Transforming Construction Relationships: Insights from Follow Up CRM's Erick Vargas

Freddy D: 00:02:23

Eric Vargas is the co founder and COO of Follow up CRM, a leading CRM solution for the construction industry.

With over 15 years of experience, he has helped contractors streamline their sales processes, boost client retention and adopt technology for better business efficiency. Eric is committed to driving innovation within construction focused CRM solutions. Welcome, Eric, to the Business Super Fans podcast.

How are you this afternoon?

Erick Vargas: 00:02:51

Doing great. Thanks for having me.

Freddy D: 00:02:53

We're excited to have you. Eric, tell us a little bit about your story and how you became COO of Follow up CRM, a construction management software application.

Erick Vargas: 00:03:03

Yeah, right out of college, I met somebody, my co founder here in Fort Lauderdale where we're based. His name is Greg Wallach and he's been like a mentor to me over the years and he has run several of the largest roofing companies in the U.S.

i met him about eight years ago and he designed a CRM specific to his company.

Back in the day, with me having a little bit of a tech background together, we brought this kind of CRM specific to the construction industry to market.

And it's been a great journey so far where we have utilized his domain knowledge and his roofing company to really be the laboratory of where we've designed this system. So that is really built for construction by construction companies.

Freddy D: 00:03:55

Okay. Yeah, I'm familiar with that market space.

Actually back in the mid-: 2000

Unfortunately,: 2008

Erick Vargas: 00:04:39

Yeah, it was a crazy time.

And actually we were born in: 2008

And whenever that's the case, they want to look at technologies to help them through that season. And that's when Follow up was born. So yeah, similar story.

Freddy D: 00:05:09

Cool.

ny. They've been around since: 1989

They were still doing spreadsheets and they would submit a bid and then they would just hope that something would happen. There was no follow up strategy, no nothing.

I worked with that company and in two months we had a bid list of $1.1 million worth of commercial flooring opportunities. So I understand the importance of CRM because we implemented one for them.

Erick Vargas: 00:05:52

Yeah, I call that a spray and pray. Right, exactly.

Freddy D: 00:05:56

That was their approach.

Erick Vargas: 00:05:58

Yeah, you throw spaghetti on the wall, see what sticks. And honestly, that's how most of the construction company runs their businesses right now. Right.

And the problem, there's many problems with spreadsheets, but if you can get spreadsheets to work, I'll tell you this, it's. It's better than paper, which is still where a lot of companies are at. Right.

Usually somebody that comes to me and they say, we're on sticky notes and paper still. I say, hey, just start with a spreadsheet. That might be good enough to get you going, but then eventually a spreadsheet will break as well.

And then you need to graduate into a solution like a CRM.

Freddy D: 00:06:33

Oh, absolutely correct. I just had a guest last week on the show that was talking about people using still manila folders.

Erick Vargas: 00:06:40

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:06:41

To track stuff.

Erick Vargas: 00:06:42

Yeah, a lot of our companies still do. Right. And so that's actually what follow up CRM is. We are, I call it a digital manila file folder that you can put everything in.

But the nice thing about it is that we can track the data that's in the folder and then report on it.

Freddy D: 00:07:00

So let's talk about the key features of follow up CRM and how does it differentiate itself from a regular traditional CRM like I'm familiar with, or for general sales?

Erick Vargas: 00:07:13

Yeah, that's a great question. So CRM is a very big category and there are great companies out there like Salesforce you probably heard of nutshell we talked about.

HubSpot is another great CRM out there. And follow up is very much like one of those. So we track your companies, your contacts and your opportunities. Right.

Where follow up is different is that we've built follow up specific to the construction, sales and bidding process. So what that means is let's say you're selling a residential roof.

When you're selling that roof, you're just selling it to one person or a husband and a wife or something like that. It's a one to one relationship. But let's say you're selling a Roof to a commercial roofing building.

That is a one to many relationship where you might be bidding out that project to multiple GCs that are trying to win that project. So when you're bidding out, that is what makes follow up CRM different.

In like Salesforce, for example, you would have to create three separate opportunities underneath each one of those GCs to track that you're bidding to that GC. That doesn't work because then it would report three separate opportunities.

So if that's a $1 million project and you have to create three opportunities underneath each GC, it would report $3 million, which we know is not the case. Right. So follow up CRM, we call it project centered. It's all about the project in the construction world.

And when you're centered around the project, you can then tag your customers to the project and get the reporting that you need. So that's one of the major ways that follow up CRM is different than a generic CRM.

Freddy D: 00:09:01

Does it tie into the Autodesk platform for bidding?

Erick Vargas: 00:09:04

That's another great question.

So we actually integrate with all the other major construction platforms out there, like Autodesk, like Pro Core, like Viewpoint, like foundation, all the major construction erps. We have an open API, so we can integrate with pretty much anyone.

And so we focus on the construction integrations so that we can optimize workflows between multiple different construction software.

Freddy D: 00:09:31

Yeah, that's a great feature because now it makes it easy for the user to keep track where he bid, what he bid, when to follow up on the bid, all that aspect, and nothing really falls through the cracks where I've seen companies where they submit the bid through the Autodesk platform, et cetera, and they just wait to see whether they got it or they didn't get it. Two months go by and I guess we didn't get that project.

Erick Vargas: 00:09:58

That's right. So the way I like to say it is that once you have the estimate and your bid done, you're only halfway through the sales process. Right.

You still have to deliver that proposal, you still have to check in, you still have to follow up, which is where we get our name. Right. And most construction companies just stop at submitting the bid. That's not enough. Right.

When you show that you're following up and building that relationship with the customer, you have more likelihood of winning that opportunity because you're building that trust with the customer.

Freddy D: 00:10:28

Especially if you're reaching out to a brand new GC that doesn't know anything about you, but met you at the GC Expo, for example. And now you're invited to become a subcontractor to them.

But until you build that relationship, like you said, nothing really importantly if they're got a local office going and visiting the estimators so you can build that relationship.

And then if you don't win the bid and you have a relationship with that estimator or estimators, they'll turn around and tell you, here's why you didn't make it and here's what you can do the next time. So absolutely critical.

Erick Vargas: 00:11:06

Yeah. So the way I like to say it is the construction industry is all about relationships.

When you're building relationship with GCs or subcontractors or contractors, it's all about that personalized approach. That's what follow up also helps you do, is gives you a place to track all those business development opportunities that you might be doing.

Whether you're going to a networking event, whether you're going out to lunch or you're trying to remember someone's birthday or that Joe went to Hawaii with his family two weeks ago and you want to remember that. It's almost like a Rolodex back in the day. Right. Where you can put everybody's note cards and notes so that you can maintain those relationships.

Freddy D: 00:11:46

Correct. And that's where the podcast shows the business Super Fan Podcast.

And that's where I start building super fans is maintaining the follow up, building those relationships. And I've won more sales because I was the first to follow up.

I have a rule that if an inquiry comes in through the Internet, you have a 15 minute window. Beyond 15 minutes it's gone or you've lost credibility.

Where if you respond to that inquiry within 15 minutes, number one, it shows that you're interested, you care. Number two, gives you opportunity to set the bar.

So if they're shopping around and looking at other companies, first off, you're the first one, you set the expectations up.

Number three is you can also set up what I would call sand traps in golf term where you can set up the competition if you happen to know who they are.

And now if they do reach out to those people, either they're going to step into a sand trap or they got a bar that they got ahead that it's so much harder for them to hit that you've got the deal.

Erick Vargas: 00:12:53

Yeah, that's right. That's definitely how you create super fans. Another way you can create super fans is remembering people's birthday.

I have customers that put somebody's birthday in the CRM Right.

And when their birthday rolls around, they have an automation that just sends them a quick email that says, hey, just wanted to let you know, happy birthday. That's how you build relationships, build super fans. If you do that, man, your business is just going to get to the next level.

Freddy D: 00:13:19

I talk about birthdays. It's one of my chapters in my book. So I'm glad you brought that up because that might be the only birthday wish they got.

Erick Vargas: 00:13:28

Yeah, yeah.

Freddy D: 00:13:30

The emotional effect of that is huge.

Erick Vargas: 00:13:32

My birthday is September 11th, so nobody forgets my birthday. It's funny.

Freddy D: 00:13:39

Makes sense. I get it.

Erick Vargas: 00:13:40

Yeah. Never forget.

Freddy D: 00:13:41

Follow up is so important because I've coached some construction companies, or I should say home improvement companies primarily. I talk about sending a thank you note for the opportunity. They're getting three bids and you're bid number one or bid number three.

You never want to be the middle guy because the middle guy always loses in sales. So the first guy sets the bar, middle guy tries to meet the bar, third guy has a chance to leapfrog all of them or can't leap the bar.

One of the things I think is important is you go bid on someone's personal residence reroofing project and you know they're going to get several different bids. One of the things I coach people to do is send a thank you for the opportunity to bid on the project.

And you're excited about the opportunity and you look forward to working with them. And this is how you would be handling it, to give people vision. It's more than just here's the bid.

You're showing gratitude right off the bat for the opportunity to have bid. Now you stood out because I can guarantee you the other two companies probably didn't do that.

And now they're like, well, this guy's really interested in our project.

Erick Vargas: 00:14:53

When you do that, you're building professionalism, right?

Freddy D: 00:14:56

Correct.

Erick Vargas: 00:14:57

And when you're fixing a roof or maybe it's an H VAC project or you're building something for a customer, that's what they want to see. Because a lot of times people have been screwed over by some contractors sometimes. Right.

Everybody has a story where they have had somebody come to their house and demo the bathroom and it took five months longer than it should have and the guy never showed up at the end or after they got the deposit. They didn't come for two weeks or something like that. Right. That's how a lot of the construction industry can be, sometimes at the lower end.

But when you send the thank you for the Opportunity you're setting the bar for, like you said, to the competition. So if I had somebody do that to me, and actually that happened to me, I had a leak in my roof, and I called five contractors to come to my house.

Not one of them followed up. After they gave me the bid, I didn't go with them. I just called a friend and they patched up the roof.

I would have probably gone with somebody, but I didn't trust anybody to follow up and actually have them walk on my roof and do a good job because they didn't care enough to reach back out.

Freddy D: 00:16:05

Yeah, mail selling, manufacturing software. One of the approaches that I use is we were demoing the manufacturing software. So you had the guys on the shop floor come in.

You'd have management, you have the owner. Because I was going into tool and die shops, mold makers, I would send personalized letter in the mail to everybody.

I made sure I got everybody's name, and I would thank them for their time, their input during our presentation and all that stuff. Now, Johnny, that's out in the shop floor running the milling machine.

How do you think he felt getting a card thanking him for his time in the meeting to learn about our technology?

Erick Vargas: 00:16:45

I promise he's never had that before.

Freddy D: 00:16:48

Exactly. And so when they would meet of who are they going to pick as a vendor, we would always win. I never lost sales. If I did, it was very few.

And that was because primarily everybody felt that after the sale. The consensus was because I would ask, why'd you pick us? They all said after the sale. We felt that you would provide the best support.

But I set that stage by acknowledging, thank you for your time, appreciate your feedback. We're excited to work with you. So I was already doing presumptive close. Then when you get the deal, I always say, send a thank you letter.

We're now selecting us and letting them know what the process is going to be so people can plan their life. Then take pictures of the project, because most people don't. And then they have ability to show a story to their neighbors and friends.

And so now they become your super fan because they're promoting you to all their friends and family members. Look at the kitchen that they remodeled. Remember what it looked like? Oh, here's a picture. Here's how I'm going to process.

And look, the place is clean. And then I turn around and I tell people, okay, Six months later, reach back out and say, hey, just want to make sure all is well, et cetera.

A year later, and hit them on the Anniversary cash. It's a year from now. We know that you threw a lot of parties in that new kitchen. Hope you had a lot of fun and blah, blah, blah, just make it fun.

But that's how you build long term super fans which become your word of mouth referral sources and write reviews, which is really the new word of mouth today.

Erick Vargas: 00:18:25

Absolutely. It's really critical. And the nice thing about follow up is going to automate a lot of those communications to your customers.

A lot of people don't do that by going the extra mile because that's what you're talking about, really is going the extra mile is because guess what, it takes work. Right. And it takes care. Right.

And a lot of technology can help automate these things so that it takes less time to take care of those kinds of details and it doesn't forget. Yeah, doesn't forget. That's huge.

Freddy D: 00:18:58

That's the thing is you set it up, you set it and let it fly. It takes care of what needs to be taken care of.

Erick Vargas: 00:19:03

I call it set it and forget it.

Freddy D: 00:19:05

So let's talk about a little bit of the automation tools that you've guys got in there.

Erick Vargas: 00:19:08

Yeah, we actually just finished a really nice overhaul of our automation feature. And basically automation is basically this, an if then statement.

If this happens, then do this right in those two spaces you can insert whatever you want and the system will do that for you. For example, to your point, if this project is one, send a email to the customer asking for a review.

If this project has not been followed up within 30 days, send a notification reminder to the salesperson. Right. So there's so many examples that you can go crazy with to help automate these things that people might forget.

So those are some of the ways that we've seen our customers automate a lot of the processes in their company.

Freddy D: 00:20:07

Sure. You could use it, for example, to remind them to submit to say, let's say it's a kitchen and they got brand new appliances.

Hey, did you submit your warranty cards maybe 40 days after the project is complete? Just a reminder to, hey, just reaching out, saying hi and don't forget to send in your warranty cards for all your new appliances.

Erick Vargas: 00:20:26

Yeah, that's huge. And that's real good customer service. Because guess what? Most people forget, Right.

Especially that I asked me to do that and I was like, yeah, that's a great idea, I'll do it. And then 40 days go by and I just never get into it. But that little reminder might get me a rebate that's going to save me 500 bucks.

So of course I'm going to do that. If you remind me right now, they're.

Freddy D: 00:20:49

Going to say, man, this company, not only they did a great job, but they made sure that I got my rebate or whatever it is and they're going to tell everybody and those little things become the big things that create super fans 100%.

Erick Vargas: 00:21:04

And that is what kind of salesperson, like usually salespeople are taking advantage of people. And if you can change that to where you're looking out for your customers, you're going to win with your customers a hundred percent.

Freddy D: 00:21:15

Yeah. When I was selling manufacturing software as an example, I never got into what does it do.

I looked at the business objective as where do you see your company in three years, five years? What are the issues that you're having? What are the cost issues you're having?

I would tell them, hey, there's four or five companies in the same market space. We all do the job somewhat same. The bottom line is what's your biggest challenge is how can we help you with the challenge?

And we would be out of the features conversation and we would be into a business strategy conversation and price no longer became important because turns out that in the manufacturing world he would scrap a piece of metal that would cost him 20,000 bucks. So if I save him one scrap, that paid for the software and he still had money left over.

Erick Vargas: 00:22:03

Oh yeah, that, yeah. Software is actually a no brainer.

And when it comes to the productivity improvement that most customers see when they implement it, the problem is a lot of construction companies fail during the implementation process. Right. And that's another thing that makes followup super different than the other CRMs out there.

Usually if you try to get support from one of these major CRMs, you're going to get some offshore person and hopefully you'll hear from them in three days after you submit a ticket. Follow up isn't like that. Everything is us based onshore. You could talk to somebody, a real human being that's us based.

You can hop on a call and they're going to walk through your issues step by step so that you're taken care of and you have dedicated people to your account so that you're talking to the same person that knows your account and that can actually help you through the long term.

Freddy D: 00:22:59

Yeah, very important because implementation is everything. And the reality is that most people don't realize that they got to run concurrently.

They're going to run their old way of doing business because they can't just stop.

And if they're implementing a CRM for the first time, they got to do their business their old way and then they got to do it the new way through the CRM. So there's double entry going on until at some point in time it transitions over. Same thing.

If you're replacing existing technology with new technology, that same process has got to take place.

Erick Vargas: 00:23:33

Yeah. You have to establish a Go Live Deep where you put away the old and then start the new. Right.

So the implementation process is probably one of the most critical parts of joining any software.

Freddy D: 00:23:45

It's really one of the best ways to actually leverage it in a sales perspective because you set the proper expectations. That was one of the things I did, was talk about the implementation process and set the proper expectations because sometimes they're skewed.

They figure we buy the software and tomorrow I should be making money with it. Reality is, that's not even close. It's gonna maybe six to nine months before you start seeing the positive revenue coming out of that investment.

Erick Vargas: 00:24:16

Yeah, it really depends on which software that you're implementing. Like, for example, with Follow up, we've had customers tell us that they close jobs in two weeks, which is great.

Like, we love to hear that as a software company.

But if you're implementing like an accounting software that's gonna take six to nine months, it's going to be painful and it's going to be something that you really have to commit to. So it really depends on what you're implementing.

And thankfully, Follow up can get up and running in two, three weeks, depending on how fast you want to go.

Freddy D: 00:24:43

Yeah, we're selling.

When I was selling manufacturing software, it would take a while to get it up to speed because of the complexity of it and the training involved and everything else. This was back in the 90s. Today you've got tools that are much smarter than back then.

Erick Vargas: 00:24:59

Larry.

Freddy D: 00:24:59

You still had to use a lot of brain power.

Erick Vargas: 00:25:02

Yeah, we try to make it as easy as possible because if it's not easy, no one uses it. You know what I mean?

Freddy D: 00:25:07

Yep.

Let's do a deeper dive into how does Follow Up CRM really can be leveraged to foster super fans that in turn become the sales force of the user of your platform.

Erick Vargas: 00:25:20

Yeah.

So another way that Follow up helps our customers build relationships in the business development process is two things that we've done recently that we just released. We have a social integration with LinkedIn. So let's say you put my name into our software and you put Eric Vargas and My email at Follow up CRM. Com.

It's going to automatically find my LinkedIn profile and bring that into the CRM and then give you a little button so that you can connect with me without even leaving the system. A lot of people are building their networks through the system and building the relationships that way. So that's one way that we're helping.

And then the one that we're really excited about is our integration with AI into the CRM. So let's say that again. You put my name into the system and we have a button that says research with a.

So you click on the research button and it's going to scour the Internet for everything. Follow Up CRM and Eric Vargas related. And it's going to bring it together to build out a business development profile for me.

It's going to find all the articles that have been written about me about Follow Up. It's going to give you those links. It might even find this podcast on YouTube. And that way you can have all this information.

That is, you can then take that information and say, hey, Eric, I love that you were featured on this podcast. I watched it and it was great. It helps you do that research. You really get to make a really good first impression. Right.

Usually it might take an hour or two to do that kind of research on an individual, but we summarize that with AI and then it put that in the hands of the salesperson so that they can make the good as first impression as possible.

Freddy D: 00:27:15

Sure. It gives you talking points. I remember going into someone's office and taking a look and seeing what pictures they got on the wall.

Oh, the guy loves fishing or the guy loves skiing or whatever it was. And then you start the conversation to build that rapport.

So you're leveraging technology to give the advantage to the sales individual as well as a customer service rep, the opportunity to build those relationships based upon the data that they've gotten. Yeah.

Erick Vargas: 00:27:43

Huge.

Freddy D: 00:27:44

Now let's talk about your complimentary partners. Because those are, especially in construction, those are a critical component.

How does the CRM work with suppliers, distributors, all that aspect of it?

Erick Vargas: 00:27:58

Yeah. So a lot of our customers might track their suppliers and distributors within the system. Right. And especially in construction.

No one does a construction project alone. If you're a roofer, then you need a whole bunch of different suppliers. If you're a H vac contractor, you need your suppliers. Right.

So you can bring all these people together on a singular project within the CRM. And that's what makes us different.

That's what makes us specific to the construction industry is that you can pull in your supplier, your engineer, your subcontractors.

You can pull everybody in on the project and get one overview as to what's going on with the project and who you're working with to deliver on the result for your customer.

Freddy D: 00:28:44

Can you communicate between supplier suppliers for the project?

Erick Vargas: 00:28:49

Absolutely. So we have an email integration, which is really nice.

Whether on Outlook or Gmail, you can send an email from the platform to your different contacts within the system and then it tracks those emails automatically within the platform so that you remember, oh, I emailed this person or that person. And then we.

We also take the replies, a copy of those replies and put it in the system so that you can see all the communication from five different people about this project in one place, which.

Freddy D: 00:29:20

Is paramount because then the left hand knows what the right hand's doing.

Erick Vargas: 00:29:24

Exactly.

Freddy D: 00:29:24

And the right hand knows what the left hand's doing. And everybody's on the same page.

Erick Vargas: 00:29:28

Imagine you're the owner of the company and I'm the sales guy and I'm emailing five or six people about this one project. All you have to do is come to the project page and you can see, oh, Eric emailed everybody that I needed to communicate about this project.

Instead of chasing me down or chasing all the people that I emailed down is just chaos.

Freddy D: 00:29:47

Sure. Or same thing as you. You got the superintendent on a project calling because of something and you're not available because you're somewhere else.

That person can go and take a look in the whole feed and says, oh, okay, here's what's taking place. Here's what it is. Oh, no. This was sent on such and such a day. Someone else can resolve the problem on your behalf.

Erick Vargas: 00:30:09

And you hit on a great point there.

So not only does it optimize my time as a salesperson or a project manager, but it brings the whole company together so that everybody's working off the same information. Now, 10 people can know the latest update on this project because it's all tracked in one place.

Freddy D: 00:30:28

That's huge.

Erick Vargas: 00:30:30

Huge.

Freddy D: 00:30:31

So let's wrap up here with what do you see the future of tech in the construction market space?

Erick Vargas: 00:30:37

Yeah. So the future of tech is really bright to me.

I think we just started entering into a really fun error because a lot of young people are getting into the trades once again. Right. There's a lot of whatever they're calling them nowadays. They are looking back to the trades.

They want to get into it because they know that guess What? You'll always need a new roof, right? You'll always need the air conditioning fix. You always need a plumber, right?

And so these businesses are recession proof where maybe a technology company five years ago, 10 years ago, sometimes they start and then they go away, Right? But in the construction industry, these are businesses that last. And that's what the younger generation is starting to see.

So with this new generation of construction business owners, they're bringing technology with them.

So we're going to see construction companies do more better and faster because this next generation is coming in and they're looking to utilize technology to the utmost to make their businesses better.

Freddy D: 00:31:41

As you just said, home improvement is never going to go away. Ever. Ten years from now, you can turn and look at the kitchen go, that sucks. I need a new kitchen.

I remember years ago I was house sitting my brother's house in the winter. He was three months in Germany and guess what? Furnace went out. It's wintertime. Fortunately I was there and we got that fixed.

Otherwise you would have had a little bit of a problem, so. Absolutely correct. Eric has been a pleasure having you on the show.

As we talked earlier, do you have anything for our audience, especially those that are in the construction industry?

Erick Vargas: 00:32:14

Yeah. If you're interested in learning more about follow up CRN, you could find me on LinkedIn or you could just go to our website, followupcrm.

Com and you can reach out to us. Happy to show you a demo. Or just chat and talk construction. We love to do that too.

Freddy D: 00:32:27

All right, Eric, it's been pleasure having you on the business Superfans Poop Fam podcast and we look forward to having you on the show down the road and continuing the conversation.

Erick Vargas: 00:32:35

Great. Thank you for your time. Have a good one.

Freddy D: 00:32:37

Thanks, you too. Bye.