Latest / Contractor Business Builder Podcast / How to Avoid Expensive Contractor Software Mistakes with Robert Bruce

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How to Avoid Expensive Contractor Software Mistakes with Robert Bruce · Contractor Business Builder Podcast

0:00
Welcome to the Contractor Business Builder podcast.
0:03
Today we've got the honor of hosting Rob Bruce.
0:06
He's the founder of Build Tech Advisor.
0:08
Choosing construction software shouldn't feel like gambling
0:11
with your company. Rob Bruce has spent years inside
0:14
cook inside the construction software world and saw that, you
0:18
know, same problem over and over again with contractors trying to
0:21
find the right software, being pressured by sales teams and
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ending up with systems that didn't really truly fit their
0:26
operations. So today we're going to break
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down how to evaluate software properly as well as services for
0:31
contractors, avoid expensive costing mistakes and and choose
0:35
the right technology that fits your business.
0:37
So how you doing? I'm doing great.
0:40
Doing great. Thanks, Derek.
0:41
Great. See you again.
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Definitely likewise always good to to touch base and yeah, so
0:46
many decades and years of experience in in the field and
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you know, in the construction industry in various different
0:53
aspects and things like that. Can you give our listeners out
0:56
there a little bit of of your background in the industry and
0:59
what led to old tech advisor? Kinda jokingly, but
1:04
realistically say that I had my first paying job in construction
1:08
when I was about 12 years old and they hired me because I was
1:13
Pretty Little back then and it was a company that replaced
1:17
foundations on homes. And so I was the skinny little
1:21
12 year old kid that can get into tiny crawl spaces and start
1:25
digging out for putting the beams in and lift the house to
1:28
do the new foundation. So that was, that was my first
1:31
job in construction and literally Scott hooked from
1:34
there. I mean, it wasn't a glamorous
1:37
job by any means, but I thought kind of saw the potential and
1:41
just stayed in construction for many years.
1:43
I worked for home builders. I was a Superintendent for a
1:48
national home builder for a number of years.
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Then I started moving into the commercial world and then ended
1:55
up in public works building public works projects that range
2:00
anywhere from 2 million up to 15 or or more $1,000,000.
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But I, I kind of fell into the tech side of it too.
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And so I kept, I kept being the guy at the company that whenever
2:14
something tech would come up or software would come up, I turned
2:19
into the kind of go to guy. I mean, the first, first system
2:23
that I ever used was old green screen DOS back in the early
2:28
90s. And it was the first
2:30
construction management software that, that I used.
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So it it's been a good 30 year run and continuing of course.
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But yeah, that's kind of my basic background.
2:41
Fantastic. Wow.
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Yeah, really spend a lot of the different parts of the industry
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as as far as you know residential commercials, civil
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and then into software and and seeing the accumulated, you know
2:55
changes in growth in software and it just continues to
2:58
tascalate. So what more recently with Bill
3:01
Tech Advisor, what was your thought or what did you see as
3:05
as kind of a problem or issue where this needs to change where
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I can, you know, find a way to do this better?
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What's the kind of the light bulb effect of of a Bill Tech
3:14
Advisor there? Being in and it was because it
3:18
was the only way to do it really, somebody would come to
3:23
the conclusion that hey, we have to automate.
3:25
We need some kind of whether just to estimating stand alone
3:28
system or complete project management system.
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But what you would do is you would go to Google and you would
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type in what's the best project management system for a home
3:40
builder and they'd hit enter and what's going to come up, whoever
3:46
paid the most is what's going to come up there.
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There was no fit. It wasn't that it was the best
3:52
for that home builder, but people didn't always realize
3:55
that. And so they you're in a hurry.
3:58
You just click on a couple of links and then you start getting
4:02
bombard. You fill out a couple of forms
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and you get bombarded with phone calls and emails all of a sudden
4:07
from 5 or 6 different software companies.
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And then you might jump on a number of demos.
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But if you don't know how to prepare for a demo, then he
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didn't know what questions to ask.
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And so I would, I kind of came up with the term, you wouldn't
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end up with the best match software.
4:26
You would end up with the best salesman.
4:30
And that's what you buy from whether it was right software or
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not. And then then we can maybe let
4:35
it get into the whole what happens after they purchase a
4:38
piece of software that isn't a good fit when you start getting
4:41
into the implementation phase. But it will take a build tech
4:45
advisor what we do. And even now people, you will
4:49
use AI to help him search for software.
4:51
But it really is the same problem because if you don't
4:54
know how to type in the same the correct prompt in the AI, it
4:59
still can't give you a good match.
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I mean, you got to really think through that prompt on what
5:05
you're going to type in. And so again, AI is going to
5:09
give you the best match it can, but due to your prompt, it
5:12
probably isn't going to give you the best 1.
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So Bill tech advisor contractors and come to our site and they
5:19
fill out, we put them through, we call it a basic interview
5:22
process just on screen. They're just filling out some
5:25
fields and we gather a lot of information we have, we ask a
5:28
lot of questions and then we use a purpose built AI to match them
5:34
with the correct software. So it, it truly is a good match.
5:39
So they'll get up to three matches, no more than three,
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because more than three, it just becomes overwhelming.
5:46
Yeah, definitely. That's super helpful.
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I, I know this is a common kind of pain point or issue for a lot
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of contractors who know they need software, better software,
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maybe they're kind of fed up with, with what they're using,
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but they don't want to go through that same pain again of,
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you know, implementing a system, learning it.
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There's a lot of change management with, with employees
6:05
and staff and, and, you know, once you commit, you kind of
6:08
sort of go all in or, or you don't and it just sits on the
6:11
shelf and doesn't get you anywhere because it's not the
6:14
right fit or what have you. So all sorts of issues with,
6:17
with not getting the right stuff and even with the generic sort
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of AI searches, there's most of those.
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I are really looking at the websites and the marketing of,
6:27
of software, not the inside nuts and bolts or, or, you know, a
6:30
true feel of what your business is like and, and what the
6:34
software actually does and, and how it operates and whether that
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that's a fit. So now you mentioned preparing
6:41
for a demo, not knowing the right questions.
6:43
So contractors gone on bill tech advisor, they've put in their
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information. They've got three good matches,
6:48
I'm assuming you know, but the the free trial or demo, how
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should they prepare for that demo or or free trial to get the
6:56
most and really understand if this is going to work long term?
6:59
Right, you, you really have to take some time and invest some
7:03
time into coming up with at least an outline of what I would
7:08
call almost a case study of how you operate.
7:12
How does the company currently operate Really nail down the
7:16
the, the pain points from from the office all the way through
7:20
the field. Every, everybody has to be
7:21
involved in that process. And then if possible, e-mail
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that that leads to outline of a case study to the person that
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you're getting the demo from and say, here's what I want to
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cover. Because what generally, if you
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don't do that, you're going to end up sitting on a demo with a
7:40
salesperson guessing what you need, walking you through a
7:46
bunch of screens. And their job is to wow you.
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You know, that's that is their job is to wow you and they're
7:52
going to do their job well, but you're gonna go, wow, that looks
7:57
really cool. But where in reality that
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doesn't that isn't really how your workflow is.
8:04
They show you some cool tools, but does that really fit into
8:08
how that company operates? So doing that, doing that case
8:13
study, thinking the process through before you ever, ever
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get into even scheduling a demo, make sure you get that done.
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Biggest tip. And I used to tell people, I
8:22
tell people it's hard to do. It's just it's one of those
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things it's hard to do. I always tell people to do it,
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but you know, probably 4 out of 10 actually do.
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But I I can't stress that enough how important that is.
8:35
Like you're hiring an employee, like a key senior manager for
8:39
your business or something like that.
8:41
You, you want to vet them. You want to know that there's no
8:44
gotchas or surprises as much as possible.
8:47
And, and you're going to do a bit of an interview post process
8:50
and, and take your time because you don't want to just hire
8:52
someone for six months, right? You want to hire someone for,
8:54
for years. Ideally that's going to be
8:56
integral to your business and every employee and even
9:00
subcontractors, clients, they're going to have some sort of
9:03
interaction and need to use these types of softwares and
9:06
depending on what it is, but I'm thinking like some of the
9:07
larger, you know, suites of project management softwares or
9:10
services for that matter. So it's really important to
9:13
yeah, take your time, don't rush into it.
9:15
Another thing I always tell clients, if you're starting a
9:17
new software, get the monthly subscription to start with.
9:22
So don't pay for the full year up front, because I, I know many
9:25
people have to kind of try to go back and, and, and get out of it
9:28
one year contract because it, you know, a month or two down
9:31
the road, they realize it's just not working right.
9:33
Do the month test it out is not working.
9:35
You just, you know, whatever you find, find something different.
9:38
But yeah, so now involving your team I think is super important
9:43
because it's not just you as the owner, it's going to be
9:45
everybody on your team. And even if you are tech savvy
9:48
or you've used, you know, different softwares before and
9:51
can get into a really easy does not mean that you can train your
9:55
team or they're going to have a great experience with it either.
9:57
So how would you involve the team with that decision or
10:01
implementation of a new, you know, software?
10:04
That is a great question because what so many people forget is
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that for many companies, I'll say all but many companies, the
10:13
real users of that software are out in the field.
10:17
The office kind of understands more of the business side of
10:20
things. That's why they work in the
10:22
office and the field people understand and understand the
10:25
field, but the, the folks in the office sometimes forget that you
10:32
got, you got, let's just say 5 people in the office, but you
10:36
have 25 people out in the field. So though that's why I say the
10:39
field people are many times the real users of the software.
10:43
So you've got, you absolutely have to bring them in and not
10:48
just on the decision making, but the, the, the preparation.
10:52
Like you say, when you're coming up with that workflow plan,
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you've got to get buy in from them that they want to use, use
10:59
a system and, and get their feedback on what they need out
11:02
in the field. Because the whole point of most
11:05
of the software that's out there is to tie the field in the
11:09
office together better than it than it is.
11:12
But it But if you, if you don't have the field fully using the
11:16
software, it's I just have to call that a failure.
11:20
Because now you go back to your old ways.
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You, you spent all the money you spent all the time, but you just
11:25
revert back to how you were doing it before you wrote the
11:28
big check. So get get in the field, get in
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the field involved is is critical.
11:34
Definitely. That's really the, the base or
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foundation of a lot of the inputs to the software.
11:39
And as you mentioned, typically the largest, you know, section
11:42
of your business as far as employee numbers that are going
11:45
to be using the software and usually the hardest people to
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actually get it using consistently and, and get them
11:52
trained on. So definitely integral part
11:55
there. And I remember working with the
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contractor, they were super excited about this new software
12:00
they got for estimating it was going to do all this stuff and
12:02
it looked beautiful. And so he had been in talks, he
12:06
had done the demos, he started putting some stuff together.
12:08
And then we got on a call she wanted to run through with me
12:11
and kind of show me what it can do.
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And on that call, we both quickly realized that it was not
12:16
going to work as it was just taking forever.
12:18
It was glitchy. It was it was a kind of a newer
12:20
software recently developed and and it was like, yeah, I'm going
12:23
to call them after this and cancel because this is not
12:26
working. So sometimes just like you as
12:29
the owner, you need that feedback and you need other
12:31
people to use it because everybody is going to use things
12:34
a little differently, have different experiences.
12:36
And sometimes using it together, you realize stuff that you might
12:39
not just, you know, working on your own own time or what have.
12:42
You, so you brought up a really good point and it's actually in
12:46
a number of the blogs that I've written that we got a number of
12:50
blog posts on, on our website. But and, and a number of my blog
12:53
posts. I highly recommend bringing in
12:57
somebody like you because you've been through this experience so
13:01
many times, a construction company, maybe they have bought
13:05
some other software in the past, but they've only been through
13:07
that process two or three times. You've been through it countless
13:11
times. So you, you know what to look
13:14
for, you know where the pitfalls can be, you you know how to ask
13:17
the right type of questions. And so bringing in somebody from
13:22
the outside that that has experience like you do is
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incredibly, incredibly valuable in your selection process.
13:30
Yeah, for sure. There's a ton of stuff there.
13:33
But one of the big gaps is often you have people at the software
13:36
company who can train you. They know their software in and
13:39
out, but they don't know your business in and out.
13:41
And you know, your business in and out, but you don't know this
13:43
trying to know. So there's, there's usually a
13:45
that gap there to really dial things in and also not get
13:49
overwhelmed with like 100 features that you think you need
13:52
to implement. But you know, what's the most
13:54
important? How do we implement this?
13:55
How do you get your team on board, get them comfortable with
13:57
it before bombarding them with like all this new stuff?
14:00
So yeah, lots and lots of different things that that can
14:03
that can happen there. Now pretty much every software
14:06
nowadays is like we have AI that's, you know, they're
14:10
incorporating AI or maybe their AI 1st and then there's some
14:13
brand new thing on the market. What are your thoughts about
14:16
kind of the AI conversion of, of existing software, new features
14:21
and new AI softwares coming out which like not to like, I think
14:24
a lot of contractors are been overwhelmed and not sure it's
14:28
kind of new waters, if you will, to, to tread.
14:30
So what? What's your take on and and what
14:32
would be your suggestions? Couple of points on that one and
14:36
construction is, and it has been this way.
14:40
It's getting better, but construction is usually a little
14:43
bit behind the technology curve. They're they're still a little
14:47
hesitant to take on some of the new technology, although I do
14:50
see that, that changing a fair amount.
14:52
And so I've noticed a lot of lot of construction companies are
14:57
still not really ready to adopt AI yet.
15:01
And when it comes to the software, like say, whichever
15:05
type we maybe maybe talking about, you've got to take it
15:09
with a grain of salt. It's, it's evolving quickly.
15:13
It's not quite there yet in construction.
15:16
There's there's a number of areas that it does do very well
15:19
at take off tool. Amazing strides have been have
15:23
been done on AI for or take off. Some of the things where I where
15:28
I've seen it fall down quite a bit is when AI tries to analyze
15:34
a construction schedule doesn't do really very well there in
15:39
any. And if you follow that too
15:41
closely, you're, you're definitely going to get off
15:43
track because there's just too many things that in effect a
15:47
construction schedule. And I just, I just haven't seen
15:52
it done well enough yet that I would go so far as to trust that
15:57
you've got your regular, regular scheduling reports still lean
16:01
heavily on those. Maybe take AI and scheduling
16:05
into consideration. But like I say, don't don't rely
16:09
on that very much at all. So I, I'd say probably about a
16:13
year from now will be at a place where AI will, will be a lot
16:18
more trustworthy and helpful in construction.
16:23
The other thing that I've seen in, in a number of pieces of
16:25
software is they call it AI. So they can say they have AI,
16:32
but really it's just tapping into a knowledge base, right?
16:37
So they've, they've developed this massive knowledge base and,
16:41
and you'll see that in a lot of like chat bots and things with
16:45
chatbot says AI chat bot. Well, really isn't this is it's
16:50
literally looking at an Excel sheet for answers is what it's
16:54
doing. And that's not AI, that's just a
16:57
voice search, right, That's all or type search.
17:01
How are you typing, typing or talking?
17:03
So yeah, I'm always forward thinking in technology and I
17:08
proponent of technology, but I don't think AI is is quite there
17:14
yet in in all the areas where construction software.
17:18
Yeah, I've, I've seen that a lot.
17:20
There's been some big strides over the last year or so.
17:23
And yeah, I think the takeoff thing I've seen effectively
17:27
used, you know, not obviously on all situations, but if you're
17:30
doing kind of similar type projects or your plans are good,
17:34
the, the scheduling and estimating, I think the way to
17:37
think about it is, is not AI is going to do it for you.
17:40
It's this is maybe an assistant, like a junior assistant that
17:44
doesn't necessarily understand the intricacies of, of
17:47
construction, but can kind of get things set up for you.
17:50
Or maybe, you know, rate right out, you know, a scope of work
17:54
or something like that, that, that you can, you know, save you
17:56
some time and things like that. But yeah, to rely on it to
18:00
actually do do your job or your, your project managers,
18:03
estimators jobs for them is, is definitely not, not at that
18:07
level yet, but really interesting to see.
18:09
And I think a lot of contractors are looking forward to, to when
18:14
these technologies will be a little more robust and, and
18:18
maybe trustworthy as far as, you know, being accurate and, and
18:21
all those kind of things. So, so yeah, it would be
18:24
interesting to see and not a reason to be afraid of it, but
18:27
to just take things with a grain of salt and and realize that
18:30
they can make mistakes and they're definitely not perfect,
18:33
you know, in, in the way that that you would maybe like them
18:36
to be, but definitely good time savers.
18:39
I would say another way to look at that is don't buy a piece of
18:43
software just because they show you some really cool AI tools in
18:48
it. That would be, it would be
18:51
tempting because the salesman is going to wow you with a bunch of
18:55
neat stuff, but it's not, it's not ready to be applied to
19:01
individual companies yet. This is just more global.
19:04
So still, still look at the the the nuts and bolts of of
19:08
software is where you want to where you want to focus, Bill.
19:12
Can you maybe share some insight as to a good tech stack for for
19:17
a company? I mean, you don't have to you
19:19
know say specific softwares, but just types of software that you
19:22
see like contractors utilizing when as they scale up their
19:28
company. Yeah, give me that in a minute.
19:30
And it, but it just, it brought something up as I was listening
19:34
to you. There is don't overbuy because
19:37
yes, you, you're always wanting to think to the future.
19:40
But if you're looking at a piece of software and and it's got all
19:44
these tools and you're you're thinking, well, as we grow,
19:48
yeah, that'll be great. That'll be great.
19:50
Well, what happens when you do that is it's the software is
19:55
gonna end up being too big for you.
19:58
You're not going to use all of it.
19:59
It's got too many features, which is going to make it more
20:03
complex to implement, more complex to use.
20:06
Again, the people out in the field aren't going to, aren't
20:08
going to want to use it. I, I just, I popped into my head
20:12
because I have seen that happen a few times lately.
20:16
And it's good to think realize the software is going to grow
20:20
with you actually, because they're always improving the
20:24
software. So it's OK to buy something that
20:26
fits exactly where you're at because as, as, as you move into
20:32
the future, so is that piece of software.
20:34
And so that way you can buy something that works now and
20:37
then it's, it's still going to work for you 5 years from now.
20:40
And you're not going to have to go through the process again.
20:44
As far as some certain softwares, I mean, I mean, one
20:47
I'll, I'll kind of give a shameless plug to is 1 called
20:52
Beam AI and they do take off and it is a AI and it is something
20:57
that I've I've seen got to know pretty well and, and they're
21:01
doing it. They did it.
21:01
I'm bringing it up because they understand the construction
21:05
world and how people aren't how he's super techie in the
21:09
construction world. And So what you do is you send
21:12
your your plans, however many sheets you need to take off on.
21:15
You actually send them to Beam AI.
21:18
The team at Beam AI, who are the professionals at AI take off
21:23
does the take off for you And then just sends the the data
21:27
back to you. So that's a really smart, smart
21:30
application of, of AI as as far as kind of what types of
21:37
software, again, that could that I think I have to go back to the
21:43
company doing their needs assessment and, and again,
21:46
throwing in the the don't don't overbuy because when you do your
21:50
needs assessment, you're going to you're going to break it down
21:54
into these processes and you're, you're gonna learn that maybe
21:58
you don't need something that has a big accounting package
22:03
tied to it because maybe you're using zero or QuickBooks or
22:08
whatever And it be software ties nicely to QuickBooks or zero or
22:14
something. Again, again, it's at that.
22:17
Go back to the don't, don't overbuy, but go through that
22:20
needs, needs process and that that's going to help you
22:23
determine exactly what kind of off where you're going to need.
22:27
And again, that's something that using Derek work can help you
22:32
come up with that needs assessment and the time and the
22:35
time and the time invested there is, is absolutely going to save
22:40
you money down the road. I mean, that's a that's a huge
22:44
ROI right there. Yeah, for sure getting expert
22:48
advice from people that have actually used these softwares
22:51
and and you know, matching like like build tech is going to save
22:54
you so much time and energy and effort and and the frustrations
22:58
are headaches that that could pop up in the future.
23:00
Wise words there definitely with, you know, don't over buy.
23:03
I'm a big proponent of using less software, not more
23:05
software. I think as a company, the goal
23:09
is not to plug every little niche thing you need to do with
23:12
a different type of software that looks cool, but to to have
23:16
a few key pieces of software that really your entire company
23:20
is familiar and comfortable with and can overlap into all the the
23:24
rest of the business and processes.
23:26
And, and usually you can find workarounds with it.
23:29
If you got, you know, some of your basics cover, you can
23:32
usually find little workarounds or or little process changes to
23:35
make software work, even if it maybe doesn't have quite the
23:38
feature that that you need right at this moment.
23:41
So fantastic. Really appreciate your insights
23:44
here, Rob, what's the best way for people to get their hands
23:49
on, you know, build tech advisor or work through it?
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What, what should they be thinking as as far as getting
23:54
that, you know, build tech working for them?
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Really it's it's very, very easy.
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You just simply go to build tech advisor and you click on a
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button that says get my matches. That's going to start just
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walking you through through our process.
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It's probably it takes less than 10 minutes to, to fill out the
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interview, interview form. So it isn't some, some huge,
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huge process. We've obviously spent untold
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hours coming up with asking, asking the right questions.
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And so usually within about takes about an hour, maybe 2
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hours. You'll get the three up to three
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matches emailed over to you in your inbox.
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Reason that it takes a little bit of time because hey, I can
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do it in a second, right? I mean AIO bam, pop up these
24:47
matches. But again, like I say, AI, even
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even though we, we built a purpose built AI engine to help
24:54
us make these matches, we still check them with the human.
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So human, human is going to look at the matches that were made.
25:02
The human is, is going to read through those interview
25:05
questions and make sure that those matches are, are correct
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or, or correct them if they're not.
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And then at the same time, get ready to do your needs of needs
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assessment your, your workflow outline, whatever you want to
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call it, and then start set, setting up your demos.
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But it, it's, it's, it's going to give you up to three matches.
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And it, it gets so confusing if you try to do it on your own
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because you're going to keep looking at different software.
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You, I've seen people get upwards literally of 10 demos
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from software companies. How can you possibly keep track
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of all that? How can at the end of all those
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10 demos and think of all the sales calls that are going to
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come in, the sales emails that are going to come in.
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That's going to be your full time job trying to manage that.
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And at the end of the process, how can you possibly remember
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which one did which and why? Don't care if you do a
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spreadsheet or not. I mean, it's just, it's just too
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hard. So you'll take advisor.
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We just, we speed the process up, save you the pain of going
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through all that getting bombarded with endless sales
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calls from endless software vendors, etcetera.
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And you end up with a very, very close.
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Match we'll put the put the links to to build tech advisor
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in the description of the video or audio wherever you're
26:28
listening or watching go check it out.
26:30
Even just answering those needs assessment questions have value
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in and of themselves. You'll often discover people
26:35
like going through that process of of like you Rob, who has
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extensive knowledge with with different software and
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construction companies just having the right questions to
26:44
ask and providing the right information in and of itself
26:47
will help you clue into it. Oh, I never thought about that.
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Or you actually have to like communicate what you want.
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And it kind of goes back to prefer with the demos of just
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getting the right questions and making sure that you're actually
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thinking about the right things when you're approaching getting
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some new software. So, so go click the link, get
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get signed up with Bill Tech advisor, get some good matches,
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get better software. And thank you so much for coming
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on here today, Rob. Thank you, Derek.
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Great talking to you again. Thanks everybody.
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Appreciate it.