John Kenney - Estimating Without Barriers - PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with John Kenney of Cotney Consulting Group. You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast.

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Megan Ellsworth: Hello everyone. Welcome back to Roofing Road Trips from rooferscoffeeshop.com. My name is Megan Ellsworth and I am really excited to bring an exciting new estimating training program to you all from Cotney Consulting. And I have John Kenney here. Hi John. How are you? 

John Kenney: Good, how are you today? 

Megan Ellsworth: I'm so good. I'm so excited to learn about your Spanish estimating training program so let's dive right in. I'll have you just introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about Cotney. 

John Kenney: I'm John Kenney and always great to be here and always enjoy speaking to everybody that's in RoofersCoffeeShop and RoofersCoffeeShop land. And I'm running the CEO of Cotney Consulting Group. And the main thing that I concentrate on from after all the years of being a contractor is working with contractors and roofers in the industry. And one of the big aspects is training and  that's what we're here to really go over today is a specialized training for this new one we've got released. 

Megan Ellsworth: I think this is so important to have Spanish language training. Why would you say Spanish language estimating training specifically is such a critical need in the roofing industry today? 

John Kenney: Well, I created this and I got thinking about, so it's taken two lives. One of it is there's actually Spanish countries that are estimating here that are taking as estimators. But the real important part about this and what this is geared for is for that foreman crew leader out running a job that's in their native language. Some of the differences in the issues between the English language, especially in roofing, any construction and  Spanish is some of the words do not exist. The big challenge was to get this into the native language, which it is, but to have it also make sense because that's where a lot of times the communication gets lost. It's just some of the words don't exist that we're used to dealing with in the industry. 

Megan Ellsworth: That is so, so true. Vice versa either way. Can you walk us through what the virtual Spanish estimating training covers? 

John Kenney: It covers a full aspect like any other training that we do. It's going to give them the touch on understanding reading specifications, plans. It's going to give them the knowledge of estimating on the roof systems, because I'm going to get a little deeper into it in a little while, but one of things I learned early in my career as a foreman, you have to know how to actually lay your jobs out, keep track of your material, keep track of your hours and production rates and  there's no other way of putting it, but that's what estimating is all about. It's going to walk them through that whole entire process, which I think is going to, what, make someone in the field so much better at what their job is and give them empowerment. The whole goal is to give them empowerment and it's easier for them to learn in the native language. 

Megan Ellsworth: Exactly. Exactly. Have you seen what the impact of trainings like this in Spanish, in someone's native language, the impact it has on people in the field fully understanding their role and understand the estimate? 

John Kenney: What happens is the normal case, how we run things through is, basically the estimating normally falls into the admin category and an estimator will put the job together and they'll hand it off to the field, which ends up in the foreman's hands to do the job. And there's so much lost information that happens at that point, that is where, as they say, the ball is dropped. And what I'm finding is when we are working with the foreman to understand one, the thought process the estimator goes through, what you'll learn here and  then they have the skills to be able to take that information and transfer it over to what they normally do, which is in charge of making sure we have the right materials going in place, making sure the quality's there, making sure production's happening. What do they have to... Their main things they're worrying about really is safety, quality and production. 

John Kenney: But if the information's not there and they have to stop at any point to try to figure out what they need to do to complete all those three operations, what happens is either something with safety goes off or quality, for sure, wrong installation and  other case of that is production, it takes too long to do a particular job. I think this is what's important is it's in Spanish and it's not Google translated Spanish, which you guys know, you actually went and had some of your experts preview it. It's in Spanish so that they gather this information and they get the thought process and also be able to take that and transform that into what they're doing out in the field. 

Megan Ellsworth: That's so great. And after this training it's not just the office team knowing the ins and outs of the estimate, it's every person in the team having a full understanding of the estimate of the job. And that's just so important, like you said, to safety and quality control. 

John Kenney: It is. And Megan, early in my career when I was running crews out in the field and I was getting poor estimates, poor information and  I started to learn on my own how to break all these things down, good things started to happen. That's where I think this is going to become very valuable to anybody running the crews. And as we know in our industry, the majority of our foremen and our crews now are Hispanic so you got to train. That's the important part in our industry is get training there. 

Megan Ellsworth: Absolutely. How is this course tailored specifically for Spanish-speaking professionals in roofing? I know you said it's not just Google translated Spanish. What did you do to tailor it? 

John Kenney: Well, again, I think the largest challenge or the greatest challenge was to be able to get it translated into Spanish. What I said, a lot of it doesn't exist, so you wouldn't think that, especially when you get into estimating and specifications and plans and there's just different words mean different things. That's why it's so important when I worked with a professional to do this and  the roofing industry, they understood what was on the other side to be able to take the English version and translate it. Because if not, I really don't think this would've came out well at all. And that was the biggest challenge and  that's what we've accomplished with this program is to get it right where it needs to be. 

Megan Ellsworth: That's so exciting. And for everyone out there that is getting excited alongside me, you can find this on the Cotney Consulting Group directory on Roofer's Coffee Shop. This is just so exciting, John. Have you seen language barriers in person on the job around estimating and planning and do you think this training will help remove those? 

John Kenney: I do because it's giving the field worker, the foreman and  when I say worker, the field installer, the one that actually the rubber hits the road, there's nothing really more important in any roofing company than your field installation crews, that's where you live or die- 

Megan Ellsworth: Absolutely. 

John Kenney: ... off of that. They're now getting that insight into what they're supposed to and  I'm going to use this key phrase, supposed to be getting. Because if they're not now they know what to go back to their supervision and say, "Look, I've taken this course, I now know what I need to know that's got to come from the office to the field so that I can do my job. And I now have learned the skills that I can break it all out how I need to," because an estimator breaks out one way, a field's going to break out another way. But they have gained these skills with that. 

John Kenney: And yes, I've seen a lot of language barriers and  what happens is no one wants to admit they don't understand anything. And that goes both ways. That's not just on the Spanish language side, that's on the English language side as well. You're trying to be communicated to and  you're trying to piece it all together. And what I really hope this does and  I feel it does, is take that barrier away. We've taken both of these important parts and got them out to how they can learn from it and not have that barrier anymore. 

Megan Ellsworth: That is so great and  that's so important to be able to work cohesively as a team on the job and everyone having the same knowledge set without a barrier to entry also. Because a lot of times when these classes, CEU credits and what have you are only offered in English, that is a for real barrier to entry for a lot of people. How does this training help foremen and crew leaders specifically better manage labor and materials on site? I know we've touched on it a little bit, but let's look at crew leaders specifically. 

John Kenney: Sure. Well, I think one of the biggest problems when I'm training estimators and I'm training companies on this, is being able to take the information and get it out to the field in the format that they need to break it down. A lot of times what happens is roofing companies and estimators actually it's their sales proposal, their scope of work for a sales proposal that goes to the field. I'm going to tell you from my experience and anybody that's been in the field, that's 100% and a million percent useless. Because what we need in the field when you're running a crew is understanding how much time I have to do something, what materials, where they're actually at. 

John Kenney: When I train the estimators, we teach them two things. We teach them how to build your roof system from the deck up, which is extremely important, you have to know your full system. But the estimate, we teach them how to build from the ground up, which includes leaving your shop, mobilizing, setting the job up properly, then installing all the pieces that we normally have and  then getting off the job, punching it out, cleaning up. Where this is important, guess what they get in the Spanish training, the same avenue of how to do that. Now we say, wait a minute, am I receiving this information this way? Maybe not, but what if I'm not? I'll take what I've got. 

John Kenney: Now I know how it should be broke out and I can take this because that's really how a foreman and a crew are going to install a job. We've got to get there, we've got to set it up. We have safety to take care of. We've got to get our materials up on the roof, stage it. Then we've got to build our roof system from whatever it is, from deck up, flash it, penetrations, trims, clean up, punch out and done. And they learn all this, how it gets priced that way. And I think that's going to make a big difference on anybody running a crew to have that ability. 

John Kenney: Because one last touch on this, why it's so important is our general normal progression. General normal progression in the industry a few decades ago was we brought our estimators up from the field. You can train them on how to estimate, but they have the field knowledge. We don't have that much anymore and I think why that is is because of the language barrier. I think they're afraid to make that next jump and you don't see it a lot in companies as you used to. That's what I'm really hoping this does, gives the confidence level back. 

Megan Ellsworth: Absolutely. That's so important to be able to move up and take leadership roles. What are some of the biggest misunderstandings about estimating that you've seen and how does this course clear those up? 

John Kenney: I think some of the biggest misunderstandings I see when I'm working with different people is that all they think goes into an estimate is just, okay, this is the roof system, this is what it's going to take to do. And then when I start talking to them about labor to do it, that's where the loss comes in. "Well, we don't really know how much labor takes, we got a sub." Even if you're using a labor sub and  this works, if you're a foreman and you're running a labor sub crew and you're working for the roofers, this course is for you too, because you have to be able to figure out how long it takes you to do the job and which this will take you to do. 

John Kenney: But I think that's the biggest misunderstanding is just taking prices, putting them together and you're done. There's a mythology when it comes to estimating and  really I want to drill that term in, it's ground up, you have to understand. When I teach live I actually have the group to be able, when I give them an exercise, to shut their eyes. And you should be able to walk right through the entire roofing process from starting to finish. And I know you take your foreman, I have people that take these classes from the field, they can do it without any problem whatsoever- 

Megan Ellsworth: Wow. 

John Kenney: ... because they're doing it every day. Now when we get this whole [inaudible 00:13:18] put together and understand how that works to actually estimate from and how it's installed in the field, that's golden. That puts two things together that needs to happen. 

Megan Ellsworth: It's so important just for a business as well, to have people that know a project from the ground up with their eyes closed. That's so interesting that you do that. And going back to our previous point on having the tools to be able to move up the corporate ladder, so to say, that is one of them for sure. You want someone in the office that also knows what the people in the field are doing. And I think that's cool that you do that with their eyes closed and they can just do it and  easypeasy. 

John Kenney: You got to walk through the process. And out in the field the more knowledge, you get what's going to happen, you're going to become more efficient. The more efficient you are, let's face it, what happens is, roofing is not easy, but your job becomes easier. The work itself is always going to be hard. Roofing is roofing, but when your job and the way you run your crews and the way your crews interact to do the process of removing and installing roofing, whatever it may be, new construction, re-roofs, tear offs, it doesn't matter, you become more efficient and the job actually goes so much smoother. 

John Kenney: And one of the biggest problems I find with foreman and  we teach this, is the three-day look ahead, understanding how much material I have to produce the job and make sure I have the proper material to do it. What happens is if we can't do a good three-day look ahead, we're constantly calling and running off the job and looking for materials. By understanding the estimating process, I think you're going to become an expert in the three-day look ahead and  I think it's going to make a big difference. 

Megan Ellsworth: For sure. How do those interested out there listening, how do they access this training? 

John Kenney: Well, this one is exclusively through RoofersCoffeeShop. RoofersCoffeeShop, that would be contact them. You have the whole Spanish program there at RoofersCoffeeShop, this is part of that. They'll give you the access code to get in and all you have to do is follow a link that they're going to supply you. You're in the program and you're ready to go. It's that simple. There's not a lot to do. You just have to put your name in, that's it, once you get to the link spot. 

Megan Ellsworth: Absolutely. And all of that will be in the footnotes of this episode, so you can go check it out. Go check out the Cotney Consulting Group directory as well, like I mentioned before on rooferscoffeeshop.com. And to find out more information about other trainings like this, you can reach out to Alex at rooferscoffeeshop.com. And if you want to learn more about our Spanish, our en Español program and read articles in Spanish Artículos - Podcasteros, reach out to Jessica at rooferscoffeeshop.com to learn more about our Spanish program. Okay, so John, before we wrap up, can you tell us a little bit about the English version of this training, understanding the estimate, how the English and Spanish, these two courses complement each other? 

John Kenney: Sure. Well, the English version is a very similar course line that you're getting in the Spanish version, but of course it's all geared to the English language. And one thing is in the English language, I also have a lot of clients that take the English version in Canada as well because the Canadian organizations in roofing, they estimate the same way that we do here. Even though they may have some metric now and then it doesn't matter, it's just a takeoff process. But again, if you take this course, you're going to get the basic skills from how do I even begin to start on an estimate all the way up to understanding the roof systems that you may be bidding on, the processes that we're talking about, to how I start putting an estimate together. This is not going to make you an expert. Nothing can make you an expert by learning, but it's going to give you a solid foundation. That's the whole key, you need a solid foundation to continue to build your career off of. 

Megan Ellsworth: Wow, amazing. And people can find that other estimating training on your directory as well- 

John Kenney: Correct. 

Megan Ellsworth: ... find where they can go take that. This is just so exciting. Thank you for providing such an important training like this for the Spanish speaker. Thanks John and  I'm excited to hear- 

John Kenney: My pleasure. 

Megan Ellsworth: ... people's experiences with it. 

John Kenney: Me too. I've had some people that have run through it. I've gotten good feedback on it. But I'm curious, can't wait until we get a... Want to see a whole lot of foreman out there take this course and see what it is. 

Megan Ellsworth: Yes. If you're not a foreman, you can still take it. Send it to your foreman friends, send it to your boss, get out there and get everybody going on this great estimating training en Espanol. John, thank you again, so appreciate your time and wisdom. And everyone out there listening, you can go to rooferscoffeeshop.com to learn more and also listen to all of our other episodes and find out more about John and Cotney Consulting. And we'll see you next time on the next Roofing Road Trip. 

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