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00:00:01
Nate and some Friends of the Podcast
76 Plays11 days ago
Not only did Kyle miss this recording....he also didn't drop it last week when he was supposed! Nate catches up with some Friends of the Podcast
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Introductions
00:00:03
Speaker
Well, I got up early, got a crew to lead. Sitting up, pulls and ropes, that's a lie for me. From a wedding to a fair, from the field to the town. the one you call when you need a 10 up or down.
00:00:17
Speaker
Back with another episode of Under the Vinyl here. Got a couple guests today for some tailgate talk. We got Kyle's out sick today, but we're to keep the ball rolling. So we got Kevin from Made in the Shade always bringing it to
Work-Life Balance in the Industry
00:00:30
Speaker
us. How you doing Kevin?
00:00:31
Speaker
Yo, good, good, man. Just how about yourself? How's everything? Man, we're ah once again, L-I-V-N living, baby. It's not too bad. it's ah nice and It's nice and bright outside today, which it hasn't been in a while. It's been really rainy and nasty, and I'm um um happy to finally see some sun.
00:00:48
Speaker
Yeah, it's got to feel good. Who's this
Building the Right Team
00:00:50
Speaker
other guy on here? Yeah, we got this guy walking the block. Nobody can see him on video right now, but he's walking his kids to school, and luckily we could bring him on.
00:00:59
Speaker
You know, he ignores us all the time. We'll jump in the group text when he feels like he wants to throw something in, but we got Darren Randall from Houston Tents and Events. Darren, what's going on, buddy? Hey, what's up, guys?
00:01:09
Speaker
Yeah, I try to control the heavy breathing as much as possible, you know, but... Today is a perfect example of ah trying to do this whole work-life balance, right? It's something this industry is a foreign term.
00:01:22
Speaker
We're trying to figure out to the best we can as my six-year-old is going off for last day of kindergarten today. So happy to do some tailgate talk and talk some tense with y'all early in the morning.
00:01:33
Speaker
Well, appreciate that. appreciate you coming on. And yeah, we got to find that work-life balance. I've been trying to find that lately myself. It's been tough as we're in busy season. What have you been doing to make that happen?
00:01:45
Speaker
Hiring a bunch of people, right? And then also firing a bunch of people who weren't carrying their part of the bargain, you know, to trying to build out the right team is what I've done, I would say, since last fall.
00:01:57
Speaker
And streamlining and holding people accountable and delegating.
Managing Staffing Levels and Capacity
00:02:02
Speaker
Delegation is something that most business owners say, well, that'd be easier if I could just have competent people to delegate to, but they don't do it because they don't think they can handle it well.
00:02:12
Speaker
If they can't handle it, you don't have the right people. How are you handling staffing right now in busy season? So obviously this is the first week of our off-season, I call it. You've still got graduations and things like that popping up when you're in almost summer weddings. But generally speaking, from now until Labor Day weekend or when football starts rolling around,
00:02:33
Speaker
for the Texans and UH and Rice. We'll probably do, we're at 10%, I'd say, 15% optimization right now. Like, we just don't have much work from now.
00:02:44
Speaker
Until then, it's just too hot. And obviously, kids are getting out of school. Houston, being as a diverse as it is, everybody starts traveling all over the world. So there's not many festivals.
00:02:55
Speaker
There's not concerts. There's nothing really outside. So we got up to about 70... six employees this past fall at the peak of it, I'd say in October, and then work that down to maybe 68 to start this year.
00:03:10
Speaker
And then currently with some layoffs and just staff reorganization, we're probably at 52 people
Labor Cost Optimization
00:03:18
Speaker
maybe right now. Okay. You guys are doing it. Yeah. Payroll payroll says we're doing it.
00:03:24
Speaker
Have you guys looked at, not to get too deep in there, but have you have you looked in and kind of seen where you're at labor percentage-wise? 30%. thirty percent Wow. So we're running 30% during busy time.
00:03:37
Speaker
Lean. Yeah. So at the most, like the busiest, let's call it a two week stretch, you know, because some of the bigger projects are a one week build, couple of day event, one week breakout. The most that our labor percentage got up during a two week stretch in the middle of the spring busy season, we would have been at maybe 42, 45%.
00:03:55
Speaker
year today, right now, but year to date right now we're having statistically the best best year we've ever had or best start to the year, first four months or whatever.
00:04:07
Speaker
And it's around 31%. That's great. That's a great number to be at. Everybody's usually saying 48 and under is usually the good percentage to really be at. But, I mean, in the 30s, it's just unheard of during busy times. Well, what's crazy is I don't – I mean, it's being lean.
00:04:23
Speaker
And the crazy part is is I think we could be even more efficient with our labor hours. and And our guys, they make more than anybody else in the city for their job title, you know? So it's not like we're just not charging or not paying the guys what they're worth.
00:04:38
Speaker
Right. No, that makes sense. How are you guys running over there, Kevin? Oh, we're we're good. We're just, yeah, we're we're, you know, I did the same kind of thing. You know, I went a little lean this year on our staffing, especially like for this music festival I've been talking about.
00:04:53
Speaker
Usually we would be bringing in, you know, five to six extra people um from another tent company in the area that we work with. You know, I'd throw them in there. maybe like you know eight days out of a 20-day build and tear down, right? And this year, I didn't have to bring anyone else on. I was able to keep the labor in-house. So um you know there were some long days, but I think at the end of the day, our our labor rate was way better than it was in the past.
00:05:24
Speaker
And is that just because you guys planned ahead and looked at it ahead, you guys didn't take as many jobs? What was the reasoning behind that? I think we just looked at it a little different this year and, you know, kind of going into the springtime with everything going on with the economy, where is it going to be at what's going on We actually were like, we should just not hire anyone else. We should work with who we have and load trucks and do all that
Motivating Teams During Peak Times
00:05:51
Speaker
stuff. And we can, I could, took a yeah page out of Kyle's book and just said, i don't need a full-time warehouse staff. I can load stuff when we get to it and we can prep stuff and,
00:06:02
Speaker
early time, maybe in early April. That way, you know, we have stuff ready, staged and go because we have some big jobs during May. And so i think that did help a lot.
00:06:12
Speaker
And just saying, let's just let's just do it. Let's just yeah all gas, no brakes. Let's do this. Let's um you know just keep it in house and not bring out anyone else on which was great like i i don't think i an interview at all this year so far were able to hold staff to do what i need to do so but also says something if you're able to retain the people that you have and not have to interview. I mean, like just in general says a lot about the company and what you guys are doing for them, I'm sure. Then as far as incentives and everything else.
00:06:44
Speaker
Yeah, no, totally. I mean, it's like, you know, looking at some, you know, pay structures, re reorganizing that again. Like I said, going into this spring, we didn't know what was going on.
00:06:56
Speaker
terrorists were being talked about all these kinds of things. And seems like it's kind of sizzled down a little bit to where, um, you know, we can still have a decent outlook this year. So yeah, I think, yeah, just, and we had a whole meeting with everyone and we said, this is it. We had a whole meeting with the leads and say, we're not bringing anyone else on. We're giving you guys the hours, you know, show us what you can do. And they, they all, everybody stepped up this year. So, so far.
00:07:22
Speaker
Oh yeah. They were like, cool, let's roll.
Logistical Challenges and Solutions
00:07:24
Speaker
Let's run with that. How many hours were they getting in, would you say, in this peak times, peak weeks? Oh, I would say, you know, would say definitely, like, my music festival crew, because they were driving every day to and from the site.
00:07:39
Speaker
they were They were in the 11 to... 13 hour range and my staff in Sacramento, cause we had like a, about six to eight people that we kept local because we had so many other things.
00:07:51
Speaker
They were about more in like the tens, tens to 11. Cause like, even in my peak, I was at like, these guys are getting like 16 hours a day. It is. Yeah. Yeah, it is. I mean, it's just, it's part of the thing. And we had to have a talk with our, our vinyl crew because our vinyl crew doesn't go out and install and they, you know, they just mainly clean, but they were getting kind of jealous that everyone else was getting overtime and they weren't. We're like, your overtime comes when the equipment all comes down and it needs to be cleaned.
00:08:20
Speaker
So yeah it's coming. Don't you worry, it's coming. So we had to have a ah real hard talk and a real hard schedule with that and they you know they understood and they still cranked out stuff that was needed so their their overtime will start next week when this festival and other things start coming down Love that.
00:08:39
Speaker
In Nashville, I'm still running with no warehouse crew, which I think Jonathan is probably at his wits end on wanting to kill me. We got a big job going on right now. They got about 20 guys at, and then we've got it some other weddings this week that, you know, that are decent size.
00:08:55
Speaker
And he's got a truckload of 40 rolls of carpet coming to the warehouse today with no dock. yeah John, if you're listening, I'm sorry. We'll get it taken care of. You one of those forklifts.
00:09:07
Speaker
You need to get one of those carpet roll deals. Oh, we have one. We have one. But the problem is them damn carpet companies, they put them in the box trucks on the dock.
00:09:18
Speaker
And so they're used to driving in and putting them all in. Well, then they put them all the front. You got to pull them all way out. And it's a whole dumpster fire. Hey, I'm going to meet you guys for just second while she walks in. Give me one minute. He loves that. So, ah yeah, it's it's a little, it gets a little wild. But, yeah, I don't know. We we need just a one warehouse guy that I think is in there full time that kind of goes ahead and gets ah things prepped, figures out when we need to get the tops clean and things like that in that aspect.
00:09:48
Speaker
Because we're doing that same thing that you are in Nashville, where it's, We're just kind of running lean and mean. And when we have time, we'll leave a couple guys in that'll take care of it. We can send a couple guys out and you know run it that way. And I mean, it works. Don't get me wrong. It's what I've been doing up there.
00:10:03
Speaker
But it's also just like sometimes it gets tough, especially I don't know about you guys, but we've had so much rain over the past couple weeks and Monday and Tuesday it poured down rain. And so we've had to flip schedules on keeping tops dry and And getting, you know, not getting mildewed sailcloth tops because, you know, as soon as those things come down wet 24 hours, they're starting to mildew.
00:10:24
Speaker
So that's fun. But how are you guys running right now with transfers, transferring large, transferring equipment from like large job sites to the next job site and kind separating inventory?
00:10:35
Speaker
Yeah. So, I mean, like one of these things is that we kind of are in the festival, like I'll just say fair, whatever you want to call it, season. So, you know, we got some street fairs coming up, we got some other things happening. So typically there is one after this music festival and the thought is always, what's the first thing that they need for this street fair in Sacramento that I have at the music festival and how can I get that down and get that to them.
00:11:04
Speaker
Typically, it's usually vinyl related. It's it's not necessarily hardware. But I have a conversation with our warehouse supervisor and say, you know, what do you need next? What's the next thing that you need?
00:11:16
Speaker
What do you need me to get down for you? And then I'll have a conversation with the music festival of, hey, I know you have, you know, priorities. tent a b and c but after that can i do this area and get this down so it's a little bit of planning and communication and understanding what's going on like i said our our vinyl crew you know the day of tear down the first day they're not going to really they're not to be working as much but That second day, they're going to be having to get vinyl ready to flip it and get it out there and do all that. So,
Inventory Management During Festivals
00:11:47
Speaker
you know, it's kind of interesting. You were talking about rain and we've been kind of, of course, dealing with the opposite where I'm at.
00:11:52
Speaker
You we're in a very warm climate. So now we're dealing with heat and, you know, usually slowly, slowly sneaks up on you. But sometimes it just out of nowhere gets you and you're like, oh, you need to start drinking more water. I 74 98 here yeah in 24 hours.
00:12:10
Speaker
That's insane. Yeah, the vinyl is the toughest part, you know, the vinyl getting wet and trying to figure it out because you guys then ship, will you ship the vinyl back to the warehouse, get that changed out and cleaned and then ship the frame, ship the frame to the new location?
00:12:24
Speaker
Yeah, pretty much because the frame. Yeah, the frame is something that you don't necessarily need to, you know, clean or detail anything like that. You just got to, you know, load it up and prep it. And, you know, you kind of have some time in between.
00:12:35
Speaker
That's not really hard to get ready. It's the vinyl, right? Like you're saying that tops can mildew, especially like you said, sailcloth or something like that can mildew in hours. It's flipping all that stuff. And for us, it's more...
00:12:47
Speaker
dirt dust and grit and all that than it is wetness so these things are just filthy coming back so you know when it comes to like efficiency on vinyl one thing i've had since the beginning was i always had way more vinyl than i had jobs now it's starting to get closer where if i've got 98 12 meter tops it's a good chance that every spring and fall, six weeks in a row, they're out, right?
00:13:16
Speaker
Or four out of six weeks, they're out.
Client Expectations and Industry Constraints
00:13:18
Speaker
What we've had a transition to is we've always had such a buffer on everything from walls and tops and you name it, that we've been able to cover ourselves and not have to flip stuff, even with that washing and drying system.
00:13:30
Speaker
Now we're having flip it. When it comes back, is it a wipe down? Is it a spray off? Or is it a full wash dry cycle? You know, are you taking this stuff down? Like we were just talking about, are you taking everything down on site and shipping the frame to the next job and then sending the material back and getting it all clean or swapped? Or how are you guys? and We don't just do people in Houston or in Texas in general.
00:13:53
Speaker
When they want something out, they want it out. It doesn't have to be all the time. But where I've kind of screwed myself over is for 10, over 10 years now, I've taken something down on Sunday, right? Because it's been feasible.
00:14:07
Speaker
When you get 15 jobs on a Sunday, because you've done it for so long, I'm having to have those conversations with clients like, you know, we need to be able to pick this up on Monday. Or, hey, if it's bigger tense, I need to be able to do this on Tuesday.
00:14:19
Speaker
That's not a Sunday, Monday possibility anymore. And they kind of get frustrated. But at the end of the day that's what anybody was doing before me. I'm just having to wean them off of it, I guess you could say, off of the...
00:14:31
Speaker
the unrealistic long-term expectation. So and with that said, by the time we're taking the tent down, we usually don't get to ship straight to another job, maybe one or two a weekend from the next week coming up. But like most of the time, we get to at least leave it in stack racks, right?
00:14:50
Speaker
When we take it down, we have enough aluminum that if it's 4080 and it's a 4060 going out. We'll adjust the blocks and that kind of thing. But frame send the whole dang thing out there, knowing that the next day we'll get the yeah extra parts back.
00:15:04
Speaker
We did that for a while, and I think we're becoming trying to get to that new way where it's, you know, we're charging your deliveries. And logistically, pricing keeps going up on trucking so dang much that anywhere, if we if we're shipping to Nashville and we've got a job across town in Nashville, you know, we're trying to...
00:15:21
Speaker
maneuver dates or talk to people about changing their day as far as delivery wise to make sure that we can get that stuff moved over rather than having to send another truck. I mean, from Chattanooga to Nashville, you're looking at anywhere from 800, 800. Yeah.
00:15:34
Speaker
Yeah. All day. No deal. yeah yeah all day's the deal Here's the deal, though. The clients, when we're all busy season, nobody's noticing that until a week or two before, right?
00:15:45
Speaker
That conversation is hard to ask to a client to like, hey, I know we said we didn't sell on Thursday, but it'd be really cool if I could do Tuesday, right? and not yeah but um festival of But the same aspect, they don't have a problem with asking us to change the date on them of the week of if it's freaking raining.
00:16:02
Speaker
So you know I agree, but it's we were it's a different standard. Our companies in our industry are held to a different standard than our clients, than furniture companies, than electronic providers. I mean, it's a different level of expectations jump through hoops. it's because we have too many big companies around the country that have set that precedent that it's okay to do which it is fire but you need to be able to be compensated for it and if you're not compensating for it then it's a loss it's not only a loss that that next weekend you're moving it to it's a loss the current weekend well had a conversation i think with mike yesterday i said you know what it's like they don't give a shit about the tent company the tent company is sweating sweating their butt off doing everything out there and the heat the rain the lightning the everything we're getting it done
00:16:47
Speaker
But then you've got the catering companies and the table and chair companies and all these other people that are involved in the vendors that are like, oh, my gosh, well, i guess we'll have to wear a hat and we'll drink, we'll bring more water. Or yeah we can't use a forklift to get all of our stuff up there. We have to have a ramp. And it's like when they're making the same profit that we're making on the job.
00:17:06
Speaker
Yeah. And we walked all the way from over there and did everything. But now we're having to build everything for you. But it doesn't matter what we did. That's where I struggle with. Nobody really cares about the people that are building the tent. But that's the that's the main thing.
00:17:19
Speaker
I think it's going to change them, man. I really do.
Industry Standards and Workforce Sustainability
00:17:23
Speaker
yeah I think that what's going to happen is you're going to be left with just a few companies. Like ah I preach all the time in this industry. I think every major market is going to have three to five companies and that's it.
00:17:36
Speaker
That can execute a certain number of jobs, a certain tier level of job. And eventually they're going to fail enough. that they're going start saying, well, right, we'll do it on, so we'll pick it up on Sunday or we'll set it up on Friday, but it's going to cost X, Y, Z, right? Which is where I'm at now, pricing wise.
00:17:53
Speaker
That's why. we have yeah charge But I think all the companies are going to start because they're going to realize it's the only way to stay profitable, period. Oh, totally. I don't know about the bigger companies, you know, like they're, they're, you know, the real big companies out there that are just turning and burning because the problem with them is they're selling the company within five years.
00:18:13
Speaker
And so they're just trying to make all their money. And they're, they're looking at the bottom line for the year, not the bottom line for the quarter, not the bottom line per job. They're looking at, I got to hit this number by the end of the year.
00:18:24
Speaker
I don't care to lose a little bit on this job going make it up on this job over here. We're a margin, though, Nate. like That's going to get harder and harder to do. you got a house You got to have like two dozen killer jobs that you're making 75% margin on in order to offset all of those yeah volume of losses. right and My competitors are starting to see that.
00:18:46
Speaker
It's not sustainable. I sure hope so because it's I think it's killing our industry on this is why you know certain people can't get paid a certain amount and everything else. We keep getting more skilled people and we need to pay them more and we need to take care of people, but we can't ah afford to pay some of these people because it's like you've got you've got these bigger companies that have set the standard now for pricing that's just killing killing the industry, but they don't really care because it's the higher ups trying people. They're not going to be here long term. They're not going to be here in five years yeah when all those guys have broken backs.
00:19:16
Speaker
Or all those guys are divorced because they were never home because they were trying to make a certain number of hours. Right. my anoia is on around like They don't care. that so They just don't care.
00:19:27
Speaker
Well, like was telling you guys the other day, I mean, there's a national company that I saw at this music festival for the last three days, rolling 15 to 20 trucks throughout the day.
00:19:39
Speaker
with like 30 employees and each, each person has a hand truck and they just go and they move it, move stuff into place. And I'm just like, how do you like, like what's the metrics on all that? Like, this is just insane.
00:19:52
Speaker
Would you get all these people? it just, they don't know the number given. Yeah. Look at they'll get a profitability per job to your point. Hey, They don't look at at that job.
00:20:03
Speaker
They just hope that the numbers look good enough on a few things throughout the year, and they get to the end of the year, and they fit a single-digit margin. And if you were one of my competitors and you were a $45 million dollars company.
00:20:16
Speaker
Well, you, if you got 10, nine or 10% margin, and you netted two and a half million dollars, right? You do that for five years. You netted what 10 million or $12.5 million. dollars That's good enough to sell.
00:20:29
Speaker
That's kind of what they were looking at. They're not looking at as this whole industry should be making 30% so that our warehouse and all of our top crews are all making six figures because they literally work.
00:20:42
Speaker
one and a half hours for the year. You know, they're working 3,000 hours a year. That's the thing.
Pricing Strategies and Market Practices
00:20:48
Speaker
They also don't know how long these jobs take. So they'll just throw a ton of work at it because they know it's a big job but or a ton of crew at it because they think it's a big job, but they don't know.
00:20:56
Speaker
So that's why i they're not doing the cost per job. It's more on the year side, which is wild to me. But anyways. I'm optimistic, though. I had a site visit yesterday and my two biggest competitors are both.
00:21:07
Speaker
The client said that their prices are about where mine are. And she said, because they've just started recently introducing labor costs into it. And I said, no. yeah Finally. Yeah.
00:21:21
Speaker
Well, before we wrap up here, boys, just want to see what, what, what do you guys got going on? That's coming down the pipeline for the next week here. I got, like I said, this is festival taking it down, transitioning it to the next festival, which is the next weekend, totally different style of festival. So I'm probably taking down about,
00:21:39
Speaker
ah 40% of the job that's set up. It's a little bit smaller, more intimate. So we got that. Got some street fairs going on and going to reorganize our warehouse a little bit since all this shit's just out and on racks and all that. So I'm going to work on that.
00:21:56
Speaker
Yeah, that's about it. You know, um probably do a couple more of these throughout the month and go forward with that. Cool. What you got going on there? Trying to give a bunch of the crews and everybody off this weekend. Let them have ah three-day weekend.
00:22:09
Speaker
Like I said, we got a few graduations and things like that, but nothing that's going impede on the weekend. We had a two-week window when I've got four people working on my inventory from the two acquisitions I've made in the last year and thought it could be done tomorrow.
00:22:23
Speaker
However, we got in and found that neither of them knew exactly what they had. but So I've extended it one more week. So by right now, our big focus for the next seven days is getting some R&R for everybody, finishing up inventory to finally maybe one of the few companies in the country that can probably know 99% of the stuff actually own. That's so nice. That's so nice.
Managing Large Events and Weather Impacts
00:22:49
Speaker
What about you, Nate? We are finishing up. I've got, ah hopefully finishing up. I've been stressing all week. Like i was telling you before this, we're doing the, do the national motor speedway NASCAR race coming up next weekend. So if you see the races on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday on Amazon prime, those are our all of our tents and structures.
00:23:07
Speaker
ah So we'll be, we'll be out there, which is cool, but we've got about 7,000 square foot of tent. That's got started on, monday and has to be done by this next tuesday and you factor a memorial day and four days of rain and i am just sitting on the edge of my seat every day and then we've got another big uh got another big one a nice 40 meter by 50 meter with a 20 meter by 20 meter garden tent attached to it on a tf floor that's for a big ball that we do in nashville and then sprinkle in some uh 15 to 20,000 square foot weddings over the next week that uh yeah so it's just a it's just a ball of fun but we're good i'm happy that we got the work can't complain too much gotta take it all in i'm trying to push the guys a little bit to get done by this sunday so that way i can at least let them have a memorial day with their family but this weather is just not cooperating with us so
00:23:59
Speaker
I think that's what kills me the most is knowing that I would love to give them that time off, but it's, you know, like we're on, we're on an extreme timeline with this one and you can just get it done. i can get them some days off right after that, but, uh, got to make some money while it's there.
00:24:13
Speaker
Yeah. Right. We're thankful, but we're moving along and, uh, full blown busy season.
Episode Conclusion and Good Wishes
00:24:18
Speaker
So appreciate you guys taking the time today and, uh, good luck to both of you with, uh, everything you come up over the next week.
00:24:24
Speaker
See y'all later. Have a good holiday weekend, boys. We'll see Nate. We'll see you Darren.