How to win more work through proactive tech implementation
In this episode of Built Different, we flew over to Nashville Tennessee, to visit Turner Construction to see how they’ve ingrained technology into every step of their workflow. During our visit, we got the opportunity to chat with VDC regional manager, Gary Chapman and senior VDC manager Cole Milberger all about how they win more work by building trust both internally and externally. During the conversation, we got deep into how Turner uses digital representations of their sites and why you need to get tech involved at the ground floor to see the best results.
What are we talking about in these presentations? We're talking about building
something, right?
Why would you not include some sort of digital representation of the
presentation or the
building you're talking about, right? Anytime you're talking about this project
that doesn't
exist physically, we need to make it exist digitally so we can have a
conversation around it.
It really is just common sense.
Welcome back to Built Different, a podcasting community choosing to approach
innovation differently.
I'm Grant Hagen, I'm Brian Mizorata, and we're on a mission to rewrite the
narrative around what
innovation truly means. Last season we did 12 episodes more focused on the
field.
In this season we packed up our gear, joining teams in site trailers, offices,
and even a few
podcast studios where we focused on the executive level and how innovation is
making an impact
within their organizations. New this season we're introducing live streams to
invite you
to join the conversation. Also, we want to equip you by providing show recaps
from each episode
in our new Built Different download. Think different, be different, and build
different.
Alright, well welcome back to the Build Different podcast powered by drone
employee instruction site. Joined it by my fellow co-host, Mr. Brian Mizorata.
I'm
Grant Hagen. Good to see you guys again. I'm joined with two. Oh man, I don't
even know how
to intro you guys because if I'm being really honest, I feel like I should
probably start by
saying friends first and then colleagues next and then potential co-workers
longer down the
road. We'll figure all that out later. With Gary Chapman and Cole Milberger,
thank you guys for
making the time. We are in their green screen studio. So if you're watching and
not just listening,
we are surrounded by probably 30 different production lights, a $1,200 tripod,
which I didn't know
they made them that expensive, and a good green screen behind us. Yeah, so
thank you guys for
making the trip here. So we didn't come to you, you came to us. That's right.
This is our
world. That's how we roll. This is my first time in Nashville. Brian, first
time too. And he bought
a nice looking cowboy hat the other night. He said he was. He said he was going
to get one.
It's the first thing I did right after the first day. Immediately was jealous
of like I should have
bought one too. But then we can't have the same cowboy hat. Or we could. Or we
could. And we could
wear it then. Well, come back tonight, right? So we'll hold you up to it. We
are in between a
great time out in Nashville. So we're going to have some fun here. So fellas
one, thank you guys
for hosting us. It's super fun. We, Brian and I just feel so lucky to be able
to come out and get
to meet more people where they work. And like I said, we are here in Nashville,
which is just a
really amazing city that you guys are building the skyline for. And it's really
cool to see
what Turner is doing here locally. So this is going to be fun. Yeah, forward to
it.
Well, we are curious to talk about a couple things, mainly in which. So we had
a couple of
Turner folks. Well, we had one person on from Turner. We had Anthony Hartke on
from last season.
And it was awesome because he really talked about what big projects and small
projects kind of
relate to each other and how you can take lessons learned from either, which is
just super fun to
hear. Turner, obviously huge company. If you haven't heard of Turner, then you
may not be on the face
of this planet. But what we're going to talk about today is really just this
idea of how do you
gain executive level buy in to technology? And what does that process look like
Cole and Gary have just an incredible background and who we got to meet more of
their folks on
their team today from that executive level. It is really encouraging. Honestly,
I was taking a ton
of notes and just learning more from Paul, who came in from their office just
to talk to the
VDC team that we were all syncing up with. And that's what we're going to talk
about today.
But before we dive into that, I'd love to get a little bit of your guys's
background for the
folks to know that are tuning in, kind of maybe how long you've been in Turner,
what your roles are,
and then we'll get into some of that stuff specific. So Cole, do you want to
kick us off?
Yeah, love to. So I've been with Turner for past five years or so. I actually
grew up in the
industry. So my father and grandfather architects and they're firm and Hunts
ville, Vama and specialized
in ice rink design. Who does that in the south? I don't know besides my father
and grandfather.
But yeah, just grew up in the industry. So I grew up in CAD. I grew up in the
whole,
you know, just the lingo, everything with it. So when I went to Auburn,
eventually graduated construction management and immediately knew after waning
internships with
Turner, but immediately knew I was coming to Nashville at Turner. And so spent
the past five
years here in Nashville locally and now started as an engineer and now running
our national office
in regards to VDC. And just had a wonderful fun time and strong or hard time as
well in a lot of
ways, but just a great time here with Turner and Nashville building, especially
in the digital
environment and helping our teams with that. Love it. Mr. Geary? Yeah, so kind
of an opposite,
appropriate, really, really opposite, which I think makes us a great team,
right? So I actually
came more from the field up. Current role is our regional VDC manager over
Memphis, Huntsville,
and again, kind of handing off Nashville to Cole. He's been taking that the
last year or so,
doing a great job there. But really our region is called the Mid-South, right?
And it consists of
those three business units. And man, we do everything under the sun when it
comes to building digitally,
right? We, of course, do our BIM coordination. That's got more automated over
the years, really.
So it's allowed us to free it more time to integrate, you know, robotics and
drones and reality
capture and, you know, tracking a lot more than we used to just focus on BIM
coordination. So
started off, you know, doing a lot of survey work in the field, you know, maybe
12 or 13 years ago,
joint Turner about five years ago, and focused more on that integrating
technology role, right?
BIM coordination is what we're going to do. It's going to always be there. It's
going to be our
bread and butter. But as that gets more automated in advance, it frees a lot
more time to integrate
things like, of course, reality capture and drones and partner with companies
like Drone
and Floyd to really get that kicked off the ground. So really the last, say,
three years,
probably pretty heavily. We've been focusing outside of just BIM coordination
and what else
could we do besides just coordinate in 3D that, of course, opens up a lot of
different doors.
Love it. Brian, do you have any thoughts over there? No, I just
just still thinking about kind of a couple things I heard this week and let's
just get into it.
Let's just get into it. Let's just get into it. First, one, do you guys hear
any little buzzing
in here here? It's just mine. I think it's probably my headphones cool. Second,
so the reason we're
out here in Nashville, one, we've talked a lot about the difference between
partners and vendors
on the podcast. I would say our relationship with Turner is clearly more
partner than anything,
probably. You guys help us to find what that looks like. You guys invited us to
come out to
your VDC summit of just your kind of mid-central team. Honestly, it's been
super encouraging to
hear more from your guys' team, how you guys collaborate across the country.
Then again, to
hear from folks in your leadership team really talk and brag on you guys as
individuals and
the team and what work you guys are doing. I want to dive into that a little
bit specifically,
of talk about the relationship that you guys have with your leadership team
here locally in Nashville
and what kind of that's looked like. Give us a little brief history because I
know the story,
but it's fun to when you were telling me earlier today, Gary, about just how
you had to win them
over and to transition a little bit from maybe being a doubter and having it be
the first line item
cut to now being, I can't imagine not having you as a part of some of these
pursuits and not only
that, but also executing the job. Maybe start to use some kind of names, what
your relationship
was and how it started and really where it is now and what you guys have been
able to help with.
I'll take the first stab at it, right? But it really, you mentioned they were
believing in us,
right? But really we brag on our leadership because starting from the bottom up
in the top
down, a lot of people want to convince your superintendents, your field staff,
really in our opinion it takes our leadership pushing that down. And you heard
today from our
general manager, Paul Lawson, and I think he's a fantastic example of how it
used to be. And
you can take someone that really looked at VDC and virtual building and digital
building more of
the sales mode of what we're going to do one day when the technology is here
and taking his
perspective. And now he is like, I mean, you heard it from his own mouth today,
right? He said,
this is how we do business. And that wasn't an easy change. And it takes those
kind of raving
fans and those success stories that can't happen overnight to really change
that mentality from
your leadership because that's not their job. They're not out there in the
boots on the ground,
they're out there winning new work, they're out there making sure that our
people still care
and our people are happy. So it really takes people like Cole and ourself and
our department to put
those use cases in front of them, right? And go to work and try to convince
them that, hey, this is
how we should be building, how we should be operating for a lot of different
reasons. So
it's definitely changed. It took about three or four years, but I think we're
in a good place now
for them to really see not only from us showing them and the technology getting
them excited about
it, right? But they're seeing it actually happen on our projects. They're
hearing superintendents
that are 50 years old that are like, hey, I don't care how we do it, right? But
we need these people
involved in our project all the time every day. So them hearing that over the
years, I think it's
really just kind of put trust in our leadership. And when you have trust in
your leadership, right,
you have a lot of doors that can be opened. And you really are not bottlenecked
to the possibilities
of what you can bring to the table. And that's something I think it's just it
takes time, but we're
there as a company and as a region. And man, it's it's features really bright
for a lot of quick
adoption and technology. And I think it's you heard it today from our team.
Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, there was definitely something I heard actually twice and the two
different people
kind of said it, which was, you know, how did this go from something that was
just used to win work,
but now it's used to do work. And I think that's like a huge milestone shift in
any kind of technology
team, right? Like when the field's mandating it themselves and their projects
is also like a
huge milestone turn. Yeah, I mean, you're hearing from people that don't even
know, probably had
opened a model. I mean, our upper up they they're not in, you know, a 3D model
every day, but but
they know that we need to do it that way every day. And I'm just glad that you
guys got a chance
to hear hear from a few folks outside of VDC today. Yeah, totally. And I think
that the most
encouraging part is that you you can walk away from that conversation and know
that that's not
just something that gets talked about in a presentation. Like you can you can
feel it in the room. I mean,
Cole, like, pretty sure your name, I wasn't keeping it tally, but it was like
probably every other
phrase or statement was like, Oh, man, if Cole isn't there, these the owner was
like, how do we do
this job without, you know, you as an individual and tell me a little bit about
like your kind of
background in that or just like working on that relationship with an exec team,
because you can
come in and kind of have your own preconceived notions of like, Oh, these guys,
they're just
here to use me to be a part of a sales pitch. And then we're never going to
touch that job again
to like, where it is now, where you guys are at and being fully integrated into
a lot of these
teams and needs of what gets the job done. Yeah, absolutely. I think that first
of all,
the biggest thing was having the opportunity to get into the presentations in
the first place,
because like, I mean, we weren't. So actually we were, especially we were only
providing content,
and they weren't even inviting us there. And that was like one of the biggest
milestones that I
think we crossed was making sure that we were in the presentation, because we
were talking earlier
today, you're talking like, you asked the question, what are your clients
asking, like, what are
their expectations when they come to us? Oh, you should be building this way.
And we're like, Oh,
well, well, here's a realistic path. And that starts with the relationship that
you have with
them that starts with, you know, I'm not the BDE person making contact with
them outside of
the presentation beforehand. But once we get to RFP stage, and we're there in
front of them, it's
they're bringing us VDC to the table to the first reaction with the client, and
they will sit down
and have conversation with us. And that's been the biggest, biggest change. I
mean, since day one,
since we've been in the presentations, number one is not only if our client
relations gotten better,
but when they come to it, the clients are also expecting us to do that. And so
it makes it
easier for it to happen because when they see those costs or the non if they
don't cost anything,
it's just something that we're doing already. Whatever it is, when they see it,
it's already
expected. So it helps our field teams, no brainer, it's a thing to do or
and then obviously as well, I'm not going to go in front of the client and
pitch something that
is not possible. Like, that's just not who I am or I feel like Turner is. And
so when we go to
those things for pitching real things, we like to call that Hollywood BIM. I'm
sure a lot of
people have heard that phrase before, but we used to call it pretty BIM pretty
bad. That's the
right term. I think pretty BIM. That's nice. Do you remember, Cole, like the
first time you got
kind of asked to be a part of some of like the presentation or just even the
pursuit of product?
Because like, I can imagine for the folks that are listening, they're like, oh,
well, we never
get asked to be a part of it. Like, we're the ones trying to kind of beg and,
you know, get in front
of projects early enough to show what we can do. But like, I think that's a
really important milestone
that you touched on is like, hey, when you get asked to be a part of some of
these pursuits and
projects really early on to help communicate where VDC can be helpful, like
give some encouragement
to folks of maybe that aren't in that position. And maybe what you like, you
were able to kind of
do and see to get to that point to help in the pursuit phase. Yeah. So first of
all, I forgot
this part of my background. I started off as a disc jockey way back in 2007. So
now I'm on edge
to know what that and how that is going to fit in here. I know, I know. But my
point is, or what
I'm going with this is I've been in wide entertainment for like the past 10, 15
years. And so putting
on a production is like every part of the day of my life. Sitting here with you
guys and talking
to you guys, not in a bad way, but it's a production to me. Like, I'm serious.
I want to put forth all
my effort to it, etc. Same thing when I go in these presentations with our
clients, with our people,
like the same thing. And so, you know, the biggest conversation, the biggest
thing I talk to,
talk to my guys about is take everything with it as a presentation. Always go
with that use case
and always talk about why this is important to being a builder. I mean, we
preach that today as
all VDC is about building and being a builder and being a digital builder. But
taking that to the
client in front of them, you know, they're going to learn that and love that.
And that's the biggest
thing that like, you know, of course, Paul's worked great with us and we've had
request Paul, Paul's
had stuff back to us, you know, every single time we're getting ready for a
presentation,
he's looking at me. And even though we've VDC's killing it here, he's looking
at me and like,
make sure you, you know, relate it. Why is this important? And I mean, he's
directed me and again,
it's the same conversation back and forth. I think one thing that stood out,
one of the first
times I've met you was just this idea of how you really brought up this kind of
phrase that's always
stuck with me is like, hey, we're using this to build trust. And the things
that our team is really
helping kind of narrate or I guess functionally equip our teams with is to
build trust with the
client, like to show them what we can do and why we're choosing to do that. And
I mean,
did you kind of see that correlation from production to like building trust
with these
clients that you like gotten to work with? Absolutely. But I just want to point
this out,
it starts with trust internally, first, not like even departmentalize, but like
, we had to build
our folks first. We had to reach Paul, we had to reach John Gromos, our senior
vice president. We had
to reach our individual teams that were completely negating here because if
they weren't our champions,
if our general superintendent that was hopping in that presentation with me and
didn't already
love working with me, like he wouldn't be able to volleyball back in front of
it,
volleyball with me during presentations. So it's all about building that
internal trust and then
taking that to the presentations with you because the clients see that. And
when the client see a
six-year-old superintendent saying this cold guy's a rock star, you don't need
to listen to what he
said because he like changed my job or the VDC department or whatever changed
my job and is 63
year old is saying that you can see that he has that trust in his eyes. That's
where the trust
comes into and that's where the client gets it is because they see it from us
internally.
And that's one of the things everybody's always looking for is that team
dynamic.
Yeah. Does this team actually know each other?
Exactly.
They're just a group of people that's pitching this project to us.
Yeah. And that you walk into a room, you can tell that really quickly, right?
And
it's such an interesting point for you to bring up because I think a lot of the
folks that tune
in and listen to this are like, gosh, like I'm only just seen as this transact
ional person to help
print something or to help install something or to help solve a problem and
then to be moving on
down the road. What do you feel like has helped to build that trust with the
team?
It's a hard, well, I heard what you said earlier, Gary's like, yeah, it just
takes patience and time.
Right? Like we know that.
Yeah. I mean, I look at it really by breaking it down, we're more simplified,
right? What are we
talking about in these presentations? We're talking about building something,
right?
So why would we not utilize tools and talent in our department specifically
to create a digital representation of what we're about to talk about, right? It
's almost
why would you not include some sort of digital representation of the
presentation or the building
you're talking about, right? So I think it's me and Cole kind of showed our own
team, like you
mentioned earlier, just showing our capabilities and what we can bring to the
table that caught the
attention of really everyone. And it almost made sense of if we're going into
in front of a client
or really in front of anyone, they don't have to be a client, it can be our
trade partners, it can
be anytime you're talking about this project that doesn't exist physically, we
need to make it
exist digitally so we can have a conversation around it, do different types of
analysis around
it. So it really is just common sense just to work and build a digital
representation,
whether it's logistics plans, whether it's different studies, things that we do
every day on projects
for to win new work. And not only are we doing it to win new work, we're
showing the client,
we're coming there with that team dynamic and that synergy that we're coming
into the presentation
with that they see that we are a team and we're not just talking about
something, we're going to
win this job and then we're going to go out there and we're going to use these
same tools to make
the project better and they see they don't just hear our project executives or
anyone else talking
about, hey, we have a VDGC department back in the office that will help with
this, they see that
those people there in the presentation and it again, it just builds that I
think that synergy and trust
with the client along with our other team. I heard a quote once and somewhat
relatable to this is
people don't remember what you did for them, they remember how you make them
feel. And when you
think about trust and setting the tone in just like these presentations and
pursuits, obviously
you're up against competition and you guys have different ways of approaching
the project and the
way that you visualize it and communicate it to them but you're really evoking
this sense of trust
with them and hopefully it is what your team is focusing on is like really the
core of what it
is that you're going to go out and execute on is really derivative of your guys
' team's ability
to give that as an opportunity to talk about. We talk about all the time how
project teams
don't necessarily or VDC teams don't really get involved early enough in the
project but you guys
are clearly setting that tone very early. We're not going to chase projects
that we don't want
to be able. We have different types of expertise and locally we have different
types of clients
that we want to work for and they want to work for us and so when we go into
these presentations
and these interviews, we're a big company, we don't need to win every single
job. We're going to go
in there knowing that if we do win this job it's going to be fun and we're
going to be able to
the best we can and we have the people like Cole, we have our pre-con team, we
have our estimating
team, we have our superintendents that they enjoy doing these things and so it
's almost not that
hard when you have that, again I use the word synergy again with our team and
we have that plan
going in and we just got where it's pretty obvious that our own people are not
going to go into these
whether it's presentations or whether it's just basic conversations without
letting them know that
we're going to use VDC and these digital tools to build their project and they
see that and
honestly I think it's pretty clear whenever a client recognizes that and they
see that we're
using these tools that early on and we have people like Cole and others in the
presentation
active in the process way before we've spent a dollar building it's like an
hour's yet.
They see the trust that we're going to do it that way.
I want to hear a little bit more about past the pursuit now it goes into
execution,
project breaks ground, it's ongoing, progress is going.
How have you seen reality capture play a role in bridging that gap between you
and the field
teams? A lot of them, they'll see the final coordination model but they're not
in-revent
necessarily messing around with things. How have you seen whether it's their
first interaction
to this reality capture digital world has been, some type of interface has been
more user friendly
that's designed for those teams? Yeah I mean yeah I think it's been a native
like absorption,
like it just happens naturally. It's been something we've been doing for years
and we've had all
these different options out there and we're finally finding the solution and it
's simple and I don't
really know too much to say beyond it's just natural in regards to it's
something that we do
every day or we're doing every day and we have an easier solution that is found
, it's path,
it's natural. It's expectations right it's just doing reality capture and other
types of
whether it's drill mapping, laser scanning, just photo documentation that's
something that's
by default right our teams expect that so as we win the job right and it goes
into
pre-construction and estimating and we're looking at the jobs and you know our
estimating teams
are immediately going to come to us and say hey can you guys give me a cut feel
on this site or
they're going to come to us and say can you give us a 3D takeoff from the model
or
pre-construction teams are working with us to see hey this is a you know this
type of project
it's a retrofit there's a lot of you know unknowns out there you know how much
laser scanning do we
need to do to make sure we're verifying you know doing a lot of VE and valid
ating the drawings
as they go through the design package process so you know whether it's a retro
fit you know or
new construction greenfield there's a lot of different things that we use but I
think the most
important part is our own team outside of you know our 10 VDC folks or so the
other 75 people out
there they know where to come when to come for you know different problems that
they need to help
solve every day and to add on to that I think that is also huge is that we don
't have regionally
here anymore we don't have 10 different solutions out there and that's huge for
a company like us
because you know one year later six months later three years from now whatever
you maybe swap and
job to job all the same solution and so that's one of the then the biggest
things is when you
leave one project ah going to a different workflow or different working what
new software do I
feel or not yeah we're finally trying to standardize around reality capture and
finally are able to
and that's that's huge I think that's I mean you saw that this week right I
mean two three years ago
you know a lot of people were just learning about point clouds and and how you
know we're
we're pretty much going to scan to mesh and talking about meshes now we're
talking about
different avenues so you know the industry's moving so fast of how not only our
own teams are
adopting reality capture but how clients and how our trade partners right and
how people even
coming from you know newer the screen in the industry maybe they just graduated
they're coming
out of school knowing what a point cloud is right knowing what LiDAR is you
know it's on their
phones now so it's just it's just definitely a by default process and it's just
going to get
easier I was going to say I think one of the most and you mentioned on it today
which was one of
the most under-leverage departments is marketing your internal marketing
company ah your internal
marketing team at the company and what I want to know more about is like how do
you kind of
leverage them to like share those internal stories in those internal wins right
like you hear
something in a pursuit or superintendent says this is amazing because of xyz it
saved me on this
yeah just a real real clear before marketing kills us that we I think Cole
mentioned today we
didn't talk us the one group we didn't talk about today enough enough we hear
marketing is our rock
stars yeah absolutely we have a I mean locally I mean Turner has a great
marketing approach anyways
but but locally that's that's that's some of our not only colleagues but some
of our good friends
right we we deal with them daily a grant you just walk by and talk to Sarah
right but they
they continue to be that that yin and yang when it comes to what we do right
they know when to come
to us for things we know what to provide them on project specifics right so it
's just a good
meshing with our marketing department and and I know that it didn't quite
answer your question but
but they they trust us and we trust them and what we do really kind of
complement complements
there yeah where they do and and they understand that it definitely does have a
complementary feel because I mean you guys don't have backgrounds in marketing
and they obviously
have known strategies and ways to go about you know being effective at their
profession and when
you can complement each other I mean these two teams like when they intersect
and they're both
going up into the right right and they they intersect at times and have you
know points of
really when they're diving in and like jelling together but it is crazy that
the value that each
of each team can bring each other and I don't think it gets talked about enough
I think it's kind
of like up you guys go I'm gonna toss something over the fence and you'll take
care of it and
then you'll toss something over our side of the fence of a need and we'll take
care of it well
I'm even just talking about like sharing internal wins of things I mean it's it
's very
in construction's nature to just do something amazing and move on to the next
task we talked
about today right I think or I think Derek maybe mentioned it he was like guys
you need to take
the time to show the amazing things that you're doing like you get too focused
on the next thing
that you're gonna showcase and you're gonna go do and like I totally agree that
is marketing
helpful in that kind of endeavor to share wins I mean to Brian's question well
that's I think
what you're meant like Derek mentioned I think his exact quote was he was
talking to the group
today right and I think it was yesterday actually he said you know what you
guys are awesome a
problem solving you can take anything and you can use you know different
technologies and different
workflows to solve problems but what you suck at is telling people about it
right right you're
telling that story what happened you just move on to the next problem and you
know we're trying to
do that as a I think industry right slow down and tell those stories and you
know to your point
you know you got that you have to have a group that that that really brings all
of those together
and I think we do do a pretty good job with that especially with Turner you
know we're 12,000
employees and have you know projects all over the country and so I think that
we do that
nationally well and I think we do that locally well you know it's just things
move so fast where
you know unless we stop and talk about it and that's like our department or
really any other
department whether it's precon or VDC or anyone you really just have to stop
and enjoy the kind
of the wins and make sure it's documented right and wish we could do more but I
think we're doing
a pretty good job yeah well I wouldn't say it's don't exist right but no it
definitely does and
when I was an ad of that one you mentioned this earlier I was about to say
something but cultural
like culture here is awesome and like when you speak of our marketing
department all I think of
is fun and I think of like whenever we're working on pursuits not only with
marketing but with
other teams and whatever we have a lot of fun and I think VDC has an
opportunity obviously in
the professional atmosphere you're never supposed to say something that you
spend money on it's fun
but this is fun and we produce results and I think that is so huge in that
culture around having fun
and what we in our team here locally bring to the table of all of our partners
in the field
and marketing and VD whatever we just like to have a good time you're telling
me you get paid to have
fun is that what I'm looking at? Crazy content no but I'm so serious like here
locally we just
have a good time and we get results with it and that's what makes it so much
better and so like
when we are working on these pursuits putting in all this time that everybody
does and that
everybody probably at home listening is like I put in so much time I don't get
recognition
whatever blah blah blah totally hear it it's real organic it's organic it comes
natural I think that's
let's just comes back with trust right not only in individuals but our
leaderships or different
departments we definitely don't look at anything that we do whether it's
pursuit whether it's
operations whether it's you know a new client you know we're giving them
everything we have all
the time and we're not you know looking at a small project big project right we
're we're gonna
have that same approach at some level with everything we do I got some
questions but I don't
want to okay you guys don't hear that buzzing no this is this your brain
explodes dude it is
my brain like oh my gosh is there a bee in here I want to talk about I want to
talk about Paul
for a little bit because he kind of touched on it today when he came to present
to us and I want
to hear from your guys's perspective his let's just call it catalyst moments or
his transition
moments that are like oh I maybe have been thinking about this maybe a little
bit wrong of maybe just
bringing you guys in to show the shiny object to win the job and then you know
kind of move on from
and you could clearly tell today that is a thing of the past with him and I'm
curious to hear your
guys's perspectives because there's a lot more of that story but walk walk us
through a little bit of
like what you guys have seen from your perspective and winning the Paul over in
your guys's team's
dynamic does that make sense yeah I mean so I'll take this first because Cole
came on you heard
him his nickname is the future right Paul was the call was the future the DeL
orean everyone on the
call you still wonder where you park it yeah it's so see it hovers above the
office it's part two no
joke that's his nickname is the future so yeah but Paul was like I mentioned
before he was one of
those people that you know really looked at VDC is just a clash detection
coordination tool and
I think his aha moment was when he saw how we were reducing risks right he saw
as a leader in the
business that you know because that's really our biggest I mean we're a general
contractor really
our job is not to build things is to manage risks that you know as we're
building things right so
when he saw how VDC and technology and this was I think a specific adrenaline
pull example when
we're mapping it and they were we're blasting and you know validated a 750,000
dollar change order
that shouldn't existed right and he saw right then and there that realistically
he heard him say
we saved a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a thing to his eyes that paid for
VDC for the next
decade right so if we could do that on every single thing that we do not just
withdrawn validation
but reality capture and coordination and he I think that was when he really
realized that
one it's this is something it's a value add but I think two it's he's the
person that interacts
with clients every day that's that's one of his main jobs and I think just the
industry is talking
about technology more they're talking about they're asking us hey what does
your VDC department
look like what does your innovation department look like and if Paul doesn't
have a good answer
for that then you know we're already you know having to fight from the bottom
so I think him
realizing that he's constantly here consistently hearing clients talk about and
wanting to know
more what we're doing as a company I think he realized as well he needed to
kind of educate
himself on you know what's out there and Susanna Gilles she's our business
development manager
she you know the same way right she she hears from clients all the time she
always reaches out
and says hey this client asked about what we're doing with the robotics what
can you what should
I tell them so I think them hearing from clients a lot more of they're they've
been inquiring about
our innovations and different technologies and what local resources we have
what national
resources we have I think made him not not just him but just really leadership
in general really
understand they need to make sure VDC and innovations more involved in the
business yeah and the
only thing I have to add to that is not only like kind of in that example a
reactive state where
we had documented something and gone back to it and referred oh found out we
750,000 dollars
don't pay for but when we started pushing him proactive solutions that were pro
actively you know
reality capture laser scanning ability and finding you know bust all over the
place we're trying to
sliver a building in a downtown state like finding this things proactive was a
game changer as well
I'm assuming because reactive is has great and all proactive whoa like we can
take that to climb
be like we're proactive on your job site that's why we're here before we even
started like we're
proactive before we've even stepped foot on your job and showing you some of
these things and I
kind of wanted to talk about the you know going from that reactive state to a
proactive state like
what is the effort added during a construction progress right so whether you're
walking weekly
or flying weekly becomes more of a proactive approach as opposed to I'm only
going to document
once I didn't wall like can you talk more about like the the magnitude like the
more the more
effort versus that like higher return of outcome almost like the exponential
value that comes when
you're being proactive when thinking about reality capture rather than it being
a oh it's just going
to be a one-time thing you're talking about the thing that's the hardest to
track the thing that
we didn't do yeah because we because yeah yeah yeah it's a joke question oh
yeah I mean that's
and that's something hard to prove right but it's going back to documenting
those small wins right
and whenever we can say hey on this project core and shell parking garage you
think it's a simple
build but we just did this you know one last year and this is kind of what how
we you know either
whether it's 360 walkthroughs whether it's in wall validation whether it's you
know validating
some change orders whatever that is when other people can see a similar job
that utilizes the
same workflow it's a easy easy I want to call it a sell or even it's a easy
mindset this easy culture
to say hey we should do this all the time and to your original question Brian
like going back to
do we do it once a day once a week it just takes that first time right if we
start early I think we
all know every time we laser skin something every time we do some sort of
validation every time that
we compare a model to the field we will I guarantee you we will find something
wrong it might be
small things might be big things combination but I guarantee you will find
probably dozens of
things they're just sitting there waiting to be discovered and so once you do
it once and I think
one of the projects called remember Bobby Faye at Bartless he caught us the
drug dealers because
we would come in we would say hey Bobby this is like a six-year-old you know it
's super smart
it's a super looks like Santa Claus right it's a super smart guy but really
another topic keep the time but he literally would come into some testing and
you know maybe
some R&D on his job because it was a big job and we would come in and say Bobby
there's like
15 things that we found wrong we need some time to review with you and we did
and he was like
okay I want you here Tuesday and Fridays for the next six months to one of
these I'm like whoa whoa
whoa whoa this you know things cost money we need to talk about with the
project team if we can get
this in and so he would always cause us cause us their call us the drug dealers
because we would
come in tempt him with something and then say sorry we can't come back and do
it because the
project didn't budge it for it early enough you guys are gateway drugs yeah
like
but yeah give me a little bit of that just a little bit then we take it away
right it's like
a teaser but I mean that's kind of how it is a lot of times when a project and
we use that example
a lot because when a project doesn't involve us early when the buyout we're not
buying BIM right
we're not buying you know how we're going to implement technology right early
on you know that's
being reactive right that's hey I think we got a laser scanner can we come scan
this wall I think
the field you know made it a little crooked we're like well sure we can but who
's going to pay for it
I think the other thing to add the last thing to add to that is conviction like
when I've seen
bad things happen on a job site and I know as a VDC guy I can fix them today by
looking at a model
or capturing this or whatever that conviction is like what makes us do it
before and then take it
to them and get them on that gateway drug we're referring to yeah yeah totally
in just
poor Santa Claus he's just on the gateway drugs well he's retired now oh thank
you
yeah I better not be well he's he's like calm if you need me but you better pay
me
he's more of a consultant super so so now he's a VDC manager oh basically yeah
he's not a podcast but right yeah that is one of my favorite stories they
really because that
and that's like Paul to Paul you know he been in it today when he was speaking
that you know four
five years ago he was didn't understand it because you don't know what you don
't know and again this
goes back to how we started this conversation right it's it's about having
trust in our leadership
starting from the top down and not trying to find every superintendent every
and find some small
use case which is important but those small use cases won't happen until we get
we involved
early right in the pre-con and the good thing is when we're involved in the
presentation and we were
you know we contribute to that when guess what the client's expecting us to do
that now yeah hey I
gave you this job because you told me how you know how your quality is going to
be you know out
the roof because you guys are going to scan all the time do you think you know
our own team is
going to pull scanning out of a budget you know when the client's expecting it
so it's you know
its early involvement is possible and really there's no reason why VDC
technology some sort of
innovation some sort of way we're going to build the project it digitally
shouldn't be involved
instead once we decide we're going to attack a project I don't know why we
wouldn't start talking
about that digital twin and let's start replicating it digitally to see what
kind of information we
could pull from it early on and not only and sorry again last thing at least
not only mentioning
two earlier you don't have to find big issues all you got to do is take a drone
out fly it
figure out how much rock is on our ramp at this project this bobby is a bobby
phase story yeah
find out how much rock is in his hole right now that he wants to excavate just
by find a drone
once and next thing you know he's asking about can I use this a drone to do to
answer this question
for me and then that's every other week now we got him hooked in right he's
literally just
took a uh a ex or a backfill quantity for him we gave it to him next thing you
know every single
week he's like can I draw an answer this question for me yeah sure yeah and I
don't think it gets
talked about enough it's just the small winds uh that eventually tip the scale
really quickly I mean
you throw pennies on a scale and you don't see a lot of movement it goes back
to the patient's part
right and it's tricky because you you get weary right I think especially our
teams we're like
gosh why why don't you see it how can you not see this and yeah you just get
weary really quickly
and if you don't have those small winds or if you don't talk about them like
what Brian said
and like sharing them around of like we are doing good things and like we are
making an impact and
we are having those things yeah you can just get tired of it yeah I'd be kind
of curious I mean
I still am kind of trying to figure out my my own mathematical formula for
setting a team up
for success whether they're like these trigger points where okay you just did
your first 360 walk
when it's processing the first thing you're going to do is add external field
teams at your design
team add these like almost like a checklist of things that I believe attribute
to just a higher
retention rate of like a higher return of value right like the first time I'm
going to show you
is going to be like the first time I'm going to have you walk maybe a concrete
pour or an
wall inspection even though it might be too late on your job just getting that
time to value down
as much as possible like what are some things that you will do when you're
setting up a project
team with something like are there any like small little hacks that you're like
oh if I do this at
the beginning I know that they will get more value out of this I mean I think
the big big obvious
thing is before we touch a job site before we mobilize put a fence up take a
tree down
you know get in there and get that walk right because nobody's there on the job
site yet right
they're still talking about the job from either another state here in the local
office they're not
there so if we can provide a platform for them to talk about the job while they
're before they get
there one that gives them you know that expectation you know that that familiar
or that that they're
more familiar with what the site is about without being there and on the back
side of that we might
use that you know a year and a half later when we're turning the job over and
the client's trying
to give us a change order for tearing up a curb that was already cracked and
busted before we
started right so and everything in between right when you have that that
constant data and I've
always been a big believer on especially with 360 walks and any kind of easy
low hanging way to
capture a lot of areas quickly you got to do it often and you got to make you
got to do it when
it's when it's when it's important and you have to do it in a way that people
are using it and if
they're not using it and you know the value of it it's it's such an obvious
value that if you just
show them this and take maybe a little time there's a couple people that we
work with it right that
we almost have to kind of say hey here's where you put your password in here's
how you go to the
calendar right here's how you go back to this date it seems pretty simple but
you know once you get
that first a little bit of training in again there's it's such a big value to
be able to see the
site without being there so whatever you say is that the hack is really like
setting the job up
by documenting it before you even earlier the better yeah the better yeah and
just giving you a
place to collaborate from as if it's like hey like this is where we're all
going to move into it's
kind of like before you move into a house or an apartment or somewhere it's
like let's just make
sure we get this thing all on the same page everyone and I mean to do that
obviously on the ground
doing a walk makes the most sense but even from the air too right I mean yeah
touch on that and maybe
I mean we have a lot of clients that again especially here in Tennessee and
really the US
you know the big boom is like battery plants right and most of these clients
that are building
these battery plants their their technology their equipment is not even in the
same country so
one project specifically we're doing you know flights as often as possible we
're doing walks
we're asking them you know or asking the team a day or two before what's going
to be the topic
of conversation so when you have clients specifically they're not local I mean
it's just it just
behooves us not to do that but the big value is is that you know pictures worth
a thousand words
and when you don't speak the same language it's worth a million right so us
being able to do that
just basic capture right and sharing it with them I mean it's just priceless to
when you're not on
the side so yeah cool I'm curious to hear your hack of setting a job up
successfully or like what
what task really does differentiate them to to be successful or not any tasks
that is a simple task
that's the answer I mean and I'm saying that joking away but serious like
if you want the design team to be involved you got to send them the invite like
okay that's really
simple send them the invite at the beginning of the job teach them show them
they're going to take
it and they're going to run with it from there and they may use it for
something completely different
you may learn from them but you have to invite them to see where it goes same
thing with the
clients like next you know we're getting invite oh I want my mother in law to
be of course we don't
get that far but you know they want to see it they want to show it off and so
number one in
the people in the platform the first place where they can see all this is
crucial but it's so simple
and it's so often so skipped like the amount of times that we don't have x
person in there and
they're like why is this why are they not already and trendably and that that's
I think that's the
the first part is is keeping it simple and the other thing too is and not to
negate the amount
of effort that y'all put into how to's but again my production background etc I
love recording
the super simple videos regardless of its 30 seconds or 10 minutes those move a
lot of boundaries
out of the way like hey guys by the way on our ex-site on our share site go
here's a folder with 10
videos covering the 10 subjects that are going to affect your job vc wise the
most specifically in
one of those re-re-out of capture so yeah yeah co-communicates I can't tell
many times instead of a
screenshot most people would send a markup screen recording he'll voice over
okay this this is and
this and that's how he communicates so yeah it's fun for me it's very effective
have you started
thinking about that knowledge exchange by project type like your you know your
hospital projects
and that px getting some type of different deliverable of information as
opposed to obviously like
your small fiddouts etc well man I think that project type really is one of the
most important
things right not really what we're building right but what kind of building
where you know is it a
core and shell garage is a TI is it a data center is an hospital is it you know
something to speed
I think well Andy Davis he's our general manager VP at a Memphis he always
describes it like a
tripod right you only can have two of the three you have your schedule quality
and cost you can
have all three right so what's what two things are those three is important to
that client for
example an airport right they really don't care too much about cost right they
care about schedule
and they care about quality right whereas a parking garage for a client in
downtown that wants to
earn return on their investment and get that thing built as quickly as possible
they could give a
crap less about quality they really care about schedule and cost right so
depending on what two
of those three things are important to that specific project type I think it's
a good way to kind of
get started and you know anytime you don't have cost of all it's always easier
but most of the
times cost is the major driving factor and that's even when we win or lose jobs
right it's we could
be you know the most professional them have the best tools the best staff the
best you know culture
but if not if we're not the cheapest we have to overcome that hump and you know
and show them why
we're expensive why you're you're getting a premium here and guess what things
aren't free
so if we're giving a premium deliverable you know the clients typically going
to pay that premium
price and so going back to the original question and what we talked about was
project type is
it drives everything we're going to put in a much bigger effort for a health
care client
for certain tools certain reality capture certain documentation than we would
for something else
but at the same time if we have a parking garage it's going in a downtown area
we'll probably have
a heavy reality capture around existing utilities making sure our blasting you
know or we're not
over blasting things like that but once the structures that we probably won't
do too much
documentation of you know a parking garage so project type you know different
times of the
projects always going to drive that that implementation of certain types of
technologies yeah and the
only thing I was going to add on to that I don't know why I thought about this
but
I like honesty and it's okay to say no like there's this whole theory that we
always have to say
yes and make it work and I'm totally against that like you can you can say no
like this is not the
option or this is not the best way or no it's not going to work I'm sorry that
has empowered us a
lot and built that honesty because they know they're going to get the honest
answer so like
saying yes isn't always the best well I like what you know mentioned it before
but
when my mentor's John Gromo's he always said care if you just approach it with
don't tell me no
tell me yes if so if I want something or if we need something like I'm not like
I'm not going
to tell you no I'm going to tell you yes if x y and z is done you're a lot
nicer than I am
why do you say no no is never there if you give me these things right so
but yeah that's a great point that we we were very realistic and even some of
our budgets we
provide our own teams might be pretty high for certain technologies innovation
that we think
we should use but they're realistic right so um but yeah gotta be honest yes I
bet I do
want to land the point here a little bit this is I mean we could honestly just
keep talking for
days uh the last question or just a question in general that I've kind of been
stewing around is
like what what do you feel like are the biggest misconceptions at that like
exact level of your
guys's team and how are you guys addressing it what are ways in which you've
kind of overcome it
like I didn't really hear any specifically from Paul but maybe early days of
what some
of the misconceptions that he had um and how are you guys really leveraging
that trust now to kind
of continue to build off of that I think the biggest mix it's real simple I
think it everyone
used to think that these types of technologies and VDC was expensive right they
everyone thinks
that unless you have a billion dollar campus or a mega project that you can't
have you know innovation
and VDC and technologies on a project we can apply 360 walkthroughs we can
apply you know drone
flights really easy things that we do all the time to a 10 million dollar you
know SPO job just as
easy as we can and bring the same value as we can to a billion dollar campus so
I think our leadership
and I think the industry is a whole things that you only can apply VDC and
those type of efforts to
bigger jobs and that's just simply not the case yeah and that comes with
leadership support because
with that comes all these nuances of trying to recover cost and and all these
different things
that allow us those opportunities to do those on smart jobs and so cost is cost
is definitely not
always it was or what everybody thought was a hindrance and I and I truly back
that and believe
that as well yeah um one of the other things too I was trying to remember the
exact quote from
Ben and from from nationals down to us is stop being just visualizers or we're
not just visualizers
you know we're builders we're result driven and I think a lot of people pre all
of this discussion
thought that we were just visualizers that we're just providing a 40 animation
to do presentation
and when behold when we put that extra effort in there and we start doing
proactive start with
reactive and then and put those points out there and start talking to the
proactive points that
it's easy to go from there without question so yeah we're construction company
not a
drone company not a laser scanning company right we're builders and there's all
kinds of tools out
there that that I think we all know and it's just going to get again easier and
easier in the industry
to uh to know that you can't build buildings nowadays without technology
innovation and if you do
you're you're they're not building them well or you're not building them at all
because technology is
is going to be here way way beyond um this year next year it's not going to
have some boom right
it's going to continue to just drive how we build things um yeah we got to be
right there in the
front to to continue to do it I was going to say you could go back to your
tripod now and see if
you don't build in a digital way you're going to lose one of those legs to
those tripods yeah you
can't have all three I don't know one project that has a great schedule where
they'd be able to
super fast that they built it really really cheap and they had great quality
yeah you have to lose
one of those and and hopefully one day we could have all three uh but I think
technology is really
kind of maybe not letting all three of those uh or sorry not letting one of
those be the thing
that tips it right like technology really is kind of the this is stupid but the
thing at the bottom
of the tripod that like keeps all three of those together right like it keeps
the three legs
connected in some way like you think about schedule how technology helps with
that you think about
quality clearly like that's where technology comes in and you think about cost
it's like hey like
these are preventing rework costs and different other costs like it's just
engine I've heard that
analogy many many times and and I think that the disconnect or the second level
that doesn't get
talked about is how technology truly can truly can actually help all three of
those improve
at the same time I mean I just think the very first example of why drones on
the job that we were on
just took off because I was like guys like wait a second here we've always had
to give up one of
these and in this aerial inspection that we're going to do really checks all
three of those boxes
like let's just kind of sit a little bit that's not common and so with that
like how do we take this
into more farther ground and I love that analogy and I've always loved it
because it really brings
that kind of sense of like truth and realism to situations but I just don't
think it often gets
talked about of how technology really is turning that corner and saying hey
maybe I can help all
three of these things it is should right it you should not like technology
shouldn't look at or
it shouldn't be a misconception that hey we're going to use laser skiing on a
project it's going
to cost us money it should be hey we're going to use laser scanning on a
project how we're going
to save so much money because we're going to find all this stuff first right
and that's a great
point you know it's in today's world you typically had to lose one of those
three but I mean technology
whether it's drone, laser scanning, mock-ups, you know renderings whatever that
is it should help
all all three legs and help hold them together and I just don't think our
industry has seen
something that's come in to address all three of those and I think that's what
is really unique
about our roles what we've been able to do how we're helping more teams
operations marketing all
these other like hey you've been told that pick two hey I'm going to flip the
script here a little
bit and say what if I can help in all three and that's just yeah I think it it
changes people's
mindset because they're like wait I've never had that like I've never been able
to tackle all three
of those things together man that's uh that's that synergy that organic team I
think it's not just
VDC it's not just our clients our owners our executives once you have everyone
trusting each
other right I mean there's no reason why we couldn't do that because and we
should right so challenge
accepted there challenge accepted well guys this has been super fun uh honestly
if you're
listening and I hope you had as many takeaways as I've already started to stew
around if you haven't
connected out with Cole and Gary on LinkedIn or just even through our channels
to please do it
honestly you guys have been just an encouragement for not only both Brian and I
but our entire team
on the Drona Point team of just learning continuing to build the partnership
that we've had not only
just from a business side of just we were just talking about what we were doing
last week in
Gary and it's like oh dude it's awesome like that sounds like a ton of fun we
have enough time to
talk about that I wish I wish I wish you know I will uh but it's just fun and
and I would just
encourage all the folks that are listening and tuning in it's just like guys if
you're not
connecting with these people that are sparking a curiosity or have a question
with like man we
shouldn't be sitting here talking about this stuff like take it from this
conversation find ways to
get the questions answered that you have and really try to connect with these
folks I could
flip it right back right if anyone listening is not touching out or reaching
out with you guys I
mean that just helps us right because you guys have been such a great partner
and and I think that
it's not only a partnership right we're we're talking about you know the next
couple conferences
five years down the road what are we going to do then so and just uh yeah can
can ask for a better
partner and and still features bright yeah it is really fun bright any any
closing thoughts
nope let's go get some uh let's go down the bed let's go on a Broadway and uh i
'll get talkin
Nashville i gotta get my hat steamed so we'll get you a matching business yep
bright doesn't
think he's his hat steamed we bought his hat literally as the store's closing
and they're like hey you're
gonna have to come back and get steamed a brand's like steamed what is that
what is that like steamed
my clothes like like yeah i was thinking like chipotle burrito but i'm learning
i'm learning how to
go to coves uh no no yeah i think it was another hush boot bar yeah it's like
boot bar yeah it was
boot bar the only one opened at like three am yeah yeah clearly they had the
selection that we needed
they were targeting your like yeah people that probably don't care if their
hats are steamed or
not pretty much yes sir do you know about the steam no cool well then just get
out of here because
it's time to leave uh well fellas thank you again this has been super fun uh
would just encourage
anyone who's listening to please do connect with these guys on LinkedIn it's it
's just really cool
to see the stuff that you guys are working on uh and and thank you for making
the time thank you for
hosting i mean as we're sitting here in this amazing space uh keep doing some
great stuff and
we'll we'll try to help you guys along the way awesome appreciate it thanks
thanks team make sure
to subscribe to build different on apple podcasts spotify and anywhere you
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build this community together