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How Restoration Contractors Can get Paid Faster
Learn how to leverage your lien rights to build stronger customer relationships with Klark Brown, Chris Laney, and Liam Duddy. And also learn how to set expectations with your clients from the beginning, including explaining the payment process.
Transcript
Liam Duddy:
Yeah, just to kick off the topic today, how to partner with your customers to get paid. That’s obviously a, a broad topic. There’s a lot that comes into play with that. Um, but I’d like to just first say thank you again for coming. Thank you for all those attending. We’ll send you a recording following this, um, for those that couldn’t attend. And, um, I look forward to this here, just to, um, begin with intros. I’d like for, you know, Clark, Chris, to kind of tell us a little bit about yourself and your organization, what we do get going here. Um, Clark, if you’d like to like to kick us off
Klark Brown:
With the Alliance of Independent Restores is who I’m representing today. It’s a trade association that we started, uh, for the restoration industry. That’s just try to continue an effort that we’ve all been trying to build unity and education to make, uh, the restorative more successful and eventually ultimately help our, our end user clients by being more professional. So I live in Richmond, Virginia, and I think we’re aligned in the way that you’re just trying to make people successful as well. So I appreciate you having me on.
Chris Laney:
I’m Chris Laney. I own Water Out with my wife in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Um, just got an absolutely great team here, and then just fortunate enough to have been doing this for 18 years. Um, known Clark now for a few years, since we met a long time ago out in bend Oregon, it seems like, but, uh, a lot of things have happened since then and a lot of good things for the industry. We started using Levelset just over a year ago and implemented into our, into our process on the back end. Um, and, uh, it’s been really, really helpful for us and it’s been a good tool for us to use when it’s needed. Great. And then, uh, Liam duddy, I’m a senior account executive with Levelset. I’ve been, had the pleasure of working with a lot of air members, a lot of restoration companies, um, you know, contractors as well, um, helping them, like you said, Clark, you know, empowering them to get paid, um, to get what they’re owed, um, and doing.
Liam Duddy:
So just making that, you know, less stressful or less of a headache that could come along with that. Um, cause we know as, as you both know it all, it all happens, everyone. Unfortunately in, in, uh, in this industry and construction restoration, there’s all, there’s always some something that, uh, or could be potential, uh, with payment issues or risk, um, when you’re dealing with that. Um, so I like to, you know, just some topics today that we’re going to be discussing. Um, you know, how to leverage your lien rights to build stronger customer relationships, um, how to set expectations with your clients from the beginning, including exactly what to say, to explain the payment process. I’m hearing a little bit about, you know, both of you kind of how you would vocalize that, you know, also hearing different perspective as a consultant and an owner, like looking forward to hear that, and then some specific examples of client onboarding, um, that you or other restoration companies have had success with, um, examples of that and to kind of go into detail.
Liam Duddy:
So it’s going to be an open discussion, um, you know, just going over these questions pretty, pretty free here. Um, pretty rigid, but, um, one thing too, we’ll do a Q and a at the end, um, feel free to submit your questions. Now, I believe there is a, in a way for y’all to submit a Q and a, I think you see it on the bottom of your tab. So go ahead and throw in questions and we’ll save some time at the end to, uh, to address those. So just to begin, I want to ask you, um, you know, for people that maybe aren’t familiar with Alliance of Independent Restores, um, and park, I like to ask you this specifically, um, Chris, feel free to answer this as well, but, um, what does independent mean to you? Or what does the term independent mean? Um, within that organization? Within the organism?
Klark Brown:
Yeah, thanks for asking. And by the way, I’m having a little bit of a, a spotty issue with my zoo here. So I really apologize if I’m not clear, but I’m glad you asked because that’s probably one of the top questions where we’re confronted with is the word independent. A lot of people think of that a different ways. Um, the restoration industry is divided right down into not divided, but it is occupied by franchises and non franchises. And that is not what we mean by the word independent. We actually have members of both to us independent means independent, which means we are directly in contractual and work relationships with the end user of the insured. Or even if it’s not insurance with the client who is in it occurred or incurred damage to their property or home independent means we aren’t working for the insurance company and the carrier.
Klark Brown:
We aren’t here to make them the enemy, but our industry has been risen as they’ve been raised on this mindset and of offender programs and TPA. And we have watched the degradation of that relationship into not building strong sustainable companies because of the Alliance that people have, not with their user, but you can’t serve two masters. You have to serve the carrier. So we’re trying to shift that mindset like the shirts involved, but I want you to turn your focus back and be an independent company, an LLC, or an S Corp or whatever you are, your articles of incorporation and your name on them and no one’s else. And you need that customer to be your customer. That’s what we’ve always been for independent. And I think that resonates well when, when we talked about that, definitely.
Liam Duddy:
Um, well, great. I appreciate that, that insight, especially for those that aren’t familiar, um, with the lines of an stories we’ll, we’ll change, we’ll share some information as well. Feel free to check out AI. It’s a, it’s a, I R restored.org, correct?
Chris Laney:
Yeah. AI, R E S T R E Airstory work and uh, just go check it out. We’ve got some really, really, really interesting things and how we collaborate. That’s a, that’s part of it, the community, how we communicate with each other. So go check it out, AR store.org and, uh, we have some really cool things going on.
Liam Duddy:
Yep. So it’s an awesome group. Really had the pleasure of working with, uh, with members, um, were great just to begin, you know, kind of with the sticking to the topic, um, you know, customer onboarding, that’s kind of the overall theme here and I look forward to this cause I, I look forward to hearing it from both of your perspectives. What do you envision when that first comes to mind just overall? Um, I’d like to hear your opinion on that.
Chris Laney:
I’ll, I’ll take that first Clark, um, you know, I think for us, it’s, it’s consistent proper communication from phone call through collections and, you know, you got to onboard them and explain that process from speaking the same language throughout the company, from the person that’s answering the phone to the supervisor, that it shows up initially on site to the backend coordinators that are discussing that process. So when, when you go out and you’re onboarding them on that first day, everything that’s being said to them and how that’s happening has to transition throughout the whole entire company. And so everybody’s speaking the same language because in a typical company, there’s going to be multiple people in the company that touched that file and making sure that the customer understands that process understands that there is going to, it’s not just the person that showed up. It’s not going to be the only person that they’re going to deal with throughout the process.
Chris Laney:
So I think a lot of it comes back to communication during that first initial response. Yeah. I’d like to piggyback off that. Chris is a hundred percent my folks, I know Chris does it, right. Uh, spent some time in Indiana and does incredible job, but I actually take this as a very serious topic and onboarding your customer literally starts before you even know that they are a customer. It goes all the way back to your processes, procedures, your training, your accreditations, your, your certificate certification, your contracts, your contracts, and how you engage in business and work with people is part of the onboarding. It’s a transparency is professionalism, it’s a trust. And so I think that as you move in and you do meet the customer, it all matches the next couple of things. You’re going to say, you’re spelling out, like Chris said, so Chris has a really good handle on it. And, um, it’s just a really big topic to me. And I think if something, our industry in that transition of independent, I don’t think we’ve sharpened that pencil across the whole well enough. And I think it’s something that’s an area we all could really improve on.
Speaker 3: (09:00)
I think a lot of times the situations and the issues that companies and restores are having on the back end of the process is due to how they’re set up on that initial, uh, onboarding process. So, um, it’s extremely, extremely important. These people, a lot of them, um, have never been through this process before. They don’t know exactly what’s going on. They’ve never filed a claim with their insurance company. Um, and sometimes the hard part for restores is you’re dealing with that every single day. So you, at times you’re customer facing with them and, and you forget to explain certain things to them that are very, very beneficial for them to know, because you constantly are doing it over and over and over. So taking the time to do that and do it properly, like Clark said, have a process in place before the phone call, even, even, even occurs is very, very important.
Chris Laney:
It’s a great point. Go ahead. And Chris, would you agree? And I tell people this all the time, our industry of the remediation specialist, the restoration technician, that’s not a well known trade. We’re actually not even ready that as a trade in the industry. So we can’t assume the customer mind just think we’re a GC, but we’re much different. We’re much deeper niche. We have a different set of tools and skillsets, and we forget that we may talk this language that it’s completely a different language to them. So I think a lot of times it is just like, what is it? We’re not plumbers, but we kind of fit into that rep. We have to be diagnostics people in softer with empathy and understanding, ask them what they do and don’t know. So I can’t tell you how many homes I’ve walked into that these people have lived in their own, this same house for 20 or 30 years.
Chris Laney:
They’ve never had a water damage. So to walk in there and expect that you think that they’re going to understand this process that is difficult for us to even navigate every single day. Um, you just, you can’t take it for granted. That’s for sure. And it is very, very important. And, uh, the process being consistent throughout the process is on every single file just really, really helps the whole company to be on the same page and helps that client to better understand. There’s a lot of structure in place. This isn’t, we’re not sitting here just winging this. Um, there’s some very, very specific structure in place to help us walk through that process. And, you know, you mentioned we can keep talking about process. I’m curious to know, um, Chris, what, how would, how do you vocalize somebody? What are some buzz words or how do you vocalize some of this, uh, this process that you currently have to your customer and what are you, what are some common words or maybe phrases that you hear say when you park you as well, you’ve come across during this, during this, uh, overarching thing, you know, for us it’s, it’s, it comes back to response, documentation and communication.
Chris Laney:
Those are the three key factors us. Um, and, and when we vocalizing this process to them, it’s our first responders, our supervisors that are showing up and setting the stage by doing the initial moisture inspection, um, creating an estimate before we start, um, we’re a little bit of the odd ball, I think in our industry that produces an estimate up front before we start. But I can tell you that after doing that for 15 years in dialing that process, and, um, it really, really changes the onboarding process. Instead of saying to this customer, it’s going to be three to $5,000 to do this job. We’re going to put a specific number on a work authorization before we start. And right there that’s that vocalizes a lot, um, in our opinion. And we found that to be very, very beneficial and it just, it lowers the anxiety level. If it’s $8,000, it’s $8,000. It is what it is, but we put that scope in place and vocalize those things so that they understand what it’s going to be, what it’s going to entail, how long the process is going to take. Um, so I don’t know if we use real specific key words when we’re explaining those things as much as we probably should. Um, as much as we try to focus on outlying what that whole entire process looks like. It’s great.
Chris Laney:
I, you know, I, I, a hundred percent agree. Um, the customer, you know, we don’t know what they don’t know. Um, and, and, and what I’ve always done as when I was a restorer, when I was a contractor. And now even as a, a restoration coach, it takes a lot of questions asking a lot of questions and not do as much talking and dating. Um, but yeah, you know, just, what do you think this is? You know, what, what are your expectations? What are you thinking? What’s the end game again. But the first thing I do when I’m talking to any client, if I try every mind that I can to put myself in their shoes, meaning I’m a consumer, I shop for things at my home, what would I want a contractor coming to my house? What I say, Hey, let’s pour a new driveway, but you’ve got an open checkbook.
Chris Laney:
You know, I don’t know what this is going to cost, but we’ll figure it out. A, and that’s never going to put me on a real easy plan to, and I know that insurance is involved, but there’s no guarantee insurance is going to pay a hundred percent of her claim. I think we’ve all learned that. So I think telling the customer, we understand, we hear you. We feel that you’re might be an easy and then asking, is there anything else that you would like me to give you that maybe I’m not thinking of it again, I just opened up to a whole, a whole trust. A bridge of trust is what I call it.
Liam Duddy:
Yeah. That’s a, that’s a great point. And I think we, you hear that a lot, especially, um, Levelset is preserving relationships, having that empathy going in with an understanding of, you know, what they’re in their shoes, but you obviously, like you mentioned Chris, it’s 8,000. You want to get paid and it’s 8,000 and you mentioned that’s a good point. I really liked what you said there, how in a way can
Chris Laney:
Onboard the customer, or I guess overall the way insurance claims works, works with and restoration, how can the property owner or your client be an advocate to get you paid faster and not only faster, but in full of what you’re owed, I’ll take it. Um, first the, uh, having them involved throughout the process, through the communication with any outside parties that are involved, um, and if we start engaging with a third party, uh, administrator on their behalf, if we engage with the carrier on their behalf, they’re going to be involved with those communication, whether it’s a three way phone call, um, it’s a, uh, email that they’re at least CC’d on every single email, um, so that they can watch the process happen. But the one thing that our supervisors do very well in that initial process, and I, and I love the word empathy is one, you know, apologize that they’re in this situation, but also explain what that back end collections process looks like and explain that the carrier might do these things.
Chris Laney:
And in the event that they do, when they do do it, your customer sitting there like, man, that is my trusted advisor. They did fully understand what this process is going to look like. They walked me through this before actually occurred. And so I better understand what I’m actually dealing with. Instead of I get an email at six o’clock on a Thursday night, I just got home from work and what’s going on with this client. They kind of understand that these things are coming. Um, many times we’ll call the policy holder before we send an email response that they’re attached to explain what’s about to happen. Explain if they have any questions about what’s going on. Um, and those things really get them on your side. Once you have them on your side, take care of them. Don’t take directions from outside parties. This is their home, they’re your client, you’re working directly for them. And as you do that, I think in the end, they start to advocate for you when you took care of them during that process. And that’s what we found, um, providing that good customer service from that phone call to the time you’re done, helps them to advocate for you on the backend when they’re trying to get reimbursed from the carrier. That’s great.
Klark Brown:
Yeah, I’ll add to that. Uh, you know, we, what we fall into, which is difficult, especially for all the different personalities that we employ, we we’re, we’re going in with this heavy amount of empathy. Like, like Chris said, like, you know, we are, these are victims of a certain level of, of trauma. You know, again, trauma may be a really heavy headed word, but some type of event that they may have, how they’re handling it is, uh, it might be extreme for our tastes, but it’s, it’s realistic for them. But then here we are trying to conduct a business transaction and we have to be, you know, we have to be a business. And, um, I love the term fair, but when I’m onboarding a customer and I think Chris does this as well, you create a scope of work and a scope of work is absolutely, uh, you know, a script is like, this is the lane that I fall into.
Klark Brown:
These are my promises to you. These are the things I’m good at. And these are the things you’re going to be getting for me. Incredible. But there are some things that they’re going to occur throughout the next one to five weeks. And they are going to be some of these relationships situations with your carrier. We’re not in a relationship with your carrier. We have no contractual connection. You do, you have the biggest voice and they actually work for you. You are there, they’re your insurance company and you have paid them on time the last year or 43 years. And you’re going to have that. So sometimes you give them tools, here’s a pen, a specialty pen, and here’s a piece of a notepad. I want you to document every time you speak to them and the day of the time and who, and you arm them with the expectation of I’m going to do my part, your house can be clean, safe, blah, blah, blah. But I’m going to need you to do this part for us to both get what we need to. And I think that’s fair, but from Andy, and then when that doesn’t start to happen, you hold them accountable saying, have you talked to your insurance company lately? No, I haven’t ever talked to them. I thought we discussed that. Maybe I wasn’t clear, but can we do it now?
Liam Duddy:
That’s awesome. I love that Faron from, and, and to what you said. Nope, you’re good. You’re good. Um, but yeah, I love the, I love and, um, Baron from that’s great. And what you said, Chris, to kind of your point of having no surprises, you know, there’s nothing coming out of the blue. You’re not getting a win when payment doesn’t come in the door, the client isn’t getting an unexpected, you know, letter from say an attorney or a collection notice they understand like what you said, what the process is. If things were to go, you know, maybe you knew what slow payment or whatever, maybe something were to occur. They understand what can happen. So there’s no surprises and that’s, you know, what I’ve been helping. A lot of these restoration companies do. So is set those expectations. You as, you know, Chris and Clark and do that.
Liam Duddy:
So, and it’s been, it’s been very effective in being fair and firm, um, and getting that payment coming in. Um, and one thing too, you know, I kinda, I’m curious, you know, I’m just, I know Chris, you mentioned to me in conversations in the past, there’s a point in time where maybe you’re, you’re a little bit more firm in the process, you know, at, uh, during the, during the time of payment or, you know, beforehand, you said 45 days, um, what, what have you seen, I guess, as a general at industry, or what do you see from your peers? How do you, how do you, how do they generally approach, um, getting paid, I guess, or when they, when they need to maybe escalate with a, a demand letter or a collection
Chris Laney:
Call or, you know, whatever, maybe you have like a general idea of what that time is. I know it’s different with lien rights in different States, but I’m pretty out from what you both have.
Klark Brown:
I’ll, I’ll take that. I’ll take that question because it is a very, very wide topic. And it goes back to what we talked about because our industry has been so gripped by vendor programs and you kind of working for the insurance company, you’ve actually signed onto an agreement to do work with them. Your limitations of pursuing collections are incredible. Um, and I think even if you don’t get all of your work on that program and you get some independent work, you still only have one process. And it usually means you aren’t bugging the homeowner. You’re pursuing the insurance company to try and get the payment back. And, and I think it, Chris has talked about onboarding. I think you have to be, you know, upfront and tell the customer, listen, I’m a small, you know, we’re from here, I’m from Fort Wayne. You need to get out, we’ve got 150 great reviews.
Klark Brown:
We’ve been here for eight, 19 years, your insurance company, blah, blah, blah, XYZ insurance company, part of the Forbes 500 list. Chris and I were just talking about this week, they made profits of $26.5 billion last year. We’re not against profit, but what we don’t understand is why they don’t pay us so that we can continue to do good work in our community. And so, um, I think, you know, fair, but it goes back to fair but firm, but all of that is your question, but I will tell you, some people don’t have a habit of, of, of pursuing aggressively because again, poor mrs. Homeowner, mr. Homeowner just went through a tragedy. I can’t be the one I’m trying to get that five star review. I’m trying to possibly get a future referral. I don’t want to be the bad guy or girl that’s, where’s my money. And I think you have to tip, you have to find the right process. You have to find the right tone and tenor, but again, when you tell them up front that everything’s going to be crazy, incredibly great, unless we don’t see getting paid, then we start having hardships and we need to share that burden with you. So I’ll let Chris take it from there.
Chris Laney:
You know, it was, uh, it was interesting the other day I was on a call with a few different restoration companies and we were talking about this very topic in collections and what that looks like. Um, the one thing that I was surprised most by is, um, how inconsistent the processes within each company. And I was explaining to these guys that I would say for the first 15 years, 14 years we were in business. Um, we had multiple people that handled the collections process. Um, this guy’s not busy this time, this guy’s not busy. He was the project manager. And over the last we’ve really, really focused, pretty heavily on it over the last two years. And as we have, and we put very specific things in place, you know, all the documentation that goes out extremely consistent, the customer knows we’re going to call them five days after that email goes out with all the invoicing work home at 15 days at 30 days at 45 days, not at 46, not 43.
Chris Laney:
We’re going to be very consistent with that and putting compliances in place to make sure that those things continue to happen. Um, it was amazing how many different guys were talking about, they were set up the way we used to years ago. And we remember all those challenges because then if you’re getting into lean rights and things like that, all the sudden you’re too late and somebody didn’t check that file and you don’t know what dates they are and things like that. So very quickly collections can kind of go array. Um, guys focus so much on making sure that they do a really, really good job, which is so important on that job, but also there, there’s all those other factors that go into that project as well. And, um, if you don’t have good cash flow, you don’t have a business. So you gotta make sure you’re getting paid. And, um, Clark, you mentioned,
Klark Brown:
You know, I’ll piggyback one more time off of that. I’ve been a little bit of a lag. Can you hear me? Yep. We can hear you real quick with it. Our own industry. We have a lot of companies that do a lot of different types of work and they don’t have best practices in place to, let’s say you just do the Firewater EMS emergency services. Well, some companies do that work plus content plus reconstruction, and there are all these different phases. I have met companies to just invoice it to ed for all of those, instead of breaking that up into pieces of the project and phases, and which greatly increases their ability to cashflow the next phase. And I’m good for it, but I’ve watched people wait till month six, when the reconstructions hopefully get finished to start asking for any of the money for the work they did six months, six months ago, anybody that understands compound interest, that’s no longer the same dollar amount. It’s actually now more in your, you’re not a bank. You can’t, you can’t put finance charges easily on those things. So I would say that’s another caveat. There are people who seek collections across the board. I’ve heard from 17 days to 92.
Chris Laney:
Yeah. I knew as a, I know it’s a wide range, um, kind of different for everyone. I I’m, I’m curious to know, I appreciate that, that insight on from, from both of you, especially hearing, uh, you know, it is, it is everyone kind of handles it differently. Um, there’s not really one true mold. Um, you know, lien rights are one thing. Um, you mentioned before this, Chris, you want to, you know, the goal is to really not even have to bring about a lien or file Elaine, or even talk about Elaine. Um, but I’m curious to know, since you have implemented these processes that you mentioned, you know, these, these strict procedures, these dates, you know, the, you mentioned 45 days, I’m getting a call five days after an email. Have you seen relationships, um,
Klark Brown:
More, I guess, better reviews, better facilitate better relationships with your customers since you’ve been implementing that.
Chris Laney:
I mean, that change on the back end. Yes. Um, we, we were still really, really good up to that point. I felt, um, and you know, we’ve seen a change on the back end when work insistent in the communications that we have with them are consistent. So we have seen them be happier. Um, and they, and they fully understand that it’s not, you know, it’s not a wishy washy thing. They’re getting a preliminary notice the same day. They sign the work authorization. If we’re, if it’s during hours, those things go out and it’s nothing more than a document that says we’ve engaged in work with you. Um, you know, but we’ve never had customers, that’ll call us that, uh, that are concerned about those things. It’s the customers that, uh, that aren’t going to pay you that, uh, you know, those things start to come to light. And I think that’s one thing that we, we train on with our supervisors is to try to highlight those people that, you know, that there’s those clients out there that, uh, you’re going to have challenges with, um, and try to see those on the front end, sometimes not doing every project, um, is okay. Um, so that’s, that’s kinda that, that point, I guess
Klark Brown:
I’d like to say exactly on that topic. One of the biggest benefits of onboarding is to pick your customer. If you’re, if you’re in a position you would like to know early on that, that if you aren’t doing onboarding, you don’t have those goggles on you can’t see that you’re, you’re faced with day 45, figuring out that you’ve got a bad customer that never did to pay you
Chris Laney:
In today’s day. Right. I mean, we just had one Hitler clearly did it. And I think piggy piggy backing on that Clark is what just happened today, right? I mean, we just had a storm and hit the country and there’s guys from across the country that are flying, running, driving down there as fast as they can to try to get that project. And are they knocking on a door on a building that they’ve never been anybody? And, you know, I just, uh, across my fingers for a lot of them that haven’t been through the process to make sure that they don’t cripple themselves by not going through that onboarding process, not worrying about the collection, just worrying about chasing that shiny light and making sure that, uh, they get a project and it’s going, and then 45 or 60 days after they’re done this customer never had it in their thought process to pay you. They don’t really have coverage, all of those types of things. And, and what Clark said was, if you’re not onboarding correctly, you’re not seeing these things. You’re looking at a, at a shiny object versus looking at it at it from a holistical global view. Yeah. That’s, that’s a good point. Um, you mentioned holistic. I love that. And I don’t know if we lost Clark here. Um, [inaudible], they’ll be back, they’ll
Liam Duddy:
Be back. Um, but that, that leads into my, a good question or the, my next question that I had, um, when evaluating, when you’re taking on new clients, um, do you consider how your, you know, your internal onboarding or, or collection processes will be perceived and then maybe you decide, Hey, I’m not gonna work with this person. They, you know, they, they’re not really handling the, you know, they may not coincide with what we want to, how we want to do business.
Chris Laney:
Absolutely. And like I said, sometimes the best clients. So when you walk away from, you know, and, uh, you get in, typically if you’ve been doing it long enough, you can really start to feel that you really can you get the client that, um, Hey, can you cover my deductible? Can you put this in, in, in the estimate? Can you add this to it and just start really, um, putting up those red flags that you have to, you know, yes, we’re in business. Yes. We want to make a profit. Yes. We want to do the next job, but sometimes that next job and that next client are, are aren’t the best fit. So I’m trying to see that on the front end, but, um, as we went through putting that process in place for collections and refining it over and over, um, yes, we definitely thought about the customer and what their perception is going to be.
Chris Laney:
And, you know, um, I can’t say how many times we’ve tweaked it cause we keep tweaking it. Um, and one of the things we were doing was it was our loss coordinating, want to work. Authorization was signed the same day or the day after the loss coordinator was calling the client to get any additional information. They didn’t have that day claim number, agent information adjuster information within 24 hours is what the compliance was to get that done. And it was too, it was too tight of a timeframe. It was too, it was system overload for the customer. So let you know. So we, we needed to slow that process down by a few days. And so we, we do fully understand that those people in that first 24 to 48 hours, it’s just system overload, right? I mean, we just tore their kitchen apart. We just set up drying equipment throughout half their house, whatever the process was there.
Chris Laney:
They’re just, they’re a little bit on pins and needles still. So let them kind of tell them, give them a handout. Like we do walks through the steps. It shows the information that we are requesting from them. And it gives them directions when they get that information to give us a call and the supervisors are going to work with them to get that. But you got to keep refining that to make sure you’re not overbearing on your customer, but I love the words and I’ve never used it, but that fair and firm, you know, we’re fair about it, but we’re firm about it. We have to have this specific information or at the end of this, we can’t send the billing out. So, um, you know, definitely trying to tweak that that process has been something that, uh, that we’ve continued to do. And it definitely kept the customer’s expectations, emotions, and things like that at the forefront while we did it, even the words within emails, a lot of our emails are copy and paste or prepopulated emails that are going out in the invoicing process.
Chris Laney:
And so knowing that they’re not emotional emails that you just, you know, threatening type emails where, you know, because you’re so emotional in this process and you’ve got to leave that out of it. So that’s been something that we’ve just kind of tweaked to make sure we’re just outlining what’s going on, being very professional, being great professionals to those clients. And in the end, we want those clients back. We want those clients that longterm it’s, it’s not for us. It’s never been about that one water damage that they have, or that one fire it’s about how do we guard our other services from them? How did they become a champion for us and a referring party for us? So that’s how, how we’ve continued to, uh, to work our business. That’s great. And I think Clark, do we have you here?
Chris Laney:
Yes. I turned off my video. That’s fine. And with reasons. So you’re going to just give me the crucible Liam show today, but Hey, we can say, Hey, we got a cool cartoon of you though, buddy. Yeah, that’s cool. Um, I am a cartoon. So I’m, I’m wondering, um, talking about clients, um, you know, payment processes, all these things. What, uh, what were the risk factors that you’ve seen, um, compared to a homeowner holding onto checks, holding onto their check or, and it had turned from gesture, um, kind of dragging their feet to payment, especially now with, you know, given the, the, obviously the economic uncertainty. Um, we’ve seen a lot that people are holding on checks, um, in construction. Um, what is, what would you say the risk factor is compared to those two are, uh, Kristen Clark. Chris, why don’t you start with that one?
Chris Laney:
Since you’re running a you’re, I haven’t run a restoration company during these economic times, but I want to see what you’ll say and I’ll see if I can add something to it. Um, I think the risk factors are, are, can be very high if you don’t have the proper documentation when you have the proper documentation and that’s continually presented. Um, we haven’t really found, um, a huge difference, um, are actually days of collections of went down through coven, um, then instead of going the other way. So we’re pretty proud of that, but, um, you know, I think in our industry, when you’re, you know, we’re not selling a candy bar today and somebody sending us the money for the candy bar, so typically, and so there’s always going to be risk, um, limiting that list, that risk through good processes, consistent processes, about the best thing you can do.
Chris Laney:
Um, you know, working with the insurance adjusters to trying to, you know, explain to them here’s a work authorization or direct pay request. Um, the homeowner has directed that you pay us directly. We are getting more checks directly from carers and what we used to, um, I’m interested to, I haven’t found the pinpoint of why, but, uh, that has been one thing that’s been nice, but, um, when it comes to the mortgage companies and things like that depends on the type of loss. And, but you’ve gotta be careful if they, uh, if they’re not, if they’re defaulted on their mortgage, I know that’s one thing when we get involved with, uh, mitigating fires that we get involved, we see more mortgage companies on those type of, uh, checks than we do on the water damage. So, um, just hitting those points upfront, um, is really, really important.
Klark Brown:
You know, I think thing, my thing for risk is, um, first off, if you know, this might be a mortgage issue, there are, there are times when a homeowner can call their mortgage company and start clearing this. I listen, I’ve got a contractor I’m really gonna need to start paying them and some drawls or I need to get them some cash. Um, I understand that your process is holding the same, but what can we do to work together? And then on the flip side, you know, I’m, I’m a three-sixty guy. I think that, you know, for every time that we’re sitting here talking about the reason for our hardships are because of X they’re usually other factors and much of the Chris has already mentioned it today because we do things in this industry all across the board, inconsistent, we are as much to blame as anyone where you’re setting the precedent.
Klark Brown:
Um, the industry will always kind of seek to the lowest common denominator. I think people agreed with that. And it’s the term, you know, rising ties, you know, bring all ships up. I think because some people are willing to wait 90 days and not have good practices of onboarding. It’s a stark contrast windows that do. And I think we’re obviously in the minority, but one thing I would tell people to, to divert the risk and that’s such a business one Oh one thing is if there is risks, it’s unavoidable, you need to find ways to re divert or sponge that. And that could be, and in my case, what I’d always did was create alternative options for your customer. You know, there’s a lot of restoration companies that are incorporating financing now. Uh, even if there’s a large, huge deductible, there are some of these large bubble deductibles and especially in the commercial industry, but make it easier for your customer to pay, um, you know, have credit card approvals.
Klark Brown:
A lot of people say we don’t take credit cards to take credit cards. A lot of people have credit card limits, so they could do that. And that gets you the cash right away. Then they get invoiced. It’s, they’ll be reimbursed. A person will be reimbursed for their loss in a week sometimes. Whereas opposed to, if we’re carrying it, it’s going to be 45 days. So, but, but become a chameleon and become a business, become the business that your customer needed and have some options to get paid. Because again, longterm, if you’re not a cashflow positive company, you’re not going to do incredible work because you’re going to cut corners on training equipment, working, uh, the quality of people you can employ it all trickles around. So you have to really make that clear to the customer and saying, we have a certain type of company we want to be. And that only comes from us being cashflow positive.
Chris Laney:
I’ll keep going on that too, because the financing part of it is something we just started offering. And as we’ve offered these different options, whether it’s you don’t pay with cash credit card or financing, all those options have definitely helped. Um, before this one of my guys should call me today and just said, there was a project that they were going to do the financing on. So we’ll, you know, very specific financing, very, um, specific programs that we offer that we understand what the costs are for us up front, um, and, and know that going in. So, um, those different options are, are definitely a, uh, uh, a big add on for those clients. One of the questions that was just asked, I think, is, is tied to this is at what point do you collect the deductible from the customer? And at what point do you start exchanging money?
Chris Laney:
Um, you know, if it’s a client that has no coverage, um, or they’re paying out of pocket, it’s 50% down the day, we start 50% when we’re done. Um, very outlined, very, very simple that that scope of work is going to be completely outlined for them up front. Um, if it is a claim, I think the company has to make the decision. Do you want to collect that deductible upfront, or are you going to collect it at the end? And you’ve got to be consistent on whichever one that you’re doing and be consistent across the board with your company. Don’t do don’t for Liam’s job. We’re going to get the deductible upfront, but Clark don’t, don’t worry about that. Just pay us when you’re done. You got to have to be consistent through it. Um, a lot of the carriers, at least on mitigation, water mitigation work in our area, at least they don’t want, they would rather us not collect the deductible.
Chris Laney:
They’re typically taking the deductible off on the, uh, reconstruction side. So a lot of times our company, we don’t collect that deductible upfront. Um, but I think that’s gotta be a company decision. It doesn’t mean that you can’t doesn’t mean that we can’t in our area. If we want it to make that decision that we needed to deposit, that’s what our company needed for cashflow. Um, then that’s what we would do. Um, so it helped, uh, hope that helps it, uh, Rebecca with that question. Awesome. Yeah, I saw she, uh, answered that great answer. That’s awesome. Um, and one thing too, I have a question you were talking about, you know, this process getting paid, collecting money, deductibles, um, you know, obviously the overall theme here is just to cashflow. How have you seen, um, or maybe what is your take on, on, on the contractors that do are aware of their lien rights and preserve those in a way that they’re protecting themselves, that they understand, Hey, we have maybe 60 days to file a lien, um, or that they’re communicating to the customer, what a lien even is and what, you know, what could happen if not paid.
Liam Duddy:
How have you seen that be beneficial, um, in, in general, um, I guess for you, Chris, um, kind of general question pretty, pretty broad, but, um, I guess, have you always, um, considered your lien rights or is it something new? I’m curious to know.
Chris Laney:
Um, we never leaned a property until June of last year ever in our company. Um, a lot of times at the point that everything had broken down from communication, um, with the client in the collections process, at that point, we were there sending it to a collection agency, or we were sending it to our attorneys and, um, the attorneys was going after him. And at that point in our state, you only have until 60 days after the work spent on a residential claim, 90 on a commercial claim. So there’s not a lot of time after that. Lane’s done. Um, if you, if you’re not on top of it to get that done. Um, but it has been a, uh, a great tool for us, um, here over the course of the last little over a year that we’ve been using it, it’s a good tool.
Chris Laney:
It is the last tool in the toolbox. Um, we really don’t even want to deal with any attorneys. Um, but if it gets to that point, you know, we will, but, um, ultimately that lien rights tool has been, has been effective for us. Um, but again, if you’re going to use that tool, you better make sure your processes are in place. You better understand your timeframe and you better have something in place that dictates those things. Otherwise it can get away from you really, really quickly. And so we try not to use it, like I said, but it is a, it is a tool that has worked for us. We just two weeks ago had called a commercial client. I want to say 16, $18,000. And it was two days before their lien rights. They knew it. And we called them on that Wednesday and said, we’re filing a lane.
Chris Laney:
And we filed the lane. And by golly that they, they, the check date of the check was the same day. We still leaned it. And we released the lien on Monday when we got the check and that’s okay, you know, we take a few hundred dollar hit on that, but in the end, that’s, that’s a, that’s a part of it for us and, and, uh, communicate it with them. So they know it’s coming. It’s not anything that we didn’t walk them to that point. And we definitely didn’t start the communication on day one, even discussing that discussion’s really not coming up until pretty much day 45 after we’re done. If we get to that point, um, we’re, we’re going to start bringing that up because when you do bring that up, people do feel like you’re attacking them a little bit, right? I mean, you feel like, Oh, you’re now you’re going to leave my house.
Chris Laney:
And they, they feel like you’re kind of coming after them. And ultimately that’s, that’s not the ultimate end result that you want them to feel. You want them to feel secure in the process with you, but just kinda like, uh, Clark said fair and firm with it. And, and I think it is fair to protect the, of the company when the interest, when the company has put their financial interests involved in your, in your project. So I think it’s completely, uh, within reason. Um, but it’s gotta be done the right way. Definitely they know it’s go ahead and park.
Klark Brown:
I’d like to jump onto that real quick. So first of all, to start off with one of my close friends of the industry name is Jerry handle. I think a lot of people know him live in Oregon. He’s got a, you should approach every thing you do in business with two questions and who’s going to pay me. And when you’ve got you, can you hear me?
Chris Laney:
Yes. Feedback.
Klark Brown:
Okay. Who’s skipping piping. And, and not meaning you don’t say that out loud. You don’t say who’s going to pay me to win, but you have to start processing those questions. So what I want to talk about a little bit about leads is one thing we all know, I think we have 15, 16 people watch it. I think we all know, and we’ve heard this a million times. Change is inevitable, and there has been such a change in our industry that has caused Levelset didn’t exist. 14 years ago. There was a time with payments happened a little quicker, easier, better. Sometimes there, I think Chris may remember, I’m not trying to age him out a thing, but there were times when adjusters would write checks on the site, some checks, uh, some, some adjusters, the insurance companies had approval to provide checks for the job that you were doing well, those days are long gone.
Klark Brown:
And they’ve learned a lot that they they’ve changed their processes. And I think we’re a little bit slow to do the same thing we’re lagging and our response to that. And, um, I think that that’s what a lot of people are having a hard time getting their head around. It’s like we gave her, we never did this before. We also never did our business on our iPhone before either. But we are now what also used to be found in the yellow pages when now we’re not. So I think people have to always be looking at this is not what I wanted to do, but this is where we are. And for us to stay in business, talk to provide jobs, providing good service to my community, this is what we’re going to have to do. And again, you can have that conversation with the client.
Klark Brown:
Uh, one thing I also want to talk, Chris said something about being consistent with every claim. One thing we haven’t mentioned is almost everybody on this call has referral partners. We’re in a big referral business. You get your work from maybe an insurance agent or an adjuster direct or from a plumbing company or just a realtor. They need to know your process too, because there’s nothing worse than having a really good relationship with an insurance agent, getting a call from them saying, Oh, so you’re going to go with lean my customers home now, but they need to know that that’s in your wheelhouse, that’s in your tool belt. And I want to tell you that we’re going to use that last, but we will use it if we have to, because just like yourself, you drop the insurance that they are making their payments, right. So we have to verbalize those things with your referral partners or else you’re gonna lose referral partners. And you’re always going to be trying to search him for more.
Chris Laney:
I agree with that, Chris. Yeah, absolutely. When, uh, when we go through an onboarding process of bringing on a new referring party, uh, we walk them through our entire process. This is exactly how we operate. This is what we do. Come to our shop, walk through, see our trucks here, people meet people. This is exactly what we’re going to do. Um, they, they definitely need to know because there’s nothing in the, if it is insurance agent that referred you to job, then I think you can use that agent during that collections process. If communication breaks down with the homeowner, you have a relationship with that agent. It’s a little bit different with a plumbing company or somebody else. Um, but typically w we’ve went to agents before and said to them, Hey, you referred this job to us. This client won’t communicate with us. We’re not getting paid. Can you, would you mind helping us communicate with them? And then they already, they, they, they feel like that agent’s their trusted advisor. And maybe we broke down in the process, right? Maybe we failed somewhere in the process and we need to, we need to fix that. And so sometimes having somebody else speak with excellent, um, is a good, is a good thing. So that, uh, reaching out to them, making sure they understand your process and the onboarding is, is very, very important.
Liam Duddy:
That’s great. Yeah, I’d make a good point, Clark. Um, you know, as well, Chris, and it goes back to setting those expectations and like you said, Clark, how, um, it’s no surprises. Um, they know that you understand your lien rights and or maybe that you can handle all that, uh, that there’s a lot of that red tape obviously, and that you have the ability to, uh, to, to navigate that on, you know, all that, um, you know, whatever it may be, whether it is sending a filing a lien, if you need to. Um, but I think that, you know, I, I know we talked a lot about kind of a wide variety of things. Y’all probably heard, I’ve heard process, um, enough, but, you know, overall these processes, I think it’s, uh, they’re, they’re, they’re different for every company, but I think the general rule, the thumb is to have one.
Liam Duddy:
Um, and the one that works for you, but obviously has a general idea of setting those expectations, being fair and firm. I love that that’s, um, you know, something that I love to hear, I’m going to use that often. Um, you even mentioned too, like you’re not a bank. Um, you know, I, I use that a lot as well. Um, so I, you know, I really appreciate, y’all both insights. I want to leave the next, the last five minutes here, uh, for any Q and A’s for anyone. This is all of our information. Um, Chris and, and Clark and I, we both, we all don’t mind, uh, you know, you reaching out and, and talking to us and asking questions or whatever it may be. Um, but if there’s any Q and a feel free to throw them in there, I think y’all can, uh, there’s, uh, you know, you’ll see M Q and a little section on the bottom, or you can, it in the chat, you have her whatever works for y’all. If there’s no questions then, uh, can wrap up. I know Chris, your head down to a, so you’re making the Trek down to, uh, Louisiana.
Chris Laney:
I am, I’m going to leave tonight about six o’clock and start making it down there.
Liam Duddy:
Awesome. Awesome. Well, I appreciate you both setting time side out of your busy schedules. Um, I really, really appreciate you both.
Chris Laney:
Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. I thought that, uh, hopefully for everybody, it definitely helps him outline that, you know, you’ve got to put these things in place before the call comes in. Um, so that’s a really, really important
Liam Duddy:
As you’re going down to, um, you know, different States. Do you consider, whew, how do you consider these, uh, you know, I keep saying process, I don’t know if there’s another word for it. How do you consider this onboarding your customer, protecting your lien rights and, and being fair and firm in other States? Is it any different feel free to answer as well?
Chris Laney:
Yeah, for, yeah, for us it’s different. I think Clark has a different perspective on this from his background than I do from mine. Um, during storms, um, I’ve always been a subcontracting mitigation company, so I’m going in and working for a general contractor. I’m working for another restoration company has been my background, uh, more than anything. So, um, you know, my clients have been a handful of people that I’ve worked with for years and years. So I’m not really doing that process. I’m not working at a state and working directly with the client. So, um, a little bit different perspective, this, this store, my team staying at home, I’m just going down and consultant on large losses. So the storm will be a little bit different for me, but, um, that, uh, I think Clark’s got a different perspective on that just from his different background than mine.
Chris Laney:
Yeah. And I certainly do. Um, that’s one thing I love about, and I wanted to send a zinger in here for a moment for, for levels that what are they going to do love is if you are a company that works in multiple jurisdictions or multiple States, you know, I want you to put value on your time. And that’s something we haven’t talked about with, uh, with Levelset is, you know, the old way to do it, pre Levelset or pre service was go down, keep up with the dates yourself, probably miss a few of them, go down to the courthouse, take time out of your day, which could have been used for a lot of different things. But if you do work in multiple different States or different types of properties, but people that are heading to Florida right now, or excuse me, not Florida, Louisiana, I urged him.
Chris Laney:
You had better know. And we learned this a lot in hurricane Michael in Florida as well. I was kind of thinking there were jurisdictional situations I’ve been in Louisiana more than any other state operates a different way. Those are parishes. They’re not counties. There’s a different set of laws down there and going in there, Willy nilly, just because of emergency state of emergency and FEMA situation will not get you out of those jails. Um, so I think, you know, protecting yourself, these are usually bigger amounts of money. You’re an out of Towner and you don’t know these customers, they didn’t come from a warm referral source. All those are risk and you need to know what your risk, your lien rights are for every project you go into. So I think it’s hugely valuable to team up with an expert. You have a lawyer when it’s time for a lawyer in this case, deal with the people like Levelset that they know leads. That’s, that’s all they do. They don’t sell plastic. They know it. And somebody just asked a question there,
Liam Duddy:
Like to address that I was, uh, I was gonna, I was kind of doing some research. I don’t know if y’all can see my screen, but, uh, um, if Chris who, you know, someone that is tied closely to this group,
Chris Laney:
Yeah. I’ll kind of, I’ll kind of read it just as we’re putting in intend to lean in your pocket, along with work authorization, et cetera, make sense. If so, what’s a good way to word that to the customer. So upfront, before we start work, authorization’s always going to be done with a price for the scope of work that we’ve outlined before work’s going to start, um, intend to lane. Um, we give a preliminary notice. Um, once that work authorization has started as just a preliminary notice, the intent intent to lien, um, in our area, um, on a residential claim is 60 days after the last date of work that was completed on the site. So we’re not sending out or even discussing an intent to lane until 15 days prior to when our lien rights are up. So, uh, we’re not jumping right into that. It’s not incorporated. I mean, there’s verbiage incorporated in the work authorization obviously, but, um, not something that we’re putting in our, in our packet, uh, along with the work authorization upfront. Um, so it sounds like there was another one.
Liam Duddy:
Yeah, that’s all I’ll touch on that as well. Um, I, you know, from, I’ve seen it, the intent to lean is a totally separate, um, a letter when, when you decided, Hey, it’s, it’s, we’re not a bank anymore. It’s, uh, it’s time to, uh, it’s time to, to escalate, I guess, the situation and, and be firm. Um, and, and you said prelim, so, uh, yeah, Jorda, um, leave a name there, just the email, but the prelim. Um, I can answer that, um, prelim, just in general, it’s, it’s more, so it’s kind of a blanket term. Some States it’s required, um, to send some sort of pre preliminary notice, some States call it, Oh God, I got a phone call, some States call it different things. Um, but it’s just something to set expectations. Um, and that kinda goes into one of the questions as well from Emmett. How do you explain lien rights to the customer? Um, that kind of goes in hand with what preliminary notices could be essentially kind of explaining to them what your lien rights are or what lean rights are. Um, Chris and Clark, could we answer Emmett’s question? I like to hear how, how y’all go about explaining lien rights. Uh, I will
Chris Laney:
I, uh, excuse me, uh, you know, and listen, I, as far as putting it all in the packet and trying to do all the heavy lifting myself, I actually prefer to use a third party like Levelset and say, we partnered with a company that handles that part of my, we have accountants that handle our accounting. We have lawyers and all of our attorneys stuff, and it kind of separates you I’m their contractor. I want to remain their hero on those things. Yet we have a process in place. We have a company that helps us manage that process, and they’re going to handle the lien rights if you have more questions by them. So you have information, but I like the third party separate from me to do that as initials. And even, I know some people have that first, that first notification, not even the freedom, it’s like a waste like, hi, we’re conditioning ourselves.
Chris Laney:
Um, I prefer that way. I think that’s again a company to company thing. Um, but I liked, you know, much like the care contract insurance companies have EPA is there, they’re getting, you know, they’re hiring a TPA, a third party to call contractors and try to negotiate lower rates. Well, that’s not, that’s what that does is they don’t look so bad. The carrier doesn’t like to greedy me behemoth, you know, so they use a third party. So it’s a way of pushing off some of your, your, uh, not again, what’s the pursuit, bad light. It’s not a bad light to me that, that, but how do you explain to the customer? Just tell them, say, you just have to emit. You just have to let them know you are a business. I mean, you do a very specialty empathy driven, a very personal thing. When people, especially if you get into some more services, like trauma, things like that, there’s a part of you.
Chris Laney:
Like this is my specialty, but that’s a core. We are a business and we can’t stay in business and help more people if we don’t exercise and we wouldn’t use lean rights or even have a partner in that area if ever one paid on time. But, and just tell the customer, it won’t even probably be from a customer driven. It’ll probably be from your carrier. The lane rights just encourages the carrier to, Hey, you know, I’m over here, I’m exposed, you know, you’re supposed to indemnify me. Um, so it’s usually not your, your customer who won’t pay you. It’s usually them getting reimbursed by the carrier. So I would just continue to be on your customer side and say, you know, we’re in this together. Uh, excuse me, the last thing we want to do. But if, if we start to get really just that carrier starts to get really slow and tough, then we’ll just go to that next level. And I think that’s the best way to explain to the customer.
Liam Duddy:
Yeah, that’s, that’s what I’ve seen been, you know, um, a lot of, uh, black success, um, from, from again, onboarding and explaining that, that, you know, the lean lean is our last resort. It may not happen, but it’s, it’s not, it’s, it’s generally of a due to insurance companies, you know, generally slow paying for services that’s in your, in your interest. So that’s great. And then, uh, John, uh, Suffolk had a question. We are a Levelset client. Do you help with setting up the process of an, do you help with setting up the process of an onboarding process or is there a consultant that can help put this value process in place? Um, I will, I will say Clark. You can you’re, you know, you could probably answer that you could probably definitely be a good tool. Um, I know Chris as well, and I think all of us, um, you know, Levelset, you know, obviously Chris has user John. I think what I took from there, you said that you were, uh, you know, a client of ours, um, you know, we help assist in that process, but, um, you know, we maybe make it easier to implement, um, with these tools in place, these communications and the strict timelines that Chris, like you mentioned. Um, but, uh, Clark, I could let you kind of answer that about a consultant. I know that that’s in your wheelhouse.
Chris Laney:
Yeah. We anonymously, I’m a consultant and I would love to create a piece of collateral that would help with that even have a visual infographic that shows that. But I think there are just so many variables and I think it would be more of a one on one conversation and how it is not everybody’s situation is the same. If I don’t know what the rest of your process looks like. So trying to plug it in, it would be almost just out of place and it would not fit. So I think that is a deeper thing. And I think that’s why Levelset. It’s not their specialty, but, um, I know John John’s in Pittsburgh Steelers fan or is in Pennsylvania. So John, you can reach out to me anytime. I’d love to have a conversation with you and we can start. I don’t think it’s an overly difficult thing, but it’s probably a few more things that anybody listening to this, it’s just not plug and play.
Chris Laney:
And I think Chris has alluded to, it takes a while for your business. And again, it takes a while to get stuff built and then you’ve always got to be evolving. And so there’s not one go-to change is inevitable. I already said that, but, um, but I think there is a place to start and then you’re just going to be trial and error to be tested. It’s going to be, it’s going to be broken at some point. I always say, don’t change your process for one situation. If you’ve got a hundred customers and one doesn’t work on, it’s probably not your process, it’s probably just that customer or your delivery of it. And don’t just change everything because you start to, you start to confuse your team and they’re not in the laundry room anymore. So that’s a long gray, it’s a very long answer, but I would certainly help you. John could reach out to me@clarkatairstory.org and let’s get some time and get on the phone and have a 1520 minute call. Yeah.
Liam Duddy:
John, as a, as a user as well. If there’s anything that you need, um, that you think that, you know, you could add into, you know, what Levelset already doing for you, like you add an extra layer or, or, um, you know, anything specific, uh, feel free to, uh, to, to reach out to your account manager, you know, or me as well, and be happy to, uh, do whatever we can do to help assist in, uh, you know, anything. Um, there are a couple of minutes that process. Um, but Hey, I appreciate you, you know, you both, I think we went a little bit over, I know Chris, you got to hit the road here, safe travels to you. Um, you know, I wish I wish you luck. I wish you luck and all that. And, uh, Clark, I appreciate your time and use well, Chris and everyone that attended, we will be sending that, uh, that recording to everyone that registered, I think it’s about 60 or so. Um, so yeah, I really appreciate you all’s time. And, uh, I look forward to, uh, to talking with you again, I’m sure we’ll do something like this soon. Thank you both. I appreciate it.
Chris Laney:
Thank you. Thank you. I wanted everyone listening to watching though, you know, when a company’s important, uh, E uh, Liam and I, or he attended one of our functions last week, it was
Liam Duddy:
Yeah. Was
Chris Laney:
No trouble. He drove off from Austin to Dallas, just to learn more about the ailments and the problems of the restore to understand better what they’re dealing with much like today. I’m sure these are as much as learning lesson for you as they are giving webinars, but I appreciate you coming up and asking questions and you really, you weren’t selling, you were listening more than half, but there were a lot, a lot of people there had questions for you, but I, that tells me that you guys are interested in what we’re doing.
Liam Duddy:
Definitely. You know, definitely. I think the more we learn, the more we understand your, you know, your, you know, the, the industry, um, it helps us do our jobs better and make people happier. Um, I did appreciate, it was really nice to, to attend that in four words. And, um, yeah, and here, you know, the pro you know, this webinars and to sell anyone on Levelset, it’s just, uh, you know, learn more about the overall, you know, it takes on, you know, as, as you to, uh, professionals, as, as experts in hearing your takes on this, on this overall theme of onboarding and setting expectations with your customers. So I appreciate your time again. And, uh, I’ll talk to you soon. Thanks so much. Have a good one.