00:00:00:01 - 00:00:17:22 Speaker 1 Never forget this. I was in Streetview subdivision in Maryland and a car pulled up and he came in to start ranting and raving. Ranting and raving. And so finally I stopped and I said, hey man, what's wrong? He said, there's a hot dog. Some guys left hot dogs in the family house. It's under construction. 00:00:18:00 - 00:00:22:11 Speaker 2 Everyone's heard nightmare stories about building or remodeling a house. Do you have one of your own? 00:00:22:15 - 00:00:39:08 Speaker 1 I said like you like your house. He said, I like it better than yours, I made it, I improved the floor plan. So you can't take responsibility for it. Okay, but you like it, I love it. How's the construction quality? Construction quality is great, but I'm out here every other day, so they know I'm watching. How about the schedule? 00:00:39:08 - 00:00:54:20 Speaker 1 Same thing for one for me. You know, like, we would have never gotten right. Right, right. I said, okay, I said, can you do me a favor? From now on, just do this. Come to the house and say, I love my lot. I love my floor plan. The house is being the quality is correct and it's on time. 00:00:54:22 - 00:01:15:20 Speaker 1 And there's a hot dog on the floor, right? Can we start like that? So nobody's checked on their stuff. We're doing the job, man. And he went, I will do that. And we shook hands. And so conversation the expectation. They open dialog with their customers and sharing that you know so much of this is communication. 00:01:15:21 - 00:01:41:12 Speaker 2 Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Your Project Shepherd podcast. I'm your host, Curtis Lawson. And today we're here to talk about construction schedules. And I think this is something that many, if not all, builders struggle with or at times have struggled with myself absolutely included in that. And it's it's a huge factor in the builder homeowner relationship. And so today to join me to talk about that is my friend David Herzog of Herzog Homes here in Houston. 00:01:41:12 - 00:01:55:14 Speaker 2 And I've gotten to know David, like many of the past guests that you may have heard on here through the HBA, our Builders Association, and David's on the board of the Custom Builders Council with me in the air. So, David, welcome to the podcast. 00:01:55:17 - 00:01:57:07 Speaker 1 Well thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. 00:01:57:09 - 00:02:05:07 Speaker 2 Give us a quick rundown of your company, what you do and kind of what your experience is in the in the industry. 00:02:05:08 - 00:02:25:05 Speaker 1 Sure thing. We've been building houses here in Houston for about eight years. I came here the honest way. I married my way here. I'm an East Coast guy, sort of building house on the East Coast in 1994, and we ended up building about 300 homes a year. Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, DC. It's America's best builder back in the day. 00:02:25:10 - 00:02:48:10 Speaker 1 It's a lot of fun. A couple thousand houses develop a couple thousand lots. Here in Houston. We do about ten houses a year. Some of them are custom and some of them are spec and schedule. And of course is is always front and center customer satisfaction. Bottom line, you know, our ability to have happy employees and the work flow is kind of a priority for everybody. 00:02:48:13 - 00:02:55:10 Speaker 2 And since you've been doing it since 1994, I'm sure that you were a an expert. You've mastered the art of scheduling, right? 00:02:55:12 - 00:03:14:15 Speaker 1 Nobody has. But we try. It's funny. We've I have mastered taking on new technology because in 1994, literally, we used to draw site plans on graph paper and our schedules were in composition notebooks, you know, draw a line through something that was done and turn the page and write it down again. 00:03:14:17 - 00:03:19:17 Speaker 2 Or the old day planners or the old. Yeah, but you could buy the three ring day planners where you swap out the pages. 00:03:19:17 - 00:03:20:17 Speaker 1 I still have some, 00:03:20:19 - 00:03:22:13 Speaker 2 I have a couple in the drawer that I haven't touched in a long time. 00:03:22:14 - 00:03:25:04 Speaker 1 Yeah, they're fun to go back and look through and read through. 00:03:25:06 - 00:03:47:03 Speaker 2 So aside from aside from quality, I think that scheduling is one of the biggest things that most people are going to remember about their building experience with a contractor, you know, long after the project is over, right? I mean, the quality is something they can see every day. So that's forefront. But at least when I ask people, hey, how was your experience building that house? 00:03:47:05 - 00:04:00:05 Speaker 2 They'll be like, oh, we love the house, but got it took twice as long as they said. And you know, they never updated us on schedule and things just drug out. So I think it's one of those things that tends to stick in people's minds. 00:04:00:07 - 00:04:19:18 Speaker 1 It really does. It's you know, sometimes I think as a builder, a day lost or a day gained is as part of our work day to our customers. It's a huge thing. If you miss a day and they lose their rate lock or they're moving truck or I mean, it can be a massive major deal. And so it works both ways. 00:04:19:18 - 00:04:38:11 Speaker 1 I mean, if you're if you're a month late, they're angry and should be if you're a month early, they're not prepared for that either. And they're angry and should be right. So you really got to do your best to, you know, thread the needle, which is there's you're working outside, you're working with a couple hundred folks or 10,000 documents, a million parts. 00:04:38:13 - 00:04:41:02 Speaker 1 It's a wonder we ever get it even close, right? 00:04:41:06 - 00:04:58:17 Speaker 2 Yeah. It's funny that there's an attorney who comes and presents at our GBA meetings once a year for contract updates, and one of the things he always says, he's like, you guys are insane. I would never, ever be a builder. He's like, all the all the stuff that can go wrong and all the stuff that you have to manage. 00:04:58:17 - 00:04:59:19 Speaker 2 He's like, you guys are nuts. 00:04:59:21 - 00:05:20:09 Speaker 1 Yeah. You know, and the customers are so different to what we had. I guess it's probably common knowledge amongst certainly everyone that bought a home and was home builders. But through the whole Covid thing we had a huge disruption and materials and etc. etc. and a lot of it like, yeah, we're we're pretty involved and keeping ourselves or professionals. 00:05:20:09 - 00:05:35:14 Speaker 1 Right? So we're trying to keep up where there was there kept being new surprises. You know, we would the market would say, hey, you can't get this anymore. So then we would go buy a bunch of that and be prepared. And we think we had all figured out, and then they'd be like, hey, there's no more appliances. 00:05:35:16 - 00:05:57:15 Speaker 1 And they didn't say, hey, there's not going to be any appliances in four months. They were like, there are no appliances starting tomorrow, right? And so we had a couple of houses that were getting ready to close at same time, kind of in tandem. And we're using Thermador appliances and they're the big $15,000 refrigerators are going in. And as we're approaching closing, we're getting told, hey, there are no refrigerators anywhere on Earth, right? 00:05:57:17 - 00:06:16:18 Speaker 1 So like, yeah, that's not good. So we reached out to the customers and the first one we reached out to was livid. You know, I thought you were a professional. You know, we trusted you, and there's not a lot you can do. It's a global thing. It's not a home sales. Right. And they're really upset. They wanted an escrow, which we provided. 00:06:16:22 - 00:06:26:21 Speaker 1 Ultimately they got the refrigerant worked out. But our other customer was in logistics. And when we called him and said, hey, there's no refrigerators, he went, yeah, no kidding. 00:06:27:01 - 00:06:28:02 Speaker 2 I say, no, right? 00:06:28:04 - 00:06:37:16 Speaker 1 He said, I got a refrigerator that we keep in the garage for beer, if you guys will put it in my kitchen until the thermador shows up and move that one into the back, into the garage. We're good man. 00:06:37:19 - 00:06:52:21 Speaker 2 Yeah, we did a lot of that during during Covid. We would I would go buy a $600 electric slide in 30 inch range and slide it in the hole where a 48 inch $13,000 range goes. And here's your stove for the next three months till your thermador shows. Right. 00:06:53:01 - 00:07:13:08 Speaker 1 And it was interesting how differently how different the, the customers would take it somewhat like yeah, I get it. I read the newspaper and others were like, it doesn't make any difference at all if you can't get them, you know, in Europe I want mine. Right? So, you know, we try to like most things. We try to expect, you know, set expectations, you know, and but sometimes it's just not possible. 00:07:13:08 - 00:07:19:08 Speaker 1 Sometimes you just get a surprise uppercut that you just can't defend yourself with. And people get upset sometimes. 00:07:19:10 - 00:07:36:17 Speaker 2 I think one of the things that happened back then, too, was that a lot of the, a lot of the big national companies who knew, hey, I've got 500 homes that have one of these units sold in it. I'm just going to go buy everything on the market and stick it in a storage container. That way my customers are protected and it ended up screwing the smaller guys. 00:07:36:17 - 00:07:52:10 Speaker 1 Yeah, they don't have that purchasing power. I remember, the same thing happened with power beams. All of a sudden we we got a lumber drop on the power beams on one of the power beams, and they're like, oh, we don't have any. And I'm like, well, then take the lumber back because it's useless, right? Yeah. And so they did have a bunch of levels. 00:07:52:10 - 00:08:13:02 Speaker 1 And so I bought all of the LV, all that I could get. It changed our plans and, and went back to work, you know. But there, there wasn't always an alternative. And so and even that takes time. And even when you go the extra yard, some of our customers get it and are grateful. And other customers still say, hey, I wanted it May 28th, you know. 00:08:13:02 - 00:08:16:02 Speaker 1 Yeah. Why not May 28th? So it's it's always difficult. 00:08:16:08 - 00:08:34:14 Speaker 2 So being proactive when you know something's going on like that and and finding an alternative for your customers like, hey, I, I can't get the power beams, but I can swap the levels or I can't get that, but I can swap a TJ II or whatever it is, right? Just being proactive and taking action on it. Yeah. 00:08:34:15 - 00:08:52:22 Speaker 2 Really shows the customers that, you know, we're trying to we're trying to make this work for you and work for us. Right. And find them some reasonably equal alternatives that we can slide in, or even something temporary that we can get, like a temporary fridge, temporary stove, whatever. But we have to be able to make some accommodations to kind of keep up the relationships. 00:08:53:03 - 00:09:14:17 Speaker 1 I also think there that, you know, for us to do a good job with our customers articulating that is, you know, to try to build a little bit of a trust buffer, because it's disappointing, you know, and it's even if it's not within your control, it's still disappointing to the customer. But I think that the storytelling, I think that going through and saying, this is what we're doing, not everybody does do this. 00:09:14:17 - 00:09:36:09 Speaker 1 It's complicated. It's costly. We had to re-engineer our plans and stuff like that and we did it and I bought a whole bunch of it to make sure that our next buyer was protected. Right. And so to share those stories with the customers I think gives them some comfort, because usually in an environment like that, if something isn't available, there's going to be another thing that might not be available. 00:09:36:11 - 00:09:50:14 Speaker 1 And to kind of get out in front of it and say, sorry, but this is what I did. We spent some money. We spent a lot of time. We spent a lot of focus on this, I think softens the blow and gives you back some of that trust that you might lose when you talk. There's going to be a delay. 00:09:50:19 - 00:10:09:18 Speaker 2 Yeah. Communicating to the customer is something that's the simplest thing to do. Yeah. There's there's so many contractors, builders that just don't communicate. They don't tell the customers when something's going on. And you know, it's kind of like, you know, what's the what's the, the quote. It's like, you know, one gets better with age, but being a bad news does not get better with age. 00:10:09:23 - 00:10:14:17 Speaker 2 In fact, it's more like a bottle of wine that's already been opened. It's gonna get sour with age. Yeah. 00:10:14:19 - 00:10:36:21 Speaker 1 You know, I think the other thing, too, is I always tell folks our team a day loss is a day lost. You know, it's going to cost us three weeks if we stay with the this power beam analogy, that time's gone. And frequently it's human to just say to the buyer because, you know, they're upset to try to make them feel better and say, but I think maybe we can catch up, right? 00:10:37:02 - 00:10:54:23 Speaker 1 We're going to, you know, move the schedule around to see if we can go ahead, make that time up. You almost never can, right? Because if you could, you wouldn't have told me. You would have told a march when you started building the house. Right. And so I think it's not original advice. It's advice that I was given, you know, from some are builds a day is lost is a day lost. 00:10:54:23 - 00:11:12:11 Speaker 1 And I think it's better to say it's not going to be May 28th, it's going to be June 5th. Because if you say it's not May 28th, it's going to it's going to be June 5th. We're going to try to keep May 28th. Most of our customers here May 28th. And you just have to have that discussion with them again. 00:11:12:16 - 00:11:32:14 Speaker 1 Yeah. And you might as well once that band if it's got to be torn off, just pull the whole thing off right and do the best you can. But you know, once you I had this kind of cool story when in 19, in the late 90s, building was booming on the East Coast, and we were probably building about 150 homes a year at that point. 00:11:32:16 - 00:11:50:00 Speaker 1 And because building was booming, we started running out of drywall. There was a shortage of brick. There was all this stuff started happening, and it happened pretty fast as a young guy, no experience in that, right? And so we started missing our dates. You know, if you don't get brick, you can't put brick on the house. You can't event. 00:11:50:02 - 00:12:10:22 Speaker 1 And so when you have that many customers and you doing that much work, there are some tough days because you don't get one person that's upset. You get a fistful of people that are upset and they're upset. This upsets the salespeople, which upsets the production guys, which upsets their bosses. So malaise starts to set in, right? So you start to almost panic. 00:12:10:23 - 00:12:32:02 Speaker 1 And so I hired this guy, Jim McInerney, who used to be the CEO of Ryland Homes, which I think was consumed by Pulte in the early 2000. But he was responsible for like 11,000 houses. Here's the guy knows stuff. And so he brought were in my boardroom. And I said, listen, we have these dates. We give the dates, we miss the dates. 00:12:32:02 - 00:12:51:08 Speaker 1 Our buyers are upset, we get new dates, and sometimes we miss out and they're upset and some of them say, compensate me, you know, give me a free finished basement. You know, the contract, like you said, allows us all the time in the world, right? But good customer service, morality and all that other stuff. So I asked him, I said, what's your judgment on this? 00:12:51:08 - 00:13:06:06 Speaker 1 Should I be writing checks? And he said, before you go there, let me ask you this. You missed the date. Yeah. And then you get a new date. Yeah. And you share that with the customers. Yeah. And sometimes you miss that date. Yeah. He goes to ask about basements. I'm going to ask you who's giving you the date. 00:13:06:11 - 00:13:25:08 Speaker 1 So I had my vice president of production there and I said I guess he is. So he looks at my tape and says, and who's giving you the dates? And the VP says, our superintendent. And he said, well, why don't you to get out of this office and bring the superintendents in here? Because those are the boys that are running this company. 00:13:25:09 - 00:13:56:17 Speaker 1 And I thought, that's that's kind of mind blowing, right? Where we are moving dates based on somebody on a job when we have 29 that has no ability at resource level, has no ability to bring product, inner product out. Right. And so we needed to bring it up more globally. This guy drew an assembly line and he said if this assembly line can build at a maximum capacity, 100 houses, maximum capacity, if you try really hard, how many can you get out of it in a year? 00:13:56:19 - 00:14:17:16 Speaker 1 And like a dope, I said, I don't know, another 10%. And he just shook his head and he said, the maximum capacity of this machine is 100. You're trying to drive 110 home. So a third thing that's going to give you 100. So you're going to disappoint yourself, your customers, your team. You know, you've got to recognize what your limitations are. 00:14:17:18 - 00:14:38:02 Speaker 1 And so the resource level for me was a very that was a very profound day for me, because even on a smaller scale, and if you start three houses at the same time in Bel Air and you only have one painter and a painter takes three weeks to get through a house, the last house is going to be at least six weeks later than the first house. 00:14:38:06 - 00:14:50:20 Speaker 1 Right? And so resource loving I think, is is something that we well, I know something we focus very much on because you can get a lot of delay there if you're not careful there, even if you only building a handful of houses here. Yeah, yeah. 00:14:50:22 - 00:15:10:02 Speaker 2 That's a great a great story. Aside from scheduling. I'm sorry. Let's get aside from my material availability resources, what are some of the other bigger factors, you know, that tend to affect, construction schedules? I think for me, one of the big things that pops to mind is what we just had here in Houston. And that was we had a hurricane that rolled through. 00:15:10:04 - 00:15:24:23 Speaker 2 And then right before that, we had this big rain event they called the derecha or whatever. And then after the hurricane, we had two more weeks of rain. Right? And so we've had, I don't know, in the last quarter, we've had, you know, a good 4 to 6 weeks of really crappy weather. 00:15:25:02 - 00:15:25:09 Speaker 1 Yeah. 00:15:25:14 - 00:15:40:10 Speaker 2 And, you know, it's hard to pour foundations. It's hard to frame a house. It's hard to dry it in when that's going on. So weather to me is always one of the biggest factors that that hits the schedules for us. What else can you think of besides, you know, weather and materials? 00:15:40:13 - 00:15:56:07 Speaker 1 Yeah, weather materials are big. The other thing that right up front with is the permitting. The permitting process is taking a lot longer than it used to take. Yeah. When I first got to Houston, we were getting permits at like five weeks, which is crazy because in Annapolis, Maryland, it's eight months. So I was really excited about that. 00:15:56:09 - 00:16:08:00 Speaker 1 Well, it's no longer after Covid folks weren't there. Process has changed. Now they're back to work. Of course, it doesn't feel like they've they've caught up or some of those processes need to be processed again or something. 00:16:08:00 - 00:16:12:14 Speaker 2 It's like two months minimum. Now, if all your ducks in a row or it is on the plans and. 00:16:12:14 - 00:16:31:09 Speaker 1 When they say something's not in a row, it used to be 3 to 5 days. Now it's 3 to 5 weeks again, right? And so we tell our customers, you know, there's there's three reasons for delays, right. There's things that we can control. There's things that we can't control. And then there's the customer. Right. The customer, if they won't decide, won't sign, change something. 00:16:31:09 - 00:16:51:21 Speaker 1 Want something hard. Everything hard and cold takes longer. It just does. Right. And so some of the things that we can't control are the weather of course huge. And then the permitting is another problem as well. And so we we now insofar as sharing our schedules with our customers, our schedule starts the day the stakes are in the ground. 00:16:51:22 - 00:17:10:18 Speaker 1 So when they drive by and see stakes in the ground, that's t0 right. And so and not to, you know, try to not be responsible responsible for the entire process. Right. But even for that, we I can't make the permits go faster and I can't make yours go five weeks when someone else's wet nine weeks. 00:17:10:18 - 00:17:15:23 Speaker 2 Right. And you can't you can't control the architect or the engineer having an error on their plans that cause. 00:17:15:23 - 00:17:40:22 Speaker 1 It starts it all over. Yeah. Correct. And so and and I don't want to put it off on any of our team members or the city, but I think it's responsible to say to the customers, we can't control those things, right? The person, there's only one person that looks at a certain thing when they're approving the permit. And if he happens to be on vacation with his wife, then if he's on vacation seven days, we're literally at least seven days back. 00:17:40:22 - 00:17:56:11 Speaker 1 Right? And so not just not to push off responsibility, but to say that I can't control. And that is going to be what it is. And you might be upset. We can tell you what the kind of what the what the fence posts are. But if we go past that, we're trying hard. Don't hold that against me. 00:17:56:14 - 00:18:08:21 Speaker 2 Yeah. That's a that's a great idea to kind of start your schedule, breaking ground, putting the stakes in the ground, demoing the old house, whatever you want to use as your benchmark. But say for our company, this is kind of when we when we say this, this. 00:18:08:23 - 00:18:16:20 Speaker 1 As soon as I have control. Right. As much as you can. Right. Yeah. At that point, I really can't say it's somebody else's fault. At that point, it's all me. 00:18:17:01 - 00:18:43:08 Speaker 2 Yeah. I think, you know, one of the things we touched on briefly there was the design side. And of course, if you're if you're kind of putting off your official start until you've got stakes on the ground, that's not really a factor. But when you're looking at kind of a customer's overall timeline for the whole project and when they can expect to, you know, maybe move in in the future, you have to factor in architecture, engineering, interior design, all that kind of stuff. 00:18:43:08 - 00:19:05:00 Speaker 2 And, you know, some people move through that process really quickly because they make decisions fast and some people make decisions really, really slowly. And that that process takes forever. Yeah. And and a lot of that goes back to, of course, as a, as builder, depending on how you operate. You know, we work with different architects. Some people do design and how some people only work with one guy. 00:19:05:02 - 00:19:26:03 Speaker 2 But you know, it's making sure that you're putting your customer with a design professional who's going to who has a good process themselves, who can move people through their own assembly line before it gets to yours. I've experienced both sides of that. I work, you know, currently with some fantastic architects who we're really good at moving people through the process. 00:19:26:05 - 00:19:51:08 Speaker 2 And I've gotten unfortunately worked with some who it's like they have. No, it's very loosey goosey. They've got no defined process, and the people are just kind of bouncing around for 6 or 9 months hoping to get a house design. Yeah. So, you know, kind of goes back to making sure that you have have that solid team built with, you know, the right architect, the right engineer, right interior designer, with people who understand the goal of we're hoping to break ground in September. 00:19:51:12 - 00:19:59:11 Speaker 2 So in May we need to be here in June. We need to be here July. We need to be here and create some milestones so that we're staying on track for that customer. 00:19:59:15 - 00:20:16:09 Speaker 1 Yeah, some of them, some of it can take a lot of time and some of it can take a little time. And then some of the we like to work when we can. And most of the time we do this. If a customer comes to us and they have their plans and because they've already met with their architect, almost none of our customers ever come to us with permits. 00:20:16:11 - 00:20:34:19 Speaker 1 Right? And so what we like to do is take those plans and our and our architect that we use for all of our specs and anything that we would build that we would decide upon, it goes there and we let they also run our permit. And so when we take those plans and give them to Daniel, they manage our permit stuff. 00:20:34:19 - 00:20:54:17 Speaker 1 And they also go through their plans through the, the, the same paradigm that we go through, all of our plans. So he will go through and we will value engineer it, you know, pay him of course. Right. But we value engineer the plans. And then Daniel will say to us, hey guys, this thing here is not even possible to build, or you really should xyzzy. 00:20:54:21 - 00:21:17:07 Speaker 1 Frequently we find most customers will go, oh, that's great. They like another set of eyes on it. And when you can value engineer something, they always love that, right? Save them a couple bucks. And I think the the main reason we do it is to make sure that we get it right going through the process. But if we can save them a couple dollars, that's always a good way to start the build. 00:21:17:09 - 00:21:27:15 Speaker 1 And it also, I think always makes them go, oh wow, these guys got their stuff together. Yeah, right. This is a pretty cool thing to do. 00:21:27:20 - 00:21:49:04 Speaker 2 I think people don't always understand what's in the drawings because a lot of it, and I would absolutely say this to some of my architects friends face who I've had on the podcast, too. There's always a certain there's a certain degree of architectural snobbery, I hate to put it that way, but like I said, I would totally say that any of the guys faces, you know, they're doing something in there because that's what they would do, and that's what they think is the best. 00:21:49:07 - 00:21:50:22 Speaker 1 And they don't have to pay for it. Right. 00:21:50:22 - 00:22:06:16 Speaker 2 And they don't pay for it. And I had some clients in the office last week and we were going through their plans and they're like, and so I was reviewing the budget with them and I was like, you know, you had this, this copper roof on the budget. Do you do you really need a copper roof if you're trying to control your budget? 00:22:06:16 - 00:22:09:14 Speaker 2 And they're like, we don't want a copper roof where that come from. 00:22:09:16 - 00:22:09:22 Speaker 1 I. 00:22:10:02 - 00:22:25:22 Speaker 2 Don't know. That was in the plans. So, you know, it's yeah, there's there's things that can be value engineer. That's a that's a great process. And you know, and also hopefully you know he's also looking at it and saying oh this guy didn't put X on the plans. And I know the city wants this on the plans. So I. 00:22:25:22 - 00:22:26:08 Speaker 1 Always have. 00:22:26:09 - 00:22:30:14 Speaker 2 Let's add it now so that it doesn't get kicked back out for some dumb reason. 00:22:30:14 - 00:22:51:18 Speaker 1 That always and I and I appreciate all those things that architects do and many of them are artists and but some of the stuff is overbuilt, some of it is overengineered. You know, they've liabilities themselves and, you know, they're not the ones that are going to have to build it. And so, you know, you can end up in the same structural and esthetic place in an expensive way. 00:22:51:18 - 00:23:12:15 Speaker 1 And sometimes it doesn't have to be that expensive, right? Not having a copper roof and having something that's more affordable is a great example. We usually roll open the plans and I always say the same thing. I always make them myself, of course, first and so and I always say they're artists. And when I open up these plans, we're going to find some artwork in here and try to make a joke about it. 00:23:12:16 - 00:23:33:17 Speaker 1 Right. And then we roll through and you can, if you look and, and say you find something and we use it to say, this is an example of something that might be done differently, and that opens up a conversation. And if you find the lay down stuff, the easy stuff that they will readily go, oh yeah, yeah, it makes it really easy when you turn the page because you they're already in the mood for it. 00:23:33:17 - 00:23:36:07 Speaker 1 We're finding some we're making this more affordable. 00:23:36:08 - 00:23:49:04 Speaker 2 Hey, if that if that door or that window goes from this exercise, which is a standard off the shelf size, which is a reasonable cost, you make a six inches bigger. Now it's a custom size and the cost is doubled on that. 00:23:49:04 - 00:24:06:09 Speaker 1 Window takes an extra eight weeks. Mean that's a great one. Yeah. One of the first things we look at is when does when they start getting that. And and I get it. Some of the architects are artists and they want the exact amount of something from this wall to that wall most of us would never notice. You know, that's a big one. 00:24:06:14 - 00:24:10:05 Speaker 1 Yeah. And there's a lot of money saved there and time is saved there. 00:24:10:07 - 00:24:27:07 Speaker 2 It's also understanding what's important to the customer, too. It's like a good architect. Well, had some of these conversations with the customer already and will understand what things are important to them. So I always try to keep an eye on that conversation and find out how important are windows to you, how important is the all the glass and natural light? 00:24:27:07 - 00:24:33:15 Speaker 2 And yeah, should I spend my time trying to value engineer this? If you've already had that conversation and you know that's important, right? 00:24:33:17 - 00:24:51:21 Speaker 1 So yeah, that yeah I think that's great. And I think that that's just shows again, I think that's a wonderful way to start to ask a question like that demonstrates, you know, we're in this together. Your priorities or mine were aligned. We'll go elsewhere to try to save you some money or make the process go, you know, responsibly, faster. 00:24:52:02 - 00:24:56:23 Speaker 1 But the things that are your priorities, we're definitely going to go ahead and stay focused on them. Make those right. Yeah. 00:24:57:01 - 00:25:19:02 Speaker 2 So we've gotten a little bit off of schedule which which is awesome. I love that that conversation too. But so once we get into the construction process, mid mid process, if, if we find things that aren't buildable or there's issues with the plans and we're mid construction and the framer calls us or the plumber calls us or so and so calls us and they're, they're scratching their head. 00:25:19:02 - 00:25:40:16 Speaker 2 They're like, hey I can't do what's on these plans. Right. That that goes back to, you know, if this had been reviewed, if this had been thought through more before we ever started, it's going to prevent that schedule delay later. But a lot of that also goes into interior selections too. So I think, you know, we try to get as many of the selections nailed down as we can before we start construction. 00:25:40:18 - 00:26:06:14 Speaker 2 And for sure, like I want to get the big stuff right. I would love if we hadn't had nothing left to pick but doorknobs and cabinet hardware, right? But inevitably, there's always something that's left in zone allowance or a selection to be selected during construction. But you know, it's it's it's making sure that we're giving the customers deadlines to pick those things by and say, hey, I have to know what that fireplace is by x point and framing. 00:26:06:14 - 00:26:26:15 Speaker 2 Otherwise we may have to rip it out and do it again, and it's going to cost you more money. Or I have to have that plumbing selection by X date so that we can have it. You know, it's that shower valves got a long lead time because of some specialty whatever. So we have to order in advance. So it's the interior design selections have a lot to do with it too. 00:26:26:15 - 00:26:46:17 Speaker 2 Because if you don't order things that have long lead times, if you don't have the specifications for some oddball fixture, well, guess what? You know, six months into construction, now you're you're waiting on a part or a piece. You're having to reframe something or yeah, there's a there's a beam right where a fixture supposed to go. Right. 00:26:46:19 - 00:27:05:20 Speaker 1 You know, I think that. Yeah. And that that's going to happen probably in just about every, you know, significant build. Right? Yeah. I just think that the best thing there is, you know, I always tell all of them, even even for houses that we build that are specs, you know, something's going to go wrong there. Absolutely, positively, unequivocally, something's going to go wrong. 00:27:05:20 - 00:27:25:05 Speaker 1 And when it goes wrong, instead of letting your hair catch on fire, you should call and say, hey, remember when you said something was going to go wrong? You were right. Something went wrong. Let's go ahead and fix it. You know, framing things you know happen. You know, we always share with the customer, look, we are doing something that is unique to the world, right? 00:27:25:05 - 00:27:42:23 Speaker 1 One of a kind. It's. No one's ever done this before. You know, two dimensionally. We think it's going to be great in three dimensions once we build it, you might walk in and go. That's not what I saw when I looked at that plan. Right. The engineer might not get it right. And to your earlier point, it doesn't work. 00:27:42:23 - 00:28:02:08 Speaker 1 It can't be built right now. What do you do? There's a cost. Maybe there's time. Who pays for it? Why did it happen? How come it didn't get caught? Right. And I think if you if we let them know regularly, you know, hey, we got through X, we didn't have any challenges. That means we're going to have a problem in the next phase, because there's always going to be a problem, you know? 00:28:02:10 - 00:28:24:21 Speaker 1 And when you get them out, you got to get them out there quick. Of course. And I think that with framing stuff, we always train the guys to say, if it can't be done, start with it can't be done. In other words, we're not going to negotiate how we're going to do something that's impossible. It can't be done and always have a couple of solutions, you know, and a recommendation, you know, ones want to make it look exactly the same. 00:28:24:21 - 00:28:42:21 Speaker 1 It takes two days. Want to make it look like this? It takes ten days, you know, because this ten days holds everything up. You're no longer settling May 28th. It's literally at ten days. Yeah. And decide. And for every day you don't decide. It's another day. Of course. Right. Yeah. And they still may take two weeks. Right. 00:28:42:23 - 00:29:06:06 Speaker 2 So the last thing that I had on my, on my notes, kind of on this topic here was subcontractor delays, which you touched on a little bit. Like if you're relying on the same sub to be a multiple job site at the same time, you're going to have delays, right? So if you're a builder who's doing multiple projects, you know, just being aware of your resources and and not not overcommitting your resources, your manpower resources. 00:29:06:06 - 00:29:26:08 Speaker 2 Right. But that's a great question to, you know, I try I try to with this podcast, kind of have a, a homeowner approach for some of it and then a builder approach for some of it. So as a homeowner, it's a question to ask a builder. Do you have a good pool of subcontractors. You just have one AC guy, one electrician, one painter. 00:29:26:08 - 00:29:26:23 Speaker 2 Right? Right. 00:29:26:23 - 00:29:27:10 Speaker 1 It's a great. 00:29:27:10 - 00:29:39:17 Speaker 2 Question. And then how many houses are you building at the same time? Are you building one house at a time or ten houses at a time? And that's kind of a red flag. If the guy's building ten houses at a time, he's got one paint career that he likes to use something. 00:29:39:17 - 00:29:42:22 Speaker 1 Yeah, you can bet there's going to be a delay. Yeah. 00:29:43:00 - 00:30:03:01 Speaker 2 I like to use. And you mentioned a while ago when we were in my office and you saw some musical instruments, you said, oh, my wife's a musician. You know, I was a, I was a music major in college, and at one point I wanted to be an orchestra conductor. And so I like to tell people that being a builder or a project manager even is, is like being an orchestra conductor. 00:30:03:03 - 00:30:22:07 Speaker 2 You have to know what each of these people in your orchestra, you know, your pool of subs and vendors. You have to know what they do, what they're good at, what they're capable of doing. You know what they sound like as a musician, and you have to know when to point out and bring them in and how to and how to keep them flowing. 00:30:22:08 - 00:30:47:15 Speaker 2 And if they start to lag behind, how to get them back on track. So I like to use that analogy with all of our customers when I'm talking about you know, what what it is that a good builder does, you know, we're not just schedulers where we're orchestrating this big thing because, you know, a large custom build could have, you know, 50 different vendors or 50 or more vendors or subcontractors and hundreds of people working on just one house. 00:30:47:19 - 00:31:07:17 Speaker 1 And there's over a million parts. I went to a seminar at one time, said, if you count all the nails and stuff, it's way over a million parts. It's a wonder they ever get built right. But I think that that is a great analogy because that as well, that's what those that get it right do. Because if you don't, I think if you don't look at it like that and take responsibility and recognize that this is a symphony, it's just it's the sum of a whole bunch of parts. 00:31:07:17 - 00:31:29:01 Speaker 1 It's it's not just a single activity in a silo and you just organizing the single activities. They're all dovetailing into each other and experienced professional builders and those who care, right. So many guys just get better because they love it. They really like doing this and they like improving the process. And they like the smile on the customer's face. 00:31:29:06 - 00:31:38:05 Speaker 1 And they get in their car at the end of the day, drive home and smile in the rearview mirror themselves because because they're proud, you know? And I think that's a great that's great analogy. Yeah. 00:31:38:07 - 00:32:09:22 Speaker 2 So one thing that I actually meant to start with, and I kind of skipped over it was, you know, the reasons that we want to be able to give a customer some reasonably insurable time frame that they can move into the house. And again, going back to the attorney that I mentioned, that we've we've both her talk, you know, the the the tab contract that I use that you may use that most of the builders in Texas use it's got you know builder estimates that this house will be built in the next number of days from, from start. 00:32:09:22 - 00:32:29:00 Speaker 2 Right. Yeah. But it says in bold letters builder does not guarantee in any way shape or form that this house is going to be built in this period of time. Right. And you know that that attorney would, would tell people and I've, I've heard him tell this, the more vague the more vague that you can be with the customers, the better off you are. 00:32:29:00 - 00:32:47:14 Speaker 2 Don't tell them when it's going to be finished. But in the real world, that doesn't work. Like we have to give somebody some reasonable time frame. And so people all have different life events they have to plan for, whether it's, you know, there's a baby on the way, you know, there's aging parents that need to move in with them. 00:32:47:16 - 00:33:07:09 Speaker 2 They've got a health issue that their current house doesn't work, and they need to be in this new house for the mobility reason. Or maybe they're selling another house or they're moving to the state or whatever it is. Right? There's always some reason that people need to have a deadline. I don't think I've ever had a client that's like, oh, well, it's finished, it's finished. 00:33:07:13 - 00:33:31:20 Speaker 2 I just, you know, just take your time and then no big deal. Right. So I think we as builders need to be sensitive to that. And somewhat responsible, you know. But part of that also is, you know, when there are those delays that do affect that timeline, we have to be proactive in communicating with them about why. And we have to sometimes make changes in order to, to give good customer service. 00:33:31:20 - 00:33:53:04 Speaker 2 Right? Yeah. Like an example is. So right now we're building a house and we have to have it done by the end of the year. I thought it was going to be done in late October, early November, but all the rain events and the hurricane, we just had, I had to get bad news this week. Just this week I had to call home and say, guys, it's going to be into December now because of all these weather delays. 00:33:53:10 - 00:34:10:14 Speaker 2 And you know, we couldn't get X done and some of our subcontractors didn't have power in their houses. They weren't working and you know, yada yada yada. Yeah. What I said was what I'll do is I will take a look at your schedule and I am going to reorder a couple of things. It's hard to make up time, like you said earlier, right. 00:34:10:14 - 00:34:31:21 Speaker 2 It's very hard to make up time, but sometimes you can recycle and certain things that may not be the exact way that you want to do it. For example, like on this house, we had planned on putting all the wood floors in before cabinets and trim and and before baseboards even because they don't want. So the baseboards going to sit on top of the wood floors. 00:34:32:02 - 00:34:52:16 Speaker 2 So we're like, okay, we're going to put the floors in first. Well, because of subcontractor schedules and whatever, we couldn't sequence it that way. So I said, okay, well, the trim guy's ready, let's get the cabinets and trim done. Now we'll just do the wood floors after. And, you know, it'll make us change our sequence. And it's not my preferred way to do it, but we have to do it in order to meet this customer schedule. 00:34:52:18 - 00:35:04:20 Speaker 2 That's us trying to be sensitive to their needs of being in the house at a certain time. And I know that if we do that, we can keep work going. Yeah. And if we don't keep that work going now, we're going to have two dead weeks while we wait for the wood floor guy to be able to show up. 00:35:04:23 - 00:35:06:00 Speaker 2 Yeah, to do the. 00:35:06:00 - 00:35:32:18 Speaker 1 Work. And some of it also is the expectation if they drive by four days in a row and nobody's doing anything, that's a problem. Right? So we also, I think, have to demonstrate that we are putting forth our best effort. It just will flare them up. If, you know, the other thing I think is, you know, we don't lose two months in any single event, but there are houses that get built to or later months than that, right? 00:35:32:20 - 00:35:59:10 Speaker 1 We always make sure if we lose five days, it's five days. And and I never reference, you know, if it's at the end of May now it's June any time if they go, well you know we're shooting for May, I would always go, no, no, no, no. Remember it's just Jim. Right. And then if there's another delay, we have in other words if especially if they're the cause of it and, and of course, if you can demonstrate a legitimate reason for that. 00:35:59:10 - 00:36:24:10 Speaker 1 Right. Those delays are four days here, six days here. You know, also the refrigerators don't come. That's another three weeks or whatever. So those are in chunks and if you can kind of count those days through regular communication with the customers, it's not like, hey, you. That was we thought we were moving in in May and we moved in in August because May should be taken out of the vernacular as soon as you can get it out of their vernacular. 00:36:24:10 - 00:36:30:12 Speaker 1 Right. Because otherwise they do stand in the grocery store line and say, I love my house, but my builder built it way too slowly, you know? 00:36:30:17 - 00:36:49:10 Speaker 2 Yeah. And and so, so customer calls to schedule issues or another huge thing. So I've never done a job that hasn't had a change order on it. I think it just kind of goes with the territory building custom houses. People are like either they change their mind or maybe some material isn't available and they have to change to something else. 00:36:49:10 - 00:37:12:01 Speaker 2 Or, you know, anyway, there's always a change order or two on every single job we have to assign a number of days as a kind of a quote unquote penalty for that change order, even if it's a small change order, is still going to take some amount of time right back. And so documenting that and telling the customer, you know, okay, this this change order is $20,000, but it's also going to be ten days. 00:37:12:01 - 00:37:18:16 Speaker 2 Yeah. And document that put it in right. Put it in writing in the change order. Boom. It's been documented. Do you see it? I've told. 00:37:18:16 - 00:37:43:18 Speaker 1 You. And and don't let them go back there really quick to you know, it's a frustrating process right? I mean it's old hat to us, but for, you know, it's more money than most things. A lot of it, it takes longer than it ever supposed to. It's very stressful. But yeah, because because again, it just like you said, if you do that and keep moving that that fence post at five days at a time or whatever that is, it would be unfair for them at the end to go, hey, you're two months late. 00:37:44:00 - 00:37:49:23 Speaker 1 Yeah. We're not, you know, there's a whole but the causation of these nine things court says, yeah, I'm not negligent. 00:37:50:03 - 00:37:58:19 Speaker 2 Yeah. And technology has made that easier. I'm not sure if you use that builder trend to construct one of those types of softwares in your business. Do you. 00:37:59:00 - 00:37:59:08 Speaker 1 We do. 00:37:59:08 - 00:38:15:23 Speaker 2 Not. So that's one of the great things I think that's built into the software is when you do a change order in the software, you're telling it, this is a five day additional and it boom, it adds it to their their calendar automatically. Right. And so if you're using a project management and software like that, it's makes it super easy to notify people. 00:38:15:23 - 00:38:22:01 Speaker 2 I've seen a lot of builders who use the software who don't even use that feature. I'm I dude, it's it's built into the software. Just pop a number of days and. 00:38:22:01 - 00:38:22:23 Speaker 1 There's a reason for that. 00:38:22:23 - 00:38:24:17 Speaker 2 Show it man. Yeah. You know. 00:38:24:18 - 00:38:26:17 Speaker 1 That makes it easier than doing what we do. Right? 00:38:26:17 - 00:38:46:19 Speaker 2 So exactly, one of the things I wanted to touch on was, you know, maintaining quality standards while you're trying to stick to a schedule two, you know, and I think that also kind of depends on did you allow enough time when you're making the schedule to execute a certain task to the, to the level that you you're telling people it's going to be executed too. 00:38:46:19 - 00:38:58:08 Speaker 2 But then if you get behind, I've seen people get behind all of a sudden. So they start rushing and the quality drops off like crazy, too. So it can be a challenge to maintain a good quality while you're trying to play catch up. 00:38:58:10 - 00:39:20:03 Speaker 1 That's a fact. Yeah. All the more reason to try to, at least in their minds, not be behind. Right? Because that that is kind of the natural nature. But if you're if you're forced to build something in 30 days that should take 60 days, something's got to get right. I this old guy used to work for us, and he'd always say, I thought he invented it. 00:39:20:03 - 00:39:38:13 Speaker 1 I've heard it a hundred times since, but he used to always say, I tell my customers, you can have it fast. You can have it good, or you can have it cheap. Pick two. Right. Because you can't have all three, right? But you know to your earlier point, I mean, it's it's all communication. You know, you you really have to especially in our price range. 00:39:38:15 - 00:39:59:23 Speaker 1 You got to manage the customer for sure. And then you got to deliver the product. And, and in my view, I'd rather have the guy say it was seven days late rather than this thing is beneath my expectation and so far as fit and finish and quality right our reputation I can suffer. I was late, I can't suffer, I'm not good at this. 00:39:59:23 - 00:40:06:19 Speaker 1 Right. And so, so you're back to pick one. And sometimes you do right and you can't win them all. 00:40:06:20 - 00:40:23:15 Speaker 2 I, I tell people on every job I'm like, I would rather give you the best quality product. And you be a little, a little unhappy with me for taking longer than your friends walking through the house six months from now and saying, Why do you do it that way? You know. 00:40:23:17 - 00:40:43:11 Speaker 1 It's funny, we had one because I used to go to the same five houses, basically different elevations in 20 subdivisions a year, and you would think that every house with that much practice, with the same product and most of the same traits over and over and over, that there would never be a problem after the thousandth house. But every house has got an issue, right? 00:40:43:13 - 00:40:56:04 Speaker 1 And some of the superintendents, if something went wrong in the field, they would say to the customer, hey, look, you know, I was supposed to put that there. Now to make that problem would be in trouble. How about if I do this? Said, what if I just put crown molding in all the bedrooms we call it even, right. 00:40:56:08 - 00:41:15:08 Speaker 1 And that would happen. And, you know, you pretend like that would never happen on my watch. But it does. It just does. You build a house that and those customers, and that doesn't fix it. Right? Because those customers, their friends come to their house and they go, look at this thing. They screwed up. They still hate the fact that you didn't do the thing that was right. 00:41:15:08 - 00:41:18:20 Speaker 1 Right. And they say, oh, I got some free crown molding. Yeah, but. 00:41:18:21 - 00:41:19:20 Speaker 2 They give you some crown molding. 00:41:20:01 - 00:41:46:13 Speaker 1 Right. But but the point of the discussion is come over here. Let me show you what they did wrong. Right. And so it's just you just got to get it right, you know. And sometimes that cost time. And that's part socks about it. But it's definitely the right thing to do for sure. And I think that the because there is going to be slips in the schedule because of weather, because of trade resource and because of things not being made anymore for being delayed or the customer or all we can do is our level best. 00:41:46:13 - 00:42:07:13 Speaker 1 And then when there's a problem, say to them, it's a problem. Quantify the problem. We tell a lot of stories in our company, and I think it's very relatable. And the more we can make our customers know that this isn't being done to them. Right? This is the nature of this very long. You know, we're building this stuff outside in the rain. 00:42:07:13 - 00:42:25:04 Speaker 1 You know, it's tough. Things go wrong. And for them not to think that this happening just to me or I, you know, I picked the wrong lot or I picked the wrong build or I picked the wrong floor plan. When the weather is the thing, sometimes they have to be taught that, you know, I remember I used to drive my jobs on Sundays. 00:42:25:04 - 00:42:40:05 Speaker 1 We had model homes on all of them, sales manager and a sales assistant and signs to the jobs and and I would drive the jobs to make sure everything's cool, make sure the signs were off. I would go through the models, make sure they were vacuum. People had brochures ready and all that stuff. And I was in extreme view of never forget that. 00:42:40:06 - 00:43:04:18 Speaker 1 I was in Street View subdivision in Maryland, and a car pulled up when I was speaking to the to the sales manager and the sales assistant went, oh no, Randy, Mr. Green's here. And Randy, my sales manager, and I went, what does that mean? We had a customer. That makes you crazy when just when he pulls up and they're like, oh yeah, he's just going to come in here and just rip into us. 00:43:04:20 - 00:43:20:06 Speaker 1 And I said about what they said, it doesn't make any difference at all. And so he came in and I said, don't tell him who I am. And he came in and just start ranting and raving and raving. And so finally I stopped and I said, hey, man, I said, I'm Dave Hertz going out. And so we shook hands and I said, you don't be pulled up here. 00:43:20:06 - 00:43:39:16 Speaker 1 Everyone gets anxiety. Everyone gets a sick stomach. I said, well, what's wrong? He said, there's a hot dog. Some guys left hot dogs in the family room. In my house. It's under construction. The workers did and I went, okay, I said, I said, do you like your lot? And he said, oh yeah, you made me pay for a premium, but that's great. 00:43:39:16 - 00:43:56:04 Speaker 1 Like I said, like you like your house. He said, I like it better than yours, I made it, I improved the floor plan. So you can't take responsibility for it. Okay. But you like. Oh, I love it. How's the construction? The quality construction. Right. Quality is great, but I'm out here every other day, so they know I'm watching. 00:43:56:06 - 00:44:15:11 Speaker 1 How about the schedule? Same thing. It's one for me, you know, like we would have never gotten it right, right? Right. I said, okay, I said, can you do me a favor from now on, just do this. Come to the house and say, I love my lot. I love my floor plan. The house is being the quality is correct and it's on time and there's a hot dog on the floor, right? 00:44:15:17 - 00:44:38:12 Speaker 1 Can we start like that? So nobody's checked other stuff? We're doing a good job, man. And you hate me. And he went, I will do that. And we shook hands on it. And so, so, so, you know, back to kind of where we started. It's just conversation, the expectation, the open dialog with their customers and sharing that, you know, bad stuff happens, but we fix it. 00:44:38:14 - 00:44:49:20 Speaker 1 We're not going to deliver you. You know, we get emails, hey, there's a window broken. We want to can deliver you the house with the broken window. The window be fixed, I promise you. About time you do that, right? Yeah, but sometimes I need to be told so much of this is communication. 00:44:50:02 - 00:45:10:03 Speaker 2 Yeah. And and people tend to focus on, on the negative things too. So it's a great idea to sometimes you have to remind people of all the positive stuff because, you know, it's a very stressful thing. If you and I do this every day, builders do this every day. The homeowners are going to do this maybe once in their life, a couple times possibly. 00:45:10:03 - 00:45:25:14 Speaker 2 But it's a very stressful time for them and it's a very personal thing. It's their home. So they get very emotional about hot dogs, right. Or what we see here in Houston. I saw a little salsa pack. Yeah, we're taco taco remnants and it's over. 00:45:25:15 - 00:45:42:22 Speaker 1 Right. And I, you know, we remind them all the time to this is it. Think about it. I mean, how many people literally in human history ever had an opportunity to build something, especially the level of housing that we built, right? I mean, it's really quite an accomplishment. It's a one of a kind thing. It's never been done in human history before. 00:45:43:03 - 00:45:56:04 Speaker 1 So few people ever get to do it. It's very hard. It's totally worth it. And in the end, they're always so I mean, it's a it's a masterpiece. It's they're they literally change the face of the earth. 00:45:56:06 - 00:45:59:06 Speaker 2 As long as they've picked the right, the right contractor. 00:45:59:08 - 00:46:01:20 Speaker 1 The right contractor, and we do our job and set the right expectations to. 00:46:01:20 - 00:46:37:08 Speaker 2 Do it right. Yeah. The ones that I feel really, truly, truly bad for are the ones who really did hire a terrible company to build their house, and they're having scheduled delays and it's over budget. And those people themselves didn't follow a good process in the beginning, the choose the right builder to do the project. Which brings me to to kind of my my wrap up here, what I wanted to do was to say, what advice would you have for homeowners who are considering building a custom home or just starting the process of building a home, help them understand scheduling and navigating the scheduling process as it relates to home building, what would you what 00:46:37:08 - 00:46:38:08 Speaker 2 advice would you give a homeowner? 00:46:38:12 - 00:46:59:12 Speaker 1 I hate that I give this advice because I have to be. I'm and the recipient of this advice, but I think every customer should talk to five of the builders previous customers. You know, when I say all of our customers, I think, you know, I'm friends with on Facebook with most of our customers, right? And so we get asked, I feel like it's a burden to ask our customers to do that. 00:46:59:12 - 00:47:25:21 Speaker 1 Some of our customers are like, oh yeah, I'll walk them through, and we always send them a bottle of wine or something like that. But if I do a bad job, even if I do a an okay job, when when a new customer speaks to a, some customer, an existing customer, our existing customer can't help themselves. But to say, and look at this store thing, I got some freak from old, but you know, those stories will come out right? 00:47:25:23 - 00:47:47:17 Speaker 1 And if you speak to a couple of customers, you'll kind of get a weighted average of what's going on. And I think this is really kind of a profound podcast because any, any builder that can't manage their schedule, I think is a symptom of a bigger problem. I think almost every time when you hear these folks, some folks do it to themselves. 00:47:47:17 - 00:48:10:23 Speaker 1 But for the ones that legitimately are working with a builder who is just way behind that house, almost all is not well built. They're using bad trades, they're using cheaper materials. Right. It's a symptom of an environment that they should stay away from. So asking how did how did this go? I mean, did they do what he said to how unscheduled were it. 00:48:10:23 - 00:48:16:05 Speaker 1 Was it on schedule? If it wasn't, why wasn't it I think is a really big, big thing. 00:48:16:05 - 00:48:33:10 Speaker 2 Yeah. The customers who are your bigger fans are going to say, was it a perfect process? No. Were there some hiccups or mistakes? Yes. But at the end of the day, I know that David and his team gave me a good product. He's a stand up guy. Exactly. I would do business with him again, right? Yeah. Versus versus. 00:48:33:10 - 00:48:38:08 Speaker 2 Yeah. Our house got built on time, but man, that guy was an asshole. And like, look at this piece of crap. 00:48:38:10 - 00:48:39:18 Speaker 1 I was told never do this again. 00:48:39:18 - 00:48:58:12 Speaker 2 So yeah. So, so I mean, I, I have had new, you know, new slash potential customers come in. I've given referrals and they've talked to my past clients and I've actually had a couple of customers say, yeah, you know Joe over there that whose house you built last year. He said there were a couple problems, but he said at the end of the day, like, you're a stand up guy. 00:48:58:12 - 00:49:10:23 Speaker 2 And when a problem, when a problem arose, you took care of it and made it right. And he was very happy with you. Yeah. So that's what I want to hear, because I know there's not going to be a perfect project and everyone's going to have a gripe at some point. 00:49:11:00 - 00:49:24:19 Speaker 1 Correct? I remember we had a really, really picky customer, and we built a house right next to the model home. I'm like, you know, figures. You know, we should have her. But, so you got to keep her happy because otherwise she's going to tell people that are coming in the model, hey, don't. And put a. 00:49:24:19 - 00:49:25:21 Speaker 2 Big sign in the front yard. 00:49:25:22 - 00:49:41:18 Speaker 1 Don't buy. Right. And so and so I guess at some point you recognize it took it a little bit of advantage. And I remember I one day I went over there just to like it was a confidence that comes with ignorance. I thought I could turn around up knocking it off. Right. And she said to me, you guys were in here once a week. 00:49:41:20 - 00:50:00:20 Speaker 1 And I said, you call us once a week. And she goes, I know. And I said, most people's problems with their builder is when they call them, they put them to voicemail. We are here once a week. I think that's a compliment we'll get. You're more picky than almost anyone we've ever had. Someday you'll stop calling us. But if there's something wrong, you call me. 00:50:00:20 - 00:50:08:07 Speaker 1 We'll be here. I think that's a compliment, you know, tell your friends that. And so to get what you got from your customer, I think that's a badge of honor. 00:50:08:09 - 00:50:17:21 Speaker 2 Yeah, absolutely. So on the flip side, for for builders, what's your what's your takeaway or your advice for builders who may struggle with. 00:50:17:23 - 00:50:36:09 Speaker 1 Yeah. Number one is that your customers. We have we have probably a dozen customers since I've been building here in Texas that we have sent to other builders. Some people you even if you give them the house, you can't make them happy. Right. And so they're a burden on the team. They're not worth the money. They're not worth the trouble. 00:50:36:09 - 00:50:57:04 Speaker 1 It's it just they wreck everything for everybody. So I would I tell anybody that would listen, especially younger guys that are getting started in here. It'll make you hate the industry, right? People should work with decent people, you know, and just because they're our customers doesn't mean that they're always fair or going to be reasonable. And you owe it to your team to to deal. 00:50:57:05 - 00:51:14:19 Speaker 1 I mean, they're just another trade partner, really, right? We're all kind of in this together if we're serious about this. Yeah. You know, and then the schedule is a big thing. We use our schedules as a to do list. Right. And so at the end of the day those are the things that had to get done. And if they don't get done they got to get move, which means somebody needs to get a phone call right. 00:51:14:21 - 00:51:30:11 Speaker 1 It's very easy for a day to turn into a week and a week to turn into a month. And unless you look at it every single day, so, you know, it should be environmental. And I think those of us who run these organizations should say to our, you know, all of we I look at our schedules every day. 00:51:30:11 - 00:51:49:03 Speaker 1 I don't manage our schedules. I look at our schedules every day. And if something's a little goofy, I will call on go. I don't understand this, right. And so we make it a priority in the organization. And I remember I had a consultant one time that said, what you say and what you do works itself all the way to the bottom of the organization. 00:51:49:05 - 00:52:08:11 Speaker 1 We have a very big company. And so there was lots of people. So you effectuate a lot of good or bad and I remember he said, if you start asking, start driving the jobs and ask the superintendent, where is his protractor, which nobody uses. There's no reason to have a protractor. He will say to you, I don't have a protractor. 00:52:08:13 - 00:52:19:02 Speaker 1 Just look at funky and go to the next job and say, where's your protractor? He said, I promise you, you do that a few times. There will be protractors on everyone's jobs. 00:52:19:02 - 00:52:20:06 Speaker 2 They'll show up the next day with one and. 00:52:20:10 - 00:52:35:17 Speaker 1 No one will use no, no, no what they're for. But and he said so that's very important because everything you say permeates the organization. And so making schedules are us making scouts a priority permeates the organization. And then that affects the buyers. 00:52:35:20 - 00:53:08:10 Speaker 2 So yeah, I love the idea of using the schedule as a to do list, which is what we do as well. You know, I've seen schedules that are super basic where it's like foundation phase framing phase drywall phase trim. Right? Like just a super basic schedule. You know, our our schedules, every single phase has I don't know how many line items in it because like, I've got order tile, deliver tile the jobsite, do tile, take off, walk the job with the tile installer, install tile you know, install for tiles tile while tile grout tile. 00:53:08:10 - 00:53:32:03 Speaker 2 So just the tile line items got 20. Yeah 20. Schedule tasks on it, right. And it seems like overkill. And this is this is my advice to builders is, don't you know, I, I think you can't have too many lines on the schedule because in my experience, I've been doing this for 20 years. I can't tell you how many project manager superintendents have worked for me over the last 20 years. 00:53:32:07 - 00:53:34:06 Speaker 2 You have to make it idiot proof. 00:53:34:06 - 00:53:34:10 Speaker 1 You. 00:53:34:10 - 00:53:52:00 Speaker 2 Do. You have to make it so that you can bring a new superintendent in with varying levels of experience and say, here's the schedule, here's your tool that I'm giving you. It's got everything that you need to know on here for this job. Like every task, if you follow this, it's going to be successful. 00:53:52:02 - 00:54:09:05 Speaker 1 And to the extent that you can make it like McDonald's. Right? I mean, if you go to China and get a double cheeseburger at McDonald's, it tastes exactly the same as it does in New York City or Beverly Hills. It's all the same thing. Right? And so it really is if, you know, you always want to focus on stuff to try to make things better if you can. 00:54:09:06 - 00:54:23:22 Speaker 1 But until you improve it, it should be to the extent that you can make it the same all the time. It gets very dependable. If you build the same house over and over and over again, your carpenters will get to the point where they refer to the plans half the amount of time. Yeah, right. 00:54:24:01 - 00:54:41:20 Speaker 2 And that doesn't mean every house has to be the same. But but the subcontractors know that, you know, Herzog Homes standard or crafted home standard is we're going to have this type of wall assembly, this type of sheathing, this type of flashing. We're going to rough things in this way. Right. And that way your guys know what to look for on every house. 00:54:41:20 - 00:54:48:04 Speaker 2 There's not some not some weird detail that somebody threw into the job that no one's ever seen before. We had to figure it out now, right. 00:54:48:04 - 00:55:04:11 Speaker 1 You try to the extent that you can make sure that on this side of the street, we always use yellow paint. On this side of the street, we use red. Good luck trying to remember that. Right, right. And then, you know, the other thing I think that I'm a big Jack Wilshere. And so we have business cards that have our principles written on them. 00:55:04:13 - 00:55:25:14 Speaker 1 And so we literally back in the day took a whole week. And that was one of the priorities for that. We spent a couple of days, coming up with what are our real priorities, one of our real principles. In other words, under any circumstance, we're going to make a decision based on this. Right? And one of the things that we do is everything that I'm responsible for, we're responsible for. 00:55:25:15 - 00:55:48:14 Speaker 1 Right. And so if you go into that our house and break a mirror and you're the customer, I'm not responsible for that. But if you go in that house and that mayor's broken, that is my responsibility. Right. And because it is our superintendents, our salespeople or directors of construction, everybody knows without having to pick up the phone call, the right front desk knows that's something we did. 00:55:48:16 - 00:56:09:10 Speaker 1 We are going to fix it. If we bump into if the person that emails stuff out for us bumps into that customer in the grocery store and is asked the question, she would know to say, yeah, of course they're going to fix that, right? And that makes things go faster. That makes them, you know, the more uniform it is, it is easier to keep schedule. 00:56:09:12 - 00:56:17:19 Speaker 1 So I would say that, talking to builders, especially the guys who are starting, that's, I think a pretty big thing to institute. I think that's saved us a lot of heartache. 00:56:17:21 - 00:56:25:20 Speaker 2 Right. All right. Well, I think it's been a great a great conversation about schedules. This is far exceeded my expectations for the for the topic to be I mean. 00:56:25:22 - 00:56:31:09 Speaker 1 You got it all jazzed up. I'm going to go back to my office now and I'm going to work on my schedule. I was literally going to take a look at it. 00:56:31:15 - 00:56:40:04 Speaker 2 This is one of those topics that can honestly be kind of dry, just looking at it on paper. And I think it's been a great conversations. I really appreciate you being here to join me. 00:56:40:04 - 00:56:42:04 Speaker 1 I really appreciate it too. This was a lot of fun. 00:56:42:04 - 00:56:53:13 Speaker 2 Thank you very much. And so David Herzog, we'll be sure and link your, your company info on on our show notes on YouTube and the podcast locations on the interwebs so people can find you here in Houston. 00:56:53:13 - 00:56:54:17 Speaker 1 I think that's great. Thank you very. 00:56:54:17 - 00:57:12:06 Speaker 2 Much. And thank you guys for listening to this episode of your project Shepherd podcast. I will see you next time. Take care. Cut anything weekly for my conversations with industry leading guests to learn about processes, products, and the science behind building together. 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