Jerry Alberti's Guide to Construction Mastery

He's the founder of Pro-Ax and he's out there serving growth-minded contractors on how to improve their operational performance , and so I'm hoping he'll give me a couple nuggets that I can apply to my weird business . But before we get to talk to Jerry , I want to give a shout out to our L&M family member , ms Melissa Williams .

Melissa shot me this message and it lit up my day . She said I've made it to the pool planning section of your training course and it's definitely the type of info I needed to start implementing lean tools .

Melissa says I've made it to the pool planning section of your training course and it's definitely the type of info I needed to start implementing lean tools . It's very informative from a practical . Here's what you need to do , standpoint and also there's how you facilitate the doing . So far it's been very helpful .

Melissa , I appreciate you investing the time to like , click and listen to me , jam my jaws about something that I'm maniacal about , and I'm very glad to hear that it's helping you and the rest of the L&M family out there .

Send me a note , send me a thought and also , I'm going to say it multiple times , but go and follow ProXL's YouTube channel , because Mr Jerry is the talent , the face , the energy behind that channel , and so let's get to know Mr Jerry .

I was there for a conference or something and you and I were on the phone and I can't remember why I was there for a conference or something and you and I were on the phone and I just remember when we had that conversation I was like man , like this dude's down , like he's good people , and here we are .

You know our lives have been evolving along the way .

But before all of that , what are , like , the important juicy nuggets that people need to know about you , mr Jerry ?

As a really young kid , like my father always knew to keep scrap wood around the house because he knew I was probably going to take apart something that was not supposed to get destroyed . So he always kept that scrap wood for me to build something . And , long story short , I grew up down the block from a trades and technical high school .

I started off in a trade and then I transferred to architecture and then I went to college for engineering . After three semesters I transferred out of engineering , I went to architecture and then I started working in the civil world and I started working with all engineers again .

So it's been going on and forth , and after 20 years of working for self-performed GCs , I broke away . And here I am , I'm consulting and I'm helping contractors build and grow highly profitable businesses . You know , that's always my goal .

And now I was 10 , 11 years old , I wanted to be watching cartoons and dad was like nope , we're going to work , and so it left a bad impression . Anyways , fast forward , I'm in it . But you knew , you just said , like you knew , out of the gate you wanted to be in construction . I love that .

Your pop said we need to get some scrap here , otherwise this guy's going to tear the house apart .

I read a couple of months ago that you know , although there's a lot less people getting into trades which is changing with the generation Z but trades also have the highest sense of accomplishment as well , I think , because every day you leave and you go home and you fix something on a daily basis , and I think that's what it was for .

You know , the greatest part about my career a big blessing in disguise was I was always a hard worker and my supervisors noticed that right . And when you find the young kid who's willing to work , they want to grab you and they want to put you on their jobs , right . So my first position was as an estimator .

Then , after a year , I went out to the field . Then I was an assistant super and I quickly started going up the ladder really quickly . I made a post on LinkedIn about I developed a book and every new operation . I tracked everything that I did on every new operation and that book became like my Bible . It's actually right next to me .

To me it's worth gold man . It's really worth a lot of money and I've been developing it for 21 years now and every new operation I just tracked everything as I went one year , two years , three years and as I would get back to that operation , I knew probably better than my supervisors what I needed to do to get that operation going , to do the thing .

Yeah , and I went back to this book and I just kept . You know I was moving up the ladder really quickly . Anyways , I went from assistant super to super , assistant , project manager to project manager . Then my supervisors pulled me into the office . I was supposed to be in estimating for two weeks .

Two weeks turned into five years when some miscellaneous couple months stints out in the field to go help out and of course I got the night shifts right . So I was going out like that and I was just estimating and then I went back out to the field and this time , when I went went back out to the field , I ran the jobs . I was the number one guy .

So I estimated jobs .

I went out to run the jobs that I helped get and the next thing you know , I just I started off with the $10 million jobs and I went to the $20 million jobs and I went to the $50 million jobs and then I started making moves from one company to another and then I went back to estimating and then every company that I made a move with they did different

kinds of work . So if I was working on highways and bridges , and the next thing you know I was doing foundation work , and the next thing you know I was commercial work . I was dealing with commercial , I was dealing with roofers and glazers and and I was dealing with door schedules . So I got a really good background , man , and that and that's my story .

there's so many different facets and you got , I'm really interested . So you got the book . Do you have a title for that book ? Your compilation ?

Because what I did was when I went and started a new project as a plumbing foreman , the things that kicked me in the face , I would write that down , right . Anything that like eventually , whatever caused me like a real bad pain in the butt , emergency . Like man , I need to write that down because it's predictable .

Floor drain , simple example the first time I ran a project they were pouring concrete . On Friday I got the plans . On Monday I had to get my sleeves and embeds in for the pour . So I jumped through my butt , figured out how to do that . We did it . And then the superintendent came to me on Thursday afternoon . He's like , hey , where are your floor drains ?

And I'm like , oh man , let me call . I call the PM . Hey , we need the floor drains . Well , the floor drains had three , four week lead time on them because they were special , fancy floor drains , guess what . They're not going to be in the pour . My GC wasn't happy . We had to box it out .

That was one of those oh shit moments , and so I knew for the next job order , the floor drains first , because they have a longer lead time , like simple dumb things like that . That was my list .

It was not as detailed as what yours sounds like , and so here's my question about that when did you get the idea or the practice to write down the steps of the different roles and the different companies that you were working with ? Where did that habit come from ?

So , as I started gaining experience , after a couple of years the office used to have me track productions . Naturally , track productions when you're doing . I was in the first half of my career . I was on multi-hundred million dollar jobs .

. So when you're doing 15 , 20 , 30 shifts or something , I would track the average of three days , sometimes five days , of how much labor we spent , what the production was per day , of what the quantities were right . So the problem is quantities , what materials we used , what equipment we used .

I would put I would have put an associated cost to that and I would come up with the average . I would also cost to that and I would come up with the average . I would also know and then I would come up with the average , you know , based on what the office wanted what was the unit cost , what was the cost per quantity ?

What was the unit cost or how many man hours it took to do one unit I like to work with how many units per shift and what was the unit cost , right ? Yes , so that always made the most sense to me . So as I was doing that , I built up on that on my own , without anybody asking . I said you know what I got , the real juice of this operation .

So now I started adding to it . I started doing exactly what you said . What went wrong on each day ? What do I need to be careful for ? What were the means of egress that actually messed up that production ? What was the weather ?

So I just started to expand on that and actually on several of those procedures I actually wrote down what arguments happened on the project . So I really got crazy with it and it works . It just works . So it started off with hey , jerry , can you start tracking costs ? Here's how you track a cost , and that's really important , that I should add .

The first company I worked for was really good with training the youth . It was really good . The senior people were there for many years . It was a fantastic work , culture and nobody left . Nobody left , matter of fact , I'm going to take it a step further no-transcript to leave you oh man . You know I'm going to give good money too .

They don't , they have others . They're focusing their efforts on other things . And the reason I point at leaders is because I've had the fortune of working for some amazing organizations that had amazing resources to help people develop and grow their careers . Now , when I was a foreman or an installer , I had my bosses , my foreman or superintendent .

They wouldn't sign me up for the training because they wanted me on the job site . They would raise hell because I had to leave to go to the training . And so just the organization having the training ain't enough . They need to have leaders that understand the value of getting their people , equipping their people with new ideas , new thinking , new tools .

And in one situation , specifically my boss at the time , Wesley Baker . He came in . He said you're going to be our trainer , put the training program together and it's mandatory and the guys are going to come in during the day . We're not doing this after-hours stuff anymore . I said whoa ?

He said and I know you're not going to like this part I need a list of the guys that don't come to the training , not the guys themselves . I need to know who their supervisor is . And I was like , oh , that's interesting , Well , supervisor is . And I was like , oh , that's interesting , Well , guess what ? The first training they missed .

I sent them the list . Them guys came to the next training because he made it clear to their direct supervisor that you don't get to pull them out because you got a delivery coming . You need to plan and accommodate for that . These guys are going to be in there once a week or whatever it was you plan for that .

There's no reason for them not to be in this training . I said , oh my God , Like .

Anyways , just want to say that for the folks out there that are looking to build their program , to reiterate what you said , Jerry , if you invest in your people , you don't have a retention problem and you don't have an attraction problem , and the leaders the like down the cascade of the organization , when they understand that it is necessary , they will make it

happen . Sorry , I didn't mean to blab so much , oh no it's so true .

I needed to miss , and most commercial contractors didn't want me to miss the Wednesday morning , so this one contractor was okay with that and you know , it's just . I mean , there you go . The rest is history and I'm so happy that happened .

I still talk to the guy that hired me and said Jerry , you know it's great you went to college , it's great that you got a degree that's related to construction . But I'll be honest , everything you do from here on out , you probably didn't learn in college .

It's up to me and he was the vice president he says it's up to me for you to go from where you're sitting on the other side of this desk to put you on this side of my desk . And it goes right back to what you said it's up to me to train you to be the next vice president in this company .

And he knew nothing about me , jesse , and that was the leadership that trained me for 14 years before I started getting my entrepreneurial itch and I started making moves not knowing that I had my entrepreneurial itch , which is another oh dude , we're going to get to that , no doubt , no doubt , cause I know that itch .

But before we get there , you mentioned that you were estimating , you were estimating for five years and the tracking production , which I will go to the grave saying that's where it's at , when you understand your production rates , your install rates whether you've like factoring in the dollars is easy , that's just multiplication , but what you understand , the job was

estimated to move X amount of square feet per hour and this is how many people you have doing it . So this is how many you should be moving and this is what you're actually moving . That data right there will transform your business because you can make decisions to align them and improve that . Decisions to align them and improve that .

Now , in the time you spent , I get to see your post . You post . There seems to be a common thread about the disconnection between estimating and operations and I'm wondering the book Jerry's Bible . How much of the content in your notes in that book would help people understand the value of the connection between estimating and operations .

So as contractors right , contract contractors we need to secure cash flow and we need to make profits and we need to identify risk and we need to offset contractor now , identify a whole bunch of risk and helping him grow his company so he can bid larger work with more ease and more confidence .

Right , and this one plan set that's right next to me is about 450 plan ship . Yeah , spec is about a thousand to twelve hundred .

This guy's got two and a half three weeks to go through all the RFIs that he's being hit , establish new RFIs , go through all these plan sets and figure out how to put together a budget and know what's going to happen , or assume what's going to happen two and a half three years out .

Right , new York City , in the middle of New York City , right After coming off of COVID just recently , right . So , like you know , it's crazy , it's insane . So , people out in the field I'm always talking about cross pollination I think estimators need to spend a little time out in the field and see what project managers have to deal with .

Project managers have to spend a little time in estimating to understand the intense pressure that an estimator has . Where he's got , he or she has a bunch of plan sets and needs to predict the future and needs to put together a cost . So now when you go out to the field , most project managers either complain of one or two things .

One , they don't know how to put together costs , which they're not going to admit to most of the time right . And two , nobody's really tracking costs properly because the big companies have their own cost departments who've never spent a day in estimating .

So I don't know how they're tracking costs properly and they're learning six months down the line that a particular production is way off and it's too late to do anything about it .

So I have a client currently , right now , and what we're doing is we're establishing a way where , every single week , you know exactly if you're making money , if you're not making money . But that starts an estimating and you need to come up with your unit cost to get going . We're tracking labor only . We're not tracking materials and we're not tracking equipment .

We're just going to trap labor because to me , my opinion , materials is material , right , equipment is equipment . So , just to get going , we're going to track labor and he's a high production , he's a high labor business . Yeah , so I hope that answered your question . I don't know if that answered your question .

So , anyways , the importance of , is the point of a project manager is to manage the project , not only the people and within the organization . But you got to manage cost . That's what . That's why we're there is to make money . At the end of the day , we're there to make money .

But another thing too is that estimators are just handing off bids to project managers , but the project managers don't know how to differentiate between direct and indirect costs . They're looking at $100 per linear foot of something and they think that they have $100 a linear foot to spend . They don't . They got more , like $70 a linear foot .

But what's the rhyme and the reason behind that ? Right , if you decide to sell , I always work for self-performed contractors . So if you decide , after the bid , to give that self-performed portion out to a sub , who's in charge of creating that contract and how do you know how much ?

You have to give a contract that's based on your cost , cause you don't want to give up your overhead and profits , and that's where things fall apart . Just one really quick story I was working with a contractor who grew from 20 million to 40 million . He said , jerry , for the first time we're hiring subcontractors .

Well , we don't really understand what work , what the unit cost is that need to correlate with the unit cost that the subcontractor is using , and this is how profits are running away from contractors . And this is what I help with .

If I understand the other side of the business , that's going to make me a great estimator , because I'm going to also know how to do the work of estimating and flip side , and I think that happens all the way down to installation , right Like I don't need to .

As an installer , I don't need to know the strategy behind an estimate and the labor factors that were put on the job because this was a nice job or it's a relationship builder or because it's a difficult client . So there's a different multiplier .

I don't need to know all that , but I do need to know that the estimate has given me a hundred labor hours to install 200 feet of pipe and that means if I install two feet per hour , I'm on budget right Like I don't .

Anyways , the cross pollinating helps us understand how to better apply our efforts to reach the business goal all the way through the stream . Would you agree with that ?

So my question is this in terms of the most impact things , if you had to list them , take a wild guess in order . Does operational SOPs or mindset leadership , accountability ? What are the different levels of impact that those buckets have on a business ?

If you're a self-performed contractor , like how I mentioned before , maybe you're starting to bring on your own subcontractors , right ? So now there's a lot more moving parts to the operation . One of the biggest growing pains they have is the contractor , especially the owner .

Biggest growing pains they have is the contractor , especially the owner , is having a hard time letting go . They just have a hard time letting go and I'm finding that a lot of the major problems that are happening within companies is that the contractor , the owner , is having a hard time just stepping out of the field .

Right , they need to be in control of the productions . I was talking to a contractor not too long ago and I was talking to his people and he says

, Jerry , we always have a plan . We feel we always have a plan . This was the super , and then I spoke to the foreman . Problem is the owner comes out to the field .

He looks at the job in five minutes , he speculates what's needed in five minutes and he starts changing everything up and scrambling and he said we're trying because I love two week look at schedules , oh yeah , schedules . Four week and six week look at schedules got me a lot of that , a lot out of oh crap moments and I post about that on social media .

And so it's a mindset right , so it's a mindset shit . And just remind me one more time what was the last thing you spoke about it .

You need to you as the owner need to that you delegate and you put those leadership people in those leadership roles . So you need to respect the chains of command . So you need to start getting out of the weeds of the day-to-day operations .

So , by respecting your own decision to put that foreman as a foreman , to bump up that laborer as a labor foreman or journeyman from a foreman , right , that foreman , the super maybe , or maybe you're a super out of school . Whatever you know , whatever you did , you need to respect and empower each of those individuals .

Because you delegated those people , you , you designated those people in those leadership , in those leadership roles . Hopefully you're training those people in those leadership roles and hopefully you're .

I love open door policies , but the owner needs to understand that if something's happening out in the field , the foreman should be the first , should be empowered to make a decision Like let them run enough where they can be empowered enough to make those decisions . If they can't , then let them feel comfortable enough to go to the super .

If the super can't make that decision , let them go to the project manager . If the project manager can't make that decision , then you go to the owner . Or maybe if you're a large company , you've got a senior PM or whatever it may be .

By doing that not only are you empowering your people and you're building the culture and working your organization that the people want , because now you're not micromanaging them all , You're also getting out of the weeds of the day-to-day operations , so now you're more focused on the strategic development of the company as well .

And that's , I think , is the hardest part for both of us to help our clients .

So I have to respect and honor that , while I also say just run an experiment , small , let's just try this . And then it doesn't blow up and they're like , oh , okay , let's try it this way , this time , and so , little by little , as fast as I can , as fast as they're willing to to try it , we'll get there .

And there's a whole , probably a whole other segment of podcasts that we could have about folks that think they want help , have big goals , but aren't willing to change anything in order to get there . And like I can't help those people , I don't know about you , jerry .

So I'm always thinking about all these . I don't know . A generational thing for me is just something that interests me . So , if you think about it , a lot of the older generation they never , they didn't , they weren't born , raised and didn't grow up in the information age as a lot of us younger people , right so a guy like me .

I was born I don't want to talk about my age , but I was born in the very , very early 80s , right ? So in the 90s , when the internet started coming about , I was able to log on to the internet and get any kind of information I wanted to . So I grew up in a world where I'm accustomed to asking for help . It was easy for me to find out information .

So I find that . And then the older generation . They were more like I gotta figure this out on my own . I think it's true . They did not grow up in the information age . They they have a lot more self-pride and their ego is a little different than ours .

Where you know , because I get called a lot from younger business owners , I get called called a lot , believe it or not , from multi-generational owners and they're like Jerry , my family business has been around for two , three generations and we have no structure whatsoever in our business .

I would love to hire someone like you , but my dad is never going to hire someone like you because of his pride .

He can't tell the older generations that they hired someone for help , and this is a big problem and this also goes to the construction professional as well right , everyone complains that the younger generation doesn't want to work or doesn't want to learn , and I think people understand that there's easier ways of doing things , and they have a tough time explaining

that to the older generation . So this is how I help contractors , too is like guys , I understand this stuff .

Let me get in there , let me start talking to your people , because I will shed light on a lot of things that you have no idea about , because most owners have been owners their entire career right , right , bro , I'm gonna say that is the most brilliant observation about what reinforces specifically , we'll say , gen Xers , maybe even boomers .

So , l&m family , you just got a hell of a nugget . Take that into consideration , dude . That was huge . So let's talk about this entrepreneurial itch , jerry . Where did it start ? Because I've been watching you . You started your business . Now you got a YouTube , you got a podcast , you were posting , you were doing videos . I've seen that evolution .

How did it start and what have you learned about yourself since you started taking these steps ?

just a very young , hungry guy in the construction business in an insanely difficult work environment , new York City right , and I was given so much opportunity , I was around so many quality professionals who trained me well and I'm like , holy crap , I know how to really estimate extremely well . I know how to run a job , in my opinion , extremely well .

But I disagree a lot with people and I remember one of my old bosses told me Jerry , you're going to know when you're ready to run your own job . You're going to become really cocky . You know what ?

And for you to understand what's going to go wrong a month down the line really quick story I used to send my two and four week look at schedules to the inspectors and the inspector used to call me up laughing like Jerry , how the hell do you know what's going to happen ? Because I would say , hey , when this goes wrong , I want to fix it this way .

When this goes wrong , I want to fix it this way . I anticipate this to go wrong , possibly in two , three weeks from now . They used to call me up like confidence that I had you know and anyways . So upper management was changing a lot and I was put on a job .

That was , I was driving four to five hours a day to and from work and they took away our company trucks and they gave me a personal truck and that personal truck was costing me many thousands of dollars a month . I said , forget , I'm out of here , man . So I went . I made a move .

The next company wasn't for me and this feeling was just becoming more and more intense . But before I made my first move , I started the decorative concrete business . I was doing like metal toppings and as epoxy flooring . It was a side hustle and I dissolved after a couple of years . It was building momentum .

I dissolved it because for me to be where I wanted to be with that business . I needed to go back into the city and I didn't want to go back to the city . I just didn't want that . I didn't want that life . So and it was very seasonal too , so to keep people busy was difficult for me , right . So I started making more moves .

I had enough with the field . I was working insane hours , weekends . I had two young kids . I was never present with my kids because just mentally I was just stressed out . I went back to estimating . Now I started working more on the commercial side of things and I started learning a lot more . I bid on a $1.25 billion job .

Every job was a multi-hundred million dollar job . Long story short , that intensity got even worse . I got to a point , jesse , I couldn't wake up in the morning . My mental health was shot . It was shot . I couldn't wake up anymore . I was a real . I was bad and I had an opportunity to help somebody part-time and I told my wife .

I said I had enough , I'm done . So I hired my own coach . I believe in coaching . I hired my own coaching . I joined some consulting programs , advisory programs , peer groups and I decided you know what , this guy's going to help me pay my bills .

I started my LLC and worked for a $100 million a year company , a $400 and then a billion dollar a year company . When a $30 , $40 , $50 million a year company calls me up for problems , it's not hard for me to really get to the bottom of it . You just got to give me the opportunity to start scratching away at it . And here I am .

The rest is history and you you know . You asked me about what I learned about myself . I haven't been comfortable in years . If I had a dollar for every hour of sleep I lost the past three to four years , I would be a millionaire . Right now it's just the emotional rollercoaster . Listen , I live in the suburbs of New York City . It's not low cost .

My wife works part time because she helps raise kids and I got two young kids and camps and vacations and I don't want my kids to feel the impact Right . But things are moving in the right direction . I'm hitting social media hard .

I'm doing a lot of face to face and people getting to know me a lot better and things are moving in the right direction and it's a great feeling . Next week I'm going to Rhode Island and the week after that I'm going to Virginia . I'm going on vacation to Italy for two weeks in a couple of weeks . I never would be able to go away for two weeks .

So there's the pros and the cons with entrepreneurship as well . Yes , but you learn how to manage your emotions , because your emotions are really going to drive you Dude ?

But then there's days I'm wish , oh my God , I wish I had that steady paycheck and the monotonous lifestyle . So it's again . It's the highs of the highs and the lows of the lows , but it's a great feeling when you're helping somebody and you're willing . I got one client and he's just . His grin is all the way up .

For me , it's the sense of fulfillment , right , what you just described is like wow , I took my years of experience and knowledge and helped somebody in a way that they didn't know , like I'm contributing to them , achieving or accomplishing something they never thought or expected they could . That feels so so , so , so good .

It makes all the rejections , all the posts that nobody interacted with . It makes that pain go away when I know , okay , I've helped somebody in a meaningful way . And I think I'll agree that entrepreneurship is a constant state of discomfort and learning , like , if you want to learn about who you are and how much you don't know , start a business .

What do you think ?

You better get on the ocean media and you better start going to networking events and start shaking hands and you better be comfortable with telling people how you help .

slam home run question how do people get a hold of you and how do they find your services ?

On the free resources , you'll find all my videos with blocks on the on the . There . I have buttons all over the place to schedule calls with me . You can email me at Jerry with a J E R Y at pro-lacelcom as well .

And that's what I try to figure out on all of our calls . Maybe not so much at first because I don't know who you are , but when I get to know you more and more , I think that's my promise to you is that every call you're going to become a little bit better , dude .

That information right there is going to change the way I serve people in the future , so you've already done it for me . My man and I appreciate that very much . Did you have a good time ? Oh , I had a great time , jesse .