get access. Some of the other things that you also supervise, Buildertrend Online Conference. You want to talk a little bit about that side of things?

Taylor Henne:

Yes. I love Buildertrend Online Conference. Buildertrend Online Conference, it’s four different sessions that, they’re live sessions where we do live Q and A during the middle, but it takes a huge deep dive into Buildertrend. Gosh, I don’t know. We get tons of raving reviews about BOC because I think it’s one of the beautiful things is you can actually re-watch it. Whereas if you’re coming to Buildertrend University it’s in person, you’re listening to teachers, but BOC, we get a lot of re-watches because there’s so much content in it. It actually allows you to absorb it in pieces as well. But BOC is a way to really get your employees on board. Hey, go watch the BOC conference. It’s also segmented by project management or financials, so you can listen to the one that pertains to your role.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah. I think that’s a huge opportunity for us to kind of talk a little bit about how is that different than a one-on-one training? What’s our goals when it comes to BOC and what we’re trying to accomplish from an engagement standpoint with our customers?

Taylor Henne:

I would say that BOC delivers some really high-level education, and it’s okay if it stirs questions for them. The education that we give to a large crowd is going to pertain to and rise questions for different types of businesses. With it rising your questions, we always stress in BOC is that we do have unlimited training. When you need to think about a little bit more of operation or if you feel like you’re a niche business, and you saw the potential in what we were teaching, but you weren’t quite sure how to apply it, that’s where you use our unlimited coaching and training to figure out how the education that we taught you actually pertains to your business specifically.

Charley Burtwistle:

When you’re going through, you mentioned BTU and BOC, these are some areas where people can get a little bit deeper into the program. Obviously, you’re able to see kind of the full spectrum of the onboarding, what features or areas do you typically suggest customers start with? And then what are some of the more advanced features that something like a webinar or online conference could help them get a little bit more in the weeds?

Taylor Henne:

Yeah, this is has been a really interesting topic lately, especially for our strategy and as we’ve grown and as we’re getting so big, it’s kind of ever changing but one of the best things you can do when you first start with Buildertrend is to just to add a job, get to the program, get your hands on it and identify the person, who is the person who is going to be the BT champion? Who’s going to actually get their hands on it, get their feet wet with it, learn a little bit about it? Instead of just trying to full blown roll it out, get all of your employees in and shoot in the dark. Get your hands on it, get a job going, get your contacts added.

Really, you kind have to decide as a business, where am I missing? And what should I start with first? What does Buildertrend offer? And that might be, gosh, I’m counting paper time sheets, which is a big thing. Maybe it’s adding a job and getting the time clock going or maybe it’s the schedule. Maybe you’re really unorganized with keeping your jobs on track and it’s the schedule. It just kind of depends on what is your desired outcome with Buildertrend? Analyzing where am I missing? What’s most important? And who is that person that’s going to implement it?

Charley Burtwistle:

Glad you brought up desired outcomes. This is a term we call it, but really their goals. Regardless of Buildertrend, you should want to be a better manager of your projects. You should want to have more efficient job sites, so you’re adding more projects. Hopefully though, Buildertrend’s a tool that facilitates those goals. And I think that’s a great point. BOC is a place where you can be like, I don’t really know what I could be doing better. You go watch this free webinar. It takes an hour and you come out of it and now you have an identifiable, I do want to fix the paper time clock problem. Now, you have a true goal that has an impact to say, “I’m now managing my workforce more efficiently, so that I can actually stay on top of the other things that go into creating a project.”

All this free content, it’s exactly that. BTU is not free but we have tons of people who have come, and I think that’s the biggest value is they’re just like, “I can now see the full picture and identify what I want to prioritize.” BOC is kind of your first sip to get some of that access. But you also do webinars as well, that are a little more bite size, shorter, kind of topical. What are some of the things that you cover in your webinars, just to give our listeners kind of a different experience that could be quickly engaging for them?

Taylor Henne:

Yeah. BOC, big chunks of information, Buildertrend University is not only educational but networking and trying to see how other businesses do it. More operations webinars are more meant for, I would say more of our new users. Here’s how you click this button and get this outcome. And it is kind of if maybe you’re trying to get your employees onboard that are a little bit newer to Buildertrend, I feel like the webinars are a little bit more obtainable for our newer customers. But we like to switch it up, too. Sometimes we get super detailed.

I did one for surveys and a very underutilized feature in Buildertrend, but it is a really, really cool feature but it goes super in depth. But I guess, our webinars are kind of evolving as we’ve grown and all the education and external education. We have so many customers now, it’s hard to expect they’re each going to do a training, and we know that our customers are super busy, too. Being able to get education at any time is really the point of the webinar. They’re still evolving. If you ever get a survey from us, please let us know what you would like the next webinar to be.

Charley Burtwistle:

And that’s a really cool kind of jumping off point that I wanted to get into. When I first started about four years ago, you guys I think were both CSMs at the time, and our entire training strategy was just call, meeting, training, call, meeting, training, call, meeting, training. Now, you guys have all these very, I think the title of the episode is, Making Learning Fun. Fun options, online options, conference options. Has that kind of been a conscious decision on you guys to find alternative education methods? Or are these kind of just ideas arising out of the blue?

Taylor Henne:

Yeah. You guys, I don’t know how much strategy I can actually talk on the podcast, but I think that the …

Zach Wojtowicz:

Cards on the table, baby.

Charley Burtwistle:

We love talking strat. We talk strat for sure.

Taylor Henne:

Okay. Well, I think that it’s unrealistic to think that we can onboard all of customers by having them schedule a time to call us and feel like they’re going to obtain everything just over a phone call. A big point and focus in the strategy of what I’m doing is being able to provide our customers a way to learn without actually having to schedule a training. Not taking away from the unlimited training. That’s absolutely amazing in coaching, but my goal is to give them the content when they can obtain it in the chunks that they can and then once they get to a point where they’re stuck, and they need a little bit more consultation, that’s where I think that we should be using the trainings.

I think the trainings should be more not how to click the button, but how do I actually get this into my business? And they might know exactly how to do what it is that we just taught them, but they just can’t absorb, how do I get my employees to do this? How do other builders do this? And so, I feel like that we have such a great and well trained coaching that they’re a little bit more consultations than it should be, just education.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah. And personally, anytime I sign up for a new product or software, the first thing I do is kind of watch their tutorials and help center videos and things like that. Rarely do I reach out for a one-on-one until I’m ready for a more specific kind of in the weeds question. I think not only is it helping our team kind of alleviate some of the stuff that we’re having to work on and scale better, but I think it’s also what our customers want.

Zach Wojtowicz:

It is. If you look at just from a, I spend a lot of time just reading surveys about customer expectations and what a modern consumer wants. We had Tayler Ross on the podcast talking about support, and we want to provide that when people need it. Education, same thing. We want people to consume the content when they need it, when they want it. And we want to give them a personalized experience when they want it, but you should have all three available because modern consumers ultimately, they don’t want to be on the phone. They don’t want to be given the idea that the only way I can adopt this is if I get blasted with information. We try to have different alternatives and options and be proactive about trying to get people about, hey, this is what you need. Be prescriptive based on what their goals are and things like that. We’re always going to continue to get better at how we deliver that content to our customers. But Taylor is in the weeds as far as, got to have content first. And so, she’s just slaving away, making it.

Taylor Henne:

I try.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Now, I have to ask, you’re involved in webinars, you’re using BOC, you’re in BTU. If you had to choose tomorrow to only keep one.

Taylor Henne:

Only keep one?

Zach Wojtowicz:

Only keep one. What is the nearest and dearest to your heart? Which one would you say that is your favorite?

Taylor Henne:

Oh man. I think everybody in this room knows what I’m going to say because they see me on that day, and that’s the day that we have a Buildertrend University.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Buildertrend University. And it is a great experience. And if you ever come, you’ll get to meet Taylor and Danielle who puts it on, on the events team. And it is a five-star experience. Rave reviews across the board. It’s a lot of fun for us too. And just to tee it up, we’ve got some exciting information.

Taylor Henne:

I do.

Zach Wojtowicz:

About a new service that we’re rolling out.

Charley Burtwistle:

Drum roll, please.

Zach Wojtowicz:

It is.

Taylor Henne:

I love Buildertrend University at home so much that I created another version of that, which is called Buildertrend on the Road. Where we can take Buildertrend to you guys.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Can we get sound effects, like yay?

Taylor Henne:

Yeah. We are going to head to Atlanta in May and then we’re headed to Denver and Dallas after that.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Amazing.

Charley Burtwistle:

Explain to us a little bit about the differences between Buildertrend University and Buildertrend on the Road. What makes Buildertrend on the Road special?

Taylor Henne:

Okay. There is quite a bit of difference. Buildertrend University at Home is 10 classes. It is very hands on. A really, really deep dive into the program. You get to see the whole compass of Buildertrend. Buildertrend on the Road is, it’s a conference, so you’re going to hear from industry experts, people who don’t even actually use Buildertrend. It’s where is the industry going? You will actually get three educational classes that are going to be a really deep dive into the program with live Q and A, but throughout the day, you’re going to be able to go to the expo and network with other builders. We’re going to have the Buildertrend roadmap out there, all of our pro services. You can talk to experts as well. Get those questions answered that you need. It’s a spin on Buildertrend University at home, and I’m really excited about it. I think it’s going to be a great success and a great way for our builders to in one day, be able to be re-motivated with Buildertrend.

Charley Burtwistle:

And both of you guys, Taylor and Zach will be there. As is the norm with this show, I will not be at this really cool event, but these two will be, so check it out. And if you’re looking to register, looking for more information, we will have a link in the shownotes. Definitely check that out because it will be coming up by the time this releases, it’ll be coming up pretty quick.

Taylor Henne:

It will.

Charley Burtwistle:

The first one is May 3rd, I believe, in Atlanta.

Taylor Henne:

Maybe Charley, we could do the podcast maybe in Denver.

Charley Burtwistle:

Maybe.

Taylor Henne:

Then when we go, then you get to go.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Don’t get this guy’s hopes up.

Charley Burtwistle:

Maybe there’s something in the works, we’ll see.

Zach Wojtowicz:

We don’t want to lead him on. It’s better to just rip the Band-Aid off.

Charley Burtwistle:

Rip the Band-Aid off.

Taylor Henne:

Maybe I’ll just leave it as a surprise.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Well, that’d be great. Just, surprise Charley’s here.

Charley Burtwistle:

Wow. You would surprise me?

Zach Wojtowicz:

No, no, the audience.

Charley Burtwistle:

Oh, got you.

Zach Wojtowicz:

For our plan in advance.

Charley Burtwistle:

I thought you were talking about just kidnapping me and taking me. Surprise, Charley.

Zach Wojtowicz:

You’re my check-in bag.

Charley Burtwistle:

Well, regardless of whether I’m there or not, it sounds super exciting. Taylor Henne working her magic again, to produce yet another exceptional and exciting new service for Buildertrend, Buildertrend on the Road.

Zach Wojtowicz:

On the Road. Really excited. Check it out. You can register down below in the shownotes. As Charley mentioned, of course there’ll be more information on our future events. We’re about out of time, Taylor, here on “The Building Code.” Thank you for joining us. It was so much fun. Hopefully our customers learned a little bit about the things that maybe they’re unaware, more than training that’s out there. And maybe coming to a city near you.

Taylor Henne:

Yes. I would love to see all of you guys there and hopefully and let us know, maybe we can come to your city. Tell us where we should go next.

Zach Wojtowicz:

I love that.

Charley Burtwistle:

I love it. Well, thanks a lot, Taylor. That’ll do it for another episode of “The Building Code.” Make sure to like, review, subscribe. I’m Charley Burtwistle.

Zach Wojtowicz:

I’m Zach Wojtowicz.

Charley Burtwistle:

We’ll see you next time.