Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today is a great
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Show, <laugh>. It’s a really big show. Johnny, lemme
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Fix my hair because you said it’s in the air.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Fix your hair piece there.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
It’s
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Crazy. We’ll hit 50 before you know it, man. So, K-cup episode 19, part four of the five part series of business being a contractor, general contractor. And this is the construction execution phase. Take one. Action. Got gotta look at the camera and smile for a minute, so you can cut it right there.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
All right. Welcome <laugh>.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Alright, I’m done. Done
Speaker 2 (00:47):
All chuckles. Don’t quit day job.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Hey, welcome back to the K-Cup episode 19. We are in part four of the five part series, the business of being a general Contractor. And we are going to break ground, we’re gonna go over the construction execution phase of this series. So we’re getting ready to actually build something after three parts, three portions of this five part series dedicated to just logistics. Of course, before we get started with the you know, the commencement of the construction process, we gotta do one last little bit of logistics. And that is we gotta, you know, finalize our schedule and get that all going, coordinate all our subs and, and get ready to mobilize. So tell us how that looks like right? When you’re getting ready to mobilize, what are the things that you’re putting together and getting in line your ducks in a row so that you can actually mobilize, get to the job and start actually building something? Now thisis something that general contractors Batonb Rouge will want ot pay close attention too.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Yeah, so I mean, before we, before, right, before we get to that stage, we, we build a, you know, a, a true schedule, a construction schedule. And and, and the way we go about doing it is, is we’ll build a schedule in house. We build it, you know, based on, you know, other projects and the timeframes that we’ve experienced. Yeah. But, but what we do to, to ensure that, you know, the schedule’s good, is we send out to all of our key key subcontractors, specifically the ones you know, on the critical path. And we let ’em review the schedule. We let ’em do, you know, check our timelines and make sure that we’ve give ’em enough time or ample time. Yeah. Make sure that we’re not you know, forgetting about any long lead items or anything like that mm-hmm <affirmative>. But actually give them guys the opportunity to, you know, to adjust their timelines, to adjust lead times and, and make sure that that part of the schedule’s accurate. Yeah. And so you do that with all the subs on the project, or specifically all the key subs on the project. Again, this is something that general contractors Baton Rouge will want ot pay close attention too.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
So you want a realistic schedule, not something that looks like pie in the sky. That’s right. But you’re never gonna meet. It’s, you
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Do it that way. You have a very realistic schedule. Yeah, that’s right. And then to keep it realistic, you know, our superintendents just push on the subs and, you know, push on suppliers and, you know, that’s their job to keep the project on schedule.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Yeah. So a big part of that, part of the coordination and scheduling process is I know that some subcontractors can actually overlap. They can, they can you know, be working on their scopes and and all that. So what’s the process there about, you know, coordinating the subs to where there’s not a conflict on the job?
Speaker 1 (03:38):
I mean, we do actually do that, you know, within the within the schedule itself. Those, those subs that can’t overlap, you know, we have it built into the schedule that way. And the biggest thing about that is just communicating, making sure that all the subs realize who’s gonna be on the job, and making sure that, you know, everybody’s planning to do their job without interfering with the other guys, you know, whether it’s offloading material or, you know, being in the same work area at the same time. Yeah. Just coordinating those kind of things that could actually interfere. Yeah. and, and that’s kind of how we make sure those, you know, go off with no interruption, if you
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Will. Yeah, of course. I, we know part of this mobilization effort, you know, there’s basic things like portal lets, and roll offs mm-hmm <affirmative>. And a lay down yard mobile office that, you know, depending on the type of project it is, right. Sometimes you have to provide that for yourself. The other thing is, is that we want to get this schedule in the hands of the project owner, discuss that so that we can set, set expectations for progress during the project. So what’s the process there? What kind of communications do you have about the schedule and progress and things like that when it comes to the owner, the project owner?
Speaker 1 (04:52):
So the way we could keep the owner up kind of up to speed is one our superintendents, you know, they document daily pro progress mm-hmm <affirmative>. They do it through a, you know, series of reports. They, they, you know, state how many people’s on the job, who, who’s working, what type of work’s being done. Yeah. You know, if there were deliveries or their weather was there. Inspections, yeah. All those kind of things. But the way that we really communicate it to the order is every Friday we do what we call a performance overview report. And basically it compiles, you know, some of the per important information that the superintendent has on their report, but also some other financial aspects of the project that they’re not, you know, that don’t know of. Yeah. But we submit this to the owner weekly. And then actually when we submit our pay apps monthly, we would typically do what we call a schedule update. We would actually go into the, to the actual work and construction schedule mm-hmm <affirmative>. Update the progress, and then that’s the new schedule going forward. So the two superintendent and the subs get a copy of that, and that’s the schedule that we go forward, working
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Forward. Yeah. So it sounds like they’re gonna get you know, this first progress report really at the very outset to establish that communication with the mobilization part of rolling it out. And then the, the other thing that we really haven’t talked about, but I know it’s an issue down here for sure, is weather contingencies probably would be the same up north where you have hard winters, you would probably have weather contingencies there too that you have to deal with. So when you’re making this final schedule and you’re again informing the project owner of the final schedule, you’re, you know, intention to commence mobilizing and starting the project how do you address the weather side of this? Any feedback from general contractors Baton Rouge.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Yeah, so I mean, weather’s something that we discuss, you know, specifically if you’re trying to get the project off the ground in a very wet season or wet, you know, wet, wet time of the year, and you wanna have those discussions early on and let ’em know, you know, this may be difficult, this, this may run it, we may run into some problems. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
How do we document that?
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Yeah. So I mean, the way we would document it, obviously, if, if we’re working off of a schedule that we’re not meeting, then, you know, we document that daily through our superintendent daily reports and we document that we were rained out that specific day this is a key point for general contractors Baton Rouge.. Yeah. and, you know, depending on the project, sometimes we have to back that up with some kind of rain data, but Yeah. Our, our system automatically populates from, you know, from the weather. We’re not actually typing this information in. Yeah. so that’s usually enough for most owners. Yeah. but, but that’s the way we document it. And then we would ask for that, you know, ask for that if, if we’re under contract for a certain amount of days and we just request those days back. Yeah. you know, typically, I mean, there’s, there’s certainly been plenty of projects where we get a lot of rain days, a lot of rain delay. Yeah. I wouldn’t say that we have a lot of projects that it’s completely just really killed. No. You know, through the last
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Can’t be a factor, though.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
I can think in 2016 there was a project that we could not get off the ground for a few months due to weather, and that was, that was really an issue on that particular project. Yeah. so they’re out there. Yeah. And it’s like you say, it’s important to document, it’s important to have a clear communication of what’s gonna happen Yes. In the event that there are some significant weather delays. Yeah. Because I mean, you think of things too, like the flood, I mean, it didn’t rain every day, but once it, once, once all of our jobs flooded, there was a significant delay that Yeah. It was something that everybody was battling and every, everybody, you know, had to have, we had to figure it out. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
It was ongoing day to day, and it could change in one part of town and not the other. Right. Or day to day. So the reason why I brought up the documenting part of that about weather days is that they do accumulate over the course of a job six months to a year, whatever the size of the project is. And if you’re an aspiring contractor, it’s something I wanted to bring to your attention to make sure that you understand that you want to document weather days. They may seem insignificant to you, particularly if you’re just happy to have a job finally, you know, you finally got your first project or whatever, but you want to document ’em and, and track ’em because say over the course of six months, you have 10 rain days. Well, if you’re 10 days over your deadline, and perhaps in the contract that you negotiated, there’s liquidated damages, you know, if you go past the end date, you know, 10 days worth of liquidated damages could be significant. So you wanna make sure that you’re documenting this stuff and, and communicating it to the project owner as you go. So there’s no surprises at the end. And like John brought out there’s a process that, a change order process where you can request those days back. You can submit a change order where no money’s involved, but you’re merely requesting lost days back to be added to the project. So they extend that project end date out to reflect those days where you just couldn’t do any work and, and it happens. So Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
And really just any delay, I mean, you wanna be reporting any or, you know, tracking any delay.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
That’s right.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
And usually, I mean, the way it works is, you know, these days it’s really not that big a deal till the end when it is, you know? That’s right. Yeah. So it’s important to, it’s important to have some documentation, to have some communication Yeah. You know, showing that before the final day of this project.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Yeah. Just because someone verbally says, ah, don’t worry about it, or whatever, you wanna worry about it. You wanna make sure you document everything and Right. And cover your, your your backside for that. So. All right. Good. So we’re, we’re getting ready to roll here. I can feel the, the tension mounting we’re getting ready to, to mobilize out to the project. So here we are in the construction commencement phase now. So what’s the first thing that you typically like to have before you actually break ground out there onsite with all the stakeholders and, and stuff involved?
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Yeah, so typically we would have, we’d like to get everything mobilized, get everything set up on the site. You know, you kind of alluded to portable toilets, dumpsters, office building
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Fence if you need it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Temporary fencing all your job site sign, it’s signage. But yeah, we would wanna have a, you know, a pre-construction meeting, kickoff meeting, whatever you wanna call it. Yes. Have all the key players on the job site, you know, run through preliminary schedule, run through some of the stuff we’ve already talked about you know, talk about how, how we going to, you know, perform this job in a safe manner, you know, where deliveries go, you know, what the expectation for, you know, pay applications are. Yeah. All those kind of things. We wanna hash that out in the first meeting, get everybody on the same page. Yes. and, and get this thing ready to roll with, with no no interference.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that to me, that, that pre-construction meeting is, is a great opportunity. It’s also a great relationship builder opportunity if you’re in business you know, in the business of construction because if you think about it, if you have your stakeholders out there, your project owners, your subs are there, and then you, this is might be the first time they actually meet the PM and the super, they’re gonna be running the jobs. And so it’s an opportunity for you as a contractor present your team in the field. It’s opportunity to establish your expectation for the level of communications that you’re expecting from these subs. So in front of the whole, the whole larger team there, no one can say that they weren’t, you know, told what the expectation was and, and then need to follow through on that expectation.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
And usually that centers around communication and making sure that you know, they’re on the job when they say they’re gonna be on the job. And, and then the next thing that we wanna roll into is, is our next item under this sub subheading is safety. That’s a big one. I know that we’ve been working on expanding our safety I guess plan you’d, you’d want to call it. So talk to us a little bit about your idea of safety, its importance and, and how do you go about implementing that? Where does it start for like a small company and, and how do you grow into it?
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Yeah, I mean, I think we’re probably a good example because we started off with, you know, very little safety and, and yeah. Obviously we all wanted to work and, and be safe. And it was something that, you know, when I was a superintendent on the job site, which is kind of where it started, I was always looking for situations that, that weren’t safe and Yeah. You know, trying to make sure that the conditions were safe, but we didn’t really have anything really very formal. Yes. and so as the company’s grown, we’ve, we’ve formalized that process more and more. To your point, it’s still a work in progress. It’s something that we still we’re still looking to build on, we’re still looking to improve on. Yeah. but I think the way it starts off is, you know, once you get to a point where you need it, you, you start to build you a safety program, a safety handbook mm-hmm <affirmative>.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
You start doing some, you know, a little bit of training for some of your employees and that kind of thing. And you know, you may go and hire like a third party safety company that can go out and, you know, make sure your website or make sure your website <laugh>, make sure your projects are safe you know, actually give us some reports, pay attention general contractors Baton Rouge.. Yeah. The cool thing about those companies too, they can really provide a lot of additional safety information, you know, job site safety meeting topics, or they can, they can give a lot of support when it comes to, to the safety. Yeah. So, I mean, I think once the time comes, it’s, it’s, it’s really nice to have that third party company that can actually probably enhance your safety program or your handbook already mm-hmm <affirmative>. And and then give some additional support by kind of being your eyes, if you will, checking everything out reporting back to us, like where were we, where we need to get better. Yeah. That kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Yeah. It’s, it’s great when you get to that point where you, you do bring in a third party and you get an objective set of eyes looking at you, so it’s not, you know, your team members pointing fingers at each other or, you know, wanting to do this or not do that. You know, it’s, it’s another party that’s establishing what the baseline should be, what the acceptable standard should be, and that makes it easier to comply. And and sometimes it’s a, it’s a tough transition to go from a lack safety situation to a more formal safety situation where, you know, you’re required to have all your PPE or you’re gonna leave the site, you know, things like that. Right. So it is a big step up. Another thing that is important in this whole process and establishing it early on is quality control checks and, and working that into you know, your, your, your daily pace, your weekly pace with your super. And I think it’s so important because if, if the subs know that their work is gonna be checked for quality, then I think it, it’s, it’s gonna cause them to, you know, level up their game, so to speak. What, what do we typically do? How do our supers go about making sure that the quality meets our standards and more importantly meets the standards of the project owner?
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Yeah. So, I mean, you know, it’s our superintendent’s job to, to, to manage a project, keep everybody on schedule, but, but, you know, quality of work is a huge part of their, is a huge part of their job. Yeah. I mean, we provide, you know, kind of a, a punch list or checklist for our superintendents to do daily, and that’s that’s on there every day. They, they need to, you know, walk the site, verify that the work that was done Yeah. Was done according to, you know, the way we would accept it more importantly the way the owner would accept it. And, and, you know, even just
Speaker 2 (16:39):
And pass inspection according
Speaker 1 (16:40):
To code. Right? Yeah. So we, we primarily handle that with our with our superintendents and then through our monthly meetings. You know, it’s always on our project manager’s mind too, to put an extra set of eyes on, on the work that’s done and what’s happening. And you know, you’d be surprised too with somebody that only gets to the job site, you know, every other week or, or maybe even once a month. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. You know, they’re, they’re apt to see a few things and, and point out a few things that the superintendent’s been looking at daily that
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Exactly. They just
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Don’t see it
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Because it’s fresh eyes because
Speaker 1 (17:12):
They’re there, you know, every day, all
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Day. That’s right.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
So that’s kind of how we, we go about in our office. We don’t, we don’t have a specific quality control person that that’s kind of what they do. I know some companies have that,
Speaker 2 (17:21):
But Yeah. So this, this last point under this, this subheading before we move on, so pay attention general contractors Baton Rouge. Is it, it sounds simple, but you know, again, if you’re an aspiring contractor, pay attention here. ’cause This is a key point, but, you know, leading up to actually breaking ground and starting the construction phase, we we’re gonna call that the honeymoon phase, looking back. So parts one through three, y’all were on the honeymoon, but now we’re, we’re getting down to brass tacks. We’ve been in this relationship for a little while now, and we’re starting to see the shortcomings of our you know, our, our partners so to speak. So, so we’re getting a little friction here. And so the point I’m getting at is it’s really important to manage the project owner’s expectations once construction starts, because the minute the money starts actually going out the bank and paying pay apps, and the clock starts ticking all of a sudden that that project owner can become a little anxious. Yeah. And and, and their expectations might start changing from what, you know, the, the baseline was when we started. So how do you go about managing the project owner’s expectations? I know it took a long way around the bend to get to this point, but Yeah. I was trying to make an analogy. It didn’t work out very good. Like a, you know, the married couple and the honeymoon’s over, and now we’re, you know, seeing the ward on each other’s nose, but the reality is things do change.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Don’t know what he’s talking about on that <laugh>.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Yeah. The reality is things do change once that project starts and money starts getting spent and time starts flying by. So yeah. How do you manage that?
Speaker 1 (19:04):
I think you manage the expectation with clear communication. Yeah. you know, we, we usually set the expectation with our schedule, and then if we’re ahead of schedule or behind schedule, we, we we communicate that. Yeah. And we help ’em to understand, you know, we’re behind schedule because of this, or we’re ahead of schedule because we were able to do these things faster. We, we keep them in the loop through communication. Yes. and then as the contractor, we need to know their expectation and we can’t meet their expectation if we don’t know what it is. That’s true. If they’re not satisfied with, with what we’ve given them, then we need to be notified and we need, they need to give us a, you know, a good explanation of what they need. Yeah. but I think we manage that through clear communication, and I think if they’re, if we’re communicating clear to them and they’re communicating clear to us Yeah. Then, then their expectations met. Yeah. I think, I think that where we see things really fall off the rails is when there’s just no clear communication and we don’t know the expectation and they don’t know the expectation. And that can
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Leaves a loft of the imagination that
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Can become a slippery slope, you know, fairly quick.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
You got that right. That, that’s why I want to make a big point of this, because if, if you, if you’re a new contractor out there, look a lot of, a lot of tradesmen, a lot of people, guys or gals, either one, I know there might be some female contractors out there too, but if you become a contractor, it’s because you’re a certain type of person. You like to get things done, you like to see progress and and you like to build stuff. But the problem is, is along with that type of personality, sometimes we’re a little on the stoic side, we’re not great communicators. Sometimes we’re tend to like put our head down, get the job done. The reality is though, you want to communicate and you wanna over communicate to the project owner, and this can save you big if you’ll take the time to do that.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
And if you don’t, it can cost you big. Because like you alluded to, when no one’s hearing anything and they’ve got this other idea going on in their head about what should be happening, things can get heated and things can fall apart. So anyways, communicate with your project owner, make sure that you’re managing their expectations throughout the, the project. And that means like from week one all the way through to the end. Alright, let’s move on to the, the third bullet point here on being in the construction phase, and that’s our project management during construction. We touched on a few little things there that, that the PM’s gonna do as far as communicating, but let’s, let’s drill in a little bit on this and you know, let’s start with daily supervision at the site. You know, talk about you know, what staff would be there managing that and how, how that all works out under our, you know, our umbrella of organization.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Yeah. So I guess to paint a clear picture without a lot of words, <laugh> luck. We have a superintendent that runs the daily operations. We have a project manager who works with the architect, engineer or owner Yes. To you know, to get whatever pertinent information for the project that PM passes it along to the superintendent, and then the superintendent makes sure that that happens in the field. Yes. you know, it’s the super’s job to follow the schedule that the, that the project management team’s put together, build it according to that schedule as, as best as possible. They keep the subcontractors lined up, they keep ’em on schedule they ensure the quality is there. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. And, and then they do, they do the reporting, the daily reports. Yeah. the PM you know, communicates with the owner, communicates with the architects and whatever information he has, he pushes that along to the superintendent.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Yeah. Here in our office, it’s, it’s also, it’s our, our PM’s job to ensure that the superintendents are doing some of the things that we want, want ’em to do. Yeah. it’s a part of their job to kind of follow up, make sure they’re getting those reports done, make sure they’re commenting in the right areas. Yeah. you know, make sure they’re staying on top of their as-builts, that kind of thing. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. And then, you know, from a high level, we, we have our admin team here at the office doing things like, you know, billing and project audits and, and that kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Yeah. So I thought you said you were gonna explain that without a bunch of words. Come on. Well, you went over the word.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Well, I wanted to start it. That’s why I, I like highlighted the three or the two <laugh> and then went into some words. Okay.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
All right. You set the expectation. Alright. All right. So that was a, and by the way, it was a great expectation about what goes on on site. So let’s talk about now because anyone listening that’s just thinking about becoming a contractor may not be familiar with this process, but they’ve probably heard about it, but don’t know really how this unfolds. Give us an example of how a change order might come about on a project, the role the super would have in that. Yeah. And, and then the PM’s role,
Speaker 1 (24:21):
One thing I probably didn’t do a really good job is, you know, talking about what the PM does inside of their role. I’ve talked about the communication, but so the PM would be the one that actually kind of, you know, here in our office anyway, builds the schedule, does all the buyouts with the subcontractors. Yes. you know, kind of all the management part of the project, if you will. Yeah. You know, not, not in production in the field. Yeah. so with that being said, I’m trying to remember the question that you asking
Speaker 2 (24:52):
<Laugh>. So, so to help us change
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Order, change order,
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Change order, that’s,
Speaker 1 (24:57):
Yeah. So the way the change order typically happens is one or two ways. Either an owner realizes in the field or maybe not in the field, that they wanna do some additional work. So they would reach out to the, to the pro project manager because the project manager is the point of contact mm-hmm <affirmative>. And they would ask ’em for the specific part of work. Yeah. The other way it happens is our superintendent realizes in the field that something can’t happen according to plan. Yeah. Or that, you know, we gotta go an alternate route because of some existing conditions or something like that. Yeah. And in that point the superintendent would document it, he would basically send out an RFI saying, you know, here’s the condition how are we gonna proceed? Yeah. And that would get the ball rolling on a change order. Yeah. depending on, and, and any the other method, once our PM got some, you know, correspondence from the owner, that would, again, that would
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Trigger ball. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Or, and the way it works here is, is we, you know, depending on how big it is, a change order, if it’s something small, then typically our, our, our PMs kind of handle it. They just, they, you know, meet the sub or Yeah. You know, meet the supplier or whatever it is that we need mm-hmm <affirmative>. And they kind of put together a little price if it’s a big, I mean, I know recently we had a project where we had $250,000 change order on a pro on something like that. We typically give that back to the estimating team and kinda let them almost build it like another little small estimate. Yeah. And and, and put it together. And then from there it just, it starts over like a new proposal. We, we send it over to the owner proposal format, explain exactly what it is, what the change is, what the cost is. Yeah. And then, you know, they either approve it or, or don’t.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Yeah. Okay. Good. I mean, that’s, that’s a pretty good, you know, thumbnail sketch of how a change order might come about. So as far as quality control, now, we talked a little bit about it as far as far as obviously wanting to establish that when you’re getting ready to begin the project, establish the expectation with the subs and everything. But so what’s the actual nuts and bolts now of actually doing that, of, of developing a punch list as you go, making sure that you’re managing that quality in the punch as you’re moving through the project so you don’t end up with, you know, some eight page, you know, $150,000 punch list at the end of a project
Speaker 1 (27:19):
<Laugh>. Yeah, so I mean, I think, you know, some of it is, is who are the subs that we’re working with, the PMs and the supers. You know, we, we all have relationships with a lot of subs and we’ve worked on ’em for a long time, but we also start to know that, you know, which, what their strong points are, what their weak points are. So quality control starts, you know, kind of at the sub selection. Yeah. Like if, if we know that we have a sub that’s gonna be weakened in the area of mm-hmm. Of certain things, then we start trying to manage that early on. Yeah. You know? Yeah. and you know, whether that’s just the superintendent, you know, staying on top of the work as they go or Yeah. The project manager checking out that kinda stuff.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Kinda layers of protection for that. Yes.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Yeah. So, and, and then the other, the other way is just, it’s a part of a, it’s a part of the superintendent’s n PM’s job to, to, to stay on top of that quality. So they, you know, our team meets once a month on a project and that’s part of their to-do list or whatever. Yeah. You know, checklist is, is just to kind of walk the site, make sure everything looks right mm-hmm <affirmative>. And document it. And then, you know, as the project’s starting to close out, we always wanna do our own punch list and try to try to, you know, have the architecture architectural punch list to a minimum. Yeah. So, you know, that’s something that we ask our people to do at the very end of the project. You know, PM and superintendent together again, like, let’s build a punch list. Yeah. Let’s get this thing knocked out. So when the architect and the owner does this final walk, we don’t have a list a mile long. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Be proactive about it.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
Well, the mounts that aren’t realistic.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Yes. <laugh>.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
So,
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Okay, great. So and then we touched on you know, client communications project is underway now, so obviously you have a process in place and you mentioned it about weekly progress reports, and so the project owner and the architect and you know, anyone in the, what we, I guess we’d call the leadership team would be, you know, privy to that information and be able to discuss whatever and if there’s any issues that come up from that report, address those things and all that. So as far as unexpected things though, and you know, delays you know, especially delays can come up where, you know, you think you, you know, you had like a particular sub with a scope they told you about what the lead time would be on particular items and, you know, and to no fault of their own and they were being honest or whatever.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
But, you know, as sometimes happens, you know, the vendor makes promises they can’t mm-hmm <affirmative>. They can’t deliver. And so you find out that, you know, an RTU units is gonna be eight weeks out instead of, you know, four weeks. Yeah. How, how do you deal with things like that when these, I mean, these are like big knocks to the schedule and the project itself because time’s money, as you, as you said, you’re getting paid a certain amount of money for a certain amount of time of, of managing that project. So when that time’s gonna be extended, obviously that’s spreading that, that butter thinner. Right. How do you deal with that? Yeah,
Speaker 1 (30:38):
I mean, it’s a delicate process for sure. And for whatever reason, owners, architects, they if these big distributors or manufacturers get behind, they kind of more accepting of that than if it’s, if it’s just us being behind <laugh>, you know, what i’s true mean? That’s yeah. So it, it’s, it’s usually not a matter of, we usually, if, if it’s a long lead item like that and the manufacturer distributor’s really behind, there’s usually, we don’t usually get a lot of flack or pushback on that. We kinda work through it you know, the best we can. I mean, typically I feel like we might take a little beating on that because it extends the timeline. Yes. And we can’t really, I mean, you can’t, it’s hard for us to go back asking re for time
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Recoup
Speaker 1 (31:22):
That Yeah. When, you know, it’s just a bad situation. Yeah. but I mean, again, it’s, it just comes down to communication. I mean, I think, I feel like that’s my easy answer, but I also think it’s true. I mean, think it’s so true. Yeah. If we’re communicating clearly, like, why we’re in the delay, and even if we’re clear, clearly communicating like why this delay’s gonna cost us money mm-hmm <affirmative>. Then then I just find that we’re more apt to get, you know, get those things approved without a lot of pushback and a lot of yeah. You know, a lot of just hesitancy if you will. Yeah. But it’s, there’s always situations like this that you have to manage, and it, I think that, you know, if you’ve managed a project well to that point mm-hmm <affirmative>. I think it serves you well in this instance too. You know what I mean? For sure. If, if we’ve had a lot of back and forth and a lot of issues and just hangups and then something like this comes up, it’s, it’s really choppy, you know, see
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Compounds it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
But if, if you’ve managed this project very well and, and you set the expectation, you’ve met the expectation, and then something pulls up, something pops up like this, yeah. Then it’s a lot, lot easier to
Speaker 2 (32:29):
Navigate. It’s just a bump in the road then at that point, instead of a, a, a cliff. Exactly. Yeah. So, all right. Any final closing points that you wanna talk about being in the construction phase before we wrap this thing up?
Speaker 1 (32:42):
I mean, I think the construction phase is the phase that we all like. I mean, it’s, yeah, we like all of it, but, you know, it’s fun to see stuff being built. Yes. It’s fun to see progress by this time. A lot of times you’ve been months into a project, so it’s nice to Yeah. Start see seeing some action
Speaker 2 (32:57):
For sure.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
And it just, it really makes it rewarding at the
Speaker 2 (33:01):
End, you know? Absolutely. Yep. That’s why we’re in this game. We like to build stuff, but to do so, there’s a lot of paperwork that has to be done prior to that, so. All right. Well that’s gonna wrap it up for part four. We’ve been through, you know, all, all the logistics required, all the, the pre-work. Now we’re in the construction phase. Next week we’re gonna come back with part five, the final, you know, part of this five part series and wrap it up with project completion and turning that project over to the project owner and completing it. And then talk about managing that, that client in the warranty period following the, the completion of the job. So hopefully you’ve been finding these, you know, they’re, we know that they’re short and they’re abbreviated, we’re hitting the high points on all these different parts of the process of the business of being a contractor.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
But our hope is, is that you’re, you’re getting some insight into what’s involved in actually being a general contractor, and you know, that way you’re gonna have a realistic approach you know, to pursuing that your, your eyes are gonna be opened a little wider and you know, you might wanna roll your sleeves up a little bit more knowing the work that that’s ahead, but it’s definitely doable. Like we’ve talked about before, being a general contractor is not a cakewalk, but again, reward is oftentimes equal to the amount of risk involved in anything that you do in life. And, and so, you know, with a good team, you can mitigate that risk and hopefully do a good job and, and make a nice living at it. So, and then for those that aren’t general contractors, <laugh> that work with us in the industry, hopefully you’re getting some insight into the many layers of, of the kind of work that we do here.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
We don’t just throw a hard hat in the truck and roll out to the job site and start, you know, putting up forms. There’s a lot of work that goes into a project before we ever, you know, see board one or dollar one. So hopefully that helps you appreciate you know, the fact that we, we are very committed to this industry and definitely a, a hard working portion of this industry. So, and we love partnering with all of y’all, so hopefully this encourages you. So anyways, that’s gonna wrap it up for part four. John, it’s been great. We’ve gotten a lot of insight from you from your years of experience in the industry. Can’t wait to hear how you wrap this thing up. Yeah. In a week. And anyways, we’re, we’ll, hopefully y’all please like, subscribe the podcast.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Most folks that watch or listen to the podcast are not subscribed at roughly 70%. And when you subscribe, it causes the you know, YouTube or their algorithm or, or Spotify or whoever, whatever way you’re getting the show. It causes them to push it out to more people that have never heard it. The more people that do listen to it when they subscribe and like it, so please do that. And you know, it gives us motivation to keep going and knowing that we’re actually bringing a little value and we’re gonna continue to grow at this and, and prove the show. Anything else you wanna say other than goodbye?
Speaker 1 (36:21):
I mean, it took you a while to put the icing on this one. I ain’t gonna lie. <Laugh> <laugh>. Yeah. I was real, I was also a little surprised you was about to recount all the points in your brain. <Laugh> looked like you moved on from that. So no, <laugh>. Good show. Good to do it with you, Joe.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
All right. Appreciate it, John. Thanks for being here. Thanks for sharing with us and we look forward to seeing y’all again here in another week.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Bye. Cut.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Action. Nope.