Time Kills Deals! Reducing Design & Project Development Timeframe

Kyle Hunt: Thanks for tuning into the Remodelers on the Rise show. Whether you're listening or watching, I appreciate you being here. If this was helpful, make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss the next one. We're putting out new episodes every single week focused on helping you build a better remodeling business with real stories, practical ideas, and things you can actually take and use. If you're on YouTube, hit that like button and turn on notifications so you know when new episodes drop. Yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo. Sometimes when I start the podcast, I think to myself, I think I say like the same thing every time. And it's probably getting redundant. Keep things fresh. Just like I did with that opening of yo, yo, yo, yo, yo. Hope everyone listening to this is doing well. It's a solo show today. It's gonna be neat and tidy. Neat and tidy, not super long. ⁓ one of my buddies sent me a podcast, ⁓ and I happened to be on the road taking a little drive, ⁓ and it was an hour and eight minutes long. Item number three, schedule a weekly meeting with the clients. Now, this thought of actually I think originally came from Michael Anchel. Michael was like, you know how we kind of keep people moving is we schedule a weekly design development check-in. Sometimes that meeting is pretty light, not a lot going on. Other times there's a lot that we're covering. Sometimes ⁓ it is something that is just forcing us to get things done before that meeting. Similarly,

Kyle: Before we get into today's episode, I want to tell you about our partner, Jobtread. If you're still running your business on a mix of spreadsheets and sticky notes and a software tool that doesn't quite do everything you need, Jobtread might be exactly what you're looking for. It's an all-in-one construction management platform, estimating proposals, scheduling, job costing, ⁓ I love job costing, invoicing, client communication, all in one place.

Kyle Hunt: And I thought, that was long. Now it was fairly engaging, but there's something to be said for a nice, swift, to the point podcast recording, which is just what I'm going to deliver to you today, mostly because I have another meeting in 20 minutes. Topic today: reducing the amount of time it takes to move a project through design and project development. Time kills deals. If you're listening on a podcast app, a five-star review goes a long way and helps more remodelers find the show. We've got great links below or in the show notes where you can connect with us, check out our remodelers community and learn more about our coaching and resources. Appreciate you very much. See you on the next episode. ⁓ pushing the client to get things done before that meeting. So, this idea of doing a weekly meeting with the client as you walk through design development is a huge way of reducing the amount of time it takes. You don't have to do this in person. You can do this via Zoom. You can do this over the phone, but Zoom's even better. Most everybody, most everybody is rock solid when it comes to how to use technology these days.

Kyle: What I love about it is how it helps you close more deals faster with professional proposals. It keeps your team on the same page. So jobs stay on time and on budget, and you actually know your numbers so you can protect your profit margins. JobTread has been named the number one construction estimating software two years running. We have a ton of our Remodlers on the Rise clients who love it. And if you've been looking for a way to get organized and grow with confidence, head to JobTread.com.

Kyle Hunt: And we need to be moving projects through design and development at a good clip. ⁓ another way of phrasing ⁓ this little section of things is reducing cycle time. Cycle time ⁓ can be measured in a lot of different ways. One of the ways would be from the time we sign the design and development agreement to the time they sign the contract. Start measuring that. Kyle, you're being very direct. I am. You're listening to this. So consider that to keep things moving in design development. Schedule a weekly meeting. Have a little agenda each time. Cover things. Keep the train moving on the tracks. The fourth item: BAM FAM. This is a Spencer Powell used this ⁓ abbreviation. I'm trying to think of the wording for it. It's not an abbreviation. Acronym. BAM FAM. BAM. Book a meeting. FAM from a meeting. Book a meeting from a feeding.

Kyle: dot com and check it out. Jobtread.com. All right, let's get into today's episode. I want to tell you about our partner, JobTread. One of the things that separates a good remodeling company from a great one is the client experience. And JobTread helps you deliver that. With JobTread, your clients get their own online portal. They can see job documents, communications, invoices, photos, everything in one place. No more digging through email threads or texts trying to find that one file.

Kyle Hunt: I'm giving you an idea based on a lot of experience working with remodelers. Start measuring the amount of days, weeks, hopefully not months and months, that it takes to go from signed design development agreement to signed contracts. What gets measured gets improved. Start paying close attention to that. But how can we reduce that cycle time? how can we reduce the amount of time that it takes? Because there's a lot of work to be done. If you're doing it properly, there's a lot of work to be done. From a meeting. My phrase I've always kind of used is hey, before you wrap up this meeting, book the next one. So if you're doing weekly meetings, amazing. ⁓ this is another kind of variation of that. Always make sure there's a next meeting on the schedule. Pick whichever one you want to do. But every project, let's say you have five projects in design development, make sure that each one of them has a meeting scheduled. It is when we say,

Kyle: Plus e-signatures and online payments built right in. It makes your business look more professional and it makes your clients feel more confident and informed throughout their project. Jobtread is built for remodelers, home builders, and contractors of all sizes. They are outstanding. If you want to level up the experience you're giving your clients, check out jobtread.com.

Kyle Hunt: To get a project from that part of the process to signed contract. So let's dive into it if ⁓ we shall. And I guess before I do that, how you doing? I don't know who I'm talking to right now. There's hundreds and hundreds. Yes, there is, folks, hundreds and hundreds of people who listen to each of these little podcast episodes as they as they get out there on the interwebs. I've been trying to take more deep breaths lately. We'll get this updated for you and send it to you, quote unquote, next week. That is when things go from, ⁓ I should have gotten that done. I meant to get that done. ⁓ I need to do that days after that quote unquote soft deadline you gave, versus a project that is got a next meeting scheduled. It heightens your focus to get it done, amongst everything else you're doing in your modeling business. So bam fam, book a meeting. Think that's a good best practice. I've been doing this weird thing where I send an email and then I close my eyes and go, I think about that person for a second. Sometimes even pray for that person for a second. And then I move on to the next one. ⁓ my wife hit me with this thing the other day of going, Why are you always in such a hurry? And I'm like, I don't know. I came out this way. Can't I can't I was born into this world in a hurry. The doctor dropped me. I was in a hurry. I surprised them. I broke my collarbone coming out. From a meeting. So for so far, set a design development schedule. Number two, set clear expectations, especially the value to them in moving things through. Number three, weekly meetings with a client. Maybe you go that approach via Zoom. ⁓ maybe you go Bam fam, book a meeting from a meeting. Remember, time kills deals. Keep things moving through. The energy level of a project relates a lot to the momentum, to them feeling like it's it's moving and And I don't think I've really slowed down since. But here in year 43, I seem to be desiring ⁓ and recognizing maybe shifting down a gear might bring me a little bit more peace, might bring me a little bit more joy, might bring me a little bit more contentment. So I share that off the top of just going, hey, take a breath, evaluate how things are going, maybe slow down a little bit in order to speed up, if you know what I'm saying. Going, don't underestimate the impact of that. Number five, number five. Don't take on too many projects in design and development at once. One of my favorite words in the world, other than the word Sarah. That's my wife's name. Obviously, that's my favorite word in all of the English language. But outside of that, in a close second, is the word capacity. ⁓ and check in on yourself. How are you doing? If you're not doing well, what needs to shift? Shift? What needs to change? What do you need to tweak? All right. Reducing the cycle time. One idea. Number one, set a design and development schedule. When you get a project into production, and we start on that first day of production and we're in the demo phase. If you are doing things properly, you actually have a schedule built out. Capacity. I had to take a minute to ⁓ I think I'm yelling. I apologize if I'm yelling. I had to get some water. ⁓ those of you watching the video version, this says Pot Belly Sandwich Works. And they have a great app. And I order the little skinny-size turkey on wheat. And then they've got these things called voodoo chips. Got a little kick to them. And ⁓ it's about five. For the entirety of production. You ought to be doing that. Now, when you get done with that schedule in production, I understand it shifts consistently. You need to be updating that thing multiple, multiple times a week, but it is still incredibly valuable for keeping things moving, to see very clearly a two-week look ahead, to be proactive with your in-house labor, with communicating to trade partners what's coming up, with making sure materials are all where they need to be. Five minutes from four minutes from my office. So it's a quick little lunch that I tend to do a decent amount of times. One of my favorite parts of that is I do it enough where the manager of Potbelly usually next to my little bag at the pickup is a cup. Now, did I get a soft drink or a pop, as some of you say? No, I do not. But he knows after a while that I was asking, Hey, can I get a cup for water? Hey, can I get a cup for water? Take that same frame of mind and apply it to a design and development schedule. When are we going to have what's our goal schedule wise to have that first iteration of the design completed? When are we going to have that initial rough first draft of your scope of work completed? When are we going to aim to have some of these key selections made? Create a design and development schedule. And then one day I saw it next to him. I said, Hey, I didn't order ⁓ soft drink or anything. He goes, I know, but I know you like to get water, so there you go. ⁓ I love that moment. I felt seen, I felt known, I felt, ooh, that is some good customer service. And I share that because I was getting a drink and because the little things matter. See people, pay attention to them. Here's another I'll get back to our main topic. I sent my our younger two, ⁓ And start walking projects through that. That is idea number one of reducing the amount of time it takes from going from signed design development agreement to signed contract. Side note: if you're not doing any design development, you should join the VIP club. We talk about it a lot there, and you have access to the charging for design and project development course that is part of the VIP Club. End little commercial. Number two, set. Kids, Calvin and Annie, they do piano lessons with Pang Hampton. And Pang is an intense piano teacher. She pushes them hard. ⁓ she does not like us to miss our weekly meetings. She kind of memorizes our schedule so we can't ever wiggle out of them. And she does an excellent job. ⁓ both of the kids are are really growing in their piano lessons. And I'm sometimes texting her, kind of wrestling with, hey, I don't think we can make it this week. Maybe we could do this day or that day. And for the first time the other day in years and years of piano lessons, other than maybe a little conversation here and there, I texted after it and I said, Pang, thank you so, so much for the effort that you put in. Every time I drop the kids off, they're kind of grumbly, like, why do I have to do this? And they always leave it in a great mood. They're improving tremendously. She pushes them, she has good high standards. And Clear expectations. Let the client know as they embark on the design and project development process that your goal before a hammer arrives and hits the job site is to have all of the design, all of the made major decisions, most all of the selections made before we start. And the reason you do that, especially when you're explaining it to people, is for their I said thank you to her. And I thought, shame on you, Kyle. You hardly ever thank her for the work that she's doing. So let that be a reminder. Make sure people are being seen. Ooh, okay. All right. ⁓ don't take on too many projects. Back to one of my favorite words, capacity. Capacity. When you are putting projects into production. Benefit. It benefits everybody, but for their benefit, you want to take a remodeling client and elegantly lead them through the process where they have a wonderful, some might even say remarkable experience with you. And the way that you have learned, in order to do that, a lot of work needs to happen in the design and project development phase. Yes, there are people who put off decisions and It is very common for you to really be thinking about your capacity. ⁓ As much as I want to start that kitchen project, we cannot start that next week. We need to wrap up the three, make more progress and wrap up two of the ones that we're on right now before we open up a whole nother job site. That is a common thing that you're wrestling with and strategizing and thinking about as a remodeler, correct? Ooh, I gave a pause, hoping that you nodded your head there. Put a bunch of allowances in there, and yeah, we'll figure that out as we go. Or I don't have time to get into the details, I gotta just get it going. And that's where a lot of fires happen, figuratively speaking, hopefully. That's where a lot of fires happen. That's where a lot of frustration happens. That's where, ⁓ crap, we finally decided on a tile and it's back ⁓ back ordered. All kinds of those things happen. So we have to be careful ⁓ with that, and we need to set clear expectations for their benefit. Rarely do I hear remodelers who are that thoughtful with paying attention to their capacity when it comes to design and project development. They tend to take on too many of these projects and design development at once. Where sometimes it might be wise to say, so excited to move into design development. We're usually working on about four of them at any given time. We're going to be wrapping up one of them in the next 10 days. We want this project to be on time, to be on budget, ⁓ for you to enjoy the process, and that's why we do it. That's item number two. So we are going to start your design development process ⁓ two weeks from now, the week of blah, blah, blah. In the meantime, I am going to give you a few tasks to kind of get things moving. Pay attention to your capacity with design development, because what I just explained there actually will lead to a faster time frame in design development versus I've taken on too many. We're barely kind of keeping up, I'm barely moving the ball forward on each of them. So make sure you're not taking on too many projects in design development so that you can keep them moving solidly. All right, that was the fifth idea. Sixth idea. Give them three fixture styles, not 30. That keeps things moving. I'm watching my ⁓ wife, Sarah, and our designer Kara, who works for Renovations Unlimited. They're doing our bathroom ⁓ remodel here in the fall. Late sum late summer, fall. And I'm watching as Kara elegantly leads Sarah through some of these fixtures and tile options. Kara could absolutely show her dozens and dozens of options, but Kara is wisely showing her a small handful of options. And Sarah is plenty thrilled with the options in front of her because Kara's already selected them based on what they've talked about. And it is leading to Sarah not being overwhelmed and making it easier for her to select different items. We did get a little funky with our two faucets. ⁓ they got these like little dial things on the left and right. We're kind of excited about it. Three fixture styles, not 30. Five tile options, not 37. Pay attention to your clients, their style, what they're selecting. And maybe aim to not overwhelm them with a big pile of options, 20 links to different things. Lead them through by giving them a small handful of options. That was number six. Number seven, use Loom slash Zoom clips. ⁓ they do very similar things. We actually just I've been a Loom user where it records your screen and your audio at the same time and your video at the same time. I've used Loom for years and years and years and years. And we realized the other day, a couple months ago, that Zoom Clips works just as well. It's very quick to record. It is very easy to get the recording and to send the link to folks. And we thought, huh, maybe instead of spending $20 a piece on a Loom subscription every month times three or three team members, we can just use Zoom that we're already using. And we have now we're not spending $60 a month on Loom and it's already part of Zoom. Pay attention. As a side note, pay attention to all these subscriptions that you're signed up for. Because that Loom thing, $60 a month times 12 months is $720. I did that in my head, by the way. Is $720. Hello, if I if you if you handed me, hey Kyle, I'll either give you this seven hundred and twenty dollars or you can continue to lo use Loom every month instead of transitioning over to something you're already paying for that does the same thing. I would be like, ⁓ $720, please. Pay attention to your subscriptions. But use Loom or use Zoom clips and record updates you're making to the design. ⁓ hey, I had a question as I'm pulling together the scope of work. Are you guys wanting to do this or this? Hey, I know we talked about ⁓ and you were kind of still deciding between these things. I wanted to show you what this kind of looks like. I updated in the design schedule. Shoot me back a note and let me know. That kind of quick iterations, that kind of quick communication, showing them the options, even in between the meetings that you have booked, can keep a project moving through design development, which is the whole point of what we're talking about here. I wonder if you've got a good idea yet. It might be one of the ideas I've shared. It might be one of the quick little rabbit trails that I waltzed down. It might be even that whole, hey, how are you doing? Have you checked in on yourself in a while? How do we reduce cycle time? And then the last one is something called a budget roadmap. A budget roadmap. One of the things that our peer group members are enjoying. ⁓ there's five peer groups that we have peak and elevate and ignite and thrive and soar. See, they're all kind of related to remodeler on the rise. ⁓ on Friday mornings, we send a quick little email to all of our peer group members called the Friday five. Five minutes, one great idea. And it's from one of our peer group members amongst our full peer group roster, if you will. And one of the first ones that we shared was from Audra with LTD Builder. She's part of the Peak Peer Group. And part of the way that she's moving clients through design and selections and trade partner proposals, as she's doing that, and as you experience this too, the budget changes. And what she wanted to do was she wanted to give clients a clearer way to see. Why this range went from here to here to now here to here, and where those changes have have come from. It avoids confusion, it avoids some frustration, and it makes sure you can see it clearly. She developed something called the budget roadmap. And it simply says, when we're at this stage, here was the range, here's the update. Now instead of 200 to 240, we're actually between 230 and 250. Because we have narrowed down the selections, we've got our trade partner proposals coming in, and we decided to do the following. And then the next little line says this project is now at 240 to 2250, 255. Because we've decided to do this and this. Just a quick little summary. It just shows the roadmap step by step of how a budget has kind of gone from this to this to this. It's a really nice approach. I think it is a nice way to walk people through. The design and project development side of things and ⁓ keep the energy high. So there's a bunch of ideas. I would be curious if you could just take a minute to think through the ideas you heard. And I'm just gonna pause for 10 seconds. Well, that's how long 10 seconds is, by the way. I'm gonna pause for 10 seconds and let you think through what is one of the ideas I shared that you are gonna do something with. That was 10 seconds. ⁓ and I bet you you got an idea. If you didn't think of an idea yet, just pause the podcast or the video you're watching. ⁓ and shoot, shoot me a note. A lot of you probably have my email address, Kyle at remodelersontherize.com. Or my cell phone. You share that on your podcast? Sure, why not? 517-902-8450. Let me know what your takeaway from today's episode is and if this was helpful. All right, my friends. Keep being remodels on the rise. What that means is you do the fundamentals well. You know your numbers. You have a marketing plan. You really hone your sales process and your design development process, like we're talking about today. You take being a leader seriously. You don't say, ⁓ I'm kind of a crappy leader. No, you say, I am a growing leader. This is what I'm doing to stay proactive with talking to my employees. This is how I'm leading this employee who's having a struggle right now. This is how I'm developing out my trade partners. You are a ⁓ Growing leader. Those are some of the things that ⁓ that lead to a great Remodeler on the Rise. Not sure when this one's going to get published, but ⁓ baby, August 11th and 12th. I said 11th, 12th, it might be the 10th or 11th. Go to Remodelersonthrise.com, click on the Rise Conference. The Rise Conference is coming up here in Michigan. ⁓ if you need a little jolt of inspiration and motivation and clarity, come join your remodeling ⁓ friends up in Michigan in early August. Have a wonderful day. Tell your significant other you love them. Reach out to that friend or child or family member and say something nice to them. See ya.