Efficiency Makes You Effective with Aaron Henderson from Stack

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Contractor Radio. I am your host, Jim Johnson, the founder of Contractor Coach Pro, where we help contractors get control of their business so they can grow their business and find that personal and financial freedom they were chasing when they started their business. And Contractor Radio is all about that, helping you get the information you need about trending topics, great contractors and some of the industry vendors and players out there that bring technology and marketing and those type of things to the game. We want to give you that information that you need to level up your game a little bit. So today we have an amazing guest. I got introduced to him via an email and went and did a little bit of research on him. He's got a lot of great history behind him and we're going to be talking about something that's kind of new out there that I think you guys might like from the technology standpoint. But we're also going to talk a lot of business. We're going to talk about how business is efficient because that's really his core function and background. So I'm excited to bring him on. But before we do that, got to keep the lights on around here. Here is a word from one of our sponsors, the amazing great Atlas Roofing products. The Atlas Pro PL Contractor program is designed to help you build your business. It gives you tools and resources, training, industry insights, bonus structures, technical knowledge, the brand power and science of 3M Scotchgard and what we think is the best product and warranty in the industry. Become part of the family that is succeeding and growing their businesses. We went from nobody ever heard of us to the number one roofing company in our region and we've gone from 12 roofs a year to 2035 and we did over 400 last year.

We're on track right now to do 1000 roofs this year.

You'll begin earning Atlas bucks and rewards as you move up to even greater reward levels. Become an Atlas Pro today. We love our guys over at Atlas and if you haven't heard, they've done some pretty incredible innovation on their shingles this year and they're doing this thing called the Atlas Stadium Tour. They're going around to some of the biggest and baddest stadiums throughout the country. I have the honor of being a keynote speaker, the very first one in Minneapolis coming up this week on Thursday. But go over to the Atlas website, look up events, find the Atlas Stadium or and find one of those locations near you and come hear about how Atlas give you an advantage out there in the field from a marketing and sales Perspective to separate yourself from the competition. Now, speaking of separating yourself from the competition, I got a guy on today that's going to help us do that. Excited to have him. He is the, the product manager, product marketing manager for Stacked. And I love the name of the company. His name is Aaron Henderson. Aaron, thank you very much for being a guest on Contractor Radio.

Yeah, Jim, thanks for having me.

Yeah, it's an honor, man. It really is. I got a little time to talk with you before the show and learn a little bit about you and you have some very similar passions to me. We'll get to those in just a minute. But why don't you bring the audience up to speed, kind of give them a little bit of your background, tell us a little bit about Stacked and the problem it solves and how it makes us more efficient.

Yeah, absolutely, man. So I actually have kind of a unique background probably to a lot of people, but I came, came out of school actually with a construction management degree and a business management degree and really, honestly never really thought that the two would cross over too terribly much. But I ended up, ended up working for a small consulting firm that focused on the trades. So we worked with architects, engineers and primarily contractors all over the country. And it was everything from, you know, small, like five man shops and less clear up to a lot of the enr, you know, top contractors. And we're doing a lot of stuff similar to kind of what you do with Contractor Coach, right is, is, you know, looking at purpose and mission and overall business strategy and then working that down into the, you know, day to day operations and trying to create efficiency and scale and those kinds of things. So that was the early part of my career and did that for a long time and then about five years ago was fortunate enough to get brought over to the technology side of our business. One of the things I think I saw in the consulting work that I did is that there wasn't much that I could do or recommend to a company that would bring more value to them than some of the technologies they could put in place. And when they selected the right technologies and did it really well, there was a lot that they could bring to the table. So worked for a long time on the project management side and then more recently with Stack where our kind of core businesses take off an estimating software. We work across the trade so you know, everything from plumbers and roofers and concrete folks and you know, we work with, everybody would like to say that we're kind of trade agnostic but work across the Trades work with a number of general contractors as well. So take off estimating. And then more recently, we've actually gotten into the construction side of the business too, where we can help people not only get their estimate and their bid, but then take that into the construction phase, track the project and just make sure that that project ultimately ends up being successful. So plans and progress photos and daily logs and all those fun things that we all, you know, love doing so much.

So, yeah, that's a big thing. Especially on projects that take a little while. Right. They take more than a week. Whoever you're performing them for would like to know what's going on, it seems like me. So I would imagine you have some type of like client portal they get up to date. Like what does that look like for stack?

Yeah, yeah. So once you get beyond, you know, take off and estimating to get into the actual, like, project itself is, you know, and, you know, absolutely, the longer the project.

Right.

The communication is probably even more important. But even on a short project, you know, if it's something that's just a day, we're in and out, you know, still snapping a couple quick photos of what you did and shooting those over to an owner and just, you know, communicating with them just so they know, you know, what's happening, I think is pretty important. So, yeah, all that stuff's kind of baked in where, you know, you can take pictures, you can, you know, assign them to people, you can, you know, show a homeowner what's going on and, you know, and communicate back and forth, which is, which is great.

Do you find that stacked gives the contractor out there this tool that helps him close deals, like he can set proper expectations and show what those are going to be look like or what they're going to look like. Maybe show some examples of work they've done in the past and how that communication is going to look for them.

Yeah, definitely. I think it's probably twofold, right. So there's one, there's, there's just kind of building your portfolio, the projects that you worked on and what you've done and documenting that. But I think the other piece that we see a lot of contractors is that it gives them additional credibility. Right. When you can show a project owner, a homeowner, a general contractor that you might be working with, the types of technology that you have behind you just gives you additional credibility that they know that you're tracking the project. Right. That you're doing the right things, that you've got the right protocol in place. So I think it's twofold, right? Building the portfolio, but at the same time building credibility. So.

So the core functionality was built off of takeoffs and estimating. Am I correct on that one?

That's right, yeah.

So it seems like that's something we should all know as a contractor. Like, hey, that's the thing that really everything else is based on is like, hey, I can go and inspect it, take measurements, turn those measurements into an estimate, right? What does stack do to make that easier? Because I'm sitting here, I'm like, how did you solve this problem? Because I've got my own technology background and being niche oriented was kind of key because you have to be really specific about like roofing, right? Like, roofing is this way and that's how it gets done. But whenever you say, hey, we do electrical and we do general contracting, we do home building, we like those different things, I would imagine that there's some hurdles you had to jump. Challenges. How did you like, do that? Make it easy.

Yeah. So actually our founder start got his start in roofing. He was a, he was a residential and commercial roofer here in Ohio and did that for a long time. And then actually him and his son kind of started working and he was getting into this place where estimating was taking so much of his time and he was getting so bogged down with getting estimates out and working kind of in the business as opposed to on the business. And he just said, there's got to be a better way to do this. And so him and Justin started working together and started building this thing out. And ultimately what it is is taking either digital blueprints and, or aerial photos or those kinds of things, loading them into Stack and then being able to do your takeoffs. And like you mentioned there, there's some elements that are kind of general that cross over multiple trades and then we're able to kind of on the back end apply trade specific, what we call items and assemblies so that your, you know, linear measurement or your area measurement or your pitch measurement, you can then apply roofing specific material or plumbing specific material to that project with pricing so that you can get a quick quote, it'll actually turn it right into a PDF and send it directly out to somebody. So just completely streamlining the whole thing. But it's kind of cool because we're able to take some of the things that are very common across all trades. Right. Like we all measure in the same, same measurements. We just do it in different ways. So we all use areas, we all use Linear measurements. We all use, you know, different things, but we're able to take that and combine it with those trade specific assemblies that we've got built in. And now it's really specific to roofing or plumbing or electrical or whoever we're talking to.

Somebody did a lot of work because there's a lot of assemblies out there, right.

There's a lot to it and we spend, we spend a ton of time. It's pretty cool. So the product itself actually comes with pre built assemblies that are in here and they're totally customizable for the unique, you know, user. But a big part of it is not just the technology, but then also the content that you get with it and we continually add to that and we're, we're making those assemblies stronger and stronger. So.

So yeah, it's, it's funny like that's how I got started in the technology thing. I was, I'm an efficiency nerd. I like the, the more efficient I can be is the more effective I can be. And that's really the E word I'm after is how effective can I be. So when I'm out there in a sales situation, I want to be able to close that deal, but I also want to be able to turn that into production so that they can do their part really well. I want to have everybody commute, communicate really well. I want to do it faster and better than anybody else. And. And it's funny that my original software, silver lining, that's what it was built on, was the process of taking your measurements, turning it into an estimate and then an order for the supplier, order for a crew. That was all it did. Yeah, it was all drag and drop. You drag and drop all the little different accessories onto a roof. Because that's what it was for is roofing. Spit out everything in it. And you could do it in, man, you could do it in less than two minutes. It was like done. Which made things a lot faster for my sales team. And then I took it out there and started showing other sales teams and then that thing ended up getting acquired by Acculinx and the whole story there so similar paths. Like that's pretty cool. Except in reverse. Like you from the construction side and went to software where. I'm sorry, consulting side into software. I went from software into the consulting side. Cause there was like this massive need for it.

Yeah, I think just, I mean there's, there's such a crossover. Right? Is, is. I mean software should solve, you know, business problems. And I'm sure you Know, from my standpoint, I was looking at it as a consultant going, hey, if I can help more people get technology, then that helps them. And you're looking at it from a software standpoint, going, hey, there's a lot of other components to this as well that if I can ultimately leverage some of that background. So, yeah, love the kind of crossover that we've got.

Yeah, it's. That's pretty interesting. It's going to be fun to get to know you a little bit more over time. And you said Ohio. Is that where you are?

So our company's based out of Ohio. I'm actually here in Cincinnati today, and then I personally am actually out of Nashville.

Okay. Yeah, I'm going to be in Ohio next week or the following week. Following week.

Okay.

I'm doing the Metal Roofing Summit up there. I'm a keynote speaker at their event. And so I'm going to be in Daytona. I haven't never been to Dayton, Ohio. Be my first time to ever be there. Is there any. Is anything I should do while I'm there?

You know, I don't swing down to Cincinnati. It's a big deal. The chili is a big deal in Cincinnati.

So I've heard about this. Like, yeah, what's the deal with the chili? Why is that the thing in Cincinnati?

I don't know. You know, when I came to stack, that was the first thing was the Cincinnati chili. So we had to go do Cincinnati chili. So what's the.

What's the best place?

Skyline, apparently, is the. Is the thing.

Skyline's the one to go. You know, we're going to get a bunch of comments on this. Right.

We have a lot of people that.

Are passionate about their chili.

The whole thing is just going to be a back and forth about, you know, which Chile place in Cincinnati.

Because I think there's another. Because I've heard of Skyline, but there's another one that people talk about, too. It kind of goes between those two. So I got to. I got to get myself there and get some chili and see what that's all about.

Yeah, no, come on by the office while you're. While you're in Ohio.

Is that where it is in Cincinnati?

Yeah, Cincinnati.

Okay, awesome. I'm going to. I'm actually going to make a note of that, see if I get a chance to fly on by there.

There you go.

So let's talk business a little bit. Yeah. You. You come from the consulting background. You actually mentioned a couple of the things that we work with our contractors with, which Is, you know, vision and purpose. We also include this thing we call the dream. Like that's where we all start is whenever we start a business. That's really what it's all about is the ultimate reward back to the person that started the whole thing that he's going to. Or she's going to end up with this. What they believe to be this end product that affords them whatever success looks like to them and more from a personal and a who aspect, like who they are and what they identify with. Then that vision is more about the company purpose, super important, core values. And then we have this, this concept that we talk about called mission, which is very different from like mission statement. I think mission statement and vision statement are pretty much the same thing, it seems like to me.

Yeah, yeah.

And people write these mission statements and they put them up on a wall and nobody ever looks at them.

Yeah.

Our mission thought process is a little bit more like military. I've got this mission to accomplish this year and then we break that thing down into milestones and tactical plans to get that done. Did you do anything like that whenever you were consulting with companies?

Yeah, no, we definitely did. And I gotta tell you, I love the, I love the dream piece, man, because it, you know what I, what I've seen so much is we have all this jargon and strategy, right? Like a mission versus a vision versus core values and all these different things. And so often you're right, some people will cross over. A vision statement is a, is a mission statement. Some people use them in reverse and all these different things. But I think the biggest thing for me is that we tend to over complicate them and we end up with these really long mission or vision statements that are just a bunch of jargon that don't really mean much of anything to anybody. And I like the dream, right. Because it's, it's just very clear. It's, it's. What did you imagine this whole thing would be? You know what I mean? Like what? Yeah, it's not. And we over complicated into this. But it's really like what do you, what are you here for? Like what are you actually trying to go out and do? And what's like that end state that you're looking for?

I think the most surprising thing has been how few of them actually know what that is. Like you ask them and you can see it on their face, like they want to spit something out. But then it gets really foggy and a lot in a hurry and they're not real clear on it. And that's kind of the thing is we got to get some clarity on that because it's like any other goal. If you don't know what the end is, it's hard to put all the things in reverse to get to what do I need to do today to get there? And it's one of the most frustrating things for me, whether it's from a business standpoint or a human standpoint. Why do you exist? What's your purpose today? What are you, what are you existing on this planet for, for the next two minutes or the next five minutes or the next day or the next week? Because if you don't know what that North Star is or that end goal that you're shooting for.

Yeah.

It seems to me like you're just kind of bouncing around or surviving one of those two. Do you see the same thing?

I definitely do, man. It's without a doubt. I think it's, it's everything. Because if it's not clear to you, then you can't communicate it to the people that you're bringing on board to help you get there. Right. And I think if you look at the great leaders that we all, you know, talk about and read about and all those kinds of things, I think the single biggest thing probably is, is just extreme clarity on exactly what that is and how to get there, and then just communicating the heck out of it to the people around you and getting them excited about it. Because you've got to have other people that are day to day excited about what you're doing and where you're going. And if you're not clear and can't articulate it, it's going to be really difficult, I think, to get people rallied behind it.

So I was, I was reading the other day about that particular thing because I hear all this all the time, man. I. I have a hard time finding people. When I do, they don't stay very long. There's a lot of turnover. They're not, you know, they're lazy. They're millennials. You hear all this different stuff, right? And I'm like, what is going on? Why is this happening? I never had much of a problem with that. I could always recruit people and they would hang around like they, they like to be a part of what it was that we were doing.

Yeah.

And so I started looking into it, looking into some of the studies, and there was a stat there that just completely like, wow, okay, now I get it. 72% of the people that leave a job, the number one reason they leave it, do you know what it is? What's a lack of clarity, of direction? They don't know where we're going. They don't know where the business is going. They don't know where they're going. It's just, I'm going to show up, do my job, and go home. And I don't have any kind of sense of purpose, no recognition, no acknowledgement, no challenge. And it's just a job to them. So they're. They're searching for this thing that's going to be a career. Yeah. And here's another one. Here's another stat that'll blow your mind. 90% of people decide to quit the job they just took the very first day they took it. 90%, they've made a decision. This is a job. At some point, I can do something better or do something more purposeful. I'll hang out here until I find that thing, but I'm not staying here. Yeah, that's the very first day I. Wow. Pretty. Well, it comes from a book called the Power of Moments. It's really a good book. If you haven't read it, that's a. That's a good one to read.

No, it's great stuff, man. I mean, it's. Yeah, without a doubt. I think we talked a lot when I was consulting about marketing for people like you market for projects and it's just as important like every. Everything that you're doing for. To put together marketing campaigns and material and those kinds of things to help win projects. It's the exact same thing that we have to do. And honestly, you really need to do it with your team first. When you're hiring, when you're looking at stuff, the mission, the vision, the values, all those types of things that we talk about, they're as. Or more important for the internal team, I think, as they are for the marketing materials and everything else that comes later. So, yeah, we spend a lot of time around it. The other piece too is, you know, I think, I think it crosses generations. But I will say I do think that the newer generation, this idea of purpose and those kinds of things, I think, I think we talk about it more and it's probably more important than it's ever been. And so, you know, I think it's something that we as business leaders have got to be paying attention to and just make part of everything. Right.

I got two millennials and a Gen Z in my house, and, man, they have a whole different way of looking at things and motivation than I ever Did.

Yeah.

I think my generation was all about what can we gain? Wealth, retirement, you know, this very competitive type mindset. Climb the corporate ladder, work out, work everybody else on the planet.

Yeah.

And I think they watch this and went, kind of looks like it sucks. I don't know.

Right.

And what else, what else could it be?

Yeah.

And as I talk to my kids, they're. They're very focused on this, doing something that makes a difference. And I think that's an important thing to remember. I. Hey, you said something that caught my attention.

Yeah.

Marketing for people.

Yeah.

I'm a big believer in this. What does that look like? You know, as you were working with clients, what are some of the things that you would share with them about concept?

Yeah. Well, it was interesting. So a lot of my career, early, early on, we came at problems a lot from a marketing standpoint. And we get pulled into companies and to help with Marketing Pro, what they thought were marketing problems. And it was, how do we market better? How do we win more projects? How do we do these things? And it was interesting because we kind of. And we later on realized we were kind of entering at the wrong place because we would end up working our way up to, you know, we would come in trying to figure out how do we increase revenue. And ultimately the answer was going clear up to the top, where it all started. And it's like, if you don't know who you are or what you're trying to do or where you're trying to grow or go, we can't help you from a marketing standpoint because it's all just kind of flash in a pan stuff. It's just sort of, you know, putting window dressing on something. But until we can't really create a true brand or a marketing position until we actually understand who you are as a company. And so what we ended up finding out is we actually had to go clear up to the top, where instead of working with the marketing department, we're working with the leaders of the company, the CEOs and the presidents and the, you know, the C suite to define, you know, who are we and what do we want to be. And then once we did all that stuff, then we could start to move into marketing and figuring out what that looked like. Um, same thing though. Is, is. Is your people are part of it. Right. Like core values is about what type of people do we want or do we need to achieve what we're trying to go out and achieve? And so, you know, I think. And if you don't have that team. Then too, you can't really go out and market. Right. Because again, you're kind of. If you don't have the people that are. Are connected to the core values, the marketing message doesn't really align with who you are as a business. So, you know, I think. I think that's it. And I think too, for all of us is as we go out and we're trying to recruit right now, we all know how difficult it is to find good people. I think those same marketing messages that we use out to prospects are the same ones that we need to for recruiting as well, is people need to understand who we are and what we're about, what differentiates us and why they can live out what they ultimately want to do and achieve with our company. So very similar, very similar, similar things. But. But, you know, super important.

Yeah, that's really good. I just nail on the head. Same thing for me, like, whenever I first started this coaching thing, I was like, all right, I kind of know this. I am pretty good at it. I can recruit people, I can train them, they can make them great salespeople. I can get leads without any issues, and I've got some processes, so I can help them with that part. And that was kind of the core of my business. I would always tell people, like, from day one, nope, I'm not your finance coach. You don't want me. I'm the last guy on the planet. And then I would tell, no, I'm not your HR coach either. Another one of those things that is not my thing. And the other thing was I started with culture. I thought that was the right place to start with a business and this vision and purpose and all that other good stuff. And what I found is I started one step too late because I had to identify if they even had the leadership skill and capacity and ability to do what it was that we were actually talking about.

Yeah.

And if they didn't. Yeah, it was a pretty hard conversation. So I'm kind of curious on your side.

Yeah.

Sounds like you guys started out as like a marketing consulting firm.

Yeah.

And then you went, oh, crap, I got to go talk to these C level people and get some clarity from them and probably let them know that their leadership skills are maybe not right where they need to be just yet.

Yeah.

How did you navigate those conversations? Because it sounds like that would be a tough thing to do.

It is. And I mean, it's. It was definitely an evolution. You know, I would love to think that one day we just discovered it and we immediately shifted and changed everything. I think it was, it was kind of something that came over time and we started to realize the problem. And I think for us, our purpose as essentially we were almost more of an ad agency to start that sort of morphed into this, more of this bigger consulting firm. But it, it really became this thing where we had to question ourselves, to be like, are we really doing what we set out to do? Because in a lot of cases we're almost being asked to put lipstick on a pig and put it out there. It was, hey, can you make us look really cool? And can you, you know, say all these cool messages that, that, that people connect to and you know, and yeah, we can say all kinds of stuff. But if it's not, you don't believe them. If you don't believe them and if you don't deliver to them and you know, I mean, once you get a customer, if, if you set this bar in this expectation that they're looking for and you don't achieve it and you don't live up to it, it doesn't last. I mean, that reputation goes away fast. You don't get repeat customers, you know, all those kinds of things. So, so for us, I think we looked inside ourselves and said, hey, are we really doing what we set out to do? Because if we're, if we're sort of, you know, dressing up these companies that we don't believe in personally, we're not doing anything that great ourselves. And so I guess in a way it made it easier, right, because now you go, hey, we, we have to work our way up the ladder. We have to go up and talk to the people that can actually make change in this. And ultimately, if we can't get them where they need to be and can't get them aligned, and maybe they aren't even really passionate about these things that we're saying they should be passionate about. And if they're not, and if all they care about is making money, then we also have to make this decision of are those clients that we really want to work with or not. And you know, I've always said that you say a whole lot more about who you are and who your business is, about what you say no to than what you say yes to. And we did a lot of that. And you know, fortunately we had a lot of great clients that said no. You know, we would love to fix this at the core. You know, we started this whole thing of like off site retreats and strategic planning and those kinds of things. A Lot of, again, what you guys are doing today. And it was really cool because we were able to get leadership aligned and then, you know, from there, get the, you know, everybody else aligned and. And then again, we could get back to those things that recruiting and the HR and the marketing and all that other stuff that, you know, that matters. But that is really difficult to do if. If leadership at the top isn't aligned to something. So. So it made it easier.

It's like, hey, let's figure that one out first. Do we have a leader that's capable if they're not, We've got the tools and the training and this, you know, we can do all of that. But are they. Are they humble enough and coachable enough to say, yeah, I could improve there? That's a bit of a challenge sometimes. Sometimes they're just totally about the money. Tells us immediately they're not our. Our client, which. That's okay. I'd rather somebody say they're not.

Yeah.

And then I did a couple of smart things. I went and got a finance coach, got a HR coach. Like, I don't want to coach. I don't want to learn that. I want somebody to do that for us. And they're absolutely amazing. And we've added a sales coach and a marketing coach at this point, and then we have our head coaches that kind of guide the whole thing. It's been a lot of fun to do. When we started this conversation, we started with efficiency. That's the driving factor behind not only your business consulting background, but this technology background. What are some of the ways, and more specifically than just technology in general. Right. What are some of the ways, like quick ends that contractors could do to become more efficient?

Yeah, yeah. I think one of the biggest ones, and you actually kind of just mentioned it, was, is process. Right. So I think one of the biggest things that we saw in our consulting practice was that we, especially in contracting firms is we'd bring in a lot of people who are really good at doing work and sort of just sort of let them do their thing the way that they did it. The problem was, is there's. There's almost no efficiency in that. Some. Some days we'd have really great days, and other days we'd have really bad days because it was so dependent on the individual. And I always. I've always loved the phrase I can manage a process, but I can't manage people. Right. People were great. We're fun, we're exciting, but we're also very emotional. And our. Know, our mood Changes and all these other things. So we're, we're really difficult creatures to try to manage. But if you can get a right process in place. And I think that's where I was really drawn to the technology side. Right. Is the one thing, probably the thing I love most about technology is it's a baked in way of doing something. It, it's. Once you have it defined, it sort of then can in a lot of ways become that process where, you know, you now have parameters by which we work by. And so I think when we get that consistency, I think, I think that's the thing. If we can set the process and we're consistent about how we apply that process, then ultimately sort of efficiency comes with it and we can find the places in the process where we don't have efficiency and we can kind of start to correct them. But until we kind of have that all laid out, I think it's really difficult to just sort of pick something here or there. I think we've got to try to figure out what's that entire end to end process and where can we create a efficiency within it.

Yeah, we, we tend to get pretty granular there. And it was part of the problem that I may have been having on the software side, for me specifically. Yeah. Was that while the software did create some massive efficiency, it does create a process. It does create an order for things. It puts boundaries around it. You know, there's some guardrails that hey, we're not going to get outside of this thing. There was some nuance to it that it didn't cover like I was in the CRM world. So it covered a lot right from kind of start to finish of the, the sales cycle, from first meeting to getting money collected. But it didn't handle things like a hiring process. Like that thing was something that was needed and necessary and that wasn't something I was doing. But whenever I would go in and talk to people, they would be talking to me about the software and then they'd start talking to me about how'd you grow your company to 40 million? How do you, like, how'd you do those things? And I started talking about the other things. They're like, oh, well, there's not software. Hey, there is in some places. You just gotta know where to look. Right. But there was nuance to it for. Cause if you over process your technology, the technology will never be used. Yeah, if I'm, if that's all I'm doing is going through a bunch of no questions because that's Part of my process.

Yeah.

It's not a lot of fun to use. And the end user is really the one we're kind of building this for on a day to day use case where the final product is what the owner and leadership group is looking for is what's the result of all this stuff that we're doing.

Yeah.

I didn't find that it would tell us things like how to set up our ladder. You know, that part of it, that nuance of where to park my truck outside. What should I say whenever I first introduce myself to the homeowner? And really getting it down to saying this is the, and this has been the fun thing of doing what we do, we get that granular, we get that descriptive. But we identify every place where technology can touch it so we can automate that thing. And the more efficiencies we can create through somebody's product process allows them more time to do what will actually scale their business, which is working on it instead of in it.

Yeah.

You see the same type of thing in what you do.

I do. And I think you kind of nailed it. You. I think you called it maybe parameters, but you know, I'll call them parameters or guardrails. Right. Is. I don't want, I don't want my process or my technology either one to be all the, the checkbox. Everything that my people do. Right. I want to set sort of guardrails so that we get consistency among the way that we operate. And then I want my people to do what they do best, which is be themselves and figure out how to operate their way within sort of those guardrails. And so, you know, I don't want them to be worried about day to day of all the things that I've got to do or boxes I got to check, like if there's, if there's basic mundane tasks that we can take off their plate, free them up to do the stuff that they do really well. You know, I think that's ultimately what we're kind of trying to do with technology is get. Free them up from the, the, the basic stuff to focus their time and attention to the things that really matter and taking care of clients and those kinds of things.

So. That's awesome. Yeah. So what effect, if any, does AI have on what you guys. This question, right?

Yeah, it's pretty incredible. I mean, I think, I think we've all been pretty exposed to it now with ChatGPT and so some of the things that have come up in the technology world, obviously it's Something that we're looking at really close. So we've been paying really close attention. We even leverage bits of AI and some of the things that we do. And I think starting off it's the really basic stuff. I mean a good example is when you load plans into stack is you don't have to load individual plan pages, you don't have to go in and name those because we run it through what's called OCR or optical character recognition, which a lot of us are probably pretty familiar with. That's, that's sort of AI at its most basic. So you know, we've had a lot of those components for a really long time that are just time savers that just make it way easier. We run all the documents through that same process where they're now text searchable. So if I'm looking for a certain specification or if I'm looking for something within a plan set or looking for something within a document, we can find those things easier. So you know, we've got those kind of basic things. But it is really interesting with some of the stuff that's coming out with chat GPT and a lot of what we're seeing with AI now is being able to load in documents or take a photo of an aerial photo of a roof and have AI be able to identify all the roof edges and you know, all the details of that roof and all those kinds of things. So, you know, I think a lot of people are a little concerned right now is AI going to take my job and you know, what's this mean for me? And I, there's days, I think we all wonder that as we, as we search things on chat.

I can remember two major things in my lifetime that have come out the computer. Like number one, right? Like everybody went, well, it's going to take all our jobs. We're not going to have any jobs. All I did was create more and then robotics, same thing like it's going to start doing, but it created all these other jobs and I see AI already doing that thing because some of us are technical minded and some of us like that kind of stuff. Some of us are like, I hate that stuff. Well, the people that hate that stuff are going to need the people that like that stuff. And I've seen so many like new complete job titles that never existed three months ago even, and they're just brand new. I think there's going to be a lot of. I kind of was nervous about it at first. Now I'm like, okay, this is a good thing. If used wisely.

Yeah, no, I think you're exactly right. And I think. I think one of the lines that I heard recently and I really like is that AI is not going to take your job, but somebody who learns how to leverage AI really effectively. Effectively. And I, I think that's it. It's, you know, and I heard somebody else the other day that, you know, I think they were referencing AI used in schools, and they likened it to calculators early on. And it was in schools at first they didn't want to use calculators at all because, you know, and. But ultimately they ended up realizing, like, this is just a tool that helps us do something faster. And I think that's the exact same thing of AI is, is that we just are going to learn, just like with computers or anything else, we're going to learn to work different. It's going to make us more efficient, and it'll let us focus on other. Other problems that we just don't have time to do today.

So, yeah, it's funny, I'm like, okay, this is another from past experience. You learn these things, right?

Yeah.

So this is another one of those big, pivotal moments in the. My generation's lifetime. And cell phone was one of those things like an art used to be connected to a wall. I had, like, you had to dial it. So now we have these phones that walk around and you can talk anywhere. This thing. I see it, and I went, okay, who's. Who can I find like, that knows it? I found a guy and he's really good. He actually works with us now, but I had him do a training for my entire team. But I put guardrails around it like, yes, we can use this to help us create, you know, great content. And you do all kinds of fun stuff in what we do.

Yeah.

But it never, ever goes through. With just taking what it says and putting it out there, we always put our tone, our flavor, our core values, our purpose, our vision, our mission, all that stuff through it. So that it is us. It's not AI, it's us. It's just helping us leverage what we do. And my guy did a great job. He did a great job of setting those boundaries with this because I think it's something that's going to give us knowledge faster if we want it.

Yeah.

Which gives anybody with access to a computer the ability to literally change their life.

Yeah.

No, you're right.

I mean, I think in some ways it's. It's the new version of Google, you know, in my mind, Is is, you know, just because you search every encyclopedia to go find the research, just because you could now go Google it didn't mean you were cheating. It didn't mean you were doing anything wrong. It just made you faster and more effective. And I think, to some extent, Chad gbt, that's in a lot of ways, the way I leverage it is I don't want to go spend hours researching this information, let it go, pull it for me really quick, and research every encyclopedia to go find the research. Just because you could now go Google it didn't mean you were cheating. It didn't mean you were doing anything wrong. It just made you faster and more effective. And I think, to some extent, chat gbt, that's in a lot of ways, the way I leverage it is I don't want to go spend hours researching this information, let it go, pull it for me really quick, and then let me kind of dig through it and decide what parts of that I want to leverage to be able to talk about whatever I want to talk about. And so for me, it's just a. In a lot of ways, it's a tool, it's a time saver. And then let me kind of dig through it and decide what parts of that I want to leverage to be able to talk about whatever I want to talk about. And so for me, it's just a. In a lot of ways, it's a tool, it's a time saver to keep me from having to, you know, do the data dive or whatever else it is that I don't want to have to waste my time going and doing.

What really clicked my mind to is we had a. I had a call one day, said, hey, to keep me.

From having to, you know, do the data dive or whatever else it is that I don't want to have to waste my time going and doing.

What really clicked my mind through is we had a. I had a call one day, said, hey, want to hire you to come in and do a sales training on insurance restoration. I went, cool, let's set up a time talk. So we set up a time hop on. He's like, what do you cover? And so I laid out all the stuff I cover, how I covered the workbook and all the other stuff that goes along with it. And he goes, you pass? Great. What do you mean I pass? He goes, oh, well, I want to hire you to come in and do a sales training on insurance restoration. I went, cool, let's set up a time talk. So we set up a time hop on he's like, what do you cover? And so I laid out all the stuff I cover, how I cover the workbook and all the other stuff that goes along with it. And he goes, you pass? Great. What do you mean I pass? He goes, oh well, I put it into Chat GPT and it spit out all this stuff and it had 90% of what I had. Yeah, 10% was what made the difference. I'm still a little bit more in tune than it is, but it was amazing how accurate it was. Like, yeah, that was really good.

Well, and we're seeing more and more, I mean especially on the, on like the takeoff and estimate.

I put it in the Chat GPT and it spit out all this stuff and it had 90% of what side's.

A really great example. I mean we're, we're working really close with a lot of partners throughout the industry of incorporating more AI into a lot of what we're doing. But we're, I think that the toughest thing today, at least in the takeoff realm and what makes Chat GPT so powerful is the amount of data that it's able to go sift through so fast. And so we're, we're really fortunate in that regard of the more data and information that we've got, the smarter that we can make AI and so if we can make this, the trouble that we run into right now and take off and estimating is the accuracy of the AI. And if humans have to go back and spend more time correcting what the AI did, it's not really that effective. But the smarter that we can make it and the better, the more accurate we can make it, then it really provides a huge advantage.

Yeah, if we can take 80% of our heavy lifting off and follow that 8020 rule, I become 80% more efficient.

Yeah, well, and, and for me it's, it's now let my estimator, instead of going and crunching a bunch of numbers and finding quantities, let them go and build the relationships with our vendors and let them go out and do these and let them sharpen the pencil and find new innovative, cool ways that we could get a project done that we didn't think about before because. Cause we were busy, you know, trying to calculate. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

I think you really hit on something right there and really what we should be perceiving from all this while those things are great and they will help us be more efficient. I don't think you ever take the need for human relationship out of the equation. I think it's something we actually are starved for. I mean, first off, we had a pandemic, so we're all like locked up for two years. And I see more and more of it where there's just these small groups doing these things together because they want to be together. And this idea of being recognized, solving problems for people, I don't think that's something that the technology world will ever be able to replicate. I don't think there's ever going to be a robot that I'm like high fiving as my pal. So use caution in your fear out there, folks, that AI is not going to take over the world or anything like that. At least not at this point. Point I don't think.

Well, and I think the greatest example of that, Jim, is the. We've all, especially since the pandemic, have had a poor service experience somewhere. And for me, construction is all about relationship. It's a relationship business. And I think, I think that's one of the biggest differentiators right now is if we can, if instead of taking, instead of working on those quantities and the estimate and all that other stuff, if we can spend that time actually servicing clients and communicating with them and providing them with the experience that they want, that's, that's a huge differentiator right now. When people are just trying to jump from one job to the next as fast as they can because they don't have enough people to try to get the work done. So you know, I think, I think that whole relationship, communication, all those kinds of things are things that AI is not going to replace. Those are human things.

Yeah, I think it's internal and external and not only with your, your customers, but if you're the owner of a business or a leader in any way.

Absolutely.

That relationship with your people and the benefit they receive by being in relationship with you is way more important than anything else. Hey Aaron, it's been an awesome interview. I know we're on a time limit here. I gotta be respectful of your time. If somebody wanted to get a demo of Stacked and see what it does, where do they go?

Absolutely. Highly encourage anybody just to go check out stack CT as in construction technology.com you can check out Stack, look into all the different products that we offer. They're always welcome to reach out to me directly. A hendersontackct.com I'm always happy to talk about business or technology or anything I can do to help.

All right, you're going to be one of my new favorite guys. Like I like talking about both of Those things quite a bit. I'm passionate about both because I believe there is a place for technology to be a driver of your process. But business efficiency actually goes beyond that. And then there's nuance to making the right decisions at the right time and those type of things. I just think they're so important to have both of those bases covered very well.

Technology alone is not the answer, but it's definitely part of it.

Yeah. Yes. As a coach, I'm like, use the technology. That's great. Now we have more time to work on the really cool stuff that really comes can scale and grow your business. Yeah, absolutely. Alan, it's been awesome. Sorry. Aaron, thanks for being on here today. I really appreciate your time. It's been an honor to to hang out with you for a little bit here. Thanks for being a guest on Contractor Radio.

Yeah, thanks a lot, Jim. Appreciate it.

No problem. All right, guys, that was Aaron Henderson, the marketing. Let's see. I want to get this right. Product Marketing Manager for Stacked CT.com Stacked ConstructionTechnology.com so s t a c k c t.com or you can get him at ahendersontact.com and reach out to them, find out what they do, learn a little bit about how they make maybe you more efficient out there. As a roofer, painter, general contractor, plumber, agent, that was the wild thing to me. I would do a demo just to see how they can handle so many different varieties of trades and and do so in a way that makes it much more efficient for me. You guys that do multiple trades, I'd be on a demo immediately to create some of those efficiencies. We'll put all that stuff down in our show notes so everybody can get that from this show. If you're listening to us on podcasts, we appreciate you hanging out with us. Whether you're behind a windshield or in your office, it's always great to have you. If you're watching us on YouTube. Thanks a lot for being a subscriber. If you're not, make sure you subscribe, download, click that like button, make comments, ask questions, make sure you figure out and tell us which one's the best chili. So I can go there and get some chili. But thank you so much for hanging out with us here at Contractor Radio. If you need help with your business, we're Contractor Coach Pro. We help contractors holistically. Everything from leadership and process and HR to operationally sales and marketing, recruiting and hiring, training. Put them all together in the right order in the right place. At the right time. If you need help with that contractorcoachpro.com, click on the assessment button. Do our quick contractor assessment. It's about 15 minutes. Not that quick, but it gives us some good insight and we'll do a real live, full blown coaching call with you on two or three areas that we see you can make the most improvement on and level up right away. If coaching is great for you and you want to work with us, awesome. If you don't, at least we've given you something of value that you can move your business forward with what our purpose is. We're here to empower you to believe and we believe that you've got this if you just put a little bit of effort at it. Thanks for hanging out with us and we'll see you on our next episode. These of trades and do so in a way that makes it much more efficient for me. You guys that do more.