The Better Way

The Better Way – Season 7 Ep. 6:

Welcome to “The Better Way: A podcast by Buildertrend.” Here you’ll learn to simplify and establish processes that will make meaningful changes to your company and help you achieve your goals. Because there’s a better way. The Buildertrend way. Tune in this season as Bre Farris, customer support quality control specialist, chats with our experts as well as industry leaders to help teach best practices for successfully implementing software and getting your team on board.

On the final episode of this season, Bre is sitting down with Zach Wojtowicz, director of customer success and co-host of our other podcast, “The Building Code.” Zach is sharing everything you need to know about the valuable resources Buildertrend has to offer for ensuring business success with tech.

Check us out:

https://buildertrend.com/

Schedule a demo:

https://buildertrend.com/demo/

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Twitter: https://twitter.com/buildertrend

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The Better Way – Season 7 Ep. 5:

Welcome to “The Better Way: A podcast by Buildertrend.” Here you’ll learn to simplify and establish processes that will make meaningful changes to your company and help you achieve your goals. Because there’s a better way. The Buildertrend way. Tune in this season as Bre Farris, customer support quality control specialist, chats with our experts as well as industry leaders to help teach best practices for successfully implementing software and getting your team on board.

On this episode, Bre is back again with Joe Christensen and Adam Shaeffer, co-founders of Cardinal Crest Homes. Their team averages about 10 to 15 homes per year with revenue of $12 million to $15 million.  They’re here to share insights on selections and how they use them to make the process easier for their team and clients.

Check us out:

https://buildertrend.com/

Schedule a demo:

https://buildertrend.com/demo/

Follow us on social:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/buildertrend/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/buildertrend/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/buildertrend

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/buildertrend/

The Better Way – Season 7 Ep. 4:

Welcome to “The Better Way: A podcast by Buildertrend.” Here you’ll learn to simplify and establish processes that will make meaningful changes to your company and help you achieve your goals. Because there’s a better way. The Buildertrend way. Tune in this season as Bre Farris, customer support quality control specialist, chats with our experts as well as industry leaders to help teach best practices for successfully implementing software and getting your team on board.

On this episode, Bre is back with Joe Christensen and Adam Shaeffer, co-founders of Cardinal Crest Homes.  Joe and Adam’s team has built over 100 homes over about a decade, and they’re here to share their scheduling insights and an overview of the template they use to keep projects on track.

Check us out:

https://buildertrend.com/

Schedule a demo:

https://buildertrend.com/demo/

Follow us on social:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/buildertrend/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/buildertrend/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/buildertrend

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/buildertrend/

The Better Way – Season 7 Ep. 3:

Welcome to “The Better Way: A podcast by Buildertrend.” Here you’ll learn to simplify and establish processes that will make meaningful changes to your company and help you achieve your goals. Because there’s a better way. The Buildertrend way. Tune in this season as Bre Farris, customer support quality control specialist, chats with our experts as well as industry leaders to help teach best practices for successfully implementing software and getting your team on board.

On this episode, Bre is talking about the principles of change management and how to implement them with Paul Atherton, business coach at The Breakthrough Academy. Paul started his career managing large construction processes and has since devoted his time to helping other pros in the industry achieve and exceed their biggest business goals.

Check us out:

https://buildertrend.com/

Schedule a demo:

https://buildertrend.com/demo/

Follow us on social:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/buildertrend/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/buildertrend/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/buildertrend

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/buildertrend/

The Better Way – Season 7 Ep. 2:

 Welcome to “The Better Way: A podcast by Buildertrend.” Here you’ll learn to simplify and establish processes that will make meaningful changes to your company and help you achieve your goals. Because there’s a better way. The Buildertrend way. Tune in this season as Bre Farris, customer support quality control specialist, chats with our experts as well as industry leaders to help teach best practices for successfully implementing software and getting your team on board.

On this episode, Bre is chatting with Dan Lipari, director of customer success strategy at Buildertrend. You'll learn what a Buildertrend Champion is and why it’s the difference between those who succeed with software and those who don't.

Check us out:

https://buildertrend.com/

Schedule a demo:

https://buildertrend.com/demo/

Follow us on social:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/buildertrend/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/buildertrend/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/buildertrend

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/buildertrend/

The Better Way – Season 7 Ep. 1:

Welcome to “The Better Way: A podcast by Buildertrend.” Here you’ll learn to simplify and establish processes that will make meaningful changes to your company and help you achieve your goals. Because there’s a better way. The Buildertrend way. Tune in this season as Bre Farris, customer support quality control specialist, chats with our experts as well as industry leaders to help teach best practices for successfully implementing software and getting your team on board.

Bre kicks off this season with Joe Christensen and Adam Shaeffer, co-founders of Cardinal Crest Homes.  Joe and Adam have been Buildertrend users for years, and their team has become the gold standard for what it's like to get the most out of our platform. This episode is all about learning methods for getting your team to use and love technology.

Check us out:

https://buildertrend.com/

Schedule a demo:

https://buildertrend.com/demo/

Follow us on social:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/buildertrend/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/buildertrend/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/buildertrend

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/buildertrend/

Welcome to “The Better Way: A podcast by Buildertrend.” Here you’ll learn to simplify and establish processes that will make meaningful changes to your company and help you achieve your goals. Because there’s a better way. The Buildertrend way. Tune in this season as Marge Haley, senior manager of customer success, chats with Buildertrend experts on how to master takeoff and ace pre-project planning.

Marge Haley and David Livingston, estimating and takeoff specialist, kick off this season with insight into how takeoff software improves the estimating experience for our builders. Say goodbye to hours of manual calculations riddled with mistakes, say hello to guaranteed accurate estimates.

How can Buildertrend Takeoff improve the estimating experience for construction teams?

David: With any cloud-based software, the unique advantage is you could do it from anywhere. You could be on a flight, if you have wifi, you could be in a hotel, or whatever the case might be, and not only yourself, but multiple parties involved can be running takeoff measurements and quantity calculations all at the same time. And the beautiful part about that is all the effort you're putting in as a team through the takeoff system is automatically populating an estimate in Buildertrend, which then you can use for both internal budget tracking purposes as well as an external contract.

How do the new Buildertrend estimating enhancements work with our takeoff software?

David: It works out really well. Probably what I'm the most excited about is the ability to not only send over takeoff data, but then what you can do with that data once it gets to the estimate. We have line item actions to be able to create a bid package directly off of quantity calculations. We have the ability to create purchase orders directly off of line items. We can invoice our clients off of those line items. And ultimately everything we're doing, whether you were in the old version of our estimate or now that you're in the new version, all of that's consolidated in a budget report based on your cost code structure. So really, in my opinion, the addition of Takeoff to the software creates a perfect harmony, so to speak, of our estimating experience from the very beginning all the way through the very end of accounting and job costing.

LINKS AND MORE

Related content:

Read this blog post to find out the 4 reasons you should be using takeoff software.

Schedule a demo to see Buildertrend Takoff in action.

Listen to “The Building Code,” Buildertrend’s biweekly podcast exploring people, technology and innovation across the construction industry.

“The Better Way” a podcast by Buildertrend: Subscribe and stream all five seasons on your favorite listening app now.

Follow us on social:

Instagram:

@Buildertrend

Facebook:

@Buildertrend

We want to hear from you! Reach out to us at [email protected].

Welcome to “The Better Way: A podcast by Buildertrend.” Here you’ll learn to simplify and establish processes that will make meaningful changes to your company and help you achieve your goals. Because there’s a better way. The Buildertrend way. Tune in this season as Marge Haley, senior manager of customer success, chats with Buildertrend experts on how to master Takeoff and ace pre-project planning.

On today’s episode, Marge Haley and David Livingston, estimating and takeoff specialist, discuss how using takeoff software can help you win more bids in less time. Stop relying on someone else to run your numbers and go from waiting weeks to just days by running your own takeoffs.

What are some ways that general contractors can benefit from running their own takeoff?

David: I'll give you an example. I spoke to a guy that had a lumber supplier that took six weeks to run a takeoff for him, and he was able to cut it down into one or two days once he learned and developed his understanding of our takeoff system. So, with that time savings, that allows you to sell jobs faster, you can get quotes out to your homeowner faster, and it allows you to get more competitive pricing. So, you're not stuck with one supplier that does your takeoff every single time.

How can general contractors get numbers to their subs quicker using Buildertrend’s estimating tool, Takeoff and Bids feature?

David: Every line item in Buildertrend has the ability to be populated as a bid, and you can choose multiple line items in the estimate to ask pricing for. So, you could ask for a lump sum price for drywall, or you could tell them, "We need 500 sheets. What's your price per sheet to install this?" So basically, using line item actions and using real-time data that's being created and calculated in Takeoff, you can then take those line items from Buildertrend and then line item action them to create bid packages and release those bid packages. Your subs don't have to be active in Buildertrend. It's just like sending out an email.”

LINKS AND MORE

Related content:

Read this blog post to learn about the new and improved Estimate feature.

Learn how to increase your profits with Bids and other financial tools in Buildertrend.

Listen to “The Building Code,” Buildertrend’s biweekly podcast exploring people, technology and innovation across the construction industry.

Follow us on social:

Instagram:

@Buildertrend

Facebook:

@Buildertrend

We want to hear from you! Reach out to us at [email protected].

Welcome to “The Better Way: A podcast by Buildertrend.” Here you’ll learn to simplify and establish processes that will make meaningful changes to your company and help you achieve your goals. Because there’s a better way. The Buildertrend way. Tune in this season as Marge Haley, senior manager of customer success, chats with Buildertrend experts on how to master takeoff and ace pre-project planning.

On today’s episode, Marge Haley and Chloe Hiatt, onsite consultant at Buildertrend, discuss how using templates can improve project efficiency. You’ll learn how to maximize your time spent in Buildertrend by using preset schedules, selections, estimates and more.

Why are templates helpful when using Buildertrend?

Chloe: Templates are a really useful tool that allow our builders to have repeatable processes and consistency in their account. It's having a preset schedule, a preset task list or preset folder structures. It's presetting different elements of the project and different features in Buildertrend, so that they can reuse it and repeat it over and over again. Templates make it so they don't have to build everything from scratch each time.

How can custom home builders benefit from templates?

Chloe: I'm sure our custom home builders are shaking their heads right now thinking, "Oh, there's no way." And I get a ton of pushback just about every time I speak with one. They say, "Well, we're so custom. How can I have a templated schedule?" And I reply, "Well, homes are typically built in a pretty similar way. The elements inside of them may be a bit different and sometimes outside too, but they're typically built in the same fashion." And so, I promise you, if you're listening, you can have a set, standard schedule even if you're a custom home builder.

LINKS AND MORE

Related content:

Watch this webinar to learn how you can save time, energy and effort with templates.

Tune into this episode of “The Building Code” to learn more about improving efficiency with templates.

Listen to “The Building Code,” Buildertrend’s biweekly podcast exploring people, technology and innovation across the construction industry.

Follow us on social:

Instagram:

@Buildertrend

Facebook:

@Buildertrend

We want to hear from you! Reach out to us at [email protected].

Welcome to “The Better Way: A podcast by Buildertrend.” Here you’ll learn to simplify and establish processes that will make meaningful changes to your company and help you achieve your goals. Because there’s a better way. The Buildertrend way. Tune in this season as Marge Haley, senior manager of customer success, chats with Buildertrend experts on how to master takeoff and ace pre-project planning.

On today’s episode, Marge Haley and Tim Curran, onsite consultant at Buildertrend, discuss how mapping out your project schedule sets you up for success – even before day one of the build. Listen in to learn how to start using the Schedule, build good habits and use templates with the feature.

What are some items that builders should put in their schedule to start off with good habits right away?

Tim: Anything that requires a sub or your internal laborers onsite. Things that require days to put together. I see a lot of builders put items like “Order Windows” or “Bob, can you get my coffee please?” Maybe not that one so much, but anything that's more individual task-related, that's kind of a one-off doesn't necessarily need to be a schedule item. That could be a To-Do instead. So, things like framing and those longer kind of schedule items that require either subs onsite or your internal team, that's what you're going to want to as a schedule item, not necessarily the little nitty gritty, do this, do that. That's much better suited for To-Do’s.

Is there a way to see a high-level view of the Schedule in Buildertrend?

Tim: We do have phases in Buildertrend, and a lot of times they're broken down into the phase of the job. So maybe you have a prep and preliminary type phase. Maybe there's an excavation and foundation phase. You can also create your own custom phases. You don't necessarily have to break it down to that level, but phases are a great way to kind of lump together individual schedule items under a broader phase. And then when you actually share the schedule, let's say with your homeowner, you can give them the phase level breakdown as opposed to the individual schedule item view.

LINKS AND MORE

Related content:

Read this blog post to learn how to make project scheduling less tedious.

Read this case study to learn how this builder can take on more projects with an organized schedule.

Listen to “The Building Code,” Buildertrend’s biweekly podcast exploring people, technology and innovation across the construction industry.

Follow us on social:

Instagram:

@Buildertrend

Facebook:

@Buildertrend

We want to hear from you! Reach out to us at [email protected].