Business Innovators Radio - Episode 43: Documented Decisions: Building Safety From the Lens Up with Joey Shuster

Episode Date: June 30, 2025

This podcast explores how strategic visual documentation transforms modern construction management from a compliance requirement to a powerful business advantage.Industry expert Joey Shuster, Senior Vice President at Multivista, discusses how thorough documentation protects projects by reducing risk, resolving disputes, preventing rework, and enhancing stakeholder trust. Discover why leading construction firms are integrating comprehensive visual records into their core processes, and how Multivista’s approach creates competitive advantages in today’s complex building environments.In The Zonehttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/in-the-zone/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/episode-43-documented-decisions-building-safety-from-the-lens-up-with-joey-shuster

Welcome to In The Zone and Construction Executives Live, 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's your host, Jeremy Owens. Welcome back to Construction Executives Live. I'm your host, Jeremy Owens, owner and founder of three generations improvements and U.S. Construction Zone out in sunny northern California. Yeah. We have another great show for you today. Before we kind of get into it, I was thinking about, I just got back from a conference, a remodeling conference called the Pinnacle Experience in Chicago. Great time. Brought my son with me. We did some baseball touring. And it was a good time. But it was just kind of reminding me the power of networking and forming strategic partnerships. And we all need help in our businesses. We can't do it on our own. I'm sure we've all, all of us on this call have the feeling sometimes of doing it all yourself or too much weight

on your shoulders, all those types of things. But with tech and with these great partners that exist in the construction space, it's time to really adopt some of those and become more efficient, try to replace yourself as much as possible. And we have a great tool and technology topic today. And it's just one of those things that sometimes you get busy, you know, a year goes by really fast. You didn't add anything to your tech stack. You didn't create any efficiency in your business. And really, there's just too many great things out there right now to not do that. So we're getting into that in a little bit.

But we are sponsored by a couple brands today. One is Bill 12. Automate your business into a revenue generating machine. Check out Build12.com. It's more than a CRM. You can do emails, texting, marketing, social media, you name it, all within that platform. I use it. It's been great for my business talking about efficiencies.

The second one is Builder PayPro, BuilderPayPro.com. The construction payment platform that saves you time, money and gets you paid fast, pay zero percent credit card processing fees, accept ACH payments, and utilize state-of-the-art invoice tool. It integrates directly with QuickBooks. Another tool I use, when you plug those two things in, you're ready to go. So our show today is titled Documented Decisions, Building Safely from the Lens Up. This podcast is going to explore how strategic visual documentation transforms modern construction management from compliance requirement to a powerful business advantage.

Industry expert Joey Schuster, senior vice president and Multivista, is going to discuss how thorough documentation protects projects by reducing risk, resolving disputes, preventing rework, and enhancing stakeholder trust. We're going to discover why leading construction firms are integrating comprehensive visual records into their core processes and how multivista's approach creates competitive advantages in today's complex environment. Joy Schuster is a senior vice president of sales at Multivista. Schuster leads talented teams in delivering industry-leading visual documentation solutions that revolutionize construction project management.

Please help me welcome Joey Schuster. Joey, thanks for being here. Thanks for having me. Good to be in. Yeah, first things first. Congratulations are in order. You're newly married. He's got a whole summer of weddings going on right now.

So we appreciate you taking time of your busy schedule. Yeah, it has been quite a bit. but things are finally starting to calm down. Right on, man. Well, congratulations, and thanks for being here again. To start with telling us a little bit about your upbringing and construction and how you landed here at Multivista. Yeah, sure.

After Cal Polys Slow, I started in investment banking. It was real estate focused. I always wanted to be in real estate and construction and just build and own assets. And so from the investment banking background, I took that to real estate development. I did that for two-ish years, large institutional development, and then found this technology as a customer that I loved and needed. We had a, don't need to get in too much detail, but I had a huge issue. It was a waterproofing issue. The basement of a large apartment building completely flooded.

and I was like, how do you find, like, how do you find that problem? You're underwater, and it, so anyway, it costs a lot of money to fix that problem. At the same time, I found out about Multivista and switched over. And that was almost 10 years ago. I can't tell you how many times I've heard that story of, I used to be a customer now. I work for them. Like, it's so common, especially in our industry for some reason. I think it's just one of those things you're like,

you love the technology and you're like, man, I can sell that. I know people that would want that. Yeah, it should be using that right now. Yeah, so before we get into the solution, let's jump into the problem that we have. I mean, you kind of interviews for us right there, but, you know, construction space, you know, one thing that's happening right in front of our eyes is that technology is here,

but things are getting more complex, right? Whether that's from a permitting standpoint, code standpoint, if you're dealing on the remodeling sign, the homeowner standpoint, there is so much more called than there used to be. So let's start with the problem, where are we at and what we need it?

Yeah, I'll add to that too. It's like the labor shortage and skilled labor, like and qualified. People will show up to the job, but, you know, are they potentially like up to par as where they may potentially used to be? Right. But, yeah, I mean, as far as like day to day, there's hundreds, sometimes thousands of people involved in these projects.

So communications are going to happen. Coordination errors. There's going to be disputes, maybe daily disputes. Scope, like always scope creep. There's always. rework, right? There's inspectors' mistakes. There's just too many people involved all the time where things are going to go wrong and mistakes are going to happen. And so we try our best to there's, multi-vista is not a silver bullet. There's still going to be problems in construction,

but we try to bridge the gap, the gap with a visual record so that at least you know what happened, when it happened, how it happened, to hopefully either mitigate delays or really mitigate pointing fingers, because that's a huge problem in construction. Everyone's like, it's your problem. It's your fault. It's your fault. Well, we have, you know, multivist is a third party that's coming out to document these construction projects, which I'm kind of jumping ahead, but like it brings some clarity where an objective source of truth and helps a little bit with the chaos. Yeah, it's not a question of if a problem's going to arise.

It's when, right? I mean, there's no such thing as a perfect project. I don't think it's ever happened. So it's going to happen. And, you know, how would you respond to those that say, you know, this is just for big commercial, big business? Talk a little bit about the smaller folks, too, and how it can apply to them.

Yeah, it's interesting. So, you know, smaller companies, the first thing is, So we just don't have budget for that, which is fair. The budgets on smaller projects are obviously smaller than the budgets on bigger projects. So number one, the tech and the services scale in pricing with your budgets. So generally, like we've done project. For example, Multivista works on single family homes. And then we work on the biggest hospitals in the world.

So it has been a fort not necessarily every. job can afford it, but it has been afforded by almost every type of job. And then there's the kind of second piece of that is it can almost be argued that smaller firms benefit more because they cannot afford those delays or those disputes. So if your budgets and your margins are so tight, you're by not protecting yourself, you're putting yourself at more risk. And if like, you know, a billion dollar hospital can eat that extra a million dollar change order, it's a little harder for that single family home renovation to eat that $20,000 change order. Right.

So it's really not about the size of the project per se. It's about like the impact of the risk. Right. Right. Yeah, you're right. I mean, it's like you said, like just because it's a smaller project doesn't mean you could have the same kind of catastrophe. Right. I mean, and honestly, it can break the back of a smaller business a lot quicker than

can those big businesses. So yeah, it makes a lot of sense. You know, we talked a lot about technology on this show and, you know, obviously the boom is fully here. How well does your products integrate with others? I mean, I think that's kind of the biggest issue. I think that I, in talking to a lot of folks, is that they're just so apprehensive about adding more tech stack because they're just, they know it takes time, for one, and they want to make sure it all played nicely together. So talk a little bit about that. Yeah. Yeah, there's companies with, you know, 20 plus, 20 plus softwares in their tech stack. Yeah. And it's totally valid issue. So multivista, there's kind of a few differences. I mean, so number, number one is that we're

integrated with a lot of the larger project management software to solve, you know, for example, ProCorp. So we're fully integrated into ProCore system. So you're not actually even leaving the Propa system to engage with the Multivista system. So they are, again, they're fully integrated. Same with playing grid. But so MultiVista has this layer, right? If you don't know too much about us, we are actually the ones that are coming out to the construction sites to do the photo capture, to do the laser scanning, the drone flights, installing your webcams, installing security systems. So a layer of that is this is the service. piece. So we're actually reducing what's on your plate and basically completely eliminating that

technology. You still log in to view it, but there's a ton of DIY and self-capture options out there. We can name a few. There's drone deploy and open space and hollow builder and Pupics and Bill Dots. I mean, there's got to be at least six or seven of them. They're all kind of playing in that same space. And they all have their different pros and their cons. But, you know, Multivis is the only company that is the service aspect. So we are much more so alleviating from your plate than adding to your plate.

Right. So essentially, it's more of a partner than it is a tech stack in a lot of ways, right? because you're taking something off of a plate. You're not adding, you're adding to it. Like, hey, you need to go do X, Y, and Z. No? So you guys are kind of taking that completely off their plate then, right? Yeah, exactly.

And I'll add to that is that we've been in this space the longest and like we call it a kind of reality capture. It's kind of our world. But we also have the most products. So what I mean by that is because, you know, a lot of these companies, general contractors, owners, They'll hire a self-capture app. They'll hire a different drone company. They'll hire a different webcam company. They'll hire different laser scanning companies.

So they end up with like 10 plus vendors. Whereas if you're talking about reducing your tech stack, you can procure multivista and you can keep it all under one roof. Because we offer so many services and our competitors only play in these niche markets. Yeah. Yeah, no, that makes sense. So the podcast description, you know, we kind of framed it as a powerful business advantage. So from your perspective, how does, you know, comprehensive documentation, you know, going beyond compliance to drive strategic value for a construction firm?

So how does it become that advantage that you're kind of talking about? Yeah. So, like, I would say compliance is almost like the floor, right? A lot of the times it's not really, to this extent, even brought up, like at all. You know, there are some city requirements where you have to do pre-con surveys. You have to capture the streets and adjacent buildings before you start construction. Or the owner requirements will literally say, you know, take periodic photos. It's like, what does that really mean?

You know, so. Right. The clients is really, it's not a work. There are some hospitals that have very, very, very. heavy requirements. So aside from that, there's, it's really more of a value driver and which is why, you know, our customers procure us at all. Yeah. But so number, number one, the most obvious, I would say is you're protecting yourself legally. Like litigation nowadays, like is everywhere. Construction disputes are all the time. It's, again, come from the development side. Like,

that is construction. negotiating and disputing. That is construction. If you have a third party giving you full transparency, you'll still have negotiations. You'll still have disputes, but at least there's a source of truth that you can point to. Give yourself, again, that more transparency and more peace of mind.

You're optimizing your communication. Think about, like, small example. An architect has a question on an RFI. Okay. that architect either has to visit the site, which they might not be able to do till next Wednesday. Or they send an email. The superintendent gets that email six hours later, doesn't have time that day, goes out the next day to take the photo, doesn't have time yet to upload the photo back into whatever, drop box or something like that. So now the architect's waiting 48, 72 hours for one photo that they could just log in and get in three seconds with multiple or others in our space.

It's not just, we're talking about photo documentation overall. So you're winning disputes and you're getting through disputes faster. You can reduce rework because you have so much information about what's behind that wall. You're also building something that a lot of an intangible that our customers, some customers can see is like, and some can't yet, but you can bid smarter on future jobs because you can see the designs that worked and you can see the schedules. And you have photo evidence. You have the real data to back those decisions. And so it's not just, right, it's not just that risk management. The last thing I think I'll add to this, which is it's a huge marketing planning.

Yeah. If you're a contractor and you go to an owner and you're not saying, oh, owner, I'll take our own photos, I'll show you some progress. You're saying I have a third party that's going to comprehend unbiased. it's going to comprehensively document every single aspect of this job and I'm going to share everything with you. Like how much peace of mind and confidence does that exude to an owner? And, you know, winning more jobs is obviously.

Right. Every contractor wants. Yeah, and let's get a little bit more into that risk piece because, you know, obviously that's a big one, right? What are kind of some of the things, you know, let's talk about some of those specific examples of risk. So I mean, obviously you kind of talked about some of them, but let's kind of list a couple just so that, you know, as you're listening and people go like, oh, crap, that's happened to me. Oh, crap, that's happened to me. You know, so risk some of those. Yeah,

I'll, I have a, I think a good specific example. But it's funny because like literally the other day, as I was like thinking about this podcast, I had a call and it was, it was with the PX Turner. But it was, this was where, you know, a lot of these project teams standardize us. So we worked with them for years and I probably have done five or six jobs with this particular person. And we were talking about some scope on a job. And he's like, the first job I did with multivista, we saved four million dollars on a claim. So I will never not use multivista because that one time on that one project saves for whatever, like your infinite amount of multivista. basically.

So that was interesting. We didn't get in, it was a claim, we didn't get into the details of it, but I do remember a specific example. There was a large scale, it was an airport, turbo power expansion.

It was like probably a $600 million project. And our team was documenting, which is very popular MEPs, your ruffins, your slabs, right? Sure. And midway through the project, the owner's rep had to raise a red flag

and there was suspected design deviation. It was generally associated with like chilled water lines underneath the concourse. And so, but it was already buried. So they had no idea where anything was. And normally, right, like you would have to literally tear up the concrete. That could, that had a big job like that tearing up concrete without knowing what's inside of it could cost five, $10 million. That is a huge. huge rework problem.

Right. So, but instead, we were on the job, luckily. So we had our indexed photos to the plans. They can see everything that was inside of that deck. They had all the measurable capabilities, too, because we also, which is another thing multivocity does, we laser scan. So, which gives you not just the visual, but measurable environment. So you're kind of like, kind of use your imagination, but you're walking around Google

street environment. You can see everything like you're there digitally, but then you can also just click this ruler tool and click point A and point B and give you the exact distance of that line. So with all of that information, they were instead of doing a bunch of rework, they were able to just like quickly figure out a redesign. They not only does rework cost money, it takes time. Right. Especially on a public project like that where there's there's grant money, there's funding for different buckets, like big change orders can take a lot of time and delay the project a lot. So that was one of a more recent, good example.

Yeah. I mean, you can imagine how many, in a complex project like that, how many opportunities there are for that thing to happen. So, yeah, I mean, it makes total sense. You know, I mean, talk a little bit about, let's talk a little bit about the installation crews and the labor force. how are they doing with this, right? Because you can imagine some of them are probably not too happy to be under a microscope, I guess would be kind of one thing, you know, that, hey, we're going to be documenting everything. How do you get buy-in from that team?

Yeah, so it's a good question. So I think at this point, I think that more so was an issue years ago, 10, 15 years ago. everyone's taking photos now on construction sites so it's it's normalized now um so they're they're used to it the other thing is like it's difficult because it's it's like if you don't want someone taking photos of your work like isn't that a bad thing red flag yeah why why are you not okay with that Right. Then the other, like, the last piece is that it's usually the general con. Usually trades aren't, aren't contracting with us.

It's usually the general contractors, the owners. So they don't necessarily have a choice. But ultimately, our guys are friendly out there. We stay out of their way and we move fast. So we're in and out of there, and we really try not to cause any delays or any trouble. We don't, we don't require a day of multi-vista coming out. where you can't be, no one can be there because we're out there taking photos. Like, we don't change the schedule at all.

We just flow with it. So we really just try to be friendly and stay out of their way. Yeah, that makes sense. So let's talk a little bit about how this visual documentation can kind of gain trust. You know, obviously it can be a trust piece for the contractor, for the stakeholders, architects, engineers, everybody involved with that project. How are you building trust that you're the right team? So I think, well, so the question is how are we, how are we like creating trust with these owners and the general contractors?

Yeah, exactly. So how is it, how is using this tool kind of, I mean, you kind of talked about it as a selling piece, right? How are you using this to, to build up your credibility and, you know, speaking from the contractor's perspective, you know, using it to, to make sure. Everyone around you knows that, hey, we use this tool so that X, Y, and Z. You know, so I guess I'm kind of looking at it from that perspective. How do you recommend people use it to market themselves? So there's two things. So within the projects, I think the trust comes from the transparency. Like the overall multivista platform, right?

it's you're you're giving so many stakeholders so much insight. And so if everyone has the same information, it just, again, I kind of used that word before, but it gives everyone that peace of mind. And it aligns, it aligns expectations. It builds credibility with all the subs and the contract, like all the contractors on the job. And from a marketing standpoint, you can then go and take this data and be, like, okay, these are the past five projects I did. Like, you're not just going in with an interview and

talking about projects you did. You are going in with real data and real photos and showing, hey, this date, this photo was taken two weeks later or one week later or three date later. This photo was taken. And this was our exact progress. And we just substantiate these five jobs. This was the schedule. And here's the substantiation. And here's the quality of work. And here's how, just look how clean the site was. right so and look and by the way look at all the back end data and see see this everyone was using this the amount of transparency drove this project so like there's so many ways to incorporate our platform in those interview meetings and in those marketing meetings gotcha gotcha I know that makes a little sense you kind of hit on a couple of the other technologies but I'd like to get into the the 3D lasers

scanning you know LiDar based solutions drones all these things that were obviously you know hearing How is multi-justed pushing the boundaries of what's possible and preventing those errors before they happen? So good timing for this question. I got back two days ago, I think, from Hexagon Live. Hexagon is our parent company. They are a very large, Swedish publicly traded company. They own 70 plus different companies in this space. So those conferences happen every other year.

and we learn all about the future. So in today, I'll kind of talk about today's world that's pushing the limits and then probably what more tomorrow's world looks like. Sure. So today, the newest technology in the reality capture world is progress reporting and deviation analysis. So what we're doing is we're using AI,

or computer vision to analyze our 360 photos throughout construction. We are comparing those 360 photos to your plans and to your schedule, and we're giving you exact percent completes for every trade and every area on the job. So you can say, hey, on June 25, 2025, how far along was I with framing on the first floor? Because I just got an invoice that shows I'm 30% complete with framing. doesn't look like I'm 30% complete with framing, or maybe it does, but you need that confirmation.

See the computer vision? The computer vision tells you it's an automated report. You are 23% complete with framing. So very helpful with those draws, with the invoicing and payout process. That's on the progress reporting side. And then on deviation analysis, that's kind of the second tool,

is we are laser scanning areas. and then we are comparing that scan data to model 3D models and giving exact we're telling we can tell you specifically every single element whether it's placed whether it's it's not built at all is it intolerance is it out of tolerance or is it is it clashing and so i can tell you hey six months one year down the line that pipe is going to run into that ashtack system and you're going to have a big issue or we can get ahead of it because we know that's coming and here's the information and you know go go fix it now before it's too late that's that's kind of the today's cutting edge technology tomorrow as I mentioned a lot of this photo doc all the photo documentation today is human based

there are humans walking right of the site they are taking photos sure that won't be for long there will where it's already been tested it at it we're not there yet it hasn't gone there yet but robots will be walking around they don't obviously you know they don't sleep they don't eat they rest they rest on site so you're going to have a lot a lot more frequent photos for a lot less money but that's yeah that's tomorrow's world yeah interesting i mean it's it's it's fascinating to hear you say some of that stuff because it's it's really is the that efficient piece is amazing, right? To be able to say this is going to be a problem in the future, I mean, what a great tool to have. Because so many of those issues are just, they're human error

issues. You know, how could you possibly know that, you know, those types of things that in yesterday's world, I mean, that's how things break. But to be able to prevent it before it happens is truly amazing, right? I mean, our buildings are going to be pretty tight. Yeah. And we all know, like the design model is great. Everyone goes off the design model or the plans, but that's not necessarily what happens in the real world. If it was, probably wouldn't be any construction issues,

but there are because sometimes in the field it can't happen. Like it physically can't happen. Right. Or sometimes it is human error. Whatever the reason is, it's not built perfectly per design. And so we don't know the issues that that change, that design change that just happened in the field.

We don't know how that's going to affect downstream without that type of data. Interesting. So I want to talk a little bit about the client experience. So if someone hires multivista, what does that look like? And what kind of challenges do they have in setting it up? Talk a little bit about what it looks like to work with you guys. Sure. So from an implementation process, it's pretty simple.

we we hop on a call, we create a scope of services based on the project, we have a lot of tenured personnel, like a lot of, a lot of experts at multi-nest, it's specifically in documenting construction. So like if you talk to any of our reps, they will generally know, hey, you're building this, okay, you probably will need this, this, this, and this, or this is going to be the most valuable. So you have that initial phone call or Zoom call. From an implementation standpoint, it is very easy. So number one, from a navigation perspective or a platform perspective, we have dedicated account managers.

They will hop online with you. They will show you all the functionality, how to use everything. It is really intuitive, but that kickoff call is helpful. More so on the logistics side, which is probably more important. So we are all construction pros. Like, we all have construction backgrounds to some degree. A couple of our ops managers, we're literally building inspectors. So they know exactly what they look for and what to be documented.

So we are, we're on your look ahead distribution list. We are referencing your schedule. We are proactively reaching out to confirm dates. And then we are showing off on your site. We cannot rely on general contractors on a 250 unit apartment building. You say, wait, wait, wait, we forgot to call multi-vista. like you would end up documenting nothing. They are,

it's not their fault. They are busy. Like we don't want to add, again, we're like, we're very customer focused and service-based. We do not want to add anything to your plate or as little as possible. So on the logistics side,

we are very proactive. Got it. No, that makes total sense. So talking a little bit about training, you know, so I talked a little bit about our kind of, sometimes our hesitation with adding extra tech because we're afraid of the time commitment,

right? But that obviously is not the case with your tools. But talk a little bit about the importance of how the training goes and how making sure that everything is implemented correctly within that company's, you know, current flow, right? Everybody's got a different system. How do you find your way in there and make sure it goes seamlessly? meetings so damn it's but like but it's it's it's not complicated

the platform is really intuitive there's I mean just to break it down there's a floor plans tab you set our scope is divvied out so it's like slabs and then all your floor plans MEPs all your floor plans elevations all your elevation plans And then you go to like, okay, I want to see my MEPs level six. Click the button. Your level six floor plan shows up.

A ton of arrows are indexed all over that floor plan. And they're pointing in the direction the photo was taken. You hover over it and you see a high quality photo. So it's extremely intuitive to use. You still have to have that meeting, though, because like there's, I'll give you an example. There's a very large tech company that uses multivista for quite a bit of their office buildings. but what's happening is that their goal and there's a lot of like university and higher ed type group that have this exact same goal the photo documentation during construction is great

but they are turning this into a living breathing as built for 50 hundred you know however long that building is in operation so this is not just hey i'm going to use this for two years like this is valuable now for 50 years. And so when that happens, when company, when kind of that clicks or when groups want to have that perspective on our product, now you're meeting with, yes, the construction teams and the development teams, but also the FM teams. And when the FM guys turn over, then you're meeting the new FM teams because you're always training the facilities teams and the property managers on the platform because

it's so helpful for them long term. So it's the short answer, even though I just gave you a long one, is we are here for you. We handhold the whole time. And again, customer service for us is huge. Yeah, no, that makes sense. So I talked a little bit about, you know, healthcare facilities, you know, academic construction. There are some that obviously are getting more complex than others. But, you know, kind of you just came from that big meaning.

where is this headed? Because, you know, obviously we all talk a lot about code changes and permitting processes and, you know, everything is taking longer, right? I mean, if you think back to the 20s and 30s, you can start building in a week. You know what I mean? Like, it just seems to be so much more complicated. Where are we headed there? You kind of talked about, you know, obviously a tool like this is almost vital for the healthcare-type facilities.

where do you think we're headed? I mean, can this keep getting more complicated? I mean, that's a question for legislation. Yeah. But, you know, you ask different states that question, and you get a different answer. But I think the, like, ultimately, the only way that we can solve this problem

is getting good data in the right hands of the, in the right hands to the right people. Right? Like if they can see, if they can clearly see exactly how everything is getting built when things happen, then they have more clarity on like what needs to get done or what needs to change or what needs to get improved. So there's just less ambiguity. And like I know that's not like a perfect answer, but less, less clarity, like more ambiguity is is going to cause complexity because it's harder to solve. You don't, you know less. Right.

Right. So the, yeah, that's, that's kind of like one end of the one end of it or one point. And then the other side, like more kind of going back to this, the facility's maintenance seem like, I want to kind of dive into this living, breathing information, right? Because it is so, it's so important. It is where the industry is going. So like, you know, another very specific example is that we will throw QR code. which this isn't complicated, but it doesn't get done on pieces of equipment.

Okay, so you have large facilities or a big school or a big hospital or even single family homes. Okay, and like let's say you're, which we, you know, let's say you're told brothers. Okay. You build a thousand homes in one development. You now have to do owner, you have to do owner trainings on all the equipment on all 1,000 homes.

Or you take high-quality videos and you send the videos out to every single homeowner. They buy the house and then you send them the videos. They now know how to use their HVAC system, their water heater. They know how to use all of these pieces of their garage. They know how to use all the equipment. Maybe you'll still get phone calls. Maybe you still have to do some trainings in person. But it will limit that time.

and then you throw QR codes on each piece of equipment. So if they have a question about it, they take a picture of the QR code, they open up the link, and now they can see exactly step by step slash a video on how to use that equipment. So again, like kind of going back to this, like transitioning into this FM tool, right?

You're saving a lot of time on the operational side because you picked up the data during construction. Yeah. No, that makes sense, man. You're speaking my language here. So you talk a lot about, you know, as senior vice president of sales, you have to kind of create that relationship. So how do you go about making sure it's a good fit, right? Because not everybody, it makes sense for every company.

How do you kind of go about that initial, you know, kind of discovery call with the company? Yeah. You know, construction is so, you know, you. unique. Every building is unique and every group is unique and every group has different processes. And so you really, it's, you can make some assumptions that are a little bit standard, but it's difficult. So the reality is you put listening first, you hear out the pain points. We, we're lucky at Multivista in that we have, I kind of touched on it earlier, like such a large suite of products.

So whatever, not I won't say, you know, whatever your problem is, but a lot of these issues within within documentation or within reality capture, we can solve.

It's just what are your issues. Right. So, and then we kind of fit what we have. And if we don't have it, we don't have it. But, but a lot of the times, you know,

a lot of times we do. So a lot, a lot of listening. And then proof of value. Like, you know, we've been around a long time. Again, we're owned by a very large company. We're not going anywhere. So patience.

If it doesn't work on this job, like, do you know, almost every sales call that I have, because budgets are set super early in construction. And, like, it's very difficult to get squeezed into a GMP post, post that signature, post that execution. Right. And so a lot of the calls I have are, damn, I wish I knew about this two months ago as GMP set. And I don't have 40 grand. I don't have 60 grand or whatever the contract number is. I wish I did.

But we have a large client base and a good foundation. And they've been good to us. And so we're patient. So it's like it's okay. No problem. You know, thanks for your consideration. And hopefully we'll get you on the next. one and you stay in touch with them until the next opportunity arises. And when that opportunity

arises, execute. Right. Yeah, no, that makes sense. So you talked a little bit about some of these trends, you know, where, where do you see some of these trends going and then how is multi-justing to stay ahead of the curve? Because, you know how quickly things are coming at you. You know, I'm sure in your meeting, you were like, what? This is where we're headed. So how do you, how do you go about staying ahead of that curve? Because it's probably pretty, it could be pretty quick, before you fall behind, right? Definitely. And I'll be honest,

a lot of times it feels that way. Yeah. You have, you have tech companies out of Silicon Valley that get large funding rounds and they come and they put all, you know,

these MIT computer science, you know, they have all the best coders and they're building out the best, like best models and it feels that way. So it's a really good question. So number one, I would say that at hexagon, at least, or at multivista, we have the largest ecosystem of partners,

which is extremely helpful. So what I mean by that is that we don't, we could be a little late to the game. Like, someone could come out with a new feature before us and which often happens. But when we come out with it, it's fully big because we're such a mature company and it's, and it's very real. and oftentimes we do that through acquisition. So, or partnerships. So that is a way that we, I wouldn't say that we really lead the curve necessarily in technology. Sometimes we do, because we have, again, we have a lot of resources with our backing.

But I think it's more once we see something that is valuable in the space, we go after it. and whether that's putting our own developers on it or acquiring that's kind of been our play the the other thing that's specific more to like today's world is that what we're hearing and you brought you brought it up earlier is how big the tech stacks are yeah like even so drone deploy was only was only drones now and then they just launched drone deploy ground so they're doing 360 photos well you self-capture or open Open space was only doing self-capture. Now they just launched open space air. So now they're doing drones.

So what I'm seeing in the market is, is the problem that you brought up is that you're trying to, you're piecemeal, too many technologies. We have been lucky enough because we're such a large company and have been around the longest to have, we're a way ahead of that curve. We have everything already in our platform. And that'll continue to grow.

So, yeah. Yeah, no, I mean, that makes sense. So the other piece that I wanted to kind of get into was the ROI, how do you measure the ROI for a company? And obviously that's difficult to do when you're talking about, you know, visual things. So what are some key metrics or some strategies that you are telling your clients to use to measure this? Oh, such a hard question.

I know. Like I wish I had, you know, that. Oh, yeah, we save you X percent on every job, guaranteed. Yeah, yeah. But like, so, yeah, like the standard answer is like, okay, check your avoided rework costs, the dispute resolution time. Think about how much time it takes to negotiate and argue and how much frustration that causes. Right. RFI volume, project closeout duration, and then, like, legal claims are an easy one.

Right. But the problem with construction is that you have no idea what problems you're going to have. And if you did know, you wouldn't have them. So it's because it's so different on every job, it's really hard to nail down an ROI. We do obviously have like stories I brought up that are very specific. I think that there's probably one quote that I'll, always think about, and I mentioned to so many customers on customer calls, but one customer was like, and this is his quote, is that I rather have it and not need it than need it and not

have it. And I was like, yeah, you're building a $200 million building and this costs you 40 grand to protect everything, like, protect everything, like give you that much transparency. It's it's kind of like a set of insurance. And then now obviously we have all of the tools and the technology to be more proactive, but from a reactive measure, it's that's stuck with me. Yeah, definitely. This is what Kerry just said, delivering better outcomes equals invaluable.

It's true. And I think a lot of companies don't measure this to begin with, right? I mean, you can measure your last lawsuit. Sure, you can measure that. But a lot of people aren't measuring rework. And, you know, things that are happening is just like it's happening so far. fast, you got to just jump on it. So it is like that preventative thing. And it's just, it's like insurance, right? It's like, damn, I have to spend, you know, but it's like if something

comes up, you know, now, now you're protected. So yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So for those construction managers who are listening, watching, considering kind of implementing this, kind of unsure where to start, what's the first step they should take to explore if this is, if they're ready for this, if they need it. Yeah, I mean, first thing is, like, give us a call or reach out, reach out to us. But let us, you know, let us prove the value. Because, again, I've been doing this now for 10 years. And the amount of customers that have started with, hey, I only want to document in walls.

Or I only want to document the waterproofing. That happens. And that's totally fine. It's really low cost if you're choosing one service only. and it's all your biggest pain point. Like that's probably why you want it. So start there. Start small.

See the execution. See how valuable it really is. And then next job, you're like, oh, I had a, you know, maybe you do your in-laws

on one job and you're like, oh, I had a waterproofing issue. And the next job, you're like, okay, let's add waterproofing. You don't want, you know,

waterproofing maybe for 150 units is going to cost 10 grand. Yeah. That's one window. You know, so it's like, it becomes pretty clear pretty quickly, but you also don't want to overwhelm yourself as a customer.

So like start limited and then scale from there. Yeah. You know, that totally makes sense. I mean, that's kind of the piece of advice that you would give, right, for all of us who are, you know, kind of in this space. I mean, I think I can speak, you know, for our industry and that, you know, we're always trying to mitigate risk and we're always trying to kind of stay ahead of the curve. And we also don't know where things are going. And I think that's where a lot of

us struggle is like, we're like, okay, so now we have to add this. And now we have to add this. And now we have to add this. And like, in speaking with a lot of my peers, they're like, I don't know where to start. I don't know where to stop. I don't know where to begin. So if people are in that kind of headspace, you know, how would you, how would, what advice would you give them? Yeah, that's tough. It's tough. You guys are probably overwhelmed. like so many so much technology so many people always reaching out like do you answer these calls do you ignore them like which ones really are going to be valuable like you can give a good sales presentation and yeah you can be wowed but like in practicality is it going to work so it honestly

it's it's complicated like i've been in the i've been in the space long enough to know how how much tech is out there for construction and there is a lot so i don't think that's a I don't think that's a simple solve. I think, you know, a good place to just start is maybe what companies have been around a long time. Because if they've been around a long time, it probably means they're valuable. And especially, you know, if, but at the same time, you want to explore new stuff because you eventually want to get ahead of the curve. So I wish I had a better answer. No, I mean, you see our dilemma.

I mean, the value that you talked about for a lot of businesses is a no-brainer, right? I just think that it's just that it's always a question that I bring up for people who are adding technology is, you know, how do you answer that question? Because we are feeling it right now. It's coming out as fast and furious. And yeah, it's a little late. You know, our technology, we're a little bit late to adopt. We're not usually early adopters.

So, like, most of the time you're kind of sitting on the fence until you're, until, you're, So, okay, fine, I will. So that's kind of how a lot of us are. But for something like this, it's different because, like I said, it's that insurance piece that a lot of it's want to avoid. That's the thing that keep you up at night. It's the lawsuits. It's the angry client. It's the, you know, mistakes.

It's the rework. Those are the things that stress you out. And stress is a huge component to our industry. It's causing a lot of problems, mental health and all sorts of things. So, to me, that's, that's different. And I think that's what I wanted to kind of, you know, ring home a little bit is that this isn't just another piece of tech. This is like a peace of mind kind of addition to your business. Yeah, exactly.

And again, the service base is huge. Like, you do nothing. You do nothing. Right. You log in, which again, like, I wish I could show the platform now, but I can show anyone that reaches out. Sure. But you log in and just all the information is right in front of you. You can see anything really clearly.

Right. For those who wanted to learn more, how do they go ahead and contact you and go to the next level? Sure. So, obviously, right, you can, so it's cool. Go to our website. There's a sign up page. Depending on your location, it will get you in touch with the right people. So that would be number one.

Number two, we're all on LinkedIn. You can reach out directly to, me on LinkedIn. I'm very responsive. So you can get in touch with us. And we are all, again, like, just writing this home. We pride ourselves so much in customer service. So if you reach out, we will get in touch quickly.

We'll be very helpful. If Multivist is not the right resource for you, we will tell you. Like, we have so much knowledge in this arena that we can really help. point you in the right directions, even if it's not related to photo documentation at all. Right, right. Great. Yeah, and what's that? Multivista, is it dot com?

Multivista.com. Okay, great. Well, I appreciate you being here today, Joey. It's a ton of information, a lot to think about, so we appreciate all your insights. Thanks, Jeremy. It was great. It was fun time. Appreciate it.

All right. Thank you. Bye. Thanks again, everyone for being here, another episode of Construction Executives Live. next month we have a great show talking about how to own a business and also have a family and have a marriage and things like that so joe you might want to check you know might want to tune into that one um so check that out i will put the um the next show in the lincoln comments here right after we're done here um if you want to get out to the newsletter so that you're

you're getting invited to future shows you can you know send me your your email or you can email me, Jeremy, at us construction zone.com. Thanks a lot for being here and we'll see you guys next month. Bye. You've been listening to In The Zone and Construction Executives Live with Jeremy 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. You know,