Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:09] Speaker B: Welcome to the Clear Impact Podcast, brought to you by Mitre Brands University. Thanks for joining us today. My name is Sheri Conner, and I am your host.
All right, so good afternoon. We are here on the Clear Impact Podcast, and we are recording from the Orlando Doubletree, where we've been for the last couple of days doing some trainings with our Central Florida people. And we are just finishing our second day and getting ready to pack it up. But before we put everything away, we thought we would just get one more recording. So at the table, I have three lovely people. One I know. Two I don't. But I'll let you guys introduce yourself. So, Ryan, we'll start with you.
[00:00:53] Speaker C: Hi. This is Ryan DePaulo. I'm the central Florida Mitre sales representative.
[00:00:58] Speaker B: Nice. Thank you for joining us.
[00:01:00] Speaker C: Thank you for having me.
[00:01:01] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:01:01] Speaker D: Hi, my name's Tyler Kramer. I'm an estimator with Weathermaster Building Products. We're located in Sanford.
[00:01:07] Speaker B: Okay, awesome.
[00:01:09] Speaker A: And I'm Jamie Smith, and I work for Lighthouse Windows in Merritt Island. I am the office manager.
[00:01:16] Speaker B: Okay, awesome. And so, Ryan, I know you came in about a year after me. So you've been in this space about three years.
[00:01:23] Speaker C: Three years, exactly.
[00:01:24] Speaker B: Okay. And what did you learn today and yesterday? Did you learn something new?
[00:01:28] Speaker C: I always learned something new at these. The biggest takeaway today was the best practices. Last day being today for installation, tips, tricks. I noticed the class was very receptive to that as well, because they're in the field every day, and anything they can take away from that to help out. And I'm one of those, because I can help with my dealers, too, when they run. Encounter anything potentially.
[00:01:48] Speaker B: Sure. Yeah. You had some contributions, like, hey, somebody ran into that, and I know what to do with that. And, like, heads up. And so it really, really is a nice environment where everybody can kind of learn from each other.
[00:01:59] Speaker C: Absolutely.
[00:02:00] Speaker B: Yeah. I love that, too. All right. So, Tyler.
[00:02:02] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:02:03] Speaker B: How long have you been in the space?
[00:02:05] Speaker D: I've been in the fenestration industry for a little over six and a half years now.
[00:02:11] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:02:12] Speaker D: Came from no window or door experience prior. Everything I've learned has been on the job. As far as what I took away from here is just the building code knowledge. That's always been one of my weaker points, because I feel like they're always changing and the measurements are so close to what passes and what doesn't that you want to err on the side of caution, but make sure that you still end up getting the business. So just getting more knowledge with that Helps me out, feel more comfortable when I'm quoting and estimating different jobs.
[00:02:44] Speaker B: Yeah, there's a lot to it. Right. And what areas are you doing business? Like? Specific counties.
[00:02:50] Speaker D: We're primarily all over Central Florida. We go up from Flagler down into Polk County.
[00:02:57] Speaker B: Okay. So it varies by district, too. Like, every municipality can kind of do their own thing.
[00:03:02] Speaker D: So you have different counties versus states or cities, I should say. And then even within the same county, there's Orlando and Orange county have differings as well.
[00:03:13] Speaker B: Yeah. So you really gotta know your geography. Really gotta know what's allowed in that space. Good point. Okay. How about you, Jamie? What'd you learn this week?
[00:03:20] Speaker A: Yes. So I think I agree with Tyler about the building codes. That's also difficult. Cause there's so much to sift through. And sometimes the language isn't, like, very friendly for someone who is maybe not super familiar with all these different terminologies and things like that. And then I also really liked learning about how the glass is actually, like, manufactured together. Because that was always. I feel like a weak point. When people would ask me, clients would ask me questions about glass, I'd always be like, I'm gonna direct you to my boss. Cause I always forget how that works. So that one, I really took a lot of notes on that. I really enjoyed that part.
[00:03:54] Speaker B: Yeah. It's an amazing thing. Like, nobody really thinks about that until you're in it, and then you're like, what?
There's a lot to this. And I'm just gonna throw this out. Like, if you guys get a chance to come over to the plant and do an actual tour. I know we had, like, a virtual version of the tour today.
You've been.
[00:04:12] Speaker D: I've been there twice.
[00:04:13] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:04:14] Speaker D: Every time it's a blast. You're picking up something new, or they're adding different lines and products. I think the last time I was there, they were just expanding into Virginia, I believe, for the diamond glass.
[00:04:28] Speaker B: Right.
[00:04:29] Speaker D: So that's something new that's being brought up.
[00:04:31] Speaker B: Yeah, we've actually changed that a little bit. The Virginia plant is not happening. We're actually opening a new glass plant in Pembroke Pines.
[00:04:38] Speaker D: All right.
[00:04:39] Speaker B: But the glass facility in Venice has been expanded, and there's now a mezzanine, so you can see over the cutting lines. And we've got diamond glass.
We do have some samples. I should have brought them. Where you can actually feel how thin that diamond glass is, which is now part of the windoor line. And rolling out to PGT. I think in Q1 is the goal. But it's pretty amazing to have impact glass that weighs a lot less than normal impact glass, you know, save everybody.
So big takeaways today was about glass and about best practices and about building code. All right, so is this something that you would do again? Like, hey, PGT's coming nearby.
I can squeeze it in my calendar. Would you come back?
[00:05:21] Speaker D: Absolutely. I was just told about this training on Monday and I jumped at the chance to get here.
[00:05:27] Speaker B: Nice.
[00:05:27] Speaker D: I mean, I feel like I'm stuck in the office so much and not having been an installer or been in the window industry as long as some of the other people have because I've got salespeople I work with that have been doing this for 20, 25 years and they just have so much experience that I feel I'm on the short end of the stick. So anything that I can get that can just help me get a little bit better with more knowledge and more resources, I'll take it.
[00:05:52] Speaker B: Yeah. That's awesome. How about you, Jamie?
[00:05:53] Speaker A: Yeah, I would definitely come back. I think there's just a lot that you can forget. And so it's good to have a refresher and then also just to pick up any new thing to be able to talk to people about. Because not even like, not just like with clients, but like I have friends that buy houses and they want to know like, well, what makes PGT Windows better. So like, anything to learn more about that and like strengthen that argument for PGT is like, good opportunity.
[00:06:18] Speaker B: Yeah, no, for sure. Ryan, how about you? What would you say to people that are on the fence about coming to a training event?
[00:06:23] Speaker C: Don't be on the fence. Show up. You always take away something. Again, present company here, they've been in the business, they deal with customers day in and day out, estimating, et cetera, and they always have a takeaway. Myself, every time I do these classes, I take something new with me. So that way it can be helpful for our dealer base. So there's a lot of value. If you can take the time, do it.
[00:06:44] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And for people that can't make it to a training, obviously we have an entire platform online where there's just scads and scads of courses and content.
And so even if you can't get away for a couple of days, you can hop on and do a one hour webinar with Patrick or Jim or Francisco or take some elearning courses and learn more about a specific product or about energy or my favorite, sea turtles. We actually have a sea turtles course. So, anyway, well, I appreciate you guys being brave to sit down and chat with me. I won't hold you up anymore because we're wrapping it up. But thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it.
[00:07:14] Speaker D: You're welcome.
[00:07:15] Speaker A: Yeah, thank you.
[00:07:16] Speaker B: Yeah, thanks.
[00:07:17] Speaker C: Thank you, Sherry.
[00:07:18] Speaker B: All right. Thanks, Brian. Have a great week.
[00:07:19] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:07:20] Speaker B: Bye.
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