The Fencing Revolution: Distributor Challenges and Mastering Pedestrian Gate Automation

All right all right what's up what's up what's happening everybody hey what is up with you in a box what yeah you were in a box on the intro but welcome oh I know oh yeah oh I don't Brooks made that one today I didn't that was the first time I saw it this this podcast is taking a life of its own I it's it's almost like I'm just a guest on this thing now we all are it's taking a life of its own so we have two guests Sasha and uh Sean with Mr rouder yes sir Mr rouder Mr router is that is that gonna be his new nickname from now on Mr router I think we just officially coined him as Mr router in Industry tonight went that's better than the stuff we normally call him absolutely and look at Sasha is still still at the fence show yeah that's you know that all your friends left went back home right y I've told them before they're charging me by the day for that expo hall storing our booth it's still back there behind them see it back there Mr St still there hey Sean do you remember that blue all that blue I what did you I don't know what that stuff was for some of your display was like uh it was powdercoated blue some pieces of metal was like 10 12 feet long yeah what happened to it it's now been modified it's been bolted to one of our trailers that's how we Haul our gates now I I think I got some pictures all post it's like the back of our it's kind of like you know the the how the the glass company haul their stuff with the padding on it it's now one of those so our fence display is now famous in Las Vegas around Las Vegas Gates that's got a 30 32 foot gate sitting against it right now my yard good job so what's going on man I heard you're tearing up some CMM machines uh yeah so I think last night at like nine o'clock at night so this was not even during normal operated hours so nobody saw what was going down my brother in there top secret mission we learned that um so an8 by8 vinyl fence post you ever seen one it doesn't fit in the router very well like no so so but we had Miss we had to get this job done today we had a home we had a consumer that requested 8 inch by8 inch post they didn't know they make him but they did but listen they wanted these post so big because they went over top of 5 inch steel round schedule 40 full weight pipe filled with concrete six feet deep six feet out of ground vinyl post over that they didn't want the over on six foot centers so I'm thinking this is easy it doesn't fit the the it fits in the bay B you got to bring it in the rear end you can't go from the front end right yeah and the router head hits it so we had to take the whole router apart like lift the whole mechanism up like temporarily there was some duct tape involved and some things to hold it look like mission accomplished the job was finished today they love it I wa I'll get video here soon um to share it with everybody what a monster fence five to six fo on centers 8 by8 posts over steel but I can tell everyone out there right now that's wondering just wondering about buying a CMM I wonder if it'll route an 8 by8 post I know it will it did it man is that true yeah so are your are your machines designed for 8 by eight what what's the max normally no but what's a ma what you what do it normally what is the biggest it normally handles sevens is is the biggest I've seen I mean it it six is you know pretty standard but I've never seen eights man I don't know man I use I just top gum but like inverted you're inverted you got a picture it's yeah it's it's a that's awesome I refuse to get the router I still use a a chisel that I I heat up and I I use a hammer and a chisel and I make all my own my own holes for the rails you probably still together yeah so I've only done one vinyl job out yeah and oh that makes sense okay that makes a lot of sense the Chisel the Chisel technique yeah the rails the rails are a little loose hey actually you know there I you'd be amazed how many people out there don't know what we're talking about and about the routers I've never seen a routing machine don't even understand how that works a lot of us including myself at Las Vegas fence we just call up uh our Distributors local Distributors and say Hey I want to get uh I want to get some posts are already routed with the holes and and for the rails uh Sean tell us what's going on this this is our newest creation so this

One it it uh it you'll see right now so it takes the material from a cart it suction cups the material over to a conveyor system the conveyor shoots it into the machine for you it'll route it so right now it's routing it and then it will take it to get stacked here in a second and then it itself so that it's ready to load um look at that that's amazing whoa what was that what did it did it just flip it it automatically flipped it it flipped it yeah so those are routers and flippers so it can do all four sides if it has to if this machine will do eight inch post I'm buy one tomorrow that those are not eights but yeah but yeah so here here it's coming off yep and now it's gonna suctioning cup them over and stack them wow that's awes I love the C we we just came out with this um probably in the last two months and we've already sold four of them so we we're ending the year really strong really are these things like quarter million dollars what I mean what kind of money we talking about for that yeah so so these are like in the two two to 250 range yep I would figure yep wow good good guess on that yes man you sound like a man that's bought some equipment in your life this guy bought a few machines before I'm just referencing all the machines I've already purchased they don't do half of this a third of this yeah a quarter of it that's look look what Evan said slicker than a snot on a doorknob and you got that right Evan you're the man yeah remind me not to touch no door knobs when I'm visiting him take some hand sanitizer so Sean give us an overview what's going on in the episode this episode this episode we're going to talk about something I know very little about like would someone ask me about automating Gates I'm like oh yeah you can automate a gate well what about a walk gate what no you can't have walk Gates automated can be nowhere near an automated gate you gota be way over there because people might get hurt and crushed and yep but we've talk about that tonight well I think we've been told because we we live in this world of of vehicle Gates and and fence and you know so when someone says Hey I want to put an operator on on a pedestrian gate we normally go well you can't do that because we just told you can't do that it's just not possible you youat they The Operators aren't built for that and um I found it really interesting that you know the more and more I dug into it myself that uh there's a difference between normal normal gate operators that we would use for vehicles and low energy gate operators and things like that so um or ADA Compliant gate I mean makes a lot of sense when you when you walked it through with me I'm like oh yeah the automatic doors at the hospitals and uh you know supermarkets yeah Gates is we will we'll be talking about that um in the episode for sure um and then we're going to be getting into uh distributorship models and how that's changing and uh what's been going on in the industry um even the last couple years and we got Sasha here someone who's been on um pretty much every side of it you could imagine and it's still thick and Deep In the Heat of it so um we're gonna be kind of still stuck at defense show he can't get where is everyone I'm still here yeah yeah yeah so that's gonna be kind of cool so we're going to discuss that um it's going to be a jam-packed episode we got a special guest coming on uh Jim from Lock andox which is to to discuss one of their new units that they got that uh is I guess it's just killing the market out there in Europe and it's starting to get over in the US so that'll be exciting um other than that man um I think we should just start get this thing going there just uh there's one thing that I think everybody always wants to know though I do better than that man okay this is all you right now I can tell you right now 100% this is all you look at me holy cow me I can't read that my eyes aren't that good but look at me get all excited when I see that chain link fence I do love when chain link fence uh Jason McMillan says has anyone ran into uh this on a spec for temp fence oh this might even brasha as well um is it the normal um do build it out on stands instead of panels um is it normal to build it out on stands instead of panels yeah so I think I think Brian if I can answer this one just because you know we do temp fencing

Think the old school Lage would you would drive Post in the ground and there's two sty 10 fencing like you know being a chain link Guy where they use you know two and a half gauge 2 inch or sorry 11 and a half gauge 2 in and I just run it it's temporary and then the panels came along and they still will drive the post in the ground clamp them but today everybody's pretty much moved to the stands so it's you know you put the stands on the ground there's weights we have weights that we sell as well or sandbags and it's very trans like you can just move it around so yes these days more more than not everybody's sort of move towards stands yeah I'm gonna be the I'm gonna be the rebel here because I don't do much chain lick as either one of you we do some temp fence we don't drive post and we don't use stands anymore and no weights all we do is we do a weave so 15 degrees I tell I tell the consumer they I buy 10 10% more fence we go in two feet out two feet in two feet out two feet in two feet out two feet yep you can't push the fence over it's unbelievable how strong it is no stands no weight we're not hauling that [ __ ] out there yeah no replacing sandbags no wind can blow it over it's kind of crazy but uh that was just us trying I didn't have bags right and I like well geometry I can do do this and it freaking worked and now we have a look back yeah and I agree we we stagger them sometimes we'll even uh out here we get wind and we do a lot of temporary panels out here and uh we'll actually sometimes go every so often and just take a panel completely at a 90 degrees or um you know and sometimes that takes less panels than the Staggering but um I I I what's Sasha was saying too was uh in the beginning yeah we drove we drove all the posts in the ground and a lot of times it was TST or whatever we could anything we could get right one in 58 whatever it was we drive them in and then we just stretch the wire and and no t no tension wire or nothing and then it went to um driving the posts but every panel do you remember when the panels had the round uh like two 38 it was like two and three h welded to the end of every panel and those would overlap and you drive a post through those oh y that would drive straight through and that was actually pretty secure if you remember that then it went to Temporary panels stands where it has the you know the pieces of one inch or whatever it happens to be coming up and and then you use a clamp you know on each one so it's it's it's actually evolved more than people think now we've got and then we had in here we had people that were tripping and suing a couple people got sued locally um because of the stand with the the you know so everybody went to like uh colored sandbags and then we went from colored sandbags to where now they've got stands where you've got those heavy uh kind of like a flat flat uh flanges weighted SL as they go over the stand so it's amazing how much temporary panels have changed in the last 10 years yeah so that's a that's an interesting question so answer yeah yeah great great question um let's see what the next one is here Susan Susan by the way if anybody's watching this we don't get to see these questions before they come out Susan pulls these from uh fence industry only Group which is uh one of our groups on Facebook so if you're not a member of fence industry only on Facebook go to Facebook type in fence industry only and you'll find it Sean you have another great group over there uh to what is it tips tools tricks what's I I never professional professional Pro profence tips tools and tricks say that say that 10 times and change name SE Seashore yeah you know call it the fence group hey this one looks like it's right up in my wheelhouse man I geek out on some fence numbers right efficiency ratings and all those typ of things guys asked the question how how are you guys accurately tracking and figuring out your job costs is it paper is it Excel sheets uh QuickBooks looking to try something new this year we'll have someone in the office one day a week want to try that well one day a week it's gonna be tough to track all that but depends on your volume maybe you're only doing a couple fences a week maybe it won't be that bad Pro fence tips tools and tricks thank you Billy grow for that one um here's what I we we use Excel and we use QuickBooks so all the data goes in QuickBooks as far as the revenue of the project and all the manh hours and exact cost of uh labor um and our are in the QuickBooks so we can pull out a profit profit and loss

Report for the job but we also track an efficiency rating outside of QuickBooks in Excel we're looking at things like um uh sections per man hour the efficiency rating of the crew the efficiency rating of the sales team member like how accurately did they sell the job price-wise do they sell it for enough or not enough and give them a grade and then give our team a grade so we use Excel and QuickBooks wow wait so you guys are tracking things that's uh yeah we're like Nas over here I think we do less building fence and there's more like we spend more time looking at more overachievers man Jesus you don't get an award for uh tracking stuff you know we actually talked about today I had a meeting today about increasing what we're tracking even more like taking the budget you seen the big budget that we have yeah we're g to change that into the it's called def fense Matrix and now we're going to track everything from lead to appointment ratio capture ratios sections per manh hour Revenue per man hour equate into average size job production per day so now you can start tweaking all these different pieces in your business it's not about just driving revenue or driving net profit but are you maximizing your resources and not don't have too many installers or not enough installers or too many sales or too many leads and not enough leads too low of jobs where the dollar value is too low that even if they knock out the park you only do $3 job that they your other jobs are too big and you know the capacity come down so all these things we're going to start adding into the budget so now you're not tracking just of dollars there's a whole lot of knobs to be turnning to make your fence business profitable that's you do a lot of Consulting so um do you think you know the tracking I mean I love TR track obviously we all love the numbers of of knowing you know what something costs but do you think the tracking um is more beneficial because you're just trying to get you know it helps you get the price down as low as you can and still be competitive or is it just to help you be more efficient what do you think a lot of it gives you confidence in the pricing so you when you go to war with the price you're not like oh I better short my pencil lower my price and go work for free when you when when you give a price and you know their numbers and you're confident this is what it takes for Sean King to build your fence right wrong Sasha might beat me Mr router might beat me I don't know but this is what it takes for me to build your fence when you get pushed back from the consumer oh so and so is cheaper we sh sharpen our pencil soall it and we just start giving away profit and we work for free and we do this over and over and over and we wonder why we're stressed we can't grow we have no cash flow it all sucks is because we didn't know what to price to begin with we were literally guessing so imagine driving to Las Vegas from Indiana and I have a road map I know I have Google Maps tells me how to get there can I get to Las Vegas without Google Maps yeah but I may end up in New York first in Florida before some guy points me go that way right like y so I think it's not about getting the price as low as possible but being confident with what you're doing so you have less stress and perform better maybe that may yeah I had a question yes sir one quick question do you go over that stuff anywhere do you like do you go over it in yourm and all that yeah all all of this is what we teach and preach in the academy the academy is what this is people think the academy is like fenc installation that's almost like a side gig if anything we focus on this part of the puzzle because you can build a great fence and you could do it super fast and go broke even faster yeah really okay so in the academy focus on we have our own Excel sheet for job analysis one for sales pipeline one for fence Matrix like all that stuff is built in there to help navigate all of this so you're not on your own trying to figure out what do I track and how do I track it how do I know it's actually accurate yeah so you want if you want to learn how to go straight to Las Vegas from Indiana Sean is your man if you want to stop by and maybe see nagra Falls go to New York or something like that give yeah Brian's your man I'll teach you how to I'll teach you how to have fun on the way to hey I know this question is Brian T Frederickson posted this one oh you can't answer the question I can't this

Is gonna be a Sasha and Mr rer question because I I obvious I've already answered this question too so take it away you want to do it Sean or you want go for it you you go ahead buddy you go first both all right so the question is you have one day to spend 100k on your business what do you spend it on one day one day i' say an F-150 WRA down maybe that's gone that fast um no that's a really good question I know Sean you want to answer that you're smarter than me me yeah so like I mean for me it'd be you know obviously we have to buy all of our we have to buy all of our M yeah right we have to buy all of our material so I mean I would buy material and I'd buy a a badass guy who can Weld and put together a machine as fast as possible so I would buy a ton of Steel and aluminum and then I'd buy I'd spend the money to to hire a really good employee who can weld it together and put it together for me and then I'll go sell them so that's what I do and I think for me being a product sort of based company you know we definitely look at maybe product development like finding a product that's maybe a little unique um because people don't realize how much money goes into product development um to Just Launch a new product or or or a product that's new to our company um but I'd also have a look at our marketing you know strategy as well I think that the two big things for me would be the marketing side and you know product development yeah I guess for me it's like is this 100 Grand a free money I don't have to pay it back because someone's giving me 100 Grand to spend free money I'm not gonna spend on inventory yeah right yeah exactly if it's free money it's a different story but you might take a bigger risk what would you what would you spend it on if you knew that you to pay it back and you got to try something that you would not normally use your hard-earned money for to try yeah take a risk on something right yeah there's a lot of ways to advance our business and we see these opportunities that look that they can be very risky but they can also be very lucrative to try something innovate something product development right in and try something new if I knew that I didn't have to pay it back I would definitely be spending this money on education or innovation one of those two uh to take a chance that maybe that'll walk away and turn this 100 Grand into a million yep but if I if I were to if I had to pay it back it's a cash flow thing where's my cash Pinch at right it could be funding some equipment to further my production that's that's where my pinch point is buying a router buying a router then do eight inch posts now that I know that um it or it could be a piece of equipment I had a conversation with a guy today about focusing your time and effort on the on the constraint in your business so we oftentimes look at all the problems it could be my guys don't build fast enough I need better welders I need more sales whatever it is but if you really look look at it say which one is the biggest constraint and put all of your energy in that one constraint smash it and then you step back where's my next boom laser focus that 100 Grand can help you laser focus on whatever the constraint in I think we get really distracted we focus on five problems and we solve five problems half ass y we went after one problem and smash it that's no longer a problem it's it's it's in the back 40 who's next right so yeah I think I I would just um I would I would build the biggest women of fwa booth at the next fence show you know and then take them all out shopping I don't know oh what a man I love it no no I I I agree with you though Sean if uh if it was 100 Grand and I had to spend it on something and you did it wasn't a loan you have to pay it back you had no real accountability for it then um and it wasn't needed for something you know drastically I would uh I would take a risk I would probably take I'm always trying to start was I Tred my wife running that's that's one toe wonder over there running back and forth I would take one of the crazy ideas that I've got going at any given moment and I would spend $100,000 on marketing just to get it off the ground that's it you know what I mean I would just I would buy AdWords and marketing from here to the east coast all the way to Europe and uh just go for it and see what happened you know I love it yeah great question though uh that was good good J I'm not saying that just because I asked it was again everybody that was on uh fence industry only group on uh

Facebook so um we do we do want to uh kind of get into uh distributorship stuff Sasha how's it how's it been going on you man I mean you're uh you're a manufacturer you used to work for a distrib uh in case anybody why don't recap your in case anybody that's just watching this for the first time didn't get to watch part two um recap a little bit about yourself and about the industry yeah so I originally I come from the install side uh fell into fencing in Australia on install and then when we moved to the states probably did I did that for I think around seven years and then when we moved to the states I fell into the supply side and I work for probably the second or third largest Supply in in the country um and then as as the industry sort of as it all happened and I ended up joining forces with another Aussie and we ended up going off on our own into a direct direct sale model under line fencing and steel supply and I feel like I I don't really understand the soap box right I'm not that from the 192 whenever so box were developed but I feel like these podcasts are a bit of my soapbox to keep beating this one message out yeah and it's not as it's not as pretty as everyone says it is and everyone's got their own opinion but I've been in the supply side for massive Corporation so I know the inside workings and I feel the message is getting a little bit uh I don't know watered down or misinterpreted so you know I feel like the truth needs to come out and from my perspective if we really care about the industry it's about servicing everyone and I think yeah we're talking about it but I want to ask you this question Bri I think you know this is going off from that episode with the three of us on there was I feel somewhere maybe got a little bit misinterpreted um by the fact that we're talking about blanketing you know pricing for everyone and no that's not what we're saying we're saying and you correct me from wrong BRS I feel like that episode we were talking about the Mis injustices that fencing people are getting and I feel like it's true the reason and I'll be honest I'll get on my soap box I didn't leave big Corporate America because it was doing what was right to um to fence installers and don't get me wrong not everybody's doing it it's it's not a beat up moment it's an education moment but it's facts so we got pushed to the side and we're like hey I'm I'm an exp fence installing guy love fencing the owner is as well like we just want to service the industry we don't want we don't it's not about um hey I'm going to give everyone the same price right it's about servicing everyone to the grade they're all at it's like if I'm the little guy why can't I buy fence and I think the real eye opener for me um was I felt like we weren't servicing F people at all like we were putting people in categories and I don't feel that's our industry I don't feel that's how do I be part of a community and service it if I'm telling people hey you just started your business In America which I feel is like the greatest country on Earth to start something but I'm not going to service you you got to go to again don't misinterpret what I'm saying out there yeah you're sending them to Home Depot and L and Home Depot no have its place we all buy things not knocking that but if you're a fencing person why aren't you buying from distribution people in fencing you should be coming to Sasha and line and getting a great service and fair price now if you're sha King and you've got a small company and sha what are we calling sha router yeah they're G to get different pric service is going to be the same but Sean Kings so yes he's going to get fair pricing and I feel like that's where we left off I feel that there's maybe a misinterpretation that is a blanket price for everyone yeah I see what I know I see I see what you're saying yeah I mean I don't think it's ever going to be a case where everybody gets the same price and it probably shouldn't be I mean if you you should outgrow the price level you're at as there should be a volume price difference that's but not because you know well he he I'm gonna make him a better player in the market than you no if I buy the same volume I get the same price as the guy that bought that volume yeah right let's bring uh let's bring Jim on by the way even though I know we're not really on that but I know

Jim's in the background and I don't want to lose Jim from loox how are you man hey I'm doing spectacular hope you guys are so uh Jim from loox uh USA uh USA side so uh all obviously you're in the USA so we're gonna Circle back to you but I want to bring you on because I know you were in The Green Room there and I don't want to leave you in there too long uh I know we've got drinks and stuff for you guys back I was dozing off on the East Coast I know but Sasha and maybe you can chime in if you want because I mean you also have experience on the manufacturer side of it stuff as well and we'll get into some of your background but Sasha so to you know to to kind of go back to what you were talking about I agree um it can never be level pricing out there across the board for everybody because I mean you got guys that are gonna buy a truck load and you got guys that are just buying you know per job so I mean the difference between buying selling a job where you're ordering 10 tension bands and two tension bars and and you know a roll wire 50 feet and stuff like that um but I think what happens what happens if you become uh Sha Mr router sha and Mr King sha is trying to build his business and Mr rter sha has gotten so big that he Surf and navigates Ling and goes direct can I hate him for that so I feel like suppliers need to understand and I'm a supplyer so I'm talking from like I only make money by selling fence right yeah but if if there's a bigger company that grows and goes direct how can I be mad at that right that's just how it is people as they grow they get better buying power or they they're in that POS but we should we should embrace that and be and be happy for companies that get to that point and we keep focusing it's like this circle and I feel like we've we've cut the circle off and gone oh no that's not well that's life and yeah everybody should outgrow where you're at yeah you should have the opportunity to outgrow where you're at you could start off with you know working out of the back of your truck with a wheelbarrow and buying from Home Depot and then maybe you start buying from a local fence company that actually sells materials and then you start buying from a distributor and then you get to the point where you're buying truckloads but we need to encourage and so you can't ever be mad when you necessarily lose a customer you can be mad if you lose a customer to your competitor but I don't think you can be upset when you lose a customer to um you know them moving up and start buying by the truckload and buying directly from manufacturers because that's the goal because that person's going to have children and uncles or nephews that are going to he's going to teach those guys how to build fence and he's not going to want to work for his dad and he's going to go start his own fence company and he's going have to start off just like you did so I think um the problem in the Injustice that we were mentioning and we were talking about is not um that you know it's not that they're they're getting you know a different price that's that much higher is we had we had situations going on in in in this country anyway it doesn't happen in a lot of countries where we we go through all this effort and even some of the manufacturers to get their products speced out with um Architects and engineers and then it gets on a set of blueprints now this general contractor that's actually bidding this project out calls up and says I want this manufacturer's product you know being used so then you call that manufacturer manufacturer yep you call that manufacturer and they say we can't sell to you you got to call um XYZ you call XYZ and now you're paying well say you want to call it iron we'll say iron happens to be it and you're going to call and now your your price on these panels is$ three $400 a panel but yet your competitor in your area is paying $150 a panel $200 a panel so the price difference is not it's not because of of the quantity you're buying it's because of the access to the materials the access to the actual being able to bid them competitively because maybe that manufacturer has a deal with one guy in that town or two guys in that town and that and that happens to be your competitor one of the installers so now you as a manufactur as an installer don't even have a chance of getting the job or you have to bid it to the point where you're making almost nothing and you're not even marketing the materials up so that's the Injustice that's been happening you know over our for for

Decades in our in our industry and I think that's what we've been you know what we've been trying to fix and I think it's getting fixed a little bit but unfortunately what's taking um what what's causing causing you know what we're doing to fix it is we're bringing in the European markets and the Asian markets and there's new you know more direct sale models happening and it's unfortunate that that has is what it's taken to fix it because we already had this massive network of Distributors you know with the distribution channels and everything set up to do it but I think what we were talking about the Injustice um yeah I mean that that's definitely what we're not pricing has nothing really to do with pricing it has access and service to the fence compan fence fence companies were treated like dogs I mean literally if you called up back I'm maybe it's changing a little bit now and I see it but if you were a fence company and you called up even some of your larger Distributors at some point I'm not saying it's the same now and I'm not saying it happens to everybody in different areas different whatever it happens to be but if you called up and said you were a box store or you were a general contractor or you're a government agency no problem let me sign you up at field this is what feels like to the industry what let me not only let me sign you up let me get you the best tier level pric I can because we want that we want to get your government contract we want to get your box store we want to sell to Lowe's we want to sell to Home Depot and then if a fence company calls up you're like hey I'm uh I'm Las Vegas fence well hold on a second um let me we need we need to make sure you have this license in that area and fill out this application and then um we'll get back to you if we can set up an account and then by the way by the way we're going to put you on the shittiest tier level we have yeah and you know what pisses me off it's not about price what pisses me off is it's like why do I need to give you a credit app when you're Cod right I have a hard time with that you know what I mean you just want the product yeah I'm gonna pay you and I'm oh no sorry you need to the guy wants to give you money I'll be come over the line we'll give you you know what if if you're selling to if you can if you're selling to box stores you know how come we can look at um you know how come we can look at a Lowe's or a Home Depot we could look at that as a massive customer but we can't look at the fence industry as a massive customer and if we're if I'm going to start a company myself um and you know which I I sell materials I've you know for decades of sold materials and my core customers have always been fence companies and those are the ones that I those are the ones I treat the best to and and how you know why wouldn't I treat the fence industry as a big customer and why wouldn't the fence companies get the best tier level right off the bat and everybody else trying to get in the industry should be the worst but if you can go to to Lowe's or you can go to Home Depot and buy wire cheaper from them than you can get delivered to you from the same uh fence Distributors and that's the problem that's the Injustice I was talking about so not um that you know everybody should get the same price but come on uh you know uh there should be a difference enough to where you could still competitively bid it and still have a chance at getting the job a chance at growing your company because whether you you know it costs the same for us to set our companies up for a big one or a small one so it's uh you should have the opportunity to grow your business so I guess yeah I'm glad we uh you know I'm I'm glad we went and you know kind of recap some of that if that's what if that's the question you were getting at definitely not everybody should get the same price but it shouldn't be so dramatic and so drastic that these small companies don't even have a chance of bidding on a job if it gets specked out by an architect well if I'm asking a fencing person off the bat trying to buy product from me a supplier where's your credit app and all they want to do is buy two fence posts right who cares what it is and they just want to pay me there and then why why can't I just service them right yeah so I feel like well I feel like it's changing I agree with you Brian to a point but that's really what's been happening and there's plenty of evidence of it and that that's what need that's what I'm passionate about and I feel like no one's talking about price we're talking about just service

The industry what's very and what's not is not well sash we we stopped a decade or two ago judging companies based off of their products and their services and we started judging them based off of who they sell their products to and that was that was the downfall and it was short-term gains for PE for people that controlled the industry but long term it was it's what's going to actually [ __ ] our industry and it's going to bring in uh it's going to bring in all of the people to the industry that they didn't want there in the first place so it's it's ironic um Jim hate to put you under the fire right here what what are your thoughts on this well I tell you um to some extent you know my my history goes back and as a you know as a manufacturer to the the a fence World um number of years back some of you may know that and we were kind of victims of our own success uh and and victims of that mentality of I want to sell to everybody uh but at the same time I can't it's really difficult to do that um you know I had a guy with a pickup truck they're great they're wonderful but don't come to me and tell me I'm going to sell more than anybody else out there and expect me to believe you without any evidence to uh to support that so I'm not going to give you my best pricing you've not sold one thing for me um you know show me you can do it and then we'll talk you I had uh set up three customers well I set up two customers today and had to have a conversation with one uh well had one had a fantastic year this year and we're moving them to a better tier great you know uh had another guy and I think just being really upfront and transparent about this uh they stand as a brand new customer you know I asked them hey what do you what do you expect you're going to do this year and they were pretty straight up and honest with me and I said okay great we're going to give you the best we can but I'm not going to give you the best of a guy who's buying a half a million dollars worth a product from me a year so you just being transparent is is huge um but yeah it's it's it's it's a problem throughout the industry it takes a lot of juggling a a lot of tight rope walking to make sure we're doing right by ourselves and doing right by those who are trying to buy from yeah yeah and I think that uh it's it's evolving I think this last even the last few years and and and so on so I think it's it's opening up and and as much as I say that about you know what's going on with the industry about people not being able to purchase I see it changing I see you know I see our um our Distributors and I see our manufacturers I see everybody's it's getting less and less political about who you're selling to and more and more people are saying hey here's the deal bottom line is whether you're a manufacturer a distributor or an installer or whatever you are we're all in the business of selling fence or Hardware or Gates or whatever it is and uh it we're going to sell and people are starting to uh just say it's happening there's nothing we can do about it we're just G and I think in the end we're gonna have a stronger industry and I I like to see I like seeing the direction it's going in right now so it's uh it's been a lot of fun and I know Sasha you've been a huge part of it uh Jim our relationship um goes back but not not as far as mine with Sasha and them so um super excited about that but um I do want to get over to uh these motorized pedestrian gates and G that's reason Gat out what's happen is thing look I don't even know if that's a such a thing is it allowed to have automated pedestrian gates talk about it yeah so I mean uh by the way uh you're GNA be able to get these things at fenem materials.com that we're gonna be talking about here um shortly after this so uh reach out to on that but this uh explain to us this Venus uh this thing is just hitting the market hard I mean it's uh I I I I I've learned a bunch of about this and I'm super excited tell us about this and specifically the low energy aspect of it okay yeah so this is uh yeah so I'm with lock andox people may know us uh as you a Belgian manufacturer of really high-end heavy duty gate closers mostly hydraulic gate closers uh this is our first fora into uh a automated Gates so and I think we've we took our time and we kind of started this with fits and starts we we uh showed this at fence Tech this past year and then told had a lot of excitement and then told everybody nope you can't get it yet we were waiting on UL certification you one of those guys

Huh I kind of out of everybody's sales and um so around July we got every all of our certifications were taken care of and ready to go but yeah so the low energy uh brushless DC motor on on our Venus which is what this is called is is really kind of the Beating Heart of this product um it allows this to to really you don't have to have any external safety devices in order for this to be a safe ly operated uh uh device uh if it encounters an obstruction opening or closing uh it just reverses itself and you can set that uh when you install it the installation of this product is really really unique it's done on an app and uh when you open the app um it just probably can't see it here but it just walks you through every aspect of it it can you get the the device attached to the gate with the correct arm uh and correct arm comes with it you just decide uh whether you want an articulated arm a straight arm or what have you same price depending on you know whichever arm you want and that's depending on if you have an offset gate you want to open 90 degrees 180 degrees so on um do we have any pictures of this I'm trying to visual you just had one up there just a second ago Brian we'll go and um Susan will pop one up in a minute um showing it on aate the the Venus one so um yeah so really all you yeah you get it on the gate you get 110 volts to it um you also have three uh 24volt outputs off of it if you need to control something else be it a an electric strike a MAG lock a light anything else you want to do on that gate you can get power off the device without having to have any external uh power supply uh you also have three uh programmable inputs so if you want to program this again this is new to me but these these gate automation guys they understand this if you want to work it on a keypad a proximity sensor a card reader a touch pad ad anything like that you can you can program it to do that but um but once you get it you open the app it communicates by Wi-Fi with uh with the Venus it asks you a series of questions how wide's the gate it can handle a gate up to four and a half feet wide up to 220 pounds so pretty heavy duty uh pedestrian gates and uh and it just walks you through every aspect of what you want it to do how fast do you want it to open how long do you want it to stay open uh what amount of force do you want it to open with in case you're dealing with wind loads or whatever the case may be why can't we make all gate operators control with an app like this this sounds like a dream well and the low energy I mean I guess let's get back into that for a second because I think that's what makes this thing um possible when you're when you don't when you don't have all the extra photo photo eyes and things like that so um this is pretty slick I mean it's pretty small look at that it just mounts on the side of the post and then attaches to the yeah if anybody's familiar with our vertico which is probably our second biggest uh uh retrofit gate closer it's roughly the same footprint as the verta close it's about 16 in tall uh about 3 and 1 12 in wide uh weighs about 18 pounds total and I mean I've got one right here so you can see not that what what makes it possible so you notice you don't see a bunch of photo eyes you don't see a bunch of safety stuff on this thing other than just that unit is there something else that's added is there I mean is there a loop in the ground that weighted Loop that people are standing on what's going on I mean how's this thing not how are we allowed to do this this you know what I mean we've been talking have all these other devices right yeah because the the the motor the brushless motor and all the electronics inside of it and again I'm a sales guy I don't understand all this stuff but when it encounters any kind of obstruction and again when you're setting up in the app you can you can program it as to how much force you want it to encounter before it reverses and that becomes the safe the Key Safety uh uh aspect of of the Venus and so once you're done with all this it walk it does a few Cycles just to ask hey are you happy with what this is doing and when you say yes you slide the cover back on it it becomes a secure device at that point nobody can tamper with the Wi-Fi nobody can reprogram it and you walk away and it's done so it'll find it it'll find it'll correct itself and find its Clos spot even if you if it's closing and you push it because obviously people get impatient you get delivery guys you get something like that they're GNA they're going to this thing could be going to close they're

Going to force it the other direction what happens when they do that absolutely nothing just goes back it'll go to the open position if it encounters that obstruction or reversed uh either direction three times it will just open it will take itself to the full open or full close position uh and then at that point if it stays in the full open position you just tap the gate it'll go and close when you're ready for it too oh my and then in case of a power outage it just free Wheels you don't have to worry about being locked in or locked out yeah so uh Michael Brooks says what happens what was that again I miss that one manually exit yeah what happens so by manually exit I'm assuming you mean you're going to turn the knob and and push the gate as soon as the the the device uh detects the motion of you pushing we call it push and go soon as it detects that it takes over and opens up the gate so you can you said there's a MAG lock though if there's a Lo that's not going to happen correct but now once you you can program this with those inputs so that let's say you uh uh disengage the mag lock from a keypad or a button okay or just like your handicap button or whatever that's on there as soon as you do that and that mag lock releases yep the the gate the the opener takes over and opens the gate you did say if there's a power failure it'll actually fall safe open is that what you said it'll just fail safe to just Freewheel whatever you want yes so then Michael's asking a question how does this work with pools is this something that can be used with pools you got a lot of Code Compliance things or some liability issues with pools so as far as pools go and honestly I don't like to talk about pools a lot because you know the everything changes from municipality to municipality however what we are seeing in in Europe which is where they they've been able to sell this all year in Europe but with their CE certification we've only been able to sell it for a few months here in the United States uh but if you have a a controlled access pool like in a club or something uh that would be a perfect application for this okay so can you Jim can you ever switch this motor into manual mode either through the app or on the machine is there somewhere like let's say I don't know you got no Sal knows but can this machine ever get turned manually from any anywhere else outside of the app I'm sorry I'm not I don't know that I'm following it mechanically be turned into a manual gate like shut off the uh shut off the unit basically and the gate Works free without yeah you can just disengage the power if you like that's more of a permanent thing but if you are in a hurry and you want to open it faster than it is programmed to do you just push it it'll you're not going to hurt you're not going to damage the motor it'll just go as fast as you want to push it and then once it's in that full open position that time passes that you programmed it it'll close back up so what's up what's an ideal scenario for this I would assume any Ada gate anywhere anywhere where you got Ada Gates um a lot of commercial properties things like this um pools OB it depends on where you're at you want to check with your local building departments if there's something spec in our in our case the health department handles all the pool stuff yeah um so um yeah and is there a actually Michael just the same question so is there a fail secure mode if you wanted this if power goes to have it locked closed can you rig it so the mag lock stays activated you would just you would have to have a a MAG lock but of course with a MAG lock if you have a power adage the mag Lock's Not Gon you any good you could have a an electric strike that would be a fail close option there if you needed the the gate to stay locked in the case of a power power outage or or some other scenario you could do it that way because the thing's not designed to actually um it needs it needs some sort of latch system so um it's not designed to work without a latch it does need a latch of positive stop because the unit you're say really hold it perfectly in line not very well correct I mean it will because when you set it up it it tells you to open it to the full open position close it to the full close position so it the unit knows where full open and full close is however having a keep having a lock is Gonna Keep it where you want it you're always yeah sorry work on a four and a half foot wide six foot tall privacy gate got some wind load involved in that uh any issues

With that no again and uh because if you have a lock on it of some sort it's going to stay closed oh no no I meant like during the open and Clos process that's that's where you would um when you're programming it you can adjust the amount of force that it closes and opens with to account for wind load what do you think the average install time is on these that you've seen have you heard have you heard any numbers back on that you go out there power's already stubbed up excluding running power obviously because you don't know how long that's going to take what do you think the average install time for a fence company or somebody that's doing this to install the actual unit itself so I I built a and I think some of you have seen the the video that I put on uh that I built a uh a tabletop demo of one of these and again I'm just a sales guy I'm not a installer um and I I actually from from zero from putting the the drilling template on there and and and starting from there I had it installed in about 20 minutes wired up and ready wow and that that includes opening the app that all and I'm sure you could do it even faster with with some that's fast enough I don't know about you Sean I see some I see some upsells here huh so my question is is it work on solar because running power can be tricky but if I could put a solar panel off of this thing for that low low power you SE now we're getting somewhere well you still got to have 110 to it that that's the only thing AC to it even inverters you could probably get inverters you could set up some batteries and an inverter and run this thing that makes I'm trying to make it easier now's going Amish yeah you're gonna limit your your usability I mean it it is good for continuous cycle so it can just run and run and run and run and run uh obviously if you're charging batteries and converting that to 110 from 12 or 24 uh you're gonna limit you're not GNA get a whole lot of Cycles out of it before you deplete that yeah okay I think it's I think it's great though if you're out on a project and uh you know anything that's got Ada stuff and and and that's getting more and more prominent on these projects where you know even the general contractors and everybody else is asking us hey what what do I do now we can maybe we got something else to offer and why not throw it out there I mean if you think about it I mean I we're getting asked all the time we do stuff with panic Hardwares and maybe you can put an electric uh Panic bar on it to where this can work you know with an electric panic panic bar as well so um I'd be interested another neat thing about the the uh the electronics in this is that it can be as we update it just just like an electric vehicle as we make this better we can make it better through software upgrades and so when you log on to your app when you install the product from new it it puts the latest uh firmware into it right away if you go out for a service call and there's firmware that's happened between now and then and now uh it will upload that when I was in Belgium back in March big question we had for them was can you put this on the inside on the non Street side of the gate so it can't be tampered with and they said you know we haven't really thought about that because in Europe we don't tamper with stuff like that we do in America and so the next the very next day they had an option for that with the articulating arm now you can only go 90 degrees when you put it on the inside but they had were able to do that programming upgrade just like that and it was ready to go and no issues so yeah that that's the beauty of this is that we can we can make this a better product without touching it yeah yeah hey Sean uh Sean uh Mr Fen Sean hey uh do you call it a closer or a closure right do you ever closure let's see I would say I how would you closure yeah I'm originally from the West Coast I'm just been living in the midwest with that acccident yeah clure closure so I've always called it uh CL l o s r e I guess right closure and then but you know you know the more and I always spell it wrong and it's closer it's an operator it is yeah there you go because it's also different from us because everything we've ever done have been hydraulic closers now we have something that opens a gate well I mean speaking of uh speaking of that I mean you guys are famous for I mean if there's one product you're famous for in the US it's the mammoth hinge right Mammoth yeah I mean those are those are everywhere

Especially on closure yeah yeah so hey Jim thanks for coming on man uh Sean and Mr Fence and Mr rouder Sasha you guys um taking this time with away from uh your evenings and your family I appreciate you guys coming on and hopefully everybody enjoyed the uh hold on hold on hold on I want to talk about our next episode next week what's going on we would love to hear about that we're gonna have a Christmas party but I am going to release the streamyard link um in like two days and anybody who wants to come on and just talk to you you have four to five minutes Brian anything you want just make this [ __ ] up I get to come have we're gonna have fun oh my God that's crazy allbody you just copy the link you put it into um an internet browser and like I will have access to your face I will pop you up on screen and you can ask Sean and Brian anything you want can we do that I bet this what's gonna happen she gonna forget she gonna send me and Brian a bad link y everyone else is gonna be in the show we're going to be over in a different studio just waiting it's GNA be like we're GNA be like Sasha fce show it's G to be it's gonna be's so Sean like if you have anything you want to ask them here's your opportunity to come on and just give them the hardest time on planet Earth oh that sounds like a good time no script so you're not gonna send us a script or no there won't be an outline we'll still do what would Brian and Sean say but whoever waiting in the background I'll pop them up and see if they got something to say about it you know what red typing you're gonna have to change it to what would the fence industry say because it's gonna be uh pretty damn interesting there's a lot of people there stuff yeah that'll be fun I don't that's a great idea are you sure we didn't have something else planned for next week no we did but not now I guess not now Susan I guess well I don't have to wait to find out on social media because I said it tonight I beat you okay I guess Bo all right Christmas party next week everybody's invited this is I mean typical fwa style it's for the industry everybody's welcome right come one join before you come that would help us join fw. comom hey we will talk to everybody later thanks again everybody Jim thanks for coming on thank you Mr rter hey good seeing you guys again if you're interested in the Venus fem materials.com you're going to be able to pick these things up here shortly we're looking forward to it have a great one everybody see you guys thanks everybody have a good evening cheers