Business Innovators Radio - Episode 18: How to Find and Retain Top Talent in Construction With Matt DiBarra and Chris Blumberg

Episode Date: July 16, 2023

Part of the Construction Executives Live Series Take control of your recruitment process so that you can take control of your business! Find the right people so that you can focus on the aspects of the business you enjoy and excel at. Learn from industry experts on how to find, vet, hire and retain top talent for your business!In The Zonehttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/in-the-zone/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/episode-18-how-to-find-and-retain-top-talent-in-construction-with-matt-dibarra-and-chris-blumberg

Welcome to In the Zone, brought to you by U.S. Construction Zone, bringing you strategies for success with construction innovators and change makers, including In The Zone peer-nominated national award winners. Here are your host, Jeremy Owens. Well, hello there. Welcome to another episode of Construction Executives Live. I am your host, Jeremy Owens, founder of U.S. Construction Zone and three generations improvements out in sunny Fulsome, California. where it is a balmy, 41 degrees. For us in Northern California, that is chilly. That is almost to the point where you don't want to go outside for the rest of you in America. You guys are like, that is a nice winter day. Well, welcome here. Thanks for being here.

Happy holidays. Merry Christmas, all of those things. We have another great show for you today. I had a couple quick thoughts for you. The first being, you know, this is a holiday season. We're right in the middle of it right now in December. And I want to acknowledge a couple things. one, you know, this is a time for a lot of us that it brings a lot of joy, happiness, friends, family, all those things.

But for many of us, this is not a great time. For many of us, this is a time of pain, maybe thinking of lost loved ones, you know, maybe family situations are not great. So I want to recognize that because, you know, we spend a lot of time with our coworkers and our peers. For a lot of us, we spend more time with our coworkers than we do our own family. So it's time to treat them like family, check in with them, make sure everyone's doing okay this holiday season. You know, like I said, I want to acknowledge those folks that are not in the best place. And just, you know, we need to do better as owners, as people to check in on those folks and make sure that everyone's doing great this holiday season. What we try to do at U.S. Construction Zone is not only connect you guys as an executive staff, as managers.

we also want to bring you content that's valuable. And sometimes that content is things that are hard to talk about, things that haven't been discussed in the construction industry, and sometimes it's content that is just top of mind because we all struggle with it every day, all day. And this is one of those subject matters. Today, you know, hiring, attracting, and retaining top talent, the construction industry has not been good at that.

Honestly, maybe the worst out of any industry in the U.S. So this is going to be content that's going to be very valuable because we've all deal with it on a very daily basis. And it's very apropos to our current society, especially with us trying to retain talent, trying to get new talent to the construction industry. So we have some great folks at the contractor consultants here today to not only give us their insight on what they're seeing from the industry in terms of the laborer and talent industry, but also. some tools, tips, tricks for us to be better as a staff, be better as managers and owners so that we not only attract that top talent, get them on our staff, but keep them and retain them for a long time. And please watch till the very end because at the end, the contractor consultants and their team have come up with a very cool offer, a very generous offer that I would like you guys to take advantage of.

So please stay till the end, and they're going to introduce that towards the end of the show. So with that being said, we'll get right into it. We have our guests here. We have two that we're going to be joining us at the same time today. So let me go. Let me start with Matt. But Matt, the barra, is a fourth generation Mason who discovered his passion for the construction industry when he was just nine years old working on a job site with his father. After graduating from UMass with a degree in construction management and environmental design, Matt embraced his family's legacy and established.

his own masonry company in Los Angeles. But as his business floor, she witnessed many of his colleagues struggling to navigate the notoriously turbulent construction industry. Matt co-founded the contractor consultants as a way to share his passion and experience with other contractors who lack the skills, resources, or knowledge to achieve the success they deserved. The contractor consultants, Matt also set out to solve the single biggest pain point experienced by all contractors, and it's true for me as well, recruitment.

That led to the contractor hiring course, a comprehensive hands-on, results-oriented, online, on-demand resource, specifically designed to help contractors find, vet, hire, and retain that top talent. We also have the operations manager of the contractor consultants, Chris Bloomberg, who has over 20 years of experience in the trades, from starting out as a carpenter in the field to working up the ranks at a corporate headquarters at one of the nation's largest home remodelers. As operations manager at TCC, Chris is always striving to help contractors succeed at growing

their business and hitting their goals. A lot of tongue twisters in their fellas, but thank you for being here. Matt DeVarra and Chris Bloomberg. Thank you, Jeremy. Thank you so much for having us. Yeah, you're so welcome. I mean, we have a lot of valuable stuff to talk about, so let's jump right into it. Let's start with you, Matt.

How did you get started in construction? Well, I started when I was nine. I had a lot of energy as a kid, and my dad was like, take him to work. So we're four generations in the business. And so great-grandfathers on both sides, grandfather, father, uncle, and then me. And that old school mentality, my dad's like, he's good. He can walk. And so I started when I was nine.

But I do have an update to that story. I found this photo. I have a one-year-old daughter. And we were going through. I was showing her pictures of daddy growing up. And I found this here. That's me. I don't know if you can see it.

That's me and a bobcat. And I was about three years old. So I was told I was nine, but this looks like I was definitely a little younger than that one. My dad had me out there. But, I mean, literally, as long as I can remember, my background has been on job sites, growing in the industry and fortunate and grateful to have been in it ever since. Awesome. Awesome. What about you, Chris?

Well, I was, I worked with my dad around the house growing up. He was not in construction, really, but he was very handy and taught me quite a bit growing up. And then in high school, I got hooked up with some buddies and started working for. for their dad, building houses, stick frame and houses, the old school way down at the Jersey Shore. And we built some really awesome big old houses out there and worked with some old houses and some historic towns in New Jersey. And I did that through college and worked with him. And then I, you know, went out on my own for a few years and was the local handyman around town and did all kinds of kitchens and bathrooms and jobs for all my friends and family. And I worked for a couple

other cool companies over the years, commercial, residential, and I got hooked up with a really awesome company doing sales and marketing, actually, from construction about 10 years ago. And I did in-home sales, face-to-face sales, in-home sales for a couple of years, and got in the operations, measuring, inspecting, worked my way all the way up to the corporate headquarters and worked with thousands of customers, team members all over the country for, I guess I one of the largest home remodeling companies in the country. So great experience with them. I got hooked up with the contractor consultants almost a year ago. now and rock and roll.

And I went from helping homeowners now to helping contractors. So on both sides of the game here. Yeah. Both are pain in the ass. Yeah. I always just decided the job wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the customers, the project managers, the contractors, you know, but happy to help, you know, happy to be digging into the ditches here with the guys and finding ways to help contractors.

It's been very exciting and awesome. Cool. Yeah. So what inspired you guys to start the contractor consultants? And like, I guess how do you serve the construction industry now? So it kind of, it started through a need and then somewhat on accident. So I learned into baromasonry how to do this well, how to find vet hire and retained. But it happened with what I call the glass ceiling that I hit in 2018.

So simply put in 2018, all of the things that I used to rely on, we would sell work at an eight crews, nine crews, go out every day. And it was a time I got this call from my site. super he goes Matt so-and-so's late third time I said you know the handbook got to let him go that's what it says verbal warning written warning gone and he goes small small caveat he goes we're going to hit liquidated damages on this job said okay how much are we going to lose he goes probably 100 grand and he goes on top of that we're not going to be able to do this this and this I said well we need to have a meeting so we have a meeting I'm going to lose to the tune of half a million dollars worth of work incoming work I mean it's literally and he goes when you fire this person

and this one's going to go with him. And he's like, so before we make this decision, I can't make it for you. This is where we're at. And I remember feeling like I just lost control of everything. Family legacy business. I'm in L.A. I'm working for the movie stars that I watched on TV. I'm like, I hit the American dream.

This is it. You know, great grandfathers, they came on a boat and we did it. And I lost it. And so I set out in 2018 and I said, you know what? I don't care what it costs. I don't care what it takes. I'm going to solve this issue because I was doing my postings on Craigslist, postings on Indeed.

and it used to be that I could just get people. It was easy. I could call up people I knew. Hey, can you help out on this job? We're a little behind. All of that went out the window. And so I set out on this journey and it really took about three years. I spent well over a million dollars, countless hours and just said, I'm going to figure out every single way that I can do this. I called my CPA. True story. I said, what's the most amount of money I can spend? I'm going to put it in an account that won't hurt the business. They gave me the number. I was like, I'm going into experiment mode. And so that was the root of how we then, learned how to systemize and create all of this.

Very cool. Very cool. Obviously, Chris, you brought your experience from the remodeling side and working at headquarters. You probably come across this subject matter all the time in your history as well, right? Yeah, well, we were pretty fortunate at that company because that company focused more on hiring than anything else. So I got to experience what a really great hiring company can do and the potential and the

possibilities of great culture, great growth. And then when I saw how most other contractors weren't using any of those tools and technology, I said, you know, Matt and his partner, Luca, I said, these guys are on to something. And we can really help a lot of people. Because I got to, I was living in the good life. We had everything we needed. We had the culture, events, everything. And I said, everyone's doing this. Yeah, it's a rare company. That company really thrives on hiring. And I said, I've learned quite a bit about it here. And I think I, I can help a lot of other people too. Awesome, awesome.

Yeah, I mean, it's no secret that we have, you know, it's in the news, obviously, every day. Labor shortage, everywhere, really, every industry has labor issues, but the construction industry has had this labor issue for maybe five, ten years. So it's been an ongoing problem. And I think now, you know, I guess the question for both of you guys is, how did we get here as an industry? And I guess where do you think we're headed in the next couple of years? So there's a couple of things that led up to this.

And looking at a more narrow lens, the big shift was when we had the great recession, 2007, 2008. We lost three million construction workers. It went from 11.9 million to about 9 million. So huge shift. People said, I'm going back to school. I'm going to go get a job somewhere else. I'm done with this industry.

A lot of people retired. The ones who hit the dot-com bubble and got through it said, you know what, I'm done. We're going to go to Arizona. We're going to go move to some warm weather place. you know, Florida, whatever. And so that was the first shift. And then quietly in the background of that, you had just the natural progression of people retiring. At the same time in the backdrop, you had a big push for college education, right? 2007 to 2014, 15, it was like, go to college, what, you know, what school are you going to go to? Now, I'm a vocational student. So I went to

a vocational high school. I also went to college, but I learned way more in the time growing up with my dad and at the vocational school than I did in college. But, So that caused the big shift. And then it really started to change right around 2016, 17, 18, when you had this decreasing labor force and you had an increased demand. So demand is starting to get really high around 2018, 19, right around when COVID happened. And then it just exploded. Also, at the same time as all this, you have things like Uber Eats, TaskRabbit, Postmates.

You have all these apps that are making it very easy for entry-level workers to make a good amount of money today, tomorrow next week, but not necessarily a great amount of money in three, four, five years because they're not designed for growth. They're not designed for retirement. They're designed for, hey, I need to make a little extra money and I can start doing it tomorrow. So there are all of these factors that just created this, this perfect storm where when COVID hit and demand just exploded, it was like the perfect storm of us really, really, really feeling all these things that were quietly building up in the background. Yeah, interesting. I mean, I guess what I'm trying to figure out is obviously we have an aging workforce.

You know, some of those folks are retiring. And we're still struggling with the young people, the young folks. You know, the vocational schools would be a nice ad to our society, you know, talking about, you know, the trades at a younger age would be nice. I think a lot of high schools still don't have wood shops, still don't really talk about this as an industry, honestly. That don't talk about it. So it's like it still is, it still is very heavy college or nothing. So really that does start parenting, right? Talking to your kid and saying, hey, what are you good at?

Like, let's figure it out as opposed to everyone's going to college, you know? And I think that what are you guys thinking, you know, in the next five to 10 years? I know this is crystal ball and we don't know, but what do you guys think we're headed as an industry on our current trajectory? I think we're heading towards a very, let me explain this carefully. So I think for those who are willing to innovate and learn like everyone listening right now, it is literally a gold rush. It is like having a website in the dot-com era when this was just starting out. There's so much to be gained from from understanding how to do this and do it well and being

among the first to innovate it in your industry. So I think huge opportunity for those who are paying attention. I think that as an industry as a whole, if we don't learn and grow and adapt quickly, we're in trouble. I mean, we need to be able to compete with other industries. We need to be able to compete with Uber, with task rabbits, with all of these different jobs. We need to be able to compete with college. And right now, it's a tall order to do that. And I think overall, we're in trouble. But with that being said, I think if you're in your local market, there's a lot of doom and gloom on the big scale, right? When you talk about things nationally, right? You look at the recession.

Well, there were great companies that were founded during the recession. There were people who made a lot of money. So it's, I think at a big, you know, macro scale, we're in trouble, big trouble. The numbers don't lie. The trends don't lie. However, on the micro scale in your local area, if you're paying attention, you're hiring while you're recruiting, you are literally embarking on what I call the modern day gold rush. Interesting. You know, I like, I like that, that positive spin on it. I think that, you know, we kind of talked about it before, like as an industry, we haven't done well with so many things, but, you know, one of those things is, is just the hiring process, right?

Just, just that part alone, you know, just not only finding one, but being able to hire. So you guys, you guys launched and you're launching a very robust 72 module course called that Contractor Hiring Course. And this is a, this is meant to assist us owners through this problem. So how do you construct the course and when are you guys going to roll it out? So the course officially, I believe it officially launched today, right, Chris? Like the official official official. Yeah.

Yeah. What's going on in today's the day. That's why you guys are a little bit sleepy, maybe. No, no, definitely not. But yeah, no. So we basically, we understood as we did all this that it's a system. And so it's really five key components you have to have. You have to have a clear understanding and a strong foundation before you embark on this journey.

Right. So it's asking yourself a couple key questions. If you ask yourself three simple questions, I believe you can break through what I call the glass ceiling. Because as companies in 2018, I was in a glass box. The darkness was real. When I moved my elbows, what I was feeling was real. But the beautiful part was I could punch through it. And so I think it's, so it starts with, I don't think I know, it starts with a strong foundation and clear understanding.

And then you've got to learn how to find vet, hire, and retain talent. if you do these five things, you will not have an issue when it comes to hiring and retention and construction. But it's like baking a cake. One little thing that you do differently, one little thing that you add too much or you don't have enough of, the whole formula starts to fall apart. Yeah, Matt, you kind of mentioned that you talked to your CPA and you went in this little venture, right? Like, so what were you doing to find some of these things? Obviously, you're able to draw on your experience, which is super valuable. But did you talk to others? did you did you research like what was that like because i imagine that was a lot of research a lot of time by

yourself trying to figure this thing out yeah it was a ton of time um i was it was a dark time um to put it lately i mean when you introduced the darkness of of the holidays and some of the real things we're facing it brought me back to that feeling of of just this this what felt insurmountable but um so the way the way we did it was we just started looking at i broke it down into the most fundamental thing i said okay where i'm a company i'm a company And in order to bring good company or excuse me, good people into art, my construction company, I need to have some things that are exciting. Right.

So I need to bolster kind of like marketing. I need to bolster what I'm doing. So what are the incentives? Why would you come work for me? So we have part of the one of the courses we talk about would you work for you? This is a really fun exercise anyone listening can do. If you go online right now and you Google your company, is there anything exciting that shows up? Is there any PR?

Is there a career page? Is there a career video, a two-minute video that's showing you as the prospective employee, who you are, what's your company is about? There's so many contractors that I've talked to. And you sit down with them and you're like, you're the most lovely human being I've ever met. But if I don't see that on your job posting, if I see hiring electrician, you know, $25 an hour and a couple of bullet points, I don't know that Jack, my electrician friend in L.A., who's, I mean, this guy is literally the nicest human being you ever met. He does such amazing things.

I'm like, we have to take those things and show all these prospective employees. So having that strong foundation is crucial. And then it's that system of where are they? So my journey was I asked myself, where are these potential employees and what are all the ways to find them? And who? So I literally whiteboarded it out. I'm like, who comes in contact with them? Okay, trade schools, universities.

All right. Well, are they gainfully employed or not? Well, the answer is most likely gainfully employed, but not always. maybe they moved relocation maybe they just had something happened in their life and they're looking for a new job so i literally i took it from like i call it the no stone unturn firing uh excuse me finding system where i literally was like how can we teach and how can we do this in a way where there's no stone unturn a funny story i actually uh went as far we found a better method which i'll tell you and and listeners can actively use this but i remember i went to my supplier and i said

hey I want to put a billboard because I realized a lot of my potential candidates were going you know they're driving company trucks my competitors going up getting material loaded and leaving gainfully employed your A players they have a driver's license all these great things so I said okay how do I get in front of them so I asked my supplier and they said no no that's favoritism we can't do that you know we have other people buying from here we can't just put your billboard I'm like but I'll pay you no no can't do that okay so I leave the parking lot feeling defeated across the street there's a guy spinning a sign for mattresses you probably see you're probably see you're I'm really with this. He's like mattress close out. We're going out of business. So I go over to the guy. I said, hey, what are you doing on Saturday morning? He goes, ah, nothing. I said, no, I got something you're doing. I said, see across the street. I'm going to get you a sign that's going to say top pay, you know, masons and concrete finishers, ain't English and Spanish. I said, I want you to do the same dance, everything. So he does it. I get, I'm not exaggerating, 17 phone calls in one day of those potential employees. Now, what I ended up finding, and this was the beautiful part about all the testing was that,

I obviously upset my supplier. He's like, hey, I told you we could do this. I said, all right, all right. How can I make this one to win? So we said, I said, how about this? I'll sponsor coffee and donuts every morning, Monday through Saturday, from your busiest times for two hours. He goes, all right, now you're talking my language.

I said, okay. So I said, I'm going to put coffee and donuts. I'll get my team. We'll have the booth. We'll deliver it. Eventually we came up with better systems. And I said, in exchange for that, I just want to put cards that say,

Debar Mastry is hiring top pay. I said a smaller version of what we call on the course of recruiting card, a smaller version of what you see on that sign. He said, yeah, yeah, that I can do. He's like, that won't upset anybody. And so if you're listening, that's something you can actively implement literally right now. You can think, what are my top three suppliers? Where are my, you know, potential candidates going? But that's the, you know, the evolution is we don't teach you to do the science spinner thing because it's not the right thing to do. I made that mistake for you. But we found the way, you know, we found the best way to do it. That's scalable. consistent, proven, and predictable.

I guarantee someone's going to try that. Guarantee. I know the side one. Yeah, back to the video thing. I mean, it's interesting because I have a similar experience in that some of my peers, I think they have great, great businesses. But for whatever reason, they're about us, page. I don't, I think I have a theory on this, a working theory.

Let me know what you think. I think they want to appear bigger than they are. So they don't want a picture of the. owner and the family. They want to appear like they're a giant corporation. And I think that's for a couple of reasons. I think one, I think it's ego. I think it's ego related. I think they want to be bigger than they actually are. But the problem is, is that people buy people. They don't buy the thing necessarily. So you're cutting out what people want to see. They want to see the people. They want to see that, you know, you don't look like a creep. They want to see that you have a history.

They want to see that you coach soccer. You know, and like, so I don't understand why, you know, why that's been out of people's websites and the retaining part and finding part. Why do you think that is? Is my theory spot on or maybe? It's funny. Yeah. It's funny that you say that because when I worked for the largest company in the country

doing home remodowing, they would say, don't talk about that. Just talk about the local office and how the local office, what we're involved with locally and how the local team is a part of the community. And that's what more, when I was in-home doing in-home sales face-to-face, that's what people responded to. They didn't want to be sold by the largest, you know, a big corporate company. They won't a local company with a local office where they know if they call or if they want to go down there, they can talk to someone.

And that was, that was key. And I talked to so many contractors and they all want to have a family feel. And they're scared of a corporate feel, a lot of them, because it feels a little too big for their bridges, maybe, but it's definitely a good thing to have your face and career video and your family. And when we do audits, you know, for competitors, you'd be surprised how many companies aren't using those. And when you see the successful ones, they have the career videos in place. And they're engaging with people on a personal level.

And it's really nice to see. It gives it a really nice touch. Yeah. We have that in the course. We talk about basically authentic messaging. So it's part of that clear understanding. and strong foundation. But it's saying if you're the worst thing, one of the worst things we can do in hiring is we can misrepresent in the beginning. Because then if you do that, they're expecting

certain things. It's like, well, you're this big company. What do you mean I don't get a 401k? Right. Or you're in what do you mean? I don't have this. You're not going to have a fruit ball in the office? All big companies do that. Right. So you start to create these incongruencies. And so we talk about the importance of authentic messaging and saying, I think in the course we've even a section where we're like, look, if you're somebody who keeps a coffee cup on your desk and paper scattered and you're going to have someone come in for an interview, don't make your desk look like it's not going to look for the rest of the time. Like the more authentic you can be because you're essentially selling this potential candidate

on a long-term relationship. And that's what's so beautiful about hiring versus sales. There's no sale that'll change your business as much as one great hire will. We could all be one great hire away. And so it's creating that consistency. And what you said, Jeremy, is so insightful because it's so true. true. The authenticity as to who you are. If you're a small company, if you're one or two people, if you're an owner operator, if you're in the field, you have to show that. I mean, you have to.

Because that's ultimately what they're buying. So whether they see it on the front end, if that's a turn off to them, let them figure that out early on. You don't waste your time. Right. Right. Yeah. Setting expectations, right. I mean, how many times that, you know, Chris, for you being in home sales, if you overcommit and underdelivered, that's a recipe for freaking disaster. So it's on the tip of my tongue. Over promised under deliver. Do not set the proper expectations from the beginning.

You set yourself up for failure. Totally. Totally. So might as well just be honest, right? And then so on these five steps, you have the clear understanding and then describe the next one, which is find. Yeah. I call it the no stone unturned finding system.

So basically what we did is we said, look, there's no, one of the biggest fallacies in this, in this industry that I found. And I saw, I was speaking at RoofCon, 2000. contractors and we're on a panel. There's seven of us. And everybody's, it was so fascinating. Everyone's given different tips, right? And you can see their backgrounds as to why they gave a tip. One's like more, oh, you need to have a really strong, compelling headline. The other ones you need to this. The truth of the matter is, you need to do all. There's no, there's no guarantee, right? It's almost like if you think of marketing, if I had a marketing method and I could put a dollar in and

get $2 out and I have another method where I could put a dollar in and get $3 out, would you stop the one to two? The answer is no, of course. You continue to do all of it, but it's profitable. It's good. So, you know, we look at all the different ways you can find candidates from digital strategies, which are newer and cutting edge. Like one off the top of my head is geo fencing. It's where you can put an invisible fence around your competitors. And you can actually show them if they walk into that building your hiring ads.

So it's digital, it's cutting edge, and it's really, really unique. And then, but there's tried and true methods. Like I just gave the coffee table example. I mean, these are simple. I mean, it cost me probably 30 bucks a day, you know, to get in front of literally my ideal canon. And I'm just waiting for that one day that the boss said, hey, you're supposed to be here at 7 o'clock at 701. And they're driving in to get their coffee looking down going, hey, you know, there's a better way here.

And even recruiter cards. So these are cards that I carry and that all of our clients carry. And we talk about this in the course, how to design it, what to put on it. But it's basically a card that has your information you're hiring. and what incentives they get. And I mean, it's extremely powerful. I mean, we've had people find their hires from, you know, being at a restaurant with their family, you know, church or any of these outings where,

you know, oh, my nephew just moved here. Oh, really? Well, you know, we have an incentive. It's just so simple. So you have to check all the boxes, though, in order for you. Because in this climate, there's no one system that's going to get, or no one method that's going to get you what you want. That's why I call it the no stone unturn finding method because you can't rely on just one.

Right. I mean, so true, right? It's like, this is what frustrates me about this problem is that we've known we've had this problem for a long time as an industry. And we always want others to solve it for us, right? We always want the government or we want a program that just filters, fits out these candidates, right? We want it right in front of us. But, you know, to have like a recruiter card. Like, it's a great idea and it's not hard, but it's just something that seems so challenging for so many people. Like, what? I don't know. I just. That's just. That's too much time. Well, then what are you talking about? Then you, then your problem's not big enough. You know what I mean? So it gets frustrating when people want to hand it to them as opposed to having these strategies in place to go find it yourself.

The average recruiter for construction, the average recruiter makes about $15,000 to $18,000 per placement. You can Google in your local area, wherever you live if you're listening, construction recruiter, you're going to find the first 10 pages filled with them. Why are they there? They prey on companies.

And we talk about how to use recruiters in the course. Sometimes they're a necessary evil. But they prey on the ability. They prey on us contractors, not planning ahead, not using these methods, not like you're saying, going and printing out a recruiting card.

They're there when, they're like, hey, when things hit the fan, we'll come and do it and we're going to charge you a 20 grand for it. And maybe find them, maybe not.

So, yeah, I think it's so important to just do these little things. And the next part is they're little. It's a bunch of small things. Like, for example, one other one that I'd love anyone listening to implement is incentivizing your team. You can actually deputize your team members. So we've created a structure where essentially you ask yourself, well, what is it worth to you?

You know, is it $300, $500 is $1,000. What would you pay to have that position? And then have a meeting with your team and say, hey, look, we're hiring XYZ. Any one of you here are great. Anyone you're associated with, we would love to interview. here's the incentive if we bring them in. And now if you have a team, even if it's three, four, five people, seven people, you've done two things.

Number one, you've made everyone feel great. You said, look, you're amazing. I want to basically clone you. That's why I want to work with your network. So it's a lift up for culture and retention. But not only that, you're incentivizing your team to go to work. So now when there, you're hiring at scale. You're not doing all the heavy lifting.

So it's how do we create leverage. The coffee example is leverage. The recruiter card example is leverage. The example of deputizing your team. and getting them to do the work for you is all leverage based. And so that's really what we're looking about. It's how do I create leverage in all of these different areas? And when you cast enough, you know,

cast enough, you know, lines in the water, eventually you're going to get bites, as long as you're in the right pond with the right bait. Right. Totally. I mean, my roots in the industry, like a lot like you, Matt. I mean, you could probably go back further, 1956. And, you know, you talk about some old school methods already.

And I think back in the day, you know, networking for them was always person to person, right? I mean, you didn't have, you know, I talk about it all the time. You had a Rolodex, right? And you had a phone, not a cell phone. So a lot of times you had these events where you had that skin-to-skin contact, that was the same thing that you're talking about with your staff. That is how you found somebody else is you ask people, hey, this is what I'm looking for.

You know anybody. Like, because think about it, how else would you do it? Like, even putting an ad in the paper was not an option for many folks. So talk about some of those old school methods that really I think we need to get back to in a lot of ways. Yeah. Referral bonuses are key. I got my job at the corporate company because my friend referred me. And referrals had a longer retention and performed at a higher level. Not because they were just, hey, my buddy, but because my referral who referred me mentored me and we worked together and he supported me. And he knew it in 90 days, if I was there in 90 days, we would both get a bonus.

So it created like a team, you know. And then the more people you refer, you get an even bigger team. And it spreads out and spreads out. And then it's just like a community of like, hey, I know you. Hey, you're my friend. And everybody's referring people and they're getting bonuses and everybody's happy about it. And there was some people at my last company had like a second income because they would find 15, 20 people every year. And they would have a bonus bigger than some people's salaries.

Right. So referral bonuses are huge, huge to take advantage. Yeah. Yeah. What about you, Matt? You have any other old school costs there? There's tons. I mean, my favorite is to mix the old school with the new school too.

So, like, we have a lot of, like, we have a lot of old school methods that have, like, a little kind of modern cherry on top, if you will. So one example of that is stopping in on job sites. You drive and you see job sites and you stop it, and especially if it's work you're doing. But a lot of these building permits and a lot of this work is actually public record. And so you can look this stuff up. You can say, okay, I'm a roofer or I'm an electrician. Well, I want to do this type of work.

Well, you can actually pull online and look for open permits of that type of work. And then you can drive to that address and actually, you know, for the specific type of work that you're looking for and pop in. That's the old school stuff. A lot of it is other people in the industry, too. So if you're like, for example, us masonry and concrete, we work around carpenters, electricians. If you're looking entry level, those people, there may be a carpenter and he passes up on a, on somebody. because we're all hiring in some capacity. So your complementary trades can actually do work for you too.

You can take that same incentive and work with them and say, hey, through your hiring process, if you come across anybody, typically it's better on the entry level side, right? Because if a carpenter's hiring for a skilled carpenter and I'm not, and I'm an electrician, the likelihood that it's like, oh, this master electrician applied for my, you know,

high skilled carpentry job, not so much. but on the entry level, how do we get entry level workers in and excited? You can do that through deputizing or incentivizing, as Chris said, your other workers that you work with. So it's really a lot of simple things that are, if done well, right?

What's the incentive you offer? How do you approach them? You know, when do you follow up with them? There's like these certain little levers that you have to pull in addition to the concept for it to really maximize. But, yeah,

I mean, none of it's rocket science. And the beautiful part is none of it takes a ton of time. It's just little, little outputs of effort sporadically in the right place. What are you finding some good incentives? What moves the needle for a lot of folks, especially for your own staff? Yeah.

The funny thing is, we talk about this in the course is it's based on the person. So I, early on when we were building out this, like, and I was using this grassroots, I had a, I was at, I was at the doctor's office. And I was just doing a routine checkup. And I'm talking to the male nurse. And I could see at a Dodgers keychain. So he's telling me about how his cousin just moved here. He's a young kid.

He's got a lot of energy. We're trying to figure out what to do with them. I said, well, we're hiring. I said, and, you know, if it did work out, I said, we heavily incentivize it. And I said, I don't know, maybe like Dodger tickets, something like that. If you can make it happen. He goes, you're kidding. I said, yeah, yeah.

I was like, if this works, you know, I'd be happy to. If you have a certain seat that you like or he's like, I love the Dodgers and I could seek from the key chain. And so I think the key here, the biggest takeaway is how do you do it in a way where it's unique to the to the to the to the person because if you can personalize it to them some people it's money you know it's 200 bucks money you know it's 200 bucks cash that that never fails but taking a more personalized approach and asking them hey is it a sports game is it a night out with your wife is it a massage like what

what would make you really what would motivate you to want to go out and do this right what does it look like and just ask yeah it's sales you have to listen and then cater to the person that you're listening to right you know you just have to pick up on that and put that in my pocket later. It reminds me of like, just like you, Matt, I went with Rai Along with my dad. So he would walk into someone's home and he was like, be looking around. I'm like, what's he doing? He was looking on the walls and looking to shit to be able to bring up and up.

Yeah, exactly. Like, oh, I see that you love lighthouses. I was on a lighthouse. So it's like just a nice break here, but it's just something to start the conversation. But so true. I mean, all these things are like, like you say, said, they're not rocket science, but it just seems like so many of us go and put an ad somewhere, you know, pick your place. You put an ad in and you call it good. What are, I guess,

what are some of the challenges there? Are people even going there? Is your talent even going to those websites to even look at your ads? They are. It's, it's the biggest takeaway is, is knowing how to do things well in a proven process. because if you just go in and you write I'm hiring like I can't tell you the amount of headline testing we've done the amount of ad basically the body of the ad we've done and we found these levers that actually work and so the career video is huge because seeing that two minute video is absolutely crucial also one of the simplest ways and this is an actionable one that anyone listening can do is so imagine for a moment you're in a company and you say okay I have a it could be sales it could be in the field but you've got an a player we call an a player you say if I could I ask the way we ask is we say who would you want to clone in your company if you had a cloning machine who would you clone all right well great so we want to go and hire that person so the easiest thing to do is write the ad out the way you typically know obviously in the course

we teach you you know how to how to do it and structure it headline the whole nine but you write the ad out and then you sit down with this person you say hey would you click this headline If you're on Indeed or you're on, you know, whatever it is, Craigslist, does this excite you? And what we found is, for example, in sales positions, if you put the pay in the headline, you're going to notice, give them two examples, hiring, you know, hiring salesperson for XYZ company or whatever. If you take that headline and you put it next to hiring salesperson, make up to 120K a year and you say, which one of these would you click? Because they're potentially money motivated, they go, oh, no, I've definitely 120 grand.

That's great. I would click that one. And so now you're doing testing, but it's something. simple because you're taking the people that so you have them read it and you say what what would excite you about working here or what do you enjoy about working here most and so now you can take those nuggets and embed them in the ad and now you're putting that ad you're you're you're amplifying everything you do and I think that's why I'm excited about the courses because we've done all that that testing where essentially we've done that heavy lifting because you can have a 10

times higher pull rate from an ad just based on doing a simple exercise like this yeah yeah makes total sense the next step i you know after you have that clear understanding you find them how do you go ahead and bet them well well so this is where we kind of this is where we kind of realize the system part because now that you've got your finding process is so robust you know all these people you have to be able to sift sort and screen quickly so we developed ways you know a few questions that you can ask uh for what we call an informal interview so it's informal formal formal and then there should be a skills assessment component. And I think the biggest part is that skills assessment.

So anything field related, what we recommend is you actually bring them to your office, pay them for a day or half a day, and have them build or do something that they say they can do. Right, right. So you're avoiding those, making the wrong hiring choice because everyone says, oh yeah, I can wire an electrical panel or I can, you know, plumbing, yeah, no problem.

It's like, great, here you go, here's some solder, here's a pipe. You know, half a day, we'll pay $100. How about it? Right, right. Yeah, I imagine that this is a tough, like you said, if you do have a robust program and you're starting to get some candidates in, that's an important phase, right? Because then you've got to like quickly start figuring out who's my talent because they're looking for work.

Right. I mean, how much time do you got? You don't have that much time. So what does that informal interview process look like? What kind of things are you asking? What are you like trying to get to the next step, I guess? I'm curious. So it's like, and Chris, I know, I know this part too, but it's, it's like speed to lead.

So if you think a marketing client comes in, you want to get to them right away. So it's reaching out right away, making contact, making sure that they have your basic qualifications. And you're doing this for two reasons. Number one is you want to be able to take anybody that is a gold nugget candidate, meaning they're like, oh my gosh, this person is absolutely amazing. They're exactly what we're looking for on paper. And you want to be able to have them skip some steps. you don't want to have them go through that whole process for exactly what you said,

which is I might lose them. It's like, oh, we got our first round interview, our second round interview. Oh, then we're going to have it. It's like great. And a week and a half they're hired because they're awesome. Right. They just move to them right away. You want to ask them a few basic questions that we show you how to come up with,

which is, you know, do you have a driver's license, maybe one, you know, how long, like some basic nuggets of experience. It's all you're really looking for. And then you're figuring out, okay, where do they fit? Is this a hot, warm or cold candidate? And then you can feel out where you move them in the next step. Do they follow the normal hiring path? Or do I literally bring them to the back of the line because they're a dream candidate

and I want to make sure that I move through quickly? Gotcha. No, that makes total sense. So I think we talked about this a little bit before where, you know, the industry, sometimes some of us can hire, not that great, we hire them. And then we, you know, we, you know, give them a ride along. We give them some ideas of like what we are as a team. And then we cut them loose.

And really that's like a lot of times the last time they meet the other. owner the last time they beat this manager they're just they're done so essentially the owner thinks i did it we're done so now we hire that position now i'm moving on back to focus on my other stuff this is a key part i mean you're you're missing that step on making sure there's they can succeed yeah for sure you can't be able to onboard them and train them and set them up for success you know and really have a process to bring them people in make sure that you're providing them all the information that they start to feel the team, the culture immediately. It helps when you have a couple people.

You can bring them in at the same time, have a training group where people are learning at the same time, working together, and, you know, hey, let's talk at night and make sure we go over some of this information. So tomorrow we really nail it. And what I learn working for the company that I work for is that we would be trained for a month before we'd ever go to a home. We would sit in the office, learn every day and just get used to the team, sit with the accounting department, sit with the training department, sit with the operations team,

and we would go to each little part of the company, get to know everybody, feel like ingrained and get paid for training. And then once they set us loose, we were like part of the team. Like, we want to pay back the company. All they've invested in us over this last month. We learned great things.

We grew as people. And that's like setting up people for success from the get-go and making them feel a part of the team before you set them loose in the wild world there is key to make sure people, you know, are really doing the best they can for you out there when you're not watching them. And making sure they're doing the right thing when no one's looking, too, you know, setting them up for that, that kind of feeling that they can have part of the team like that.

Yeah. Yeah. Now it makes sense. Makes sense. I think that's a step that we, I see a lot of failure in that step. And I mean, the fifth step you guys have here, and I think I want to focus a little bit more on this one is the one that I think as an industry we've not done well at and it's retained. And I have a little part that I want you guys to focus on a little bit, and we talked about a little bit before. We've commoditized our industry very easily. A lot of times we have this top talent.

We send them loose. There's no culture feel. It's basically just a job. It's a paycheck, and that's it. And we wonder why they go to another job and get cherry-picked for a little bit more money. And so I talk a little bit about that retained piece and why we've kind of been terrible as an industry with this piece. It's my favorite part, truly.

I mean, because I almost think of it like, imagine you're in the desert and you're tasked with getting a big old bucket of water and you have to find this water. And you go through all this work and you do it and you feel great. And then you go pour this into your water holding bucket and it's got a leak. That's what I think some of us do in construction. We don't fortify our team. And I think that's so, so important. And it comes from a couple of things.

one of the biggest components is to first understand how they're feeling. For us, we call this an honest employee audit. And this is basically a technology that we have. But in essence, it's getting a clear understanding of what do they genuinely feel like? It's interesting. And Chris can talk about this too. But basically, we've sat down with owners and we've said, you know, how do you feel about your team? Do you think they're happy?

Do you think they're in managers? Yeah, yeah. I think, you know, I think we do a good job. They're not usually like, I'm the best ever, but they're not like, oh, yeah, no, I've got a lot of work to do. And when I've yet to get one of these back where I haven't personally looked at the results, it's a 10 scale typically. So it's anonymous. It goes to us essentially. So that way there's an open channel of communication and we relay it back to the company.

But where I literally haven't read it and gotten physical like knots in my stomach because of some of like the twos and threes that you see where it's like, you know, do I. I feel like my work is valued and appreciated too. And you've got, you know, five to seven or 20 or 30 employees and you're seeing patterns and trends and you're going, oh my gosh, if you lost these three or four or five people tomorrow, your business is like you're one aggressively smart and strategic company who wants to poach your people away from everything you've worked for vanishing. Right. And so, you know, we have to really, really understand the importance of this.

And it's, I had a mentor of mine years ago and he said nothing, nothing changes until the unsaid is spoken. And it's such a powerful, powerful piece when it comes to retention because there's so much, nobody ever, and I'm sure we can all relate to this, Chris, especially. We've talked about this before, but nobody quits the day they quit. We have to know this as business owners. We have to know this as managers. Nobody quits the day they quit where it's a slow process where you're like, I'm not

happy. I don't like this. And then it's that one thing they say or as a manager, the one thing the boss does. And you're like, I'm done. I've had it. Right. And we, and we analyze that one little moment. So we're like, okay, what took place directly before John quit? And it's like, John quit over the course of six months. It was when he didn't get a phone call or any acknowledgement on his birthday. And when he was late because his wife was in labor and he didn't tell you because you don't care as a company and he was an hour late that day and you just yelled at him and didn't ask what he understood or you know it's like there's all those pieces and so when we take the time to really understand what our team is thinking and again this is this all sounds very theoretical it's like yeah

that sounds great but we have a process for the honest employee audit where it's literally we send it we get it back we show you but in essence the core thing as a business owner or manager we need to know and think about is are we genuinely taking the time to understand how they feel that's the first part because we got to know where we're going to know where we're we are. And once we do that, then it's how do we increase happiness? How do we increase for two reasons. And here's what's beautiful, Jeremy, and you let up to this perfectly is that we want to get back to a conversation of employee maximization. And the reason we don't have this conversation is because we spend so much time thinking about, here's the paradigm in construction. I don't have enough people,

right? If I have a missing person, that's a zero percent output. So I'm happy now as a business owner or a manager to have a 40% output. Right. When I said earlier, the modern day gold rush, the modern day gold rush is getting every single person on the team to output at 100%. How do we do that? We understand what makes them happy. We truly care. The amount of the amount of team members who will stay with the company because they understand, that company understands them, I've done this.

I've literally done interviews when we're building out the course. I've done thousands of them. You know what fascinates me when I talk to somebody who will never leave their company? They cite examples of what that company did. They go, they'll say no amount of money will take me away from this company. I said, you're sure. Are you open to a meeting? Can I meet with you?

No, no, I can't. My manager was there when I had my baby. I mean, they've done everything for me. They helped me. They co-signed on my mortgage. Anytime I've ever had an issue, they've handled it. And so I've had literally, I'm not exaggerating, hundreds of those conversations. And so the common thread is my company understands and listens.

Okay. And then not only do they do that, but then they do these small other things to make me feel special. They'll acknowledge me on my birthday. One thing you can do is, and we've done this and talk about it, but you can have a little poker chips made up with your company logo. And then you can design a wheel. And we have this at DeBar Masonry.

We've shown how to do this. But essentially all you do is you have a bunch of small prizes, little things. you know, the $10 711 gift card. You might have one big prize that's like, you know, 200, like it's not money driven. And anytime somebody does something good in your company, you give out these, these little poker chips. Hey, great job showing up late. And you can price it if you're a smaller company and you're financially concerned about the implications. You can price all these very low to a point where you can hand them out for any time somebody does something good.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's not, it's the same concept. It's not, none of this is per se rocket science. It's just how do I do it? Where do I do it? And frankly, none of us were taught this. I mean, I grew up where, you know, I used to mix mortar and if it was too wet, they throw it off the scaffolding.

I'm sure you can really see these stories, you know? Exactly. Exactly. No, I mean, I think you're totally right. I mean, the culture piece is my favorite because, you know, we've gotten away as an industry with such a toxic, gruff, no reward business. And, you know, it all comes down to people. And that's what I love about what I'm.

doing it with U.S. Construction Zone is all about people. Like, they're people. Of course, they want to be rewarded. They want to be patted on the back. I don't care if they're, they look rough or they're big or they're manly. Nah, it doesn't matter. They want to be told that they did a good job. They want to be told in front of their peers.

All these, it's just human nature stuff that we think if we reward them in that way, they're going to work less hard. It's the exact opposite. You reward them, they're going to work hard. You know what I mean? And so I speak to that a little bit. Why are we not figuring that part out? Yeah. Everyone wants to feel acknowledged and heard. And those are the two things that are always low when we do these surveys. They don't feel heard or they don't feel like their voice helps the company or they don't feel like they're part of the growth of the company. And those are the ones where like it's not hard to listen to someone. You just have to put the time in and make the effort to actually sit with people. And I think, you know, growing the team is important too, but growing the individuals is important. best things I had at my old company was that they would give us a book like a self-help book kind of thing and I would never buy a self-help book. I'm thinking, hey, I got it all covered, you know,

but I get a self-help book and then I read it and then we have a discussion about it a month later, you know, 20 of us in a room when we talk about it and we get open about it and our feelings. And we grow with individuals. And as we grow it as individuals together, we grow as a team and just putting that little bit of effort, putting it a, you buy 30 books. What does 30 books cost when you, you know your team is going to grow with you and work harder and gain knowledge from that experience, not just from the experience of doing it together. So that ongoing education, ongoing team building, events, you know, taking people out, showing them a good time, and just really putting money back into the team and not just

the business is really, really important. Yeah. Again, investing in people. It seems, again, it's not rocket science, like you said, Matt, but we just get so in our habits and so used to what culture we had. And I think that's what's cool about that survey. like, hey, you don't know where to go until you know where you're at, right? So let's figure out where we're at.

And I'll take offense to it. Let's figure out where we're at. And then let's implement some steps to get to that better place. I think that phase right there, that survey phase, people are afraid of it, right? They're like, I don't want to even know. Like, I don't want to know. Can we skip that? It's not going to the doctor, you know.

You're scared of the results, you know? Once you get those results, you're going to have to put some work in to make it. And when you're starting a hiring campaign, I always tell people it's like going to the doctor. You've got to get a physical before you run a marathon to make sure your heart don't explode. So let's do a competitor audit. Let's see what the market in our area is like. Let's do an employee audit just to see where our inward market is. Right.

What's going on in both of those and where we can meet in the middle before we even start this campaign? So we cover all those bases and we don't, you know, our heart doesn't explode halfway through from the distress of it all. Like, let's figure out what we're doing right and wrong. and then use that to move forward and get some more people in here. Totally. And the biggest, the biggest objection to all this that we typically get is you're saying, I'm a business owner,

I'm a business manager, I don't have time. And when you look at, and when you look at the study of changing habits or human behavior, right? We look at its replacement. Like you use the example of like quitting smoking. They say, you know, if you get somebody something else to hold or something like,

you're replacing the habit. And so I look at this, the hiring and retention side and I say, all we have to do, is take a few hours a week of your focus on sales and transition into, I'm not asking, I'm not saying that you need to take more time. I'm saying take some of the focus from sales and marketing and dedicate a little bit more to hiring and retention. Ask yourself to take 30 minutes a week with your team and sit down and say, how do we make everyone on the team feel better?

Because if you can do this, what I understand, I think the best way to, the best way to think about this, simply put, is if you make one sale in a company, think of all the human touch points in this, right? So a lead comes in, somebody answers the phone, somebody schedules a salesperson to go out, salesperson goes out. There's somebody who's doing the physical work, somebody who's doing billing and invoicing. You have all these, so you have seven touch points, right, six, seven touch points for every one sale. So borrow a little bit of the time and the energy you spend on sales and marketing and invested in this area. And you will see exponential growth. because that one hire might be with your company 20 years.

That sales done in a week, a month, a year, depending on the company and how big you are. So it blows my mind that we don't focus on. Imagine that. Think of a hire as a sale. I make a sale. I bring in a new leader, a new project manager, a new estimator. I've made a sale that reaps rewards for my company for 20 years if I'm doing these things right. Yeah, it's huge.

It's huge. Well, guys, I think that this program is very well thought out. I want to compliment you guys on the detail. I think it's exactly what we need as an industry. So, you know, any last parting words before we get into your fantastic offer here. No, I just, I'm just grateful for everybody that tuned in and listened. I think when it came time to put this course together, I went to one of the biggest course makers in the country.

And they said, you know, I don't, I don't think contractors will take a course. And every time I attend something like this and I see people that are innovators that want to learn, that want to consume like I believe this industry is ready for a jump and I'm just I'm genuinely excited for for who's here and what you're doing Jeremy and what we get to be a part of and you inviting us because I don't think people understand the construction industry like those of us that are in it and I think it's a special time special opportunity yeah no doubt no doubt guys again I appreciate you guys being here I want to see if I can do something here and can you see the screen there, Matt and Chris.

Hey, it looks familiar. Yeah. So I wanted you guys to introduce this a little bit. Now, obviously, these are the things we just talked about, you know, the clear understanding to find, vet, hire, retain. But I really want you guys to focus on this last section, which I think is just super awesome. So talk to it a little bit.

Yeah. So we put together a special offer for you inviting us here to kind of launch the course and get in in front of people that want to learn, that are action takers, that want to row. And so anybody here that's listening, that stay till the end, that wants to develop in the space, we've put together a 50% discount. So we have the code there. The link is going to be somewhere here. I don't know if they got it on LinkedIn, but we'll also, yeah, if you if you guys have, actually, it's kind of a strange link, isn't it? We'll just put it in the chat right now for those who are on LinkedIn. And we'll also be emailing it out to everybody so that

everybody has this piece as well as the link so that everyone knows how to get it. If all else fails, you know, you always have me, Jeremy at us construction zone.com. What's the best way to get a hold of you guys? You could email me, Chris, at thecontractor Consultants.com. Okay. And I'm happy to speak to anybody about anything involved in here. I'm happy to hop on a quick call. If anyone has more questions or anything else that we can help with.

That's what we're here for it is to help. All right. Well, thank you guys for being here. It was a wealth of information. I think everyone's going to take something from this and be able to use it wisely in our business. And honestly, it's such an important subject matter. And, you know, Merry Christmas, happy holidays to you guys. Thanks for being here.

And we'll be having more talks. We'll figure out some more ways to partner up in the future. So thanks again for being here, guys. Awesome. Thanks, everybody. Happy holiday. Thank you, everyone. Take care.

Thank you, guys. Well, thank you guys for being here. another episode of Construction Executives Live. I am your host, Jeremy Owens. Again, if you have anything that you need for me, if you have any future topics of interest or some people you think I need to reach out to, Jeremy at usconstructionzone.com. Again, thank you for being here. May Christmas, happy holidays. Reach out to somebody today. That's your homework and we'll see you next time. Bye. You've been listening to In The Zone with Jeremy and Valerie Owens. Be sure to subscribe to In The Zone and stay in the know with the best minds in the construction industry.

To nominate an innovator or change maker in the construction industry, connect with your management peers, and stay up to date with construction industry news. Be sure to visit usconstructionzone.com.