S3 E2- Why Between Bricks and Binders? The Story Behind the Podcast (Part 1)

Between Bricks and Binders is the podcast that bridges the gap between construction entrepreneurs and the business world. In this introduction episode, Frédérique from RenoQuotes and Ronaldo share why this podcast was created and what you can expect from future episodes.

Through experience-sharing, practical advice, and expert discussions, we explore industry challenges and how to better connect professionals.

Who are we? Why start this podcast? What to expect in upcoming episodes? Join us for insightful conversations that will help you better understand the construction industry and improve your daily professional life.

Frédérique (00:03:58:17 - 00:04:06:14)

So welcome to our brand new podcast, Bricks and Binders. I'm your host, Fredrique from RenoQuotes.

Ronaldo (00:04:06:19 - 00:04:09:02)

And I'm Ronaldo from admis.com

Frédérique (00:04:09:04 - 00:04:22:04)

And in order for you to understand a little bit where, and why we're doing this, I feel like we should, get a glimpse of, like, what is the journey of Ronaldo. So tell us a little bit about yourself.

Ronaldo (00:04:22:06 - 00:05:15:19)

So, my journey. I I'm someone that really was for a long time in customer service, and, in sales, but I. I was always what we could call the middleman. If I look at, like, ten, 15 years ago, I used to work for, an IT company where it was like, it was an IT reseller, right? Where, we would offer different businesses, different IoT solutions. Right. And during that time, I realized that a lot of times the end user, the client. A lot of times do not necessarily understand, the other side of things, which is you know, the, the service provider or the manufacturer or like, you know.

Frédérique (00:05:15:19 - 00:05:16:20)

And vice versa and.

Ronaldo (00:05:16:20 - 00:05:38:23)

Vice versa. Exactly. So I was always the person explaining to end user what manufacturer was trying to say, or explaining to manufacturer what end user actually needed. And I found myself in that position and, multiple instances. Recently I used to, you know, work for RenoQuotes.com

Frédérique (00:05:39:00 - 00:05:40:11)

Yep. That's how we met each other.

Ronaldo (00:05:40:11 - 00:06:11:19)

I think you know the company, right? At first in customer service. Then I went to the contractor side of things. Then was really focused on sales. And throughout all of these positions, once again, I was the middleman. Always trying to converse with translator. The translator. That's a definitely good way of saying it. And the more I did it, the more I liked it. I liked being the person that made it make sense. And,

Frédérique (00:06:11:21 - 00:06:15:17)

Seeing that light in their eye where it's like, oh now I understand, now.

Ronaldo (00:06:15:17 - 00:06:35:13)

I understand, I understand either how to, how to make it work or. Oh now I understand why it didn't work or I understand why they like to, to be the person that makes it makes sense is definitely something that I, definitely enjoy. But yeah, I think that's, that's the journey so far for me.

Frédérique (00:06:35:14 - 00:06:37:04)

And what do you do now?

Ronaldo (00:06:37:06 - 00:07:16:23)

I am the president of admisses.com. We offer, admin services for construction contractors. And what I mean by admin services is basically everything that keeps them from doing what they're the best at, which is doing the job building, renovating. Yeah, exactly. So we pick up the phone, we follow up with the clients, we handle the, the emails, we set the appointments. Really all of the admin side of things, things that would normally require them to hire a full time employee. We offer them at a fraction of the price. Basically.

Frédérique (00:07:17:01 - 00:07:49:23)

It's very cool because you have, so many years of experience talking to contractors, and now you're able to identify, like, one of their main pain points. I mean, I've worked in the industry for quite some time, and I know that it's one very frustrating thing to have to, book a full day of your week to just do paperwork and book appointments and look at emails and how many emails you get. It's ridiculous. So that's awesome. You get to address that pain point and once again be the middleman between the customer and the contractor.

Ronaldo (00:07:50:00 - 00:08:23:12)

Yeah, and I make it make sense. So yeah, I definitely like what I, what I do and it's it's something that's needed in the, especially in the construction world because there's, there's a world of difference between what they want to do and what they have to do to actually keep things rolling. And the transition from one to the other is longer than, you know, switching departments. If, let's say, you know, we're at RenoQuotes Couture and it misses, like if you have to leave your office to go on the physical.

Frédérique (00:08:23:12 - 00:08:27:00)

Yeah, it's a physical, location to move from.

Ronaldo (00:08:27:00 - 00:08:32:09)

Yeah, exactly. So that transition is harder for them. So if they don't have to do it at all.

Frédérique (00:08:32:11 - 00:08:40:07)

And also is something that most contractors will most that I've talked to, they hate doing that. They will say that.

Ronaldo (00:08:40:07 - 00:08:52:06)

Yeah, they go they know that it's necessary. So they do it. But if you gave them the option to not do that, that's definitely what they would choose. So I was like, how about if I do it for you?

Frédérique (00:08:52:12 - 00:09:08:09)

Right. That's awesome. Some of them have family members around them that'll do it for either cheaper or free or like the admin work. That'd be your wife, your husband, your child. That's kind of an advantage for them. But for those who don't have that person there is Admissis.. That's awesome.

Ronaldo (00:09:08:11 - 00:09:14:21)

Yeah, definitely. And even for those who have that because you just basically mentioned my main competition which is your.

Frédérique (00:09:14:21 - 00:09:16:17)

The wife, the husband, the child.

Ronaldo (00:09:16:19 - 00:09:42:14)

Like it's it's so tough for me to, you know, fight against the wife and things like that. But, once again, I make it make sense. Right? So if I'm able to take these tasks away from either them or the wife, they can definitely focus on things that are, more important or, different things that they didn't even, necessarily think about and things like that. So, yeah, it is.

Frédérique (00:09:42:16 - 00:09:55:14)

I don't think we mentioned any like, time frame on that, but, how many years or months did you work at, RenoQuotes and how many how long have you been with Admissis.. So when did you start Admissis

Ronaldo (00:09:55:14 - 00:10:01:21)

Yeah very good question. I mean I was with RenoQuotes for 7 to 8 years. I would say.

Frédérique (00:10:02:01 - 00:10:05:05)

It's quite some time. There's not much people who do that much time in the company.

Ronaldo (00:10:05:05 - 00:10:39:11)

Anymore, you know. But when you like it, you know, you stay. And my transition to admissis was not me stepping away from RenoQuotes, it was actually me finding something through random quotes that was a need for, for the, the construction workers or contractors, right? Because, like I said, when I was, sales director at RenoQuotes, we used to offer, a certain guarantee, a certain, you know, promise to the contractors that, hey, if you deal with this, this is the result that you get.

Frédérique (00:10:39:12 - 00:10:40:17)

The minimum result.

Ronaldo (00:10:40:19 - 00:10:53:15)

A minimum result. Exactly. And, you know, all you have to do is make sure that you, uphold your end of the bargain, which is, you know, you contact the clients at the rate delays. Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Frédérique (00:10:53:15 - 00:10:54:23)

And information.

Ronaldo (00:10:55:04 - 00:11:28:13)

And that's where, you know, that a lot of them had a certain lack, if I could say. Right. And I was like, it's it's, you know, it's too bad because if they had somebody to do it for them, the results would have been there. And the relationship with RenoQuotes would have been that much stronger. Right. So I didn't want to necessarily step away from RenoQuotes course, but I was like, there's a whole entity or there's a whole opportunity. In that specific, you know, need or lack that I just.

Frédérique (00:11:28:16 - 00:11:44:15)

And quite honestly for us it's great because then, then there is someone that can take care of that for people who are lacking in, in, in that sense. And I mean, we have a new sales director now, so we're okay. You didn't leave us for nothing. No, no.

Ronaldo (00:11:44:17 - 00:11:47:16)

It's great. I made sure the transition was was was good. Right.

Frédérique (00:11:47:17 - 00:12:11:04)

And obviously in like, full transparency. Admissis we did start as a new project, with Ronaldo because we are a company that believes in growth, growth for our staff, growth, growth for the business growth for contractors. So it is, something that started out as a new project and now is so nice to see that, you're flying from your own wings.

Ronaldo (00:12:11:04 - 00:12:16:20)

Yeah, it's it's it's definitely a journey. And, and I love it.

Frédérique (00:12:16:22 - 00:12:44:23)

So awesome. And it kind of like, ties in to the whole being the middleman again. As we were, we are still at RenoQuotes as well. And, also kind of the goal of why we're here as a podcast, right? We, we want to understand we want to talk to contractors. I mean, that's kind of my goal. What's your perspective on that? Like the goal of why we're doing all of this?

Ronaldo (00:12:45:01 - 00:13:17:03)

Well, every everything that I've learned, outside of course, like the, the official trainings and things like that. But every new piece of information that I've gotten in the past years, I've gotten from conversation, right? As a sales director at RenoQuotes,so many things came from contractors saying like, this is my pain point. Or how about you do this? Or from my experience, I've realized that.

Frédérique (00:13:17:05 - 00:13:18:16)

Yeah, because you were on the phone with them.

Ronaldo (00:13:18:16 - 00:13:19:08)

I was on the phone.

Frédérique (00:13:19:08 - 00:13:19:22)

All the time.

Ronaldo (00:13:19:23 - 00:14:14:11)

Exactly, exactly. Even what I'm saying about there was no way for me to know that there was a need if someone didn't tell me, or if, you know, that conversation didn't lead me to understand certain things. Right. And a lot of those conversations didn't only hold information that was valuable for my specific role at that specific time, it was just valuable information, period. And I was like, what? We're just going to leave that there? Like, how about, you know, like there's a huge need. You know, there's people that would love to hear that and, you know, it would help certain people. And I'm not being too specific right now just because we'll have a whole lot of podcasts to be specific. But there's a lot of cool information, that comes out of those conversations. And I was like, we should definitely share them with other professionals.

Frédérique (00:14:14:13 - 00:15:07:01)

Yeah. That's awesome. And I, I feel like it keeps us grounded to, to like, speak to contractors that are in the field that have certain issues, like, like you were talking about. For us, if we change, offices, we go from a meeting to a desk. Right. And it's kind of like with what we have in our title to from between bricks and binders, which is like between the contractor reality and what we see behind our screen. Right. So we're trying to talk to contractors through our screens, but we need to talk to them in a way that they're receptive to it. And same with me in my career it's been talking to actually translating from contractors speak to office speak. Most people don't have that reality. So, kind of the whole point of this podcast is to get that feel and that understanding right.

Ronaldo (00:15:07:04 - 00:15:27:11)

Definitely, definitely is to get both perspectives. So both languages, if I, if we could say, both perspectives, sometimes I would get it one at a time. Sometimes we get both at the same time. But and that's the only way we could have like a 360 view of.

Frédérique (00:15:27:11 - 00:15:27:23)

Yeah.

Ronaldo (00:15:28:01 - 00:15:28:10)

You know.

Frédérique (00:15:28:13 - 00:16:17:13)

And that's what we're going to, try to accomplish in this podcast is really to address the differences between the theory and the practice. Yeah. So we're going to address what it is, the processes in theory. And then we're going to push towards what is it actually, you know, when we try to apply that theory and practice, we all know it's not linear. It's never is. You move forward. You go up, you go down, you come back, you restart. And it's just to see, like how that works within reality for contractors and to also have them see, like, you know, you're not alone. It's not easy to apply theory and other people are doing it and it's feasible. It's not easy. But we'll help you try to get there.

Ronaldo 00:16:17:15 - 00:16:34:13)

Definitely, definitely. And we'll we'll be able to help you just, you know, put certain, how can I call them markers or like, you know, to see that, like you said, you're not alone. And reference points is what I was looking for. Have certain reference points, some.

Frédérique (00:16:34:16 - 00:16:36:03)

Key takeaways from it.

Ronaldo (00:16:36:03 - 00:16:48:19)

Yeah, exactly, exactly. So now I'm looking forward for that journey. So many great conversations are already lined up and, Yeah, because I could see it going very, very, very well.

Frédérique (00:16:48:21 - 00:17:05:19)

Awesome. And, like you were saying, most information you get from, conversations kind of like this podcast, right? You and I were just chatting on the corner of a table, and we were talking about something completely different. And all of a sudden you're like, hey, we're launching our podcast, just like you guys.

Ronaldo (00:17:06:00 - 00:18:51:05)

A funny, funny story about that, though, is, like, we had a plan about a podcast. I don't even remember if it was the same title, if we had a different title, but we had a plan about the podcast. We found our first guests and, you know, we had those amazing reels or shorts that were prepared for us. But we only had a plan for that one episode, and we're at the stage of planning the others. And we're talking to Emma back in the days and, you know, the marketing department, and she was like, yes, that would be so cool if we, you know, spoke to those, contractors about that said subject. And I said, yeah, it would be so cool. But I just took her comment as she thinks it's a good idea to just, you know, use that subject. And then I heard that conversation, that we had in the RenoQuotes, podcast. Right.The ad directly in the, in the podcast because and it was all like, misunderstanding, misunderstanding. But that turned out to be gold because the conversation was so fitting with, you know, the, the direction that RenoQuotes quotes was taking. And it's afterwards that I understood. That's why she was like, that's amazing. Because it it just fell in line with what her plan was. Yeah, but I did it without having a plan. So I didn't know then what she was saying. But then when we spoke, we were able to make it all make sense.

Frédérique (00:18:51:07 - 00:19:15:21)

Aligned, aligned everything. And then we decided to just not abandon it. Like, just start a project together, move our project into a combined project, which I think is a great idea because then it gets like all of your, your insights and your experience and then my insights, my experience and all of our guests that we'll have as well during the season.So that's awesome.

Ronaldo (00:19:16:02 - 00:19:43:19)

Definitely awesome. Definitely awesome. And we have the same, we deal with, contractors, right? We deal with contractors. And the fact that we deal with contractors makes us speak to other professionals that are inside of that construction conglomerate. Because we know about the contractors, but we don't know about everybody else. Well, not everybody knows about, you know, the people that.

Frédérique (00:19:43:19 - 00:19:44:21)

Are the other professionals.

Ronaldo (00:19:44:21 - 00:19:45:10)

Exactly.

Frédérique (00:19:45:10 - 00:19:53:08)

The ones that manage associations, the one that manage training, the ones that manage licenses, all that fun stuff.

Ronaldo (00:19:53:08 - 00:19:59:03)

Yeah, yeah. Very important people that, you know. Yeah. We don't necessarily hear from often.

Frédérique (00:19:59:05 - 00:19:59:12)

Yeah.

Ronaldo (00:19:59:16 - 00:20:05:10)

And that also have very valuable information that they can share. So looking forward to it.

Frédérique (00:20:05:12 - 00:20:09:17)

All right. Well this is fun Ronaldo I'll see you on our next episode.

Ronaldo (00:20:09:18 - 00:20:10:16)

See everybody there.