 I think what's so interesting here is how nimble they were and how willing they were to risk in a completely different materiality as a result of the availability issues that they were encountering. They weren't simply frozen in their tracks. Welcome to the Smarter Building Materials Marketing Podcast, helping you find better ways to grow leads, sales, and outperform your competition. All right, everybody. Welcome to Smarter Building Materials Marketing, where we believe your online presence should be your best salesperson. I am Zach Williams, alongside or right across from Beth Popnikov, and today we've got a great show lined up for you. You know, every year we partner with the Farnsworth Group to do a building products customer guide, which basically means we do a bunch of research, we catalog all that data, and we put it in the form of a document and a big event where we bring on some of the best people in the industry, as well as actual audiences that you all target, architects, builders, contractors, et cetera, and share with you insights that we've found. And so in today's show, we've got a really cool show lined up for you. We're going to be taking findings from an actual panel that Beth and I held and bringing you excerpts from that to share insights about what we've seen and heard about the industry. Specifically, we interviewed at one point, I think it was a panel of a builder, an architect, or an architect-ish. We'll talk about that here in a second, and a contractor, and we asked them questions about what they saw in the industry, what was changing, how manufacturers can be smart about marketing to them, and want to bring you those insights today and talk about how you can take those findings, those learnings, and apply them to your business this next year. I mean, anytime you can hear directly from your customers, that's valuable, right? So it's one thing to hear it from us. You trust us. We appreciate that. But there's nothing like hearing it directly from the people that you're targeting, selling, marketing to. And I think, remind me who it was, Zach, but I think the contractor was actually on a job site. Oh, yeah. We convinced him to take time out from his actual job site while participating in our panel, which we, like, over the top appreciated, but if that's not, like, on the job training or, like, direct from the horse's mouth or however you want to say that, I mean, it was just, it was awesome. It was very meta. Yeah, it was very meta. It was very meta. I'm a contractor, and here's how I can prove it. Here are my credentials. Well, one of the trends from the last year is that everyone is slam busy. Yeah, exactly. He literally had to be on a job site in order to be part of our panel, which makes sense because it was the middle of the workday, but still. Right. Yeah, it was moderated by Mark Mitchell, who always brings great insights, who brought his great industry experience, asked really good questions. And so I'm excited. I'm excited to be able to present to our listeners today some of the best and pieces from the interview. That's great. Cool. All right, let's get into the first bit here. Yeah, let's do it. How have you seen sourcing change? So I'd like to start with David, David, you know, are you hearing anything from architects? You know, the architect to me, you know, the client comes to them and says, I'd like you to design this for me and maybe, you know, parameters, location, budget, whatever, what their ideal of a successful project design would be. The architect starts putting it together and all of a sudden, you know, there's, and I'm just thinking that is the architect, I'm wondering if he doesn't really know about it until all of a sudden the general contractor and the subcontractors are coming back saying, you know, those windows that we wanted, well, you know, they're going to take two more months than we thought to get. And so, so I'm thinking about sourcing, not from all the ridiculous price increases we're seeing, but from just simply, where can I get things? So, so, David, what have you, have you seen things or heard things from architects about, you know, how, how they're dealing with this? Yeah, absolutely. I think it's a, it's a really big challenge that makes construction and the specifying process in general a lot more complicated. I think that architects and designers and builders, everyone throughout the entire process, everyone's trying to be resourceful and come up with the best possible design solution given certain constraints, you know, what's our budget, you know, what's the intent, you know, what's going to last a long time. And I think that, you know, architects have never really confronted the industries, never really confronted this sort of complexity and this extra challenge, like this extra constraint as it were on like, how do we get things built? And I think it's really stretching architects. You know, I think a lot of architects, I'm not quite sure what the the the stat is, but I think, you know, quite often it's like, you know, 65 to 80 percent of their specs are copied from previous projects. You know, there's an architecture firm where I stop by and they have one box and it's like the partner approved finishes, right? Like we use these tiles, like we use this paint and now all of a sudden the partner's tiles are no longer available. What do we do? So I think it's it's it's made something that was already hard and there weren't good resources for even harder. And I think a lot of architects are really scrambling. They're looking for good advice wherever they can find it online from the subs, from the GC, even from the owners at some point. So like I think everyone is really working hard to try and find not even the best product or the cheapest product, but just something they can get to keep things moving because, you know, having your 200 unit condo tower held up in extra months, the carrying cost of that is is immense, right? Way more than just, you know, one or two change orders if that's your bottleneck. So yeah, it's just a whole new level of complexity to project management. I love David. He's awesome. Man, anytime he talks, I listen. I'm just I'm just going to be honest. He's really, really good. Yeah. Yeah. I remember being in that session or I think you are kind of on the sidelines because Mark was leading it and just like you aren't looking at each other going like, like David is so, so, so smart. You know, isn't really good. But you know, I think I think this is important here, Beth, because like we're all tired of talking about availability because it's not a fun thing to talk about. It's really not. But it's something that as, you know, David kind of hinted at this is like people want you to be more forthcoming. They want you to be transparent. And the more transparent you can provide actually can be a value prop to your business that you're willing to be, you know, a partner, if you will, to his architects too, right? Yeah, exactly. In the same lines with with supply issues and with availability issues. One thing we've seen is that the audience and the channel is trying new products because lack of availability, either supply issues and or the cost of things has risen so much. People are trying new products because some things that were previously more affordable are now more expensive. And we're going to play a quick clip for you. Quick clip. Try to say that five times fast. Quick clip for you where Bill, who's a contractor, talks about trying different products because of things that have changed over the last year in reference to supply as well as cost. Let's play that quick clip. The other thing and David brought this up to is we've now fully cycled on framing the materials. We built with wood prior to COVID. We went into the steel business when wood escalated and went so high. Now steel is at three times what it was 15, 18 months ago. Now we're back to building with wood because we've seen some relaxation in the random length crisis on dimensional lumber. So, you know, we're still getting kicked through a lot of different doors right now and each day is a new challenge. Yeah. So, so Bill, you bring up a point where I try to tell manufacturers, you know, if let's say wood is a challenge and you thought that people should residential builders should build with steel frames. Now may be a good time to talk to them. Where in the past they maybe didn't want to talk to you, you know, now may be a good time. And so, so if I'm tell me if I'm correct here. So my thinking is that when you're facing a shortage of something or a or a significant price increases that you are open to not just alternative sources of supply, but alternative ways of doing things. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. We've had to and, you know, builders have a reputation for being a laggard industry, not moving along very quickly with new processes and new technologies. But, you know, when you when your income, your daily income is being jeopardized by the inability to move projects forward because there was an endless supply of wood, two before and all of a sudden there's a supply of two before, but there are three to four times what they cost. We tend to turn in and hang up our laggard belt and try to figure out ways to do things do things differently in order to adapt. I mean, I think what's so interesting here is how nimble they were and how willing they were to risk in a completely different materiality as a result of availability issues that they were encountering. They weren't simply frozen in their tracks. And I think of all of those in the channel, contractors typically have the worst reputation for lack of flexibility or being willing to try a new product. And what we've seen is for one reason or another, COVID, they simply have been so willing to adapt over the last 18 to 24 months. They haven't been just stuck where they've always been, but they've tried different solutions. And a lot of them have found significant success. And we didn't just hear that from Bill. We saw that as well in the feedback that we got from the customers that we interviewed as part of the building product customer guide as a whole as well. I mean, one thing we heard too and saw this from the data, Beth, from that from the research was that people were willing to try new products more today than ever before. The last last two years specifically, people were trying more new products and not only trying new products, but how they're finding them, how they're sourcing them. Even like, I think it might have been Bill or the the builder who mentioned, hey, I bought stuff online. I've never done it before because it was the only way I could get product. You know? Yeah. And so many of them are reporting that not only are they trying new products, but they also like the new product. So even when their previous brands that they were maybe loyal to for years come back and stock, they're just simply not switching back. So really exciting opportunity or really scary, depending on which side of the fence you land on there. So we got a dicey one next, little dicey, little spicy, little uncomfortable. He asks this question to Matt, who's a builder, asks him, hey, you know, what is your biggest disappointment with your suppliers? Which I mean, it's a very direct question. Very mark. I know it's very, very mark. He's not not pulling any punches, but, you know, let's let's quickly listen to that response and a little bit of the conversation that happens around that. There's been quite a few, I'm not sure what the biggest is. I think so quickly, I believe so many people panicked and they almost immediately quit holding pricing for more than a day. And so that really threw us for a loop. That that was huge because then some of the projects that had been post upon that I was trying to get going, I'm saying, hey, guys, this is what it costs. But none of my suppliers will hold pricing. They won't give me 30 days anymore. They won't even give me a week. So that was that was huge. And, you know, it's a little scary for the owner to we're both in a tight spot, right? Yes. Yes. And so so your thing was was number one thing was pricing. And Bill, what about you? What's been your biggest disappointment or frustration with? I'll just say, you know, suppliers that you've had a history with, you know, it could be a siding company. It could be a dealer. Yeah, probably on the labor side. Just talked with a fellow who was building a house today up here in Flagstaff and his normal crew, drywall crew of 10 is now reduced down to two. And so I think the problem of these trades weren't in the same predicament. We were trying to hire really at all skill levels within our company well before the pandemic. We've only been able to hire administrative help essentially the last two years. We can't get anybody that's really willing to move regardless of what we say and any ads or any interviews from one company to another. And I know the tradespeople are having those same issues right now. So not only are we seeing slippage in jobs due to these extended build cycles. You know, a few months ago, we had to stage the trade because we didn't want more than one or two trades in a house at one time because of COVID. Now that everybody is back to this new normal, we could pack as many trades in there as we can, and we can't get them because they're so dang busy with everybody else. Well, Beth, what do you think about this? I mean, I think it's telling that Matt starts it off by saying there were several disappointments. And he just had to pick one. But I mean, I think if nothing else, we've all just felt so compassionate for tradesmen and tradeswomen over the last 24 months. And it's just really put into this very perfect anecdote here. He's like, I can't even get pricing for more than a week out. So he's bidding on projects. He's having to make commitments for his own timelines and budgets that he's not sure manufacturers are going to be able to uphold. That is incredibly scary. There's a ton of risk there. And probably his business took a big hit on one end or the other. At some point, you get it wrong. So I just think it's interesting. It'll be interesting to see how the continued demand for the construction industry and continued supply chain issues over the next 18 months plays out in scenarios like this, where it's not always, I can't get product, but you can't commit to what a product that you do have costs. That puts a lot of strain on relationship, a lot of strain on project timelines, and strain all the way down the channel of relationships, right? Not only between contractor, builder and manufacturer, but also between the end user. What do you think, Zach? Well, I think the other thing that's interesting here is the fact that they're talking about not only supply issues and communication, but just what is happening on the job site as a whole. I mean, you're talking about the amount of people working. There's this, you know, as we call the great resignation. The lack of labor in the market is impacting people as well as the lack of products, imagining having 10 people in your crew. And now there's only two like you talked about. I think, you know, for manufacturers, the takeaway here is that the sensitivity to the multiple different types of problems that are happening on the job site is not only being sensitive to that, but also trying to provide solutions. You know, the more you can speak to and provide value and insight around the problems that your audience is dealing with, the more valued the partner that you're going to be seen as, which is ultimately what we all want to be, right? This final segment here we're going to share with you is a question that got asked by the audience to the panel about frustrations. What can manufacturers do to help the frustrations on the part of the audience, aka an architect to build their contract or whatever it might be? Grant asks this question. Let's listen to the question as well as the answer. Mark, there's a question coming in as we're talking about availability. I want to go back to the previous question. This is kind of the opposite. Maybe Matt's starting with you and then moving over to you. With availability, whether something's on back orders, isn't available, whether you're on allocation. What can the supplier do? What can the manufacturer do to reduce your frustrations and make the experience as good as possible, given those circumstances? Matt. Communication, I think, you know, would be huge because it seems that sometimes it seems like, you know, it's just a built-in excuse, right? We just blame COVID and it's not here. It's the pandemic's fault. You know, we'll let you know when it gets here. It's not on this week's truck. It'll probably be on next week's truck. But if not, I bet the next one, right? So that's pretty frustrating. This sounds like when we're little kids in the car, we'll be there in five minutes, five more minutes, five more minutes. Absolutely, absolutely. So that's what we're living with. Communication would be very helpful. So to follow up on that, what type of communication? How do you want them to communicate? Just be honest and upfront. You know, I know that they really have no idea when the stuff is coming, right? And I understand the issue, right? If the auto manufacturers with all the money that they're generating, waiting on chips, I understand we're going to have to wait on things like bathtubs and trusses, right? But again, if they get prepared as much or when they see it coming that, you know, hey, we're about to run out of these. Like you were saying earlier, I've got suppliers I've been loyal to for the entire time I've been in business. If they could, you know, give us a heads up, say, hey, this is coming, be prepared. That rounds out the segment. I think it's really interesting and, you know, this is a shameless plug to you all. If you want to listen to the entire interview, as well as get the entire product guy, which is, gosh, what is it, over 100 pages, Beth? So the data is over 100 pages, and then there is a report with actionable insights, takeaways, marketing strategies, recommendations for going after your audience and what your audience wants from you in 2022. You can go to venvio.com slash 2022 to access it. Yeah, it's really, really great data. Again, I'm plugging it because we believe in it and you get access to all of that stuff that Beth mentioned. But we hope you found this content information valuable. If you want more of this content, you want to subscribe to our podcast, make sure you go to venvio.com slash podcast to subscribe and get more. Until next time, I am Zach Williams, across the table from Beth Popney Glove. Thanks, everybody.