Eric Carlisle - Technology and Labor Crews find Success - PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Eric Carlisle of Labor Central. You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast. 

Speaker 1:
Welcome to Roofing Road Trips with Heidi. Explore the roofing industry through the eyes of a long-term professional within the trade. Listen for insights, interviews, and exciting news in the roofing industry today.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Welcome to another Roofing Road Trips from RoofersCoffeeShop. My name is Heidi Ellsworth and I'm road tripping down south to Dallas, Texas to visit with a dear friend of mine, Eric Carlisle, with Labor Central. Eric, welcome to the show.

Eric Carlisle:
Hey, Heidi, how are you?

Heidi Ellsworth:
I am great. I am really jazzed about talking about what you're doing. Talk about a real problem-solving endeavor through Labor Central, and really going straight on to try to fix the labor shortage in roofing. Pretty dang exciting.

Eric Carlisle:
It is. It's pretty exciting. And a concept, and something that's industry changing. And a solution we're hoping that will change the industry and how we work.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Will and probably is currently.

Eric Carlisle:
Thank you.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Before we jump into that, I would love for you to introduce yourself.

Eric Carlisle:
Thank you. Definitely. I'm Eric Carlisle, I'm one of the co-founders at Labor Central. I'm the tech and marketing director. My background is tech, and design, and marketing, and advertising. Well, I used to be in the AEC industry. Today, focused heavily on brand, and communication, and the strategy for our app today.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Excellent. Oh, that's so cool. Okay. You mentioned the app. A lot of people are going to be like, "Okay, Labor Central is the company, it's an app. What is that?" Why don't you start from the very beginning? What is Labor Central and the app that it's used to make it all happen?

Eric Carlisle:
For sure. Labor Central is this labor central so you can imagine that it's pretty simple. We are trying to centralize labor sources and labor pools for the roofing industry today, and expanding that to other trades soon. An opportunity just connecting labor sources and contractors, and that ability to find crews quickly and simply. It's tough.

Heidi Ellsworth:
It reminds me of Uber.

Eric Carlisle:
Indeed. In fact, I think probably one of our models is Uber, match.com, and what's our other one? Vrbo. So take all of them and mesh them together and hey, you want to take a vacation? We've got houses. Hey, you need crews and you're a contractor, bring them together. How do we do this? A simple format.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Really thinking about it, it's all on the phone, it's an app. I know it can be on desktop too. If I'm Uber I'm like, "I need a driver," but with this, I'm a roofing contractor, I need labor. Whether that's crews or even individual labor looking for individuals. You just put it in the app and off you go, and it takes you all through those steps.

Eric Carlisle:
Indeed. I hate to use this analogy but I do. It's like selecting a new car or used car that I want a crew of three to five with insurance, OSHA certifications. A profile that contractors can see to make better decisions quickly to recruit or hire teams or a single person. It just doesn't exist. It hasn't been in the market, it's not in the market other than recruiting firms or Indeed. Those things that I can go hire somebody. No, I need a quicker, faster way to judge and get into this find help.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Find them. You're the co-founder. Tell us a little bit about the history. Who's the other co-founder and how did you come up with this inspiration and this idea?

Eric Carlisle:
For sure. Jason Stanley is the founder. He's the owner of a manufacturing company in Irving, Texas, well, Grapevine now. And Ivan Garcia, a roofing contractor, a commercial roofing contractor. And I was a marketing director at the time for Jason's company. All of our sales team, and as contractors came in and purchased, "Hey, where can I find support to do this, get this product installed," right? Have all these questions and all the times that people ask us for help, man, there's got to be a better way to do this. There's got to be the big, massive black book. Everybody had their black book of referrals. I've got a crew or I've got this guy. Well, he's not available. The gap, right?

Heidi Ellsworth:
Right.

Eric Carlisle:
That's really our case of, how do we fill that gap? And that's really the inspiration is the gap and having the expertise adjacent. And Ivan understanding roofing and myself as well to, how do we bring this together? What does this mean? How can we just collect and build something that's valuable for contractors and crews alike to have this labor pool and job sourcing in the palm of their hand? Again, Labor Central, this centralized communications.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Being in charge of tech and communications, but being in charge of tech, how did you even start down that road to develop this technology and this app?

Eric Carlisle:
Great question. At first, just kicking around just ideas, right? How should we? What could we? We've had I'd say probably three or four different models already. So as we did start, give you a little bit of dirt under the hood so to speak. It was, I don't know, probably six months in and my best-laid plan was we get punched in the face, right, and you go, "Hey, this is awesome all these tools and features." We had timesheets, we had ... You could pay a crew with a credit card. You know what I mean?

Heidi Ellsworth:
Wow.

Eric Carlisle:
A lot of cool features that still are valid today. But ultimately the labor pool and the labor sourcing, labor market, how do I find crews and connect is really what it was. From building the app itself, just thinking, wishing, planning. What could we do? How can we do it? And just over this last six months has been pretty significant. A platform change, look, and feel, and effectiveness of meeting the needs of both crews and contractors.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Right. Because that takes a lot. Two different needs, two different levels of technology, sophistication. Probably more than two, probably a lot like a whole range of people who are used to using technology. Let's just walk through how it works. I'm a contractor, I need a crew, what do I do?

Eric Carlisle:
Simple. The easy way if you go to app.laborcentral.com, go right into it. You create an account as a contractor. We even ask you to fill a quick little profile so we know more about you as you're asking so we can better match to cruise the well too. So knowing hey, you're in certain states, certain place, and go from there. Once you fill out a profile you have two options. We call it instant search or easy search. Just click a button, click search, add the criteria that you're looking for. Today, it's by state, zip, radius, crew size, certifications. Again, a lot of the things that most contractors want to know after they start having conversations. We do it upfront. Search by the criteria that you were looking for, and then if you need a wide net search okay, maybe they don't have a $2 million policy or they don't have OSHA certifications. Okay. Again, how do we do it? Commercial, residential, EPDM, whatever. Move type, right, all these things. So that's one. It's the simple search method.

Eric Carlisle:
Part two would be post a project. And how the post project works is, if I had a project say in Dallas, I just put a project name to it so I don't have to put the details of where and all it is so it's anonymous as it goes out so people don't recognize the project and hey, wait a minute. But put in the roof type, the date start, close date. We make sure that as this contractor has people onboard, it deletes that out of our system or out of the view so contractors or crews don't have to come check it out. But once they put the general information, you can even add ... We've added now to some photos of the project so the crews can really get an understanding of what they're going to bid on or what they're going to see. Very important.

Eric Carlisle:
Not to mention, I think, in today's market with all the CRMs, let's call it, or even other measurement tools, EagleView, and JobNimbus, and some of these other ... All of them that are out there. How do we create something that ... Take this information and put it into ours and so we could integrate with them that the information of that project gives the crew a real hey, it really is 322 squares, not 306 or 200. So when they collectively meet, they go, "I know I'm bidding on a job that's 322 squares" because they're getting the information through some of the CRMs, that's uploadable now to our a project report. If that makes sense?

Eric Carlisle:
So once you hit the project report, it goes out and notifies anybody that meets that criteria within the state currently. It could go to surrounding states but doubtful. In that state, crews get alerted there's a project posted, here's the type, here's where it is, here's the owner or the contractor, call him. So in their phone they don't need the app, they don't need anything but "Hey, I'm interested in this project, I see the details, let's have a conversation."

Heidi Ellsworth:
Right.

Eric Carlisle:
That's it.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Love it.

Eric Carlisle:
So it's not a technology glitch.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Simple.

Eric Carlisle:
Yes. Again, that's what we try to say is simple.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Simple. I love it. Okay. Let's look at the other side of it. Because you know what? With the material shortages that have been going on, there are companies out there who are like, "We're just going to do installs, right, we're not even going to worry about it. Or maybe we can't get our own materials so we're going to go do installs for other folks." There's a lot of different types of crews. There's crews that that's all they do all the time, and then there's companies that maybe are starting to do crew work because of the material shortages and everything that's going on out there. If they want to get on the app so they can get notified of these jobs, how do they do that?

Eric Carlisle:
A similar fashion. App.laborcentral.com again, and then there's the red pill or blue pill so to speak, contractors or crews. Sign up if you want to be a crew then get notified of projects, you sign up as a crew. Again, profile, put all your profile information. So again, contractors, when they search, they can see that yes, you do have insurance or you're E-Verified. These are such critical and why Labor Central is a total different platform than anybody else. We have that level of detail of crews so you can match quickly. The better the profile technically the better odds that you are to match as well so completing that profile makes sense. And you're right about the different types of contractors or subcontractors. We know the market says that there's tier one, two, and three contractors and how this works at tier one. Usually hires these tier two subcontractors, or contractors really, that have license, and then they bring labor with them to do and manage the projects at this tier one level.

Eric Carlisle:
As you're saying, because of material shortages or labor shortages, there's so many companies that are ebb and flowing in time. Well, I don't really have a whole lot of work going on now. It's booked, it's calendared, but I've got 30 days of downtime for some of these subcontractors. Come into Labor Central, sign yourself up with a subcontractor. Or even if you're a pool contractor, you can still do the subcontract work. Again, these tier one guys that are looking for, how do I find the quality subcontractors that can run the job from A to B or the next level where there's contractors that are looking for just labor only? So it's really a couple layers of talent, right?

Heidi Ellsworth:
People need to really look at having all those credentials, right? Having the OSHA certification. And I'm just going to bring this up because as you're talking about it, but at some point, people will be able to start saying, "I have procertified installers on my crew," which is going to be spec'd and people are going to have to have. I mean, to be able to go in and say, "I want only Procertify people with ProCertified installers, or I want the whole crew to be OSHA 30, whatever it may be," that's pretty powerful.

Eric Carlisle:
You are good. Yes. Just even with us too, our system does quantify or qualify those that are POST certifications. We have a profile rating, I didn't think I talked about that. That just a profile rating, so once you do sign up, if you do have a contractor's license, you've been in business X amount of time, you have some NRCA certificate, the PROCertifications, or you have manufacturer certifications. Our contracts are constantly looking for, do you have somebody that's X, Y, Z certified or has these skill sets? Yes, we do. Yes, that's what we're driving to.

Eric Carlisle:
And I wanted to mention the whole NRCA. Our ultimate goal is partnering with NRCA and these other manufacturers to make training and educated crews ... Or taking education down to their level. That makes sense. The whole PROCertification, how do we grow the quality of everybody along the way? Contractors, of course, but the guys that are actually doing the work, how do they get this? And then it's really for us helping to market and filter this down, this information, through our platform, and as contracts work with them. With a little bit of education, a little bit of online training, a little bit of fieldwork, and some testing guess what you value and your ability to be matched up with other contractors.

Heidi Ellsworth:
I love that you have a profile number or a rating, I guess, is what you call it, right, with its profile rating.

Eric Carlisle:
Profile rating.

Heidi Ellsworth:
I mean, I just really think that's human nature is, if I go in and enter all my information on my crew and I have a rating that isn't matching the crews that are getting top dollars, I'm going to do something to change that so that I have that high profile rating. And then that helps the contractors who are hiring or the roofing companies that are hiring. And in the end, it helps the professionalism with the roofing and the consumers.

Eric Carlisle:
Correct. It really is a trickle-down effect. And with this, I'm sure we're going to talk about some other things too about that process. The ultimate goal is labor shortage, we don't have enough people in the system. The people that are in the system as they're graduating, or retiring, or aging out, how do we know that this labor pool that's still in the market really has those old-world skills and abilities to perform the way that we need to moving on, especially in today's tech operated? The machinery today is way different than it has been. The codes and approvals through many, many states that hey, these guys got to be sharp. By having NRCA and all these other certifications, being able to trickle this down to the guys that do the work, and growing our labor pool today, that's also part of our business goal, vision.

Heidi Ellsworth:
I would think too, that this is a great way to recruit into the industry. Not for contractors to recruit, I don't mean that, but what I mean is for the industry to recruit. Because if I'm coming into the industry and I want to start my own roofing, I just want to go out and I want a roof, that's what I want to do. I did it in college, it's great, where do I start? All of a sudden now you can go into this app, which they're very familiar with, and they can ... And I said, they roofed in college, vocational school, or high school, or whatever because it doesn't matter, but they are used to working on their phones. The last 30 years everybody's understands how to work a phone and how to work the app, it makes the entry barrier so much lower and easier to get in. And then they start hearing about all these certifications, and trainings and working with different manufacturers. It really seems like it could be a great portal to get more people into roofing.

Eric Carlisle:
100%. There's guys that as they come out of trade schools or training ... I know there's manufacturers that have their own academies, right? And out of those academies, well, how do I get these guys placed? Our system maybe they come in, put their name in the system, and guys are looking for salesmen, or warehouse workers, or whatever it might be, we can help do the recruiting that way. Or again, if it's crews. Or these guys that want to come out and start their own roofing company, well, they don't have crews today, right, so how do I find some guys that are local, that I can meet with, and I can get on a roof, and we can work together to grow something? It's the easiest way to incubate, right, a new roofing company just because there's a resource to go to.

Heidi Ellsworth:
It makes so much sense. And it's a resource that makes sense to this next generation because it's technology-based, which we haven't had a lot of. I mean, we have had in the last couple years, but we still need so much more. So what is the response that you're hearing from ... Let's start with the roofing companies who are looking for crews or looking for labor, what's their response?

Eric Carlisle:
Ecstatic. The greatest thing since sliced bread, I wish I had of thought of this. Hey, this is a long time coming, which is great. The accolades are huge. Industry people as well too. Manufactured stuff. You'll hear some more great news coming about some relationships and partnerships that are coming up, but it's been overwhelming quite frankly. We're right now in that growth mode so taking the accolades and the contractors are using the system, using those analytics. How is it helping? How can we do better? What do we need to do more of to support that function? And really it's just how do we get more crews? How do we get more opportunities in areas that these guys have projects going on? Again, our biggest hurdle still is finding crews or getting the crews to sign up in the areas that projects are-

Heidi Ellsworth:
Where they're happening. You're closing in on 1,000 crews on the application, right?

Eric Carlisle:
Indeed. And 1,000 crews that represents maybe probably an average of an eight to 10 person crew out of the system. That's-

Heidi Ellsworth:
Wow, that's huge.

Eric Carlisle:
10,000 people. 10,000 names and numbers that are ready to go to work somehow.

Heidi Ellsworth:
And who are looking for work and ready to go, that's incredible. What are you hearing from those crews? What's their feedback in response?

Eric Carlisle:
It's even better quite frankly. If you can imagine a chicken and egg, right. That when we started this well, it's a great concept but you don't really have something. So we started in Texas, in some areas and regions to grow it. Again, we're still growing in some areas, but as the areas have now pinged and contractors are putting projects in. I get calls from now crews, they're calling me, "Hey, how can I get in" ... They don't have the details yet or they didn't ask about it. They'll come into our website, "Hey, how do we get involved through social media?" I'm getting now direct calls. "I want in, how do I do it?"

Heidi Ellsworth:
That's great.

Eric Carlisle:
And their friends or other people in their crew that are starting to find jobs and do this now. And I love that. I love knowing that it's a two-way street. The good crews and good contractors working together is this environment that we want to nurture and cultivate really. So it's a completely viable option in roofing and other trades to come.

Heidi Ellsworth:
To come. That is so cool. Okay. So we really already talked about this, but I just want to bring this back. Are there any requirements on how many crews or people can ... The size of the crew, the size of the company, are there any restrictions or anything along that line that crew ... Let's start with crews. That crews should be aware of?

Eric Carlisle:
Not at all. Our biggest goal for crews is create an awesome profile. Meaning, if they're only shingles then put it in shingles. Do they have certifications? What areas they're in? Do they travel? Are they capable of being E-verified or something like that, or at least do they have a driver's license, right? Well, probably 10% of the crews we have they may ... Some say they didn't mark. I'm sure they have a driver's license, maybe they don't. They put down on the profile they have a valid driver's license. The level of detail of which they operate is what we're looking for. An example. Jessica, our senior account manager, we follow up with 98% of every crew, or she speaks with everyone to check, understand who they are what they do, to really make sure that the profile is right and the information they provided us is good so that the connection between contractor and crew, it goes pretty smoothly.

Eric Carlisle:
Because I know that's always a big question, I'll go ahead and get it out here. Hey, how do you vet your crews? Not my crews, we're trying to be the match.com. How do I make the best opportunity to put the best foot forward or the best face on this crew so that the crew and contractor can have that handshake and conversation before they get on the roof to know wow, all right, you say you have it on paper, now let's talk about it? I can hear in your voice you've done this before, come on out let's go get on a roof, right? That's the best that we can technically do until we come up with some other processes of maybe having some technical services that we're thinking about.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Well, just like Airbnb, it's a little bit self-monitoring, right? If people are not honest and truthful out there, or if the contractor ... On either side, crews or contractors, they're going to talk, they're going to leave notes, they're going to leave comments or possibly reviews so it's important that you come into this at the highest level because that's what everybody wants, nobody wants to be taken advantage of.

Eric Carlisle:
Crowdsourcing is everything, right?

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah.

Eric Carlisle:
I mean, if you think about it. Even on the freeway, Waze, and Google Maps, and all these things that hey, the best data allows a better resource of tools that we all can use. If that police car's not sitting there hey, let me know. You know what I mean? If there's an accident or whatever, I want to avoid those pitfalls. At the end of the day, like Labor Central, that's our ultimate goal.

Heidi Ellsworth:
People are used to that now, right? You rate your drivers. You give that feedback because you want to only make it better and better, which is what's happening with all of you. Okay. Before we get into that one more time of how but I do want to say, how do you see this and maybe even on a larger level of feedback? I mean, I know you work with Reid Ribble, or he's been involved in Trent Cotney, we've been involved with you guys. We see it, we know that this is going to make such a difference in the industry. In your words, Eric, how do you see this really changing the labor shortage and what we're looking at?

Eric Carlisle:
That's a great question. And our vision for Labor Central really is, it's an industry solution. We're trying to find how do we create an industry solution, not just a Vrbo, that's a vacation home, we're talking about total industry solution for both contractors, and crews, and windows, doors, siding, gutters, bidet, right, and roofing. Creating a platform that promotes education, that promotes viability, sustainability too through education and through good quality work, and supporting the manufacturers. I'm not a manufacturer. And distribution channels that knowing that when materials are slow or something, guys can find work, we really want to be that rip cord. I can go to a place and find some work, I can maybe get some names and numbers of guys so I can find some work or find some crews to help me get my work done. We know roofing's hard enough. The heat, pressure, the material, all the things that go into it, there's not another trade like roofing and I now know that. They say plumbing. Well, plumbers, they got to get in some dirty places but they can be inside a lot. Roofers, always outside. Heat.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Always outside, always dirty.

Eric Carlisle:
Yes. It's just messy. That's so funny to me and I'll segue [inaudible 00:25:09]. The PVC world or single-ply versus hot tar, all these things that-

Heidi Ellsworth:
We'll clean around the PVC side.

Eric Carlisle:
Right.

Heidi Ellsworth:
I'm a single-ply. And I was actually just on a conversation earlier today talking about the importance of online digital communities. And really that's what Labor Central ... Much like we try every day to do with RoofersCoffeeShop, resources to bring people together, to network, to find solutions, to do business, it's very much the same way. It's an online network, and maybe not network is the right word but community is definitely the right word, where people can come in and find work. I mean, that's huge.

Eric Carlisle:
Right.

Heidi Ellsworth:
And find labor.

Eric Carlisle:
Right. I mean, either way, both of them, they have families to feed, right? At the end of the day, hey, contractors without a job, without crews, they can't work. Without crews, they can't feed their families too so it really is a win-win. And like that, as you said, too, something coming up, part of it is ... We are soon to create that same thing, a community. There's many social groups and stuff to talk about. Certain product types and technology types or technical issues, we want to also be part of that conversation and we're growing into that here soon to meet some experts and provide expertise on not law, but some legal stuff or contracts, whatever it might be. Pricing, estimating, all the stuff that everybody talks about on all these other things. Again, Labor Central, let's bring it all together as a community and a workforce and put it together.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Right. Put them together. I love that. I think that is so important. In order to get started, you already told them where to go so let's say that one more time. Where do they go?

Eric Carlisle:
Well, let's go to www.LaborCentral.com. You can go there and get all the information. Or if you want to go right into the app and get started, app.laborcentral.com. A-P-P.laborcentral.com.

Heidi Ellsworth:
All right. Just so everybody knows out there, you'll see the pricing and everything, we're not going to talk about pricing on a show. I'm just saying, go look at the website because you're going to be very happy with how much ROI this will be brought back to you when you look at the cost of the overall to be involved. It is very affordable, it's a great solution, it's only going to grow. The sooner you get in the better. You can find all this information also on RoofersCoffeeShop. Labor Central has a full directory with information, podcast, videos, all of Eric's amazing marketing. It is excellent. It will answer every single question that you have.

Eric Carlisle:
Perfect. Absolutely. Thank you.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Thank you. Eric, I just want to say before we go, thank you so much. And Jason and everybody involved with Labor Central for not only just coming up with a great business, because we all love a good business, but also really the altruistic of what this business is going to do for the industry and how much you all give back is just phenomenal so thank you so much.

Eric Carlisle:
Thank you, likewise. I greatly appreciate it. I thank you for having your platform and putting guys like me on.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Well, we'll keep it going. We'll keep this great information going out there. For everyone listening, thank you. Be sure to check out Labor Central's directory on RoofersCoffeeShop. Also, be sure to check out all the podcasts we do under the Roofing RLW section of RoofersCoffeeShop.com under Roofing Road Trips, or on your favorite podcast channel. Be sure to subscribe and ring the bell or hit those notifications so you don't miss a single episode. And we will be seeing you next time on the next Roofing Road Trips.

Speaker 1:
Make sure to subscribe to our channel and leave a review. Thanks for listening. This has been Roofing Road Trips with Heidi from the RoofersCoffeeShop.com.