Contents Bootcamp: Lessons from Industry Powerhouses

Well, hello, everyone, and welcome to the Encircle Contents Bootcamp. I’m Kash Mirza, Senior Product Manager here for Contents. And I’ll be honest, I definitely spend a lot of time thinking about how to help make Contents faster and less painful for the teams doing it, so you could consider this kinda my favorite day of the year. Contents is very near and dear to Encircle since that’s where we started about 14 years ago, and it brings us a lot of joy to be part of the contents community and bring some longtime professionals and industry experts together to share their knowledge and expertise. So taking a look at what we have for today, we have about three hours, five speakers, and a lot of ground to cover. Looking at the agenda here, this is what we have just kinda at a high level in terms of the kind of action packed topics for today. And before we get into it, we’re gonna just launch a couple of polls. Please feel free to take your time answering some of these questions. It always helps us to just get a quick and easy idea on who’s with us today and how your day to day operations are. So thank you for taking the time to answer those questions. Awesome. So as that poll’s being completed, I’m going to introduce our first speaker. So our first speaker is Brad Sample, Managing Partner of Action Contents. Brad and his team are all about bringing structure, clarity, and reassurance to people going through some hard moments in their lives. He leads operational excellence in the insurance restoration space. So think contents handling, inventory documentation, packouts, storage, nonrestorable eval, and claim support for not just carriers, but adjusters and restoration partners all across British Columbia. His team runs two facilities, which have over 40,000 square feet combined and handles thousands of claims a year, all of which is built on solid systems and clear communication. Brad is opening us up with the big picture, how contents has grown from the weird cousin of restoration to its own discipline, and what it actually takes to operate at a high level today. Brad, please take it away. Morning, everyone. Thanks, Kash. Thanks to the Encircle team for having me on today. So where do we start? Has contents really changed over the last ten years? I don’t think so. I don’t think, I don’t think it’s changed too much at all, really. Still we still have a pack out inventory, cleaning, storage, and pack back. I think what’s changed is people’s expectations. I’m not sure about anyone else on this call, but I definitely feel that expectations have put more pressure on the contents portion of claims. And, yeah, there’s just a a lot more pressure around handling people’s contents. How have the expectations changed, you ask? I think modern day society I’m gonna put it out there. I’m gonna blame companies like Amazon, Uber, DoorDash. We all have them. We all use them regularly. They’ve really conditioned consumer expectations around having real time updates, consistently knowing your package is on the way, your meal delivery is on the way. That’s really shaped the expectations for consumers in terms of what they expect when handling contents claims. So in saying that, where’s the expectation gap? I think the role has shifted more from moving contents to managing confidence. The role is largely operational. We move people’s belongings. We store people’s belongings. We return belongings. That’s still really important, but I feel today the communication and documentation probably plays a secondary role to the reassurance and the confidence building we can we can provide to homeowners, you know, during their time of need. I believe communication really is the new currency because it buys confidence with your clients, with your sub trades, with your carriers. If we wanna have successful claims, we need to stop looking at communication just as a administrative task, and, you know, we provide rudimentary updates to a client and start looking at it a way that we can build confidence right from the start of the claim. I’ve got the confidence curve here. So we touch on this quite a lot at Action Contents. Every claim starts out with a high level of confidence. Things are gonna go well. Slowly as we move through the claim, as you can see here, the the black dotted line, silence can be can be deafening. The lack of communication slowly erodes the confidence the homeowner has in the claim going well. Contrary to the old saying, no news is good news, silence normally has the opposite effect when managing homeowner expectations. If you hear nothing, they’re gonna essentially assume that there’s there’s some issues with their claim and there’s some problems. Right? That’s why proactive communication really matters. Communication doesn’t always change the claim itself, but it absolutely changes the way a claim is experienced for all parties. Sorry, guys. If we can just go back to the claim volatility. In my experience, some claims become difficult long before anything’s gone wrong. Sometimes I’ll sit by I’ll I’ll sit there scratching my head. We’ll have a claim that looks very simple on paper. It’s a it’s a standard contents pack out. We’ll we’ll look to wrap up the claim, and somehow we’ve spent a disproportionate amount of time and energy working through, you know, some challenging issues on the claim. More than likely, this is this has come down to a a communication breakdown. Right? So if we can mitigate that communication from the start of the claim and make sure it’s consistent the whole way through the claim, less likely those simple claims on paper will become large scale problems and energy zapping for your teams. So we’ve been experimenting here at Action with I guess we’re we’re we’re looking at creating we’ve been working with the guys at Encircle. We’ve started to put together some automations. I’m not gonna go down the AI rabbit hole, but, essentially, we’re we’re looking to provide milestone updates and feedbacks to the client regarding their contents. It’s more about the principle than the number of milestones that we’re updating them. Some of these milestones may seem redundant on on our end, but, essentially, this this is this is providing confidence and reassurance to homeowners at, you know, definitely a a difficult time in their lives. We’ve started with three milestones, and we’ve definitely seen an impact with the client satisfaction with them being updated. Your your contents are being packed up tomorrow. Your contents are now safe at storage. We’ve begun processing your contents. So we’re we’re gonna look to add some additional milestones as we continue to build out this technology, but we’re definitely seeing some some positive signs at the moment. It’s just having these multiple touch points with the client throughout the process is saving us a huge amount of headaches. We’re we’re seeing less escalations, less complaints, and overall, it’s a smoother contents handling procedure throughout the claim. So what’s the new standard in contents? Yes. The operational work is very important. You know? The pack out, the documentation, the storing of the contents properly, the processing of the contents. But I feel the communication is becoming probably just as an important, that communication with the restoration companies, with the carriers, and then the policy or the homeowner themselves. We’re trying to reduce uncertainty for everyone involved in the claim. But to do that, we have to make sure that we remain visible and transparent in providing communication and updates the whole way through the process, not just when you meet the client for the initial walk through assessment or you’re trying to get that, certificate of completion signed off at the end of the claim. Have to make sure, like, we’re consistent and we have multiple touch points throughout the process. You’re probably gonna hear a lot of discussions around AI and taking people’s jobs. I don’t view it that way. I feel we can use AI and technology to reduce some of the administrative overhead that we’re dealing with in the business. And I think it will I think it provides an opportunity for us to to further create additional levels of communication in reassuring homeowners, coordinating with partners, and solving problems. I think we should be embracing technology as a tool and not and not not any type of job replacement in our industry. So what’s the what’s the future of contents look like? I think the future of contents those who’ll be successful in the future of contents will will really come down to those that have their operational procedures in place, but can then also understand the the dynamic relationship between creating confidence from the client from the beginning of the claim and handling people’s, you know, trusted belongings. Well, guys, I flew through that. That’s that’s all I had on my end. Yeah. Open to some questions. Thanks, Brad. That was great. I’ll be honest. I I really like the way that you frame technology. So I think it’s it’s an important thing where we remember that it’s a tool, but the way you said it, where it helps us enable those relationships, the relationships are really the core of it. So I think I think that was great. We’ve got some some questions that have come kind of from from several people. And so I’ll kinda just ask away, and I’ll be honest. I might have some questions as well since we have a bit of extra time. But, we have a question from, Jesse Kinzel who asked, what are some practical steps for maybe a small mold restoration company to start their own content cleaning division, but and also just wonder in general, what a small, restoration company can do to just get started because I feel like it could be quite daunting. Yeah. Interesting. So is it was mold restoration. Right? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I I don’t think there’s too many barriers to to entry, Kash, in in terms in terms of getting into the the contents portion. I think, fundamentally, it comes down to having your procedures and your your operational procedures locked in. We we we do a we do a huge amount of, you know, 3,500 claims a year here at at Action Contents, and the the backbone of that is the operations, you know, making sure our standard operating procedures are locked in tight. And a lot of that will comes down to the training and the onboarding of of new staff members. So I guess to to answer the question, I would I I would start with I would start with building out some processes in terms of what you’re looking to achieve, how the how how you handle contents, how you pack boxes, how you pack trucks. Once you have a a a solid foundation, I’d look I’d look to hire hire some staff. And, yeah, just make sure your your onboarding and your training is comprehensive so everybody knows all all elements. And then, yeah, get going. Start start handling some contents claims. Yeah. I think that’s that’s good advice. Best place to start is to get started. I think Yeah. We’ve got a couple other questions. This one’s a bit similar in theme, I would say. But, Alex Pierce asked, how do you get a restoration company that’s never taking content seriously to actually give a dang? Let’s just say he didn’t say dang, but I I think the sentiment is very clear. I think contents is is very valuable, and it has has a a big impact. But how do you kind of present that or kind of show that value? Yeah. We we we fight that battle all all the time, right, where the restoration companies don’t don’t feel like that the content is is a valuable part of of the claim. Right? I I think it’s probably the most valuable part of the claim. You know? The the the homeowner isn’t going to isn’t gonna sit there in in three months’ time and, you know, look at their drywall and comment on how what a great job the restoration company has done in in fixing their drywall or the or the the painting looks fantastic today. Right? But they’re gonna sit there and go, wow. Do you remember do you remember the do you remember the contents team that handled my my antiques? Well, they did a great job in putting those back. Well, they really handled those with care. I think to have contents taken seriously, if the contents portion of the claim goes well, I think the claim goes well in total. And then it can be profitable. If you’re if you’re if you’re dialed in with your contents, it is it is a profitable revenue stream. I can I can vouch for that that, you know, if they’re if they’re not looking at their customer satisfaction point of view and and, you know, repeat claims and business through carriers, through, you know, fantastic content handling, there is some profit margins to be made there as well? So I guess there’s two counterarguments, Kash, on that one. Yeah. But I think that I think it’s great perspective. I I’ll I’ll never forget when I was speaking to someone that specialized in contents where they said that a homeowner won’t remember, you know, the say of their dry drywall, but they will ask for their grandchildren’s crayon drawings that were on the fridge. And so it’s the the emotional angle of it that I think is really missed, but it’s the thing that when someone’s going through, kind of a crisis, that’s the thing that they anchor on. So it’s definitely important. One of the things that I really liked in what you shared was kind of the communication piece, and we’ve got some questions about that. We have one from Sarah Julian who asked, what type of communication can I stay mindful of? One once contents are clean and in storage, awaiting repairs to be completed, the space between the two can be a couple months. So curious about your thoughts there. Yeah. So we, you know, I I we we had a we had a sim similar thoughts. So what what we’ve done is one of our one of our milestone updates It’s a picture it’s a it’s an infographic that’s sent out through the Encircle platform. Thanks, guys, for for putting that together. But, essentially, it’s it’s it’s it’s a picture it’s a picture of warehouse facility, our our contents, our warehouse manager over overseeing all the the storage crates, and it it just reads, your contents are safe with us. We’re we’re looking after them. We’re looking forward to getting these back to you. It may seem somewhat a a redundant message, but, you know, it really reduces anxiety and stress. We also we also have some touch points there where they can reach out to the project manager if they have any questions. We also have the address and the location of where the contents are being stored. So the feed early feedback we’ve got with that has all been has all been fantastic. That, you know, it’s it was really nice to hear, you know, in between that that time period where, you know, the contents have been processed and we’re we’re waiting for the repairs to complete to get a a touch point message across saying, hey. Like, we’re still thinking of you. We got you. And, yeah, we’re looking forward to to getting your life back together. I think that’s really important because the the timeline for this can be very long before they kinda get their their stuff back for storage. I’m personally a bit curious. Can you tell us a bit more about kind of that that proactivity angle when it comes to the communication? And and I personally like hearing just any anecdotes from from homeowners or things like that from recently where the proactivity kind of helped them out? Yeah. So in terms of the productivity, I think the I think the milestones really helped with that. You know, we’re working on the front lines every day, and we we we make the assumptions that, like, things are things are moving in the things are moving in the right direction. Right? So from the homeowner’s standpoint, you know, they’ve they’ve seen they’ve seen my team once or twice, and now pretty much everything that they own is off with some strangers in some some some warehouse somewhere. Right? So you can imagine the anxiety associated with that. Right? So we’ve scheduled the milestone touch points to be proactive in terms of a couple days before the pack out two two or three days after the pack out. We’re trying to anticipate prior to the client feeling like they need to reach out. Once the client’s reach out reached out and asked about their contents, you you you kind of lost the competitive advantage at that point. Right? So it is subjective depending on who the client is and what their circumstances are, but we’ve tried to kind of time those milestone updates around the optimum time before we feel the client will reach out with questions about their contents. That’s a good way to If that answers that question, Kash. Well, we’ve actually got we’ve got follow-up questions from from folks. So I think you’re you’re you’re touching a very, very valuable topic. So, Josie Rivera was actually curious, similar theme. But once contents are stored, how often would you follow-up to see when a pack back should take place, or even just how do you know when the right time is, would you say? To see when a a pack back should take place, From our end, we will we we will we’ll wait from instruction from our restoration partners considering when when the claim is completed. We’d normally we’d only probably follow-up once. It really depends on how long the claim is. You know? We we have claims sitting here for a couple of years. The milestone updates haven’t we haven’t got to that point where we’ve worked out what the optimum frequency is on updates for claims sitting with us for, you know, 12 plus months. But if if we look at a if we look at a 30 day claim, we’d look to have a touch point probably every ten days. So that means three three three touch points for the claim. Alright. That’s that’s a good reference point. We have a question as well from Michael Bryce, and he’s wondering, not just in general, how large are your teams? And if you could speak to just your your general contents processing and how it’s structured. Yeah. So our teams out you know, we’re we’re up in in Vancouver, Canada. We get a lot of rain up here, but our our teams fluctuate during the seasons. Obviously, the the summers, we’re we’re dealing with a a lot of fires. The winters, we’re dealing with a lot of a lot of flooding or temperature changes. So at a at a at a peak, we’re probably good around 65 staff. And the team’s interesting enough, we’re we’re we’re seeing we’re seeing larger, more complex contents claims coming through where we can put, you know, seven or eight techs onto one job where, you know, it’ll be a six or seven bedroom house, and they’ll have to split the areas. But, yeah, a normal team makeup is is is a three to four person team, and average job will will pack out will be will be two to three days. That makes sense. We’ve got a lot more questions coming, Brad, so I hope I hope you’re ready. Sure. So Let’s go. We have a question from Christina Smith, and and she was wondering, they’ve had jobs in which their corporation wants it done in two days. But in this example, it’s a three level home with three people. It’s a lot of stuff. And I think the the framing of the question is really how do you manage expectations with how fast things want to be done versus how fast things will actually end up taking? Yeah. That’s a good point. The expectation management really comes comes comes down to the the the relationships you you have with your your your carriers, your adjusters, your your restoration project managers. We’re definitely we’re definitely taking on projects where the the the expectations have been unrealistic. But, realistically, at the end of the day, you have to you have to align that, yes, we can we can do this fast. We can rush this job. We can have this we can have this packed out in in 48 hours, but we can’t guarantee the quality, and we can’t guarantee that things aren’t going to be broken or damaged or misplaced. And, really, that that’s that’s what it comes down to is content is less about speed and more about the care that you’re taking with people’s personal belongings. And I think once once you you start to establish those long term relationships with your adjusters and your carriers, they start to understand that a little bit more that, you know, there’s there’s spotless headaches on the back end, there’s spotless escalations. You know, one small damaged item can ruin can ruin a a six figure of claim because the because of the sentimental and emotional value associated with that item that’s been packed out. So slow things down and and be thorough. But managing those expectations, yeah, it’s it’s a it’s a tough conversation, but I think building that trust with with your partners, goes a long way in into them trusting that you’re gonna do a great job and, like, hey. Let’s let’s not rush this as much. Right? I think it goes back to the theme of communication that you shared. There’s communication with the homeowner. There’s communication with your partners as well. And just making sure that everybody understands the work that you’re doing, the value it brings, but also the the risks and challenges that you’re trying to overcome while trying to help somebody who’s in need. So I think that’s I think that’s that’s very valuable. We have another question from Josie Rivera. Just in general, are there any tips on how to better organize the content’s manipulation process with fire mitigation contents? Any tips on organizing non salvageable versus salvageable? Just general contents tips. Yeah. We we like to we like to go in with a game plan. We if we don’t have access to the site right away, we depending depending on depending on the scope and the severity of, you know, the the fire claim, We do ask we do ask the insured to take some photos just so we we you know, if if we don’t have the docu sketch or or the walk through document from the restoration company at this point, the team will then sit down and and put put together a detailed game plan. So which rooms will be attacked first, which techs will be assigned to which rooms, and then we’ll we’ll start to start to itemize before we actually get in there of potential items to be put onto a salvage or or a nonrestorable list. We just we just find this really speeds up the process with the teams and the techs getting on-site. If you plan and go in with a potential salvage and non salvageable list before you pack out the contents, there’s less time spent on-site inspecting the items, and the the team can work more thoroughly. So having a game plan going in, splitting the teams up, and, you know, breaking it down into components, either levels or rooms, has been effective on our end in dealing with with large loss fire claims. That makes a lot of sense. Thank you, Brad. That was a a lot of questions and a lot a lot of valuable knowledge shared. I think we are coming to the end of our time. So just wanted to thank you for taking the time to share everything that you shared. Do you have any kind of last pieces of advice or anything else that you’d like to kind of end off with before we we we move on? Oh, I think the the the communication’s super important again, Kash. You know, I I I know I’m repeating this, but You’re communicating it, Brad. It’s good. Exactly. If you can if you can maintain a high level of communication throughout the claim, even if the claim doesn’t go well and there’s some problems, you can fix those really quickly. You know? There doesn’t need to be an escalation. There doesn’t need to be additional parties involved, and you can you can do a lot to to maintain your reputable relationships and reputation as a company. That’s great, Brad. Thank you so much, and thank you again for taking the time. Yeah. Appreciate it. Cheers. Awesome. And so while we’re transitioning to our next speaker, I’ll just pause and take a second. We’ve got another quick poll, that could help us out with and just share some information. We’d love to hear from you. Awesome. Well, without further ado and getting to the next session, we have Ahsan Khan​. Ahsan is the President and CEO of My Contents, a leading contents restoration company recognized for bringing structure, strategy, and operational discipline to one of the most overlooked segments in the restoration industry. Ahsan has built My Contents​ into a specialized contents firm trusted on complex residential, commercial, multifamily, and large loss projects. With a background in commercial banking, risk management, and insurance, he brings a rare combination of financial insight, claims understanding, and field tested operational experience. And I can say from personal experience as well, he’s got a passion that is helping the industry elevate the standard for contents restoration through better documentation, stronger process, technical accuracy, and client first approach. Ahsan is going to be talking today about the balance between old school wisdom and technology and what happens when you lean too far in either direction. So over to you, Ahsan. Thanks for that introduction, Kash. I really appreciate it. I’m humbled. So, guys, I wanna talk to you guys about balancing craft and technology. I thought this was a perfect idea because our industry is currently living in two different worlds. On one side, we have people who can touch a dresser, smell a cushion smell a smell smoke in a cushion, inspect back of a panel, and tell you exactly what happened. On the other side, we have AI, QR codes, digital inventories, dashboards, and enough photos to crash somebody’s cloud account. The truth is, guys, we need both. Here at My Contents​, we say craft is in our hands, technology is our tool, and then care is in our hearts because we’re not a moving company. We are handling someone’s life when their normal life has been flipped upside down. The big idea. So the big idea for the whole session is a strong contents operation requires judgment and proof. The judgment is coming from the technicians. The proof is coming from the process and the documentation. I agree. Technology can make us faster, clearer, and more defensible. I like to tell my team to put anything and everything in Encircle and on documentation that we would then submit in a trial if we ever had to go to court for anything. Right? So make sure that you’re taking proper documentation, proper notes, just all the labor logs, everything is locked correctly. Because whenever we bill for it, we wanna make sure, one, we’re billing correctly, and two, that, you know, everything is documented as such. But we can’t teach someone to care. It cannot fix bad training. Right? So technology cannot teach someone to care, and it can’t fix bad training. And it definitely cannot stop someone from putting a bowling ball on top of a box marked grandma’s china. So if you kinda get the idea that what we’re trying to say is, look, you have to have the general knowledge of what you’re doing paired with the correct technology, processes, and procedures, and that’s what kinda makes and puts everything together for a good product that you’re selling putting out. A bad process completed on an iPad is still a bad process. The best operators know when to trust the tool, when to question it, and when to put the screen down and use your eyes, hands, and the experience. So in regards to the craft and the operate operating system, right, the craft is knowing how water, soot, smoke, heat, odor, and cleaning methods affected the different materials that you’re you’re dealing with. The operating system is what makes you sure makes sure the knowledge shows up consistently across the crews, every project, and every file. Technicians perform the salvageability assessment first, then the software captures a decision. That order really matters, guys. So the theme of this is gonna be we need to make sure that we’re documenting correctly and then we’re using the technology correctly to support what we’re documenting. An app should not do the thinking for an untrained technician. The technician should be trained to inspect, decide, and document. And, again, guys, old school knowledge is not a bad word. So don’t get me wrong when I say this. It means understanding the difference between a solid wood piece of furniture or something with particleboard MDF. It allows you to kinda identify quickly what’s leather and what is vinyl. It lets you determine, hey. This is a $20 panel of curtains from Target or this is a $5,000 custom curtain set. You know? It means looking at backs, looking at the bottoms, looking at the seams, looking at the look inside the drawers, looking at the padding. A dresser can look beautiful from the front, but the back is swollen like you had too much queso. You know? As you grow, the company cannot live inside one employee’s head. So we cannot just focus on one person with all the knowledge. We need to make sure the knowledge is spread throughout the entire team. Because eventually, that person can take vacation, that person gets sick, that person is stuck on another project or a meeting. You cannot allow you bought you cannot allow your business to bottleneck. That’s why you need the craft, but you also need the system. Technology. Technology changes the game when it captures the information while the work is being done live. Capture it exactly when it’s happening. Not three weeks from now when someone in the office asks, hey, man. Where did this toaster come from? Or what who do who do these who does this China belong to? Right? So it allows the office staff, your project managers, operations managers, whoever’s in charge of the flow of work to do real life check ins on what is being captured in in the field. You know? So if there is a problem or there is an issue, they can address it at the end of the day so that way the next three days can be taken care of correctly as opposed to going back when we’re doing QC a week or two later after a project’s done, then, you know, there’s a lot of backtracking, a lot of, you know, redoing things. Digital inventory helps us capture descriptions, quantities, the rooms, the conditions, and real time dispositions. You know? Purposeful photos is what we found. Purposeful photos shows what we found, what’s preexisting, what can be cleaned, what is cleaned, where it’s stored, as well as, hey. When it was returned, we’re capturing to make sure that, hey. We’re showing that the pack rack was done, where everything was put back, not only for the homeowner, but also for, you know, to defend our invoices. QR codes, tags, digital locations, reduce movement errors. You know, we recently, through Encircle, started using the QR codes, and I will tell you the efficiency of our processes and how we monitor and track the boxes and items that we’re bringing back to our facility, it has streamlined everything, and it’s it’s gotten so much better. You know? And and all this matters because the person who packed the item may not be the person that does a pack back. So you wanna make sure that everything is captured correctly to ensure that, you know, when we do take everything back, that it’s taken back in the correct manner, place where it needs to go, and handle the care. You know? With the technology, it creates it truly creates continuity across the field. Right? So so then it allows different folks from different parts of the process to know exactly what’s going on from start to finish. You know? And technology also gives, leaderships visibility so we can cache the problems today instead of explaining them six months from now. You know? And with a tool like Encircle, and I talk about Encircle all the time, we’ve used this since day one, and we’ll continue using this for a very long time, unless Kash leaves. No. I’m just kidding. And with tools like Encircle continue to improve around locations, QR codes, dispositions, workflows, There’s a lot of potential here. And if you have deep technical questions, Hash, I volunteer you to answer those questions because you’re a rock star. In regards to, you know, document taisha redundancy, I can’t say this enough. So document, document, document, document. I tell I tell my team, like, you know, you may get in trouble if you don’t take enough photos, but you’ll never get in trouble if you take too many photos. Right? But the important part is also to take care of take the photos of the affected piece. Right? You don’t wanna take 50 photos of a dresser, but then you fail to capture the back of the dresser where the damage was, where it’s absorbing water and needs to expand. Right? So at My Contents​, we believe that documentation redundancy is one of the most important factors in what we do. You know, it doesn’t mean you’re taking 700 pictures of the same piece of furniture. It means you’re capturing in a manner which you can get the preexisting damage captured and how that content was affected during loss. It also means independent records that support one another. Inventory tells us what the item was. Photos show us the conditions, and then, you know, labor logs will show us who did the work. You know? Whether we’re billing time and material on a large commercial loss or a large loss. Labor logs are important so they know when we got there, when we stopped working, to ensure that we’re billing correct. Daily notes explain what happened. So our standard rule within our company in regards to daily notes is if it if anything deviates from our standard procedures, you are required as a supervisor to document it. You know, if a homeowner asks you all of sudden, hey. I need these to stay. We’ll we’ll take a photo of it in our notes and say, hey. Homeowner asked us that these items are staying even though those items should leave with us due to pack up process. Location records. Where the property went. Right? So, again, it goes back to the notes. Hey. Did we content manipulate this to a different part of the house, or do we actually take it and take it to our facility? So that way, the adjuster knows to pay us appropriately for the movement of the contents. I’ll give you a real life example of the importance of document redundancy. Right? One of the things that we do here at My Contents​ is we take beginning of day photos and end of day photos every single day. So if we’re on a job site from for five days, we will when we get there, we start taking detailed beginning of day photos, and then we take, you know, detailed end of day photos. So we had a situation where it was a high end residence. We’d there was a a ceramic rooster that was placed on a kitchen island on a pack. We took photos at 4:00, 6:30 at in the evening when we left as our end of day walk through photos. And then when we got back the next morning, we took another round of beginning of day photos. Well, in between that time, somebody killed the rooster. And luckily, we were able to pull it out our beginning of day and end of day photos and show the client, hey. Look. When we left, it was here. When we got back, it was already broken. Ultimately, another contractor took the responsibility, and it saved us $1,000 for that ceramic rooster and also probably saved us the most ridiculous argument of the month. So, again, it goes without saying photos are boring. Documentation can be boring until it saves your butt. So please, please, please document, document, document. You know, there’s been a lot of comments that have come and questions that have come about, hey. How do I pack this out really quickly and this and that? Or do I really need to capture photos if, you know, if I open a box with 50 books in it? Yes. Because if you ultimately return 49 books and where’s that 50th book? Or if there are 50 books and the homeowner tells you, no. There were 51 books and it’s a first edition signed, what are you gonna do then? So you wanna make sure you’re protecting yourself, you’re protecting your company, and ultimately, the bottom line. And all that is protected by the fact that your people have good processes in place so that way you don’t miss it. So let’s move on to how to reduce the homeowner’s burden. Right? After a major event happens, homeowners are often asked to make too many decisions too quickly. And, you know, if you’re chasing fires, which we don’t do here at My Contents​, and if you do, great. You know, they’re burdened with a lot. You know, they just had a loss, and now they’re being rushed to make a lot of decisions. You know? You have to understand that they’re displaced. Their kids are upset. Their pets may be somewhere else. They’re dealing with insurance and free housing, contractors, work. You know, they still have a job. Right? Kids still have to go to school. And then someone hands them a clipboard and says, hey. Can you identify all your total loss inventory? What was in this room? What about all their nonrecoverables, everything that’s charred? Think about it. Put yourself in that in their shoes. That’s not realistic. The contents company, when we arrive, we should come with a process. We should be able to document, categorize, flag issues during the actual removal process. So I will speak for a minute or so about our process here in My Contents​. We do things a bit differently. So when we walk into a fire loss, we are our goal is to leave the home empty for the mitigation contractor to come and start the mitigation process. So as we remove every single piece of content, we’re we’re determining salvageability. Can it be cleaned? Can it be restored? Is it total loss? Does it make economic sense for us to even do any of that? Right? And the idea behind that is you’re going through every single piece of contents in your house. You know, you may be assessing 8 to 10,000 items, and of that, you may come up with a list of about 5, 6,000 items that are deemed unsalvageable. And I’m talking about that half burned toothbrush that we’re, you know, replacing. So detail matters, especially in a situation where the homeowner is put in a situation where they have no control. There’s that’s when we step in, and we take care of them. And furthermore, you know, you do wanna lean on the homeowner when, you know, their personal knowledge matters. Right? Especially during with sentimental items, anything family history, any immediate needs, special handling. So you wanna make sure you document all that. You know, you have a fire loss, you know, they need clothes. Right? You wanna go rush clothes that they may need for next week or so. You wanna make sure you document what you’re taking. So that way when you bill for emergency services for laundering clothes, you can support what you’re billing and say, hey. Look. We have 20 shirts, 50 hats. You know, whatever the homeowner needs. Just support what you do. That is the most important thing, and that’s the tool that that Encircle gives you that is so invaluable. You know? And with technology, it should reduce the homeowner’s burden. Our customers have already lost control of their environment. You know? Our job is to give them confidence that shows that someone competent has control of the process. There’s there’s too many folks, and, hopefully, you know, my goal is to help elevate the contents portion of the restoration process. And we ultimately end up being the stepchild of the process. Right? You know, Brad had mentioned earlier too, you know, this is the most important piece of the restoration process. You know? Homeowners, yeah, they do care about the color of the wall, the floors, whatnot, but it’s ultimately the content, their personal property that makes a house a home. You know? So, guys, we are doing what I believe is the most important part of the entire restoration process. We gotta take it seriously. You know, oftentimes contractors get excited. Oh, I’m gonna make 20, 30,000 dollars on this, but the processes are terrible. They end up losing a lot of money because they haven’t documented correctly. They take something back that’s not cleaned correctly. You know? So if you were thinking about doing it, do it. But make sure you’re doing it the right way. Alright. Let’s move on to the next one. The two traps to avoid. So I I kinda play into both sides. You know, some of the new guys like us and My Contents that work technology forward, but we understand the need to rely on the old heads. You know? Anissa Coy wasn’t able to join us today in this webinar, but we are a product of Firehouse Education. So Anissa Coy and Kevin Coy, they were crucial in our growth. And what I mean by that is if you guys are really trying to learn, there are a few folks, and I’ll volunteer myself as well. Ask us questions. You know? We’ve already figured it out. There is no point in trying to figure this out on your own. You know? There’s no need to reinvent the wheel. And, you know, when we bring in new folks, we tell them, look. Content restoration is not a stand alone industry. We are literally borrowing from so many different industries because that’s that’s how many different things are in someone’s house, and a lot of the answers are already out there. We just have to be able to go source the answers and take care of the the homeowners that are affected. So back to the side. The first the first type of, you know, people are the tech first crew. Right? This is a crew where everything looks beautiful on screen, but the work behind it is weak. A polished report can still have Kilbert descriptions, terrible dispositions, not have the knowledge of actually knowing how to handle the contents and know the history behind how to handle this. 1,000 photos can still miss the one damaged corner that matters. Right? So if you have someone taking photos of dresser, they take a nice overview photo, but then they fail to capture where the true damage was or even the preexisting damage. Right? Because we’re not in the business to rebuy stuff for homeowners either. Right? So if we do proper documentation and know what to look for, that’s crucial. A check mark proves somebody touched the screen, not that the work was completely done. Right? So we gotta make sure that substance behind the documentation and photographs. The other thing is AI can misread items, quantities, materials, condition. They can say, hey. Look. This photo contains ten dinner plates when there are actually eight, and two are cracked and one is actually a saucer. So the key thing is not only to just take a general photo of the items and rely on AI, what AI can see through the, you know, plates to determine, hey. This one has a hairline crack and this one is chipped on the side. So it’s still important for you to take the proper documentation, know where to look and what to take. On the flip side, we we deal with this as well. You know, sometimes a restoration contractor that’s been doing this for 50 years and you tell them about how you’re doing what you’re doing and the detail. Like, no. No. I just need you to get it out of here. You know, it’s like, hey. This is someone that says, hey. I’ve been doing this for 20 years, and that’s awesome. And I agree that experience matters, but it does not explain the specific loss. It doesn’t document it. Right? So there’s no nothing that’s supporting what you’re doing. So when you have a piece of pen and paper without any photos or anything like that, you’re setting yourself up. Okay? So it is very important that you do the work correctly in all different aspects. Experience definitely does deserve respect, but the file must also stand on its own, meaning you have to be able to support every single thing you’re doing. Just because you’ve been doing it for 20 years doesn’t just validate an adjuster to write you a check for the work you did. You have to support it. You know? The screen is a tool and experience is not a documentation system. Right? So they both have to merge and mesh mesh together. Alright. We’ll move on to the next one. Alright. AI. AI. AI. AI. It is a good thing for sure, but it can also be detriment to your operation. And I’ll elaborate on that. Right? So AI is incredibly useful when it’s used correctly. So emphasis on used correctly. It can help identify items. It can suggest categories, improve spelling, help with vocabulary, and speed up the reporting preparation. So those are all the good things. Right? But it is essentially helpful for a good field employee who may not know the exact word for an item. They can be great with their hands, great with the customer, and still need help describing a random kitchen gadget that nobody’s used since 1997. Okay? I’ll give you a good example. You know, we have bilingual employees, and sometimes the cool thing about Encircle is if your phone is said in Spanish, the entire app is in Spanish. But for our reporting, stuff needs to be in English. So with AI, it can spell things correctly. It can help identify things that they may or may not know how to translate to certain, you know, English word. So it’s it’s definitely helpful. But the training still needs needs to be there for them to do the disposition correctly. You know? The other thing we have to keep in mind is that AI does not have physical sense. It cannot feel instability on a on a table or a chair. It can’t smell odor. It can’t tell if the padding is wet. Right? It can’t test whether, you know, an appliance or electronics is working or not. It can definitely document it. But if your if your if your tech doesn’t know that, hey. I need to test this or, hey. I need a document while I test it, then AI is useless. Technology is useless. Right? AI the thing that I caution you with the most is AI can be confidently wrong, which is the most dangerous kind of wrong. So what we’ve done here at My Contents​ is our policy is simple. We say, allow AI to get you 80 to 90%, but you still need human verification for any project records, restoration ability decisions, or anything that’s sensitive or is dispute. Okay? AI should be used as AI’s output should be used as a draft, not as a fact. So let AI do its thing, but always go back in and confirm it. Otherwise, you’re setting up setting yourself up for failure and loss situations. Okay. At My Contents​ and I say this, and it’s kinda funny when I was when we spin this together, AI. So at My Contents​, we’re not training app users. We’re not we don’t have new hires come in and say, here’s Encircle. Here’s some videos. Call Kash if you need something. No. We have to train them. We’re training contents professionals how to do their job first, and then we show them how to use the app. This distinction is critical. You have to start with a purpose. We’re not warehouse you know, we’re not packing stuff in a warehouse. We’re not you know, there is we’re dealing with personal property when it is such a disruptive event for the client. So you have to know exactly what you’re doing before you step into a loss, and then you open up in Encircle. Because Encircle’s documenting everything for you, keeping track of everything for you. But you still have to be able to have a human who’s trained to be able to make the decisions and, you know, do the correct assessments. You know, initially, we start off with teaching the loss environment, categories of water loss, smoke, soot, odor, contamination, PPE usage, and safety. And then we’ll teach them the materials on how to pack, how to wrap, how to pad correctly, how to weight distribute on a on a box truck or on a vault when you’re putting stuff up, how to label correctly, how to handle the content safely. Once the employee understands the physical process, that’s when we layer the technology because you have to understand the substance behind what you’re doing. And then that allows them to know how to inspect it, photograph, describe, assign the rooms, record the conditions, and connect it to a warehouse location. Some employees are great with their hands, but nervous when they have an iPad in their hands. You know? Others can learn a software in 15 minutes, but are gonna pack a lamp upside down. You know? So it has to go hand in hand. Our job is built on both sides. You know? We can’t do one without the other. And, guys, the other important thing is the the reliance on an app or reliance on AI. It does not take away from your management duties or your supervisory duties. Supervision doesn’t disappear because we have technology. Supervisors still have to review the photos, descriptions, room assignments, quantities, locations, as well as dispositions. You know? A dashboard does not manage operations. A manager does. Alright. The field work frame the field framework. So here’s a simple framework that I want everyone to take home. K? Let’s focus on observing, evaluating, deciding, documenting, verifying. You gotta observe the items in the environment, evaluate the materials, exposure, safety, and personal significance, sentimental items, and then decide whether to pack it out, whether to clean it, whether to restore it, deem it total loss, dispose of it, leave it in place. And then, guys, the one most important factor is know when to refer it out. And if they have certain things that need to be taken care of and you and you, your employees, your management team lack lack the ability to do something, sub it out. It is better for you, and it’s better for the client on the back end. Give you a prime example. If you don’t know how to do a built in subzero fridge, don’t. Bring in someone that does, and you’ll thank me later. Because it’s one thing if you’re damaged a, you know, a standard fridge, maybe 1,000, 2, $3,000 placement, sub zero fridges, you run a 20, 30,000 dollar check. And there goes your profitability for the entire project. So know when to refer a workout. Documentation, you gotta document the condition of the rooms, items, put in the notes, put in locations. And then the most important thing at the end is to verify what the physical and digital work. As we know from when we started five years ago today, contents has elevated and it continues to change. There’s there’s so much better training out there. There’s new folks like ourselves that are being released in the market that have a completely different perspective on contents. You know? There’s better software. There’s better AI. There’s better mobile documentation and automation. All that will continue to improve. But the key thing to take away here is that the fundamentals are not becoming less important. If anything, they’re becoming even more important because technology is making the process go much quicker. So we have to make sure that we’re doing good work from the beginning. So the baseline has to be there. You know? Otherwise, the bad decisions are gonna spread faster. And the companies that lead like us, companies that lead with the digital documentation, you know, the next generation will have skilled technicians, material knowledge, customer empathy, AI guardrails, which are gonna be very important, and quality control and leadership accountability. So that has to be all kind of put in together with your processes. So my final thought I wanna leave you guys with is technology makes good operators faster, craft makes them incredible, and leadership knows how to combine them both. So that’s what I got. Ahsan, I shouldn’t be surprised. That was very eloquent and wonderfully put. Thank you. And and thank you again for for the kind words. I I do appreciate it. I’ll be honest. Looking at your presentation, it it it strikes me the the stuff you said about process and people. I really think that a smooth operation comes from when you have good people and having those good people work with great process. And so I think you really hit the nail on the head for sure. We have a couple questions that came in. We we do have a we we do wanna make sure that we have a bit of time for some of these questions at the very least. From Carina Emery, she was wondering, do you have one person on-site that exclusively does the photo and Encircle software inventory at all times, or how do you kind of partition that on-site? So we actually so like I said earlier, we’re we do things a bit differently. So every single person that comes into my content as an employee is trained to do everything. And so the reason behind that is we wanna be able to make sure that we’re fluid in what we do, and it allows them to know everything from start to finish. Right? We are working on some siloing of of duties, but, essentially, we you know, where we see the bottleneck with some of our competitors and other folks in the market is they send one person to the project, and the one person is then sending their document and everything. And then you have packers, and then you have movers that show up two days later to take everything. No. We send four or five guys into the field to the project. All four or five of those guys are inventory assessing. And then, you know, they have support staff that will pack and, you know, move stuff, but those guys are the ones that are doing it with one person as supervisor, and then the content techs are trained to be able to assess everything, disposition everything, and then go. That makes a lot of sense. I mean, that’s probably the best way to scale, really, is just have everybody contributing. I’m personally curious from an AI perspective, how has the AI feature set helped you achieve that democratize democratization or kind of split of that work and insight, do you think? Couple a couple of different ways. So if it’s just a simple pack and go, you know, the the description of the item is not as important as the documentation of the item because we wanna capture preexisting damage. Right? So it’s like, when it compounds and how much time is spent and we’re doing 1,000 items, yes. Even if you’re saving 30 seconds an item because you’re not writing a description, you know, there’s a lot of saving right there. But on the on the flip side, when it comes to a loss items, you know, you just take a photo of something and it can capture the entire, you know, brand, size, all that stuff, and now you’re creating AI generated descriptions for total loss inventory list. Like, that has helped us out significantly for sure. But, again, go back to what I said. Trust what AI is doing, but always confirm and verify. You and I have you and I have talked to length about that too. We’ve definitely talked about it. I think there’s an important thing to be said about you’ve got very talented people with technical expertise. You want to have the tools facilitate their work, but you wanna leave room for their discretion. Because No matter what you do, AI cannot deploy ex replace an expert’s discretion. So I think that’s that’s very valuable. We have a question from Philip Jones. Similar vein, would say, but they’re wondering how you leverage QR codes or kind of how how you use it in the field. Do you have a printer at the job site, or what’s your workflow when it comes to QR codes? So Kash will, Kash can attest to this. We’re actually fairly, we were we were anti QR codes for the longest time, and then Kash Encircle is now doing QR codes. So we we we took it upon ourselves, and, actually, it’s helped us significantly. Instead of using the in the field QR codes, we print them in advance. So, you know, we’ll print enough that you know, because we we’ll know how much materials, how many items, how many box we’re gonna pack. We’ll have a general knowledge of it before we go on to a job site. So we will preprint QR codes, and then we will then also prepare some just blank QR codes in case there’s any type of overage and stuff. But, essentially, we’re documented on-site. We take a photo of the QR code, attach a box to it, and then we put the items and then just go from there. It has actually made our processes so much better over the last month that we’ve implemented the QR process. And I can’t wait for the locations. Oh, yeah. Stuff it more stuff is coming for sure. I think it’s it’s interesting because there’s this quote that you always use where if you ask people when they rode carriages what they wanted, they’d always say a faster horse because it’s hard to imagine a car. And so when when folks are using Sharpies a lot, I think the technology piece, it requires a bit of creativity. And I think that’s something I’ve seen in the way that you implement processes is that there’s a spark of creativity that comes with the technology that you need to apply that sorry, have things really stick. So I think that’s very valuable. We wanna end off just with one last question from Mark Yannick, and I think it’s it’s it’s a good question to end off, and I’d love to hear your thoughts. They they said, we have a lot of old school guys on our crew, great at the work, super knowledgeable, but they either can’t or won’t use newer technology that could make work faster. How do I convince them to use it, and how can I help them get comfortable with it? Man, that’s a tough one. Adoption of technology with the the old school guys is definitely more difficult. Right? I don’t know. I I I would probably I don’t know. I I think what I would do is I would take a look at some of their work and see, hey. Where have we had mistakes and issues? Where have we had loss? Where have we come back and seen items missing or items not put back in the correct spot? Or we didn’t capture preexisting damage, and now we have to go buy a new dresser. Or the TV was never tested, and there was no video of the TV being tested. Now we have to buy them a TV. I think if you because because one thing I found is with management, we can just you know, we see a lot and from a different perspective, so we can give them we tell them, hey. We need to do this. We need to that. But if we pair that up with an example, a real life example of something that they’ve dealt with or someone in the team dealt with, then then they can correlate a bit better. Be like, okay. There is a reason why we are implementing this, the reason why we’re trying to do this. You know? So that that’s kind of a key thing. And it’s it’s it’s very, important to kind of point, highlight, show them exact examples so that way they can relate. We can relate because we see it from top down, but they may not see it. So you have to kind of put it into vision or, you know, share with them, hey. These projects that you’ve done, we’ve had x amount of losses. These are projects that we’ve done with the new, you know, process or technology implemented, and there’s no issues. You know? I think that’s very well said. Honestly, the way you framed it is perfect because it’s often almost like a translation type of problem where you want to translate the value so that it’s very clear in the way that really kinda resonates. And once you show them the value, people will come to a solution on their own. But it’s kinda making sure that you’re speaking in a in a way that’s kinda representative of is, you know, if they’re not wanting to adopt and take a new policy and procedures, redirect them into a different part of the job. Like, hey. I can’t I can’t have you doing the total loss inventory, or I can’t have you do the assessment anymore because you’re not using the software. So all I’m gonna have you do is move the boxes from the house into the truck, and you can put them into the vault when you get back. And then let them do that for a week or two, and maybe that readjusts their, you know Yeah. Perspective, and maybe they wanna they wanna do it then. You know? Definitely. Definitely. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for the time, Ahsan. Any last kind of words or pieces of advice you’d like to share at the end here? Or The only thing I’ll say is, yes, there is a lot of money to be made in contents restoration, but it is crucial that you guys do it the right way. I have seen cup I’ve seen a handful of companies in Dallas Fort Worth, that’s the market that we’re in, go under because they get excited about, oh, I can charge 30, $40,000 on contents where I’m only charging 10,000 on mitigation, and they go throw in the storage unit. I’ve had a situation where the storage unit was on someone’s credit card, got canceled because he lost it at the bar, and then four months later when they went to go pack out that they were missing a unit. And then they got sued for $20,000 because they were missing a lot of crucial contents. And so, yes, contents are amazing. You can make a lot of money doing contents as long as you get the proper training and do it the right way. And the goal is to elevate this segment of the restoration process. So reach out to mentors. Reach out to peers. Reach out to me. I would rather help you figure it out and do it the right way instead of making mistakes and making the rest of us look bad. Very well said, Ahsan. Thank you again for taking the time. Appreciate having you here. For the opportunity. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. So while we’re getting ready for our next speaker, just wanna share another another poll just to give some of your thoughts in between. Give you a second to fill that in. While you’re filling that out, I’m going to introduce our next speaker. Up next, we have Demetrius Lampkin​, Contents Manager for Allied Restoration out of California. Demetrius knows what busy he is. Managing multiple crews in high stakes, high price tag jobs such as the Palisades fires let him use his experience to shape a high performing and scaling contents division. If you’ve ever wondered what strong department margins look like in practice or how to keep a multi crew operation moving without everything falling apart, Demetrius is going to give you an honest look at that. So I’ll hand it off to you. Thank you, Demetrius. Thank you so much. Let me go ahead and get started. I’ve been in the industry for, since 2018. I worked with multiple, confidence companies to give you a little bit of a background. And I would say some of those were very old school mentality and thinking. Some were doing total loss with recording still in the two two thousands, 2020s. So here, we do things a lot differently than where I’ve come from, but we also run very strong. So let me get into the, first slide here. So right now, we run about anywhere between four to six jobs a day. We only have seven technicians, seven, yeah, seven technicians and two coordinators. So with that, everyone’s pretty much trained to handle multiple multiple facets of the job. Currently, we have jobs that we are doing content manipulation on for PACKOUL for attorneys, cleaning jobs, total loss inventories, for high net worth clients, two cleaning jobs usually going every single day, from the Palisades. And then there’s a lot of moving parts that we have to fill, with those cleaning crews. So we operate, two warehouses to facilitate, the cleaning crews on a daily basis. So we have one at our main office, and then we acquired another one recently that we just opened, I would say, about four months ago. That was probably one of my main products here, to get going. So we’re with all of that going on with five to six jobs a day, we were also doing the transition of storages to that the new facility for cleaning. So a busy day looks a typical day looks like we’ll have one crew maybe in Malibu, maybe another one in Palisades. We might have another one all the way down in San Clemente as well as two two cleaning crews going at both warehouse locations as well as another crew maybe in, like, Irvine, Santa Ana area any given day if you’re familiar with SoCal. So one of the things that we do so we don’t have any type of bottleneck occur is we have a series of processes. So at seven AM is our first, contents call. So at seven AM, everyone talks about their daily sick. So what’s the most important item of their day? So every crew that’s going out, they’re gonna tell they’re gonna say what job they’re going to, what they’re gonna accomplish for the day, and that’s done at seven o’clock. Another thing we do as a office overall, especially if you’re involved in production, we have a 7:30 call that does the same thing that goes over with the managers, what they have going on, anyone that’s in reconstruction, mitigation. We’re a full service vendor. So we have that call at 7:30, which is very strategic to basically put the accountability on the person for what they’re gonna do for the rest of the day. A part of that, the next update I’m gonna get from the crew is about midday is about their about, say, their lunch or right after lunch about noon. I’ll get another update from all the other crews, all the crews that are on the field. Where are they at? What are they doing? Are they gonna be able to accomplish or finish their job for the day? Is there any hiccups, materials, order they need? So we stay in touch throughout the day. That’s the second, touch, with the team. It’s pretty vital. And then we do another one, which usually requires me to stay behind. I start my day as early as 5:30, then end my day about 3:00 or 4:00 when the last crews get in. Sometimes I might stay till 5:00. I usually greet them when they come in and see how the job went, see how they’re feeling. I do a lot of touch points to make sure that they have what they need. They understand the process, and then I give them timelines. So each day that they’re on a job, if we have an expectation of it’s a four day job, then they’re gonna have a countdown that they’re understanding that here’s what we’re expecting, what we need to do and accomplish for the next week or for the next day. This point is not to be be about me bringing being everywhere, but it’s about me being able to build the structure for them to have what they need, understand the processes. A lot of information is given to our techs and our leads about where we’re going, what direction we need to drive the ship in, as well as the execution plan for the quarter. So they’re well aware of what the the plan is for the total quarter as well as the month. So that way they understand how we’re driving the car or the ship in that in that system. I’m gonna move on to the next the next part of, the system before you scale. In this part of it, before you can scale a contents division, you need three things in place, tracking chain of custody and documentation. Here, we are very about our systems. We run I probably run about four four active spreadsheets a day as well as constantly monitoring Encircle to make sure that the photos are getting uploaded promptly, making sure that there’s photos in Albie because we use Albie as well just to make sure that everything is transferring over and connecting. But we use a KPI that keeps track of work in progress, pending jobs, storage, storage vault locations because we do have two warehouses. We even track our in that same database, we do track our damaged items to make sure that we can account for what items were broken on the job, if they were broken, how they were broken. So that way, when we do our daily updates to our client, usually, if we pack out today, we’ll send them a email first thing in morning with all of the information, the update, what happened for the day, if there was any damage to the property or anything that was broken, they’re already aware. So that way we can trigger the next step of that process to say, hey. We’re either going to, you know, try to fix it if it’s something that’s fixable. If it was completely broken and it was damaged beyond repair. Hey. What is this item worth? So we can keep that in mind so that way as we’re going on through this process, they know that they’re gonna be taken care of throughout that. So we also have another database that we track our overall revenue for the department. We just recently rolled it out. So, basically, it has every contents job that is actively in our system, whether it’s in storage, whether it is being packed out. We even put our anticipated pack back dates because we do reach out to our reconstruction team to have those in the system. And then what we do is we go ahead and calendar potential pack back schedules based on that information. So that way, we’re always kind of ready to go, ready to talk about the client, let them know, hey. We anticipate this pack out or pack back date. So that way they understand kind of where we’re coming from as far as scheduling. Right? We wanna make sure that we give them more than enough new time and notice, especially if they’re Palisades fire job. They’ve been out their house for months, so we want them to let them know that there is light at the end of the tunnel for them. The next thing is, you know, chain of custody for us, comes down to something simple. Being in a box, being in a box with that leaves a warehouse, I want a photo of it loaded up. I want proof of who touched it. We even do something that’s very old school. We use, as well as using the QR codes, for chain and custody before we pack it out, especially for doing confidence cleaning on it. We do index cards because I wanna know, what individual packed it, because, yes, we may have six or seven employees working for us at all times. We do use a lot of temp labor. So with that, we have quite a regular amount of team. So we probably, on any given day, run about two, four, six. So anywhere between eight temp employees to twelve temp employees that have worked with us in the past doing active packouts. There are some that are with us every single day, so they’re more of a as fixture here. But we do that so that way we can track who touched that box, when the box was touched, and then, you know, we’ll know who transported it, who was the driver. Because, again, we wanna track all the metrics of if something gets broken, how did it break, why did it break. So we we keep that as a a staple for us. And then we wanna make sure that all of the documentation is up to date. So, like, again, we are a preferred vendor with some of the insurance companies. Sedgwick uses a lot when there is a file that’s in litigation or it’s a complex claim because we’re used to those kind of I kind of items happening. So they might help bring us out to reevaluate someone else’s work. They might want us to come out and redocument because they know our our documentation is strong. The chain of custody, we’ll make sure that everything’s proper. So that way, they’re they’re not liable for any additional damages that may have occurred by someone else or by another vendor. Without tracking and chain of custody, you can’t grow into being a thriving business that we do. We right now currently run about any given month with the amount of people we have, 100,000 on a bad month up to 500,000 on a good month with seven employees out in the field. So that’ll kinda give you some some kind of numbers of kind of what we’re running. We don’t rush our packouts. That’s one thing we do not do. We do take our time, so we do have to fight our bills a little bit more, but we wanna make sure the quality is there that we are delivering for. With that, let’s move on to training. That is a huge part of what we do here. So we do do a weekly training, whether it’s safety, whether it’s learning how to rewrap large items, box items. We reevaluate based on our incident numbers. If we have more broken glass, we can revisit it with how to pack it properly. Are we not supplying you guys with the right materials to make sure that we are not breaking items? We we reevaluate our transport method. Right? We wanna make sure that we even train our guys in driving the box truck safely. So I will go on the field some days and ride along with whoever’s driving, make sure they’re not doing abrupt stops, hard turns, really making sure that whether it’s the transportation issue that’s been an issue, whether it’s the packing, the loading, the inventory, We we have that training done weekly for them even if it’s on-site or in the field training sometimes. And then with that, we make sure that everyone is cross trained with all of the information from if we’re doing a total loss inventory, are we doing a total loss disposal? Are we doing content cleaning? This week alone, I pulled in one of my cleaning guys, and it’s an attorney facing job site because they know how to multitask and handle handle things professionally. Right? So in this job, they were we were strictly there just to just to move the boxes. Some very basic move it, help coordinate for inventory. We also had a hygienist that needed to pull samples. With with, with everything going on, they had to handle that. But we also found out that the storage unit that we were working out of had, rodent, problems, rodent I did rodent in one of them, and then, you know, all of the fun stuff that becomes behind it. So, again, we had to suit up, and then we handled, you know, setting up a protocol for them to safely work in that unit. So with that, one of the guys understands the protocols for, you know, all of the lead lead cleanups we do. We work in a lot of containment, so they understand how to, get through that. But, with that being said, we just make sure that we focus on training weekly so that way they can understand what they are doing right, what they’re doing wrong, if anyone needs to be retrained. Because, again, you might be on one type of job for a while. You might be doing, content cleaning for too long, and you forgot how to pack out boxes, or you forgot how to wrap certain certain items because you haven’t encountered them out in the field or working in those conditions. We have, you know, one employee particular. She knows how to do everything, but she prefers to be in the warehouse and content cleaning because it’s a very controlled environment for her versus being on a job site where it might be overwhelming for some. So, again, we try to accommodate, based on training needs and per personal personal, assumptions or wants based on their skill sets. Let’s go ahead and move on to the next slide. Staying steady on a high stakes job. A lot of the jobs that we are working on in the Palisades, they range anywhere from a three million dollar house to currently, we are working in a 22 million dollar house. The contents are valued right now at something worth probably 10 to 20 million adjusted personal contents. There is one share of retail I can think of that is worth 200,000. It’s crazy. It doesn’t look like much, but it is definitely a high value piece of contents. So with that, you know, there’s a lot of protocols that we have to take. This this house is so special that they have video cameras in every single room that we are working in, as well as they have a house manager that is watching a iPad all the times. So we can’t even have anyone that is unescorted in the house moving about freely because we wanna make sure that the chain of custody is there and making sure that there is no potential for any liability for them to come back and say something’s missing or we damaged an item. This house is so custom. They have leather on the actual handrail. So if you can tell this person is probably net worth is probably 150, 150 million to 250 million. So they are very particular on who’s in their house and how this job is handled. So, again, with that, we wanna make sure that we build the trust with the client. We walk walk it those jobs that need that particular handholding, we go out there as a manager. I probably get on-site probably a couple times a week to make sure that there is no chance for any kind of damage. What we end up doing with the especially these high end homeowners, they some requires a special amount of attention in handholding. So we you know, our leads are very well prepared as far as knowing their job, but also how to handle these high net worth clients. Because we set the tone when we go out there, especially for these fire losses. We set the tone for the rest of the claim. So when our structure or reconstruction comes out to do the clean, some of these have actual physical fire damage, we set the tone where they already have a great expectation of how we handle the claim and the communication because of the daily updates, the constant communication with the homeowners. I do personal check ins with them. Our team does check ins with them. So we set that standard very clear upfront. So that way, when our our other piece of the company comes in, they are ready. They understand. Because of the great work of our team, we’ve been able to get a lot of word-of-mouth referrals of the policies because it’s a very tight knit community. So we’ve been able to get the neighbor, the neighbor’s neighbor because of someone they know, someone they went to church with, someone they grew up with. So with that, you know, we wanna stay steady in communication, steady on our workflow, steady on the expectations that we’re setting and how the job is being completed. I mean, we have guys that have come from Servpro that, you know, understand that the way we do things here at Allied is very different than where you’re gonna come from a Servpro or a different company because we set high expectations, a high bar with our training, our knowledge, with the expertise we bring. Ally was founded to be more of a high net worth restoration company, which is a little bit different because we do a lot of work in Beverly Hills, Orange County, the Palisades, Altadena. So we deal with a lot of a list actors, as far as, sports entertainment attorneys. You name it, we work with them. So we wanna make sure that we bring that consistent communication, consistent workflow to each job where they understand that they get a rundown of what the process is, how we do it. The reason why we are so thorough on our inventory, thorough through the the pack out process, why we take a little bit longer on their jobs than initially sometimes anticipated, but we set that expectation up front. With that being said, we’ll move on to our margins. Because of what we do and how we do it, we do have content should be running at a 70% to, you know, 70% margin on these jobs. Currently, right now, we’re running at 66. My goal is to be closer to 70 to 73, by the end of the year. Just over the last few quarters, we’re with working in the Palisades, in our fire jobs and some water. Right now, we’re roughly about 80 to 85% fire jobs, and about that 10 to 15% of water. With the Palisades dried up, we are now switching, our focus to turn the burn jobs back into water. Our company is aggressively, getting back into water more now that the policy is kind of slowing down for us. So that’s gonna be quicker, faster turnover jobs. So we’re not gonna see these high huge job numbers that we’ve been seeing with 200,000 per project to some of them are 350,000 per project. The last last the last two quarters, we did two point one million. And for us, what brings that margin down to that 66%, would be our storage units because we do not have enough storage space to facilitate all of the the large packouts from the Palisades. We have roughly 155 volts on both facilities. Those are being 100% utilized as well as multiple storage units that we have throughout the local area near our office. Then we use a lot of some equipment rentals, materials, stuff like that. Our temp labor is another huge facet of why we are not hitting our seven percent margin, but it’s very factored in as job cost when we think about the job upfront. And then lastly but not least is the overtime for those drive for those those far jobs. For us, we average an hour and a half to two hours to get to the Palisades and then a minimum two hours to get back every day from those jobs. So, again, that’s gonna change and run into our margins. We track our overtime. So what our goal is to be about 30 to 35 hours per week. On our bad weeks, we run about 60 to 70 depending on the volume of job that we have going on, where they’re at, and making sure that, they’re getting an adequate amount of time to work on the job site. That’s where we’re running into that overtime, crunch. To support our growth, we migrated to a second facility, which I told you guys guys about earlier. We built a a clean room. We had to run the plumbing, subcontainments to make a clean room, and then we had to go out and buy brand new storage vaults that fit our facility to be able to stack three high. We are anticipating probably opening another facility, for condensers here in the next, three to six months. So if I could leave you with three things, systems and tracking are key key to keep you focused and protect your margins. The right people with the right training will do more with less. And the industry is shifting. We’re moving from a fire and smoke heavy water to heavy water focus for us. That means running a skeleton crew through more volume of jobs. So as we do that, the people that we have on our ground level, the seven techs we have now, we will jump into we will jump into getting more more volume, but also at the same time, these people will be training and running the next cruise as we bring out new employees. Right? So I think we can now go to the QA. Thank you so much, Mitris. That was that was a lot of information. It was really, really valuable. I I really liked the the focus on process and training. You know, they say practice doesn’t make perfect. Practice makes permanent. And if you are training and repeating the things but being mindful of what you’re training on, then you’re going to have a good system to lean on and scale from. So I really love that focus. We have a a handful of questions. We’re gonna see if we have time to answer maybe two or three if that works for you. So we’ll just jump right into them. Mark asks, if you were to build a new profitable contents division tomorrow, what are the most important systems do you say, would be valuable to build in the first three ish months? I would say, for us, I mean, I live off our KPI. So knowing what you have in the pending pipeline, knowing what’s in WIP, focus on tracking your storage, where things are at with that storage. If you are using a storage, just make sure you have a universal card that does not get shut off. That you make sure that it’s it’s being tracked by someone, is huge. And then just having the right, systems in place like Encircle because with the AI, features that we’ve utilized, it has actually effectively helped trade or not train, take away some of our slower inventories and especially with the total loss. So I would say, KPI, your tracking databases, making sure that you are documentation first because that is gonna help you keep track of your jobs. But, also, when you’re dealing with these adjusters, the more documentation you have, the less likelihood of something being missed or less likelihood of them coming back to coming back to you like, oh, well, it should have taken this long, but then you have the photos, the documentation. You can track. Sometimes you might have a homeowner that needs some, you know, very important documents. Right? So you wanna even know what vault that is in or what source unit that is. Definitely. Makes a lot of sense. We have two more questions more related around the fire side of things. Josie Rivera was wondering, what’s your protocol when it comes to fire contents? And and, for example, depending on the severity, do you assign multiple people to do salvage versus non salvageable, or kinda what’s your process there? When we are approaching our fire losses, we start with the salvageable contents first. So we wanna sort through and get out all of the salvageable and clean items based on the the test results, the hygienist results because, again, we with policies, we’ve dealt with a lot of lead, heavy metals, combustible byproducts, and some asbestos and some of these these losses. So we go with cleanable first, so anything that’s salvageable. Then the next step is to come out and do the total loss inventory. Everything that is poor is non salvageable. And then once we get the approval from the adjuster and they’ve been been able to come to an agreement, then we come out and do the total loss disposal. And then that the salvageable is already in our warehouse, and they’re in queue for cleaning. And then once the job site is ready, then we’ll go ahead and put it back in storage. After we put it in storage for a while, then we’ll go back and put it on the backpack list and put it back in the home. Makes a lot of sense. And to finish things off, we have one question from Mike Smith, and he was wondering more on the the storage side. Any advice on what to do with nonimpacted items from fire smoke, like stored appliances, washer, steam dryer, etcetera. The example they gave is they have some items that were in 13 month storage that were originally tested and operational, but now after kind of the storage period, they now seem to be not operational and not working properly. Any advice for that type of circumstance or or or damage? So when it comes to appliances, the best thing to do is total loss them upfront. We’ve learned that with electronics, there’s no guarantee that they’re going to survive for any type of amount of time once they’ve been sustained to that smoke and soot damage. So it’s always on the better end to total loss those right up front once you get into those shops because you can’t guarantee they’re gonna be usable six, seven, eight weeks down the line, even months. You never know. So, usually, those are what we total loss up front versus keeping them and trying to say it. We even fight the adjuster sometimes. They’re like, oh, it’s salvageable. No. It’s not. At the end of day, we we get an expert out to to determine that it’s not worth it. Not even worth the storage. That’s true. Never thought of that, really. That’s good to know. So thank you so much for taking the time. Demetrius, are there any last thoughts or advice you’d like to share with folks before we, we transition off? I would just say if you are building a new division, documentation and your key points of your factors of building the right the right databases, because a lot of ours are accustomed to Allied, but finding what works to help you track your day to day, and focus on training. Those are the top things and making sure you have systems in place when things do go wrong because they are eventually gonna go wrong on the job site. Awesome. It’s how you those. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much, Demetrius, for taking the time and sharing this information for us. People seem to really, really like it in the in the chat, so appreciate it. Thanks so much. Thank you. Awesome. So one last poll, I promise. So please feel free to share some of the information, and, I’ll introduce our next speaker. So next, we have Lynn Royle​, Project Manager and Estimator for Woodhouse Restorations​. Lynn has over 30 years of experience in the restoration industry. She’s worked for several well known restoration companies throughout her career, most recently, First General Waterloo, where she was a senior product manager project manager. Sorry. Her experience includes project management, contents operations, staff training, and she brings an in-depth understanding of the many moving parts involved in restoration work. Lynn enjoys the variety of the industry and the fact that no two days are quite the same. Outside of work, Lynn loves spending time with her three wonderful kids and an adorable dog named Ricky. We’ll be talking with Lynn about the speed versus care problem and how the answer isn’t always to choose one. It’s to build a crew where care is just how they work while also remembering why we do what we do in contents. This session, we’ll be doing something a little bit different, a bit of a different format. We’ve got some questions ready for Lynn, and and we’re going to do it in a bit of an inter interview style. So, Lynn, it’s it’s very lovely to have you and and to chat with you as always, and and thank you for for taking the time. Thank you for having me. Awesome. So I think we’ll just jump right into it. Our first question, we’re looking into trying to understand where does the pressure to move fast, usually come from, and and what do you think happens when a crew kinda feels the pressure to give into that? Really good question. Normally, what happens is there’s a rush on the end from the insurance company because they wanna close their files in a timely fashion and move on to the next one. And the other could be on the project management side because, again, we’re very busy, a lot of moving parts. So it’s really important to have that communication between your team, the insurance company, and the insured as well, to set reasonable expectations for not only the insured, the vendor, but also for the team. That makes a lot of sense. I I think there’s a there’s a recurring theme in a lot of these conversations today where it’s communication, communication, communication. It’s really So important. Understanding understanding your team and then making sure that you can communicate clearly the impacts because you wanna do it fast, but you wanna do it right. You know? Right. So I think that’s I think that’s precious items. It is. It really is. And I think You make one mistake with something that has sentimental value. No amount of money is going to going to really replace it. So I think that’s the that’s the key. Exactly. You can’t put price on sentimental. True. I I I gave an anecdote that I swear I think earlier, I I swear that I think you gave me where when you’re thinking about the value of of homeowners’ items, it’s the things that are really sentimental, like a grandchild’s drawing on a fridge or something that’s handmade that you can’t replace. Do you have any kind of anecdotes regarding that or things to share there? So basically, when I prepare my team or our team to go to site and we do a walk through, I always start a conversation with the homeowner to say anything valuable or personable that you don’t want us handling. This is the perfect time to remove it or to allow us to assist you to remove it. Things like the hand drawn pictures from their grandkids or their children, the formed handprints, money, jewelry, passports, that sort of thing, because those are important items to them, and we can’t replace those. The meaning that they have behind it is so important. That’s really, really valuable to add is to have that conversation because sometimes, I’m sure, there are items that don’t seem like they might have sentimental value that, you know, at first glance, but you talk to them and this is have magnets on their fridge. Magnets on their fridge that from traveling all over the world and or their grandkids picked up at Disney World for them. So those are important items. Yeah. And I’ve heard even, you know, a a belt that was given by their grandfather or something like that that might go with all the other belts, but you can’t tell them apart. So I think that’s important. And so leading into our next question, in terms of this this kinda knowledge or having these conversations, how do you train a new tech to handle the pack out the right way, especially before they’re thrown into maybe their first busy job? So, basically, with contents and a content team, it is literally hands on training, Walking them through the process, why we do what we do, ensuring that they have all the right documentation, all the right information, the right packing materials. Why we use it, why we do what we do, why we pack out things the way we do, why we protect them, why we photograph them, document them, do quantity, that sort of thing, and it changes per job. So teaching them on one small job and then taking them to a large fire packet, again, the process is it changes every single job. But if you give them the basics, then they can learn from that. And also using the Encircle app just makes it so much easier for us now to do contents. That makes a lot of sense. Wonderful. With the QR codes, the dispositions, that sort of thing, and teaching them how to know what disposition and why we’re using it is very important, but it changes every day. Definitely. Could you tell us a bit more about the the why piece? Because I think that’s very valuable. If you’re teaching someone process for process sake, sometimes it’s hard for them to anchor. But for contents, especially, if you don’t know the why, there are real world consequences to missing certain things. Right? Yeah. You don’t know what you don’t know. So if Paul does this this way and Jane does it that way, you wanna make sure that as a team, you’re all following the same procedures. And again, like I said, you can go from doing a very small pack out in a bedroom to going to doing a full fire pack out. So if you have all of the ACEs in your place, it’ll work out a lot easier for the whole team. It’ll show the homeowner the care how it’s it is stressful when we walk in. We’re the last people that they wanna see because they’ve had some incident happen in their home or that’s why we’re there. So we wanna make it as stress free and as we wanna show that we care. It’s really important that they understand that there’s that communication. We’re using all the right materials and the reasons why. It adds a lot of reassurance when the team comes in, and they they know what they’re doing, and they know the impact that the work that they do has for sure. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well put, Lynn. Thank you. The next question we have is is is just kinda looking for an example. Mean, really, could you walk us through a time the clock was working against you, and and how did you hold the line when it came to kinda the reliability and those consistent valuable processes that you use? Well, again, it goes to communication from the initial, introduction of yourself to the homeowner, bridging the gap with the insurance company so that both parties have a clear understanding of why we’re doing what we do, how long we think or anticipate that it can take, bringing in our team, doing another introduction, and just, again, doing the daily check ins, the documentation, showing the care, and setting those expectations right out of the gate. That just helps straight across the board. Letting the homeowner know that there are no stupid questions, only stupid answers. And if we don’t have it, we’ll find it for them. Keeping the line of communication with the insurance company open on a daily basis is really important. Letting them know that there is going to be a schedule of loss. What a schedule of loss is, how it’s handled, how it’s compiled. You know, a copy will go to them. A copy will go to the insurance company and how they bridge that gap to to deal with it, to resolve it. I think you put that very, very well in that for the homeowner, this is probably their first time going through the process, whereas everyone else has has typically gone through it multiple times. Right. So bridging that gap is definitely super valuable. Again, it’s one of those things, though, Kash. We are the last people that they wanna see in their home. You know, whether it’s been a sewer backup or a or a small flood, some people can live in their home while we’re doing our work, and others are displaced. So that’s the not knowing. Every day that there’s people in their home, what are they doing? And again, it’s very important to remind your team with this day and age, with technology, people have pet cameras, they’ve got rings. So to be mindful and respectful because we have to treat it as if it’s our home and our things because everybody has the Mona Lisa. So they’re all going to come back and say, well, wait, I had this. But you know, with the Encircle program and the proper documentation and training, that way, you know, we can bridge that gap. Truly. I think they’re in a very vulnerable position. And so respect Is even more valuable than you typically you typically go out and give when you’re doing the confidence work. Exactly. Our our next question is is on if something does end up going wrong on a pack out, and and I’m sure, you know, with the volume of pack outs you do, not everything can be perfect. How do you really work on addressing that with a crew without turning it into a blame conversation, would you say? Well, just probably the simplest example would be you have a team member that’s given the task that they have to pack out a China cabinet or a hutch. You know, when accidents happen, somebody moves and an elbow knocks something and it crashes to the floor. That’s an accident. It can happen any day. We can do it in our own homes. It’s not a matter of blaming somebody. It’s about accountability. Whoever the team lead is there to be notified, you know what? Let’s document it. Let’s clean up the mess. Let’s bag it. We don’t throw it out. We set it aside. If the homeowner’s there, well, they’re gonna hear it or we have to bring it to their attention. But again, documented, communicated to the insurance company as well. And liability just falls on the company, not just individual. You know, there’s no I and team. We have to work together. And it it happens all the time. Again, gonna brag about Encircle. Being able to document things for pre loss condition to see if there’s any cracks in in a vase or scratches on a table or, you know, legs are swollen from a previous loss that they they never claimed. It’s it’s important that we do that, but it’s not a matter of blaming a individual. It’s working together as a team. It can happen to anybody. And, unfortunately, it happens quite frequently, because we’re only human. So as long as we communicate it to the homeowner, and within the team, unless it’s something that’s, you know, astronomical and, you know, we knock over the whole Chime Academy. Never seen that happen. Thank goodness. But, you know, we we have to be accountable for it. It’s a big trust factor. You can’t say there will be mistakes, but if there’s trust in Charlotte with their their their belongings. Right? They’re trusting us with their things that they have spent years collecting or, you know, buying new furniture or, you know, those painstaking hours of putting together their IKEA furniture. We know how that goes. You know? And, again, they don’t want us in their home. We’re the last people that they wanna see, but they’re extremely happy when we’re gone. Yeah. Truly. I think it’s you wanna do your job, do your job right, and then leave. And do it well the first time. It’s very important that you do it well first time. Again, we’re only human. Mistakes do happen. But, you know, as long as everybody has each other’s back and, again, communication with the homeowners and keeping the vendors updated, they’re getting better at bridging that gap of understanding why we do what we do. It’s the same as when you’re writing the estimate for contents. I know, fellow speakers have have talked about that. You know, we’ve taken a lot of time over the years to develop a great system for estimating why we’re charging for boxes in and boxes out, you know, shrink-wrap, labels, the QR codes, wires, tags, fragile stickers. And when the homeowners see all of the care that we put into, you know, using consumable sheets, document of all of our supplies, then we can justify and quantify why we’re charging the insurance company for it. Because you can make dealing with contents is the hardest part in this industry. People don’t understand you you can clean up a a bathroom toilet, you know, break and do the flooring. But if it’s gone all down into a basement of all collectibles, that’s huge. So very different every time. Every time. Like I said, everybody has a Mona Lisa, everybody has collectibles or, you know, sentimental things, and you can’t put a price on that. Definitely. We’ve got one last question here, and then I think we’re gonna transition into some of the submitted questions, actually. What would you say is the one habit that you wish every contents crew would just get right? Consistently, documentation, just to make sure that everybody documents things and runs their jobs the same. But I’m talking about the same team. You know, if you have somebody start out on that job, as a lead, I feel that it’s best for them to stay until that job is finished because they have a clear understanding of the expectations from the meeting with the homeowner and the project manager on that job. And it just shows consistently consistency for the homeowner so they have that relationship. And I I I think that’s really important. Yeah. I agree. I mean, it anchors them in a very vulnerable part of their life. And they know that. You know? There’s people around them that maybe they don’t want them to be there, but they know what they’re doing. Even if you don’t speak too much with them, if they show confidence, they’ll feel confident that someone is dealing with this. Exactly. If you have the homeowners, again, whether they’re living in the home or they’re displaced from the home, if it’s the same people, they start to form a relationship with them. They feel very comfortable. It decompresses them. Takes this a little more of the edge and the stress and the sting out of it for them, that they kind of form that relationship. So they they start to call them by name. You know? And it’s like, hey, Jane or hey, Joe. Well you know? And will I talk to them today and whatever? And they just have that comfort that they know that there’s somebody there that is working for them. Yeah. It’s the unspoken part of it really that I’d say it’s some people call it the customer service part of it, but it’s really the relationship building part of it that I It is. Gets lost a lot. I think it’s over and above customer service. Absolutely. It’s really it’s building relationships. Because if you have a bad taste in your mouth from me coming into your home and there’s something that I’ve done, you’re gonna go and tell your neighbors or you’re gonna tell your insurance company. But if you build that relationship and that team you know, has that positive attitude, and it’s not the easiest job. Everybody knows that there’s a lot of lifting and it’s a lot of responsibility. But if you have that strong leadership and that strong team with the confidence and the skills and the materials and the communication, it it builds that trust with the homeowner that, yes, they are gonna tell their friends, and then they’re gonna if somebody that they know in their family, oh, hey. You should call so and so because they did a great job. That that speaks volumes right there. Really? Truly. We have time for a couple submitted questions I’d like to I’d like to ask. We have one from Ariel Townsend. She was wondering, what are some examples of good questions you would like your techs to be asking before they go out and kinda do their jobs? Asking of the project manager? Sorry. Is that I think the question was a bit a bit it didn’t really specify. So so please interpret in the way that you think is best, maybe the project manager, maybe some examples of the questions that they ask the homeowner, whatever things make most sense. Well, I I think it’s really important that prior to sending out any team members to a job site is to review the photos in Encircle to do have a, like, a verbal little walk through, ensure that the work order is clearly outlining the expectations from, you know, where to start, where to stage your materials, what materials to bring, ensuring that you have consumable sheets, setting the expectation for time. You you know, you have one room to start. Okay. You’ve got three bedrooms upstairs. How many people do you need per room? And I think if you review that and then go to site and do a walk through, pick an area where you’re gonna stage all your materials, set up your tables to help with, you know, saving on lifting more than you have to, and do a walk through with your team lead and just say, okay. We could put one person in this room, one person in this room, one person in this room. And then the lead is able to concentrate on their documentation using the Encircle app, and then check it, you know, kind of micromanaging. Yes. And then have that person being able to report back to the PM because the PMs can always be on-site. Hope that helps. That sense. We also have another question from Holly Brannigan. She’s wondering, for a tech new to contents coming from a construction background, where should they start their training, and what skills should they focus on developing first? So, again, like I said before, I find that it’s very hands on training. Going to a job site, doing a walk through, asking the questions. Putting together a training manual is something that I have, and I have done that in the past. And that’s what I would give to my team. As simple as how to build a proper box, where the labels go, the importance of the information on it, again, how how to pack dishes, what we do after we bring those materials back to the warehouse, staging them, whether it’s going into fire line or if it’s going to be hand cleaned or what we do with electronics. And, again, it’s based job per job. Makes sense. We have, another question as well from, Betty McEnder. How do you effectively list damaged contents in Create a Scope, and how do you teach your techs to do this too? So, again, that’s with the Encircle app. It’s basically called the schedule of loss. So it’s anything, that is nonrestorable. If you’ve had a fire, and there was a lack of power, so that would be the food in the fridge and the freezers, any opened food items. So, basically, with the Encircle app, you can go in there and do your normal listing, but the disposition would get changed to nonrestorable or disposed. Once that schedule of loss is completed, so you’ve done your entire pack out, then we can populate the schedule of loss. A copy will go to the homeowner, and a copy will go to the insurance company, and you’ll deal directly with them on fair market replacement cost value of those items. Kind of a standard that I set in the past for my team. I love the Dollar Store. Most people like the Dollar Store. Anything ten dollars and under, it’s really hard to quantify and to the insurance company why we’re cleaning and processing that. Because when you think of our pack out materials, our vehicles, the labor, you know, wages, that sort of thing in time, does it quantify us to do that? But, again, because a lot of people love it, if there are certain items that they want us to keep, then, yes, absolutely, we do. And then if we do have a process of having to process and clean things back at our warehouse, some things may not respond to the cleaning so that a post schedule of loss is then compiled and sent off to the insurance company. And, again, they deal directly with them on fair market replacement cost value. Awesome. We have one last question, I think, just to finish things off. I think it’s it’s it’s a fairly straightforward, but I’d say open end as well. Ben McDonald was wondering, do you have any tips on making logging items faster? I think you touched on a bit of it. But Well, that would be the the use, actually, of of Encircle and making sure that the team has a full understanding of it. The AI program is fantastic. All you have to do is the dispositions and then the quantities, overview pictures. I’m gonna brag. Here at Woodhouse, we have a really strong content team. So it’s kinda hard for me to answer that because, you know, having working with them, they have a plan. They they have full understanding of the expectations. But, yes, using Encircle has been great. It’s very helpful. I think the way you put it where if they can lean on a consistent process, then they don’t really need to spend a lot of time thinking. It’s not necessarily doing it quicker or faster. It’s doing it right so you don’t have to redo it. And efficiently the first time. Efficiently the first time. It we’re not circling back like we used to when everything had to be handwritten and duplicate. And, you know, you’d have a a yellow copy, a blue copy, a pink copy, and a green copy, you know, and the the papers would get shuffled and would get lost. We have so many resources now, and the the training with the team here is incredible. And, like I said, they have a clear expectation of what’s expected. The, you know, the one lead going around checking with the team, ensuring that things are being done in in an orderly and a timely fashion, and the updates that the PMs get is is is perfect. Lynn, thank you so much for taking the time to answer all these questions that Yay. I had, folks had. I think they they definitely learned a lot. Are there any final pieces of advice or anything that you wanted to kinda just quickly chat about that you didn’t get a chance to, or just make sure you have that? I think I think it’s really important to keep reviewing contents every day and and promoting them, with every claim, keeping the the adjusters informed because contents change on a daily basis. And engaging your your content team for their opinion and just to say, hey. Here’s my thought. But, however, their suggestion may may make it easier too. So, you know, working together is is just a really positive thing when it comes to contents. And, you know, doing things like this more and more, it makes more people understand. Again, hate to repeat myself why we do what we do. Thank you so much, Lynn. Really appreciate having you, and thank you for taking the time to share all that expertise and information. Thank you. It was nice seeing you again. Yeah. Definitely. We’re seeing more of each other. Alright. For sure. Thank you. Take care. Amazing. And I think bringing us home, we have our last speaker. This is someone that definitely does not need an introduction, but, Barb Jackson, Consultant and Instructor at TotalContentz. Barb is the President of TotalContentz, a nationally recognized consultant, speaker, and instructor specializing in contents restoration. With more than 35 years of industry experience, Barb has helped restore companies improve contents workflows, design efficient processing facilities, and build more profitable contents divisions. A certified restorer through the restoration industry association and the eleventh woman to earn the designation, she is a respected educator, speaker, and published industry expert dedicated to helping restoration professionals build more efficient and profitable contents division. Barb’s been training contents contractors for a long time, and she’s really got a practical framework for this, which she calls the emotional bank account. She’ll walk through what this means and why you need it when something goes wrong and how to have those hard conversations. So, Barb, thank you so much for the time. It’s it’s all yours. Sure. Thanks, Kash. Thanks for having me today. This topic is near and dear to my heart because, 30 some years ago when I started doing packouts, the homeowner was kinda, like, a side thought. It was all about the job and more about the reconstruction and less about the contents. They were just some things that were in the way. So I think now we really understand the value of considering the homeowner and what they’re dealing with. So in order to avoid needing to have hard difficult conversations with them, I think if we can build the relationship on day one and nurture it, that that’s really gonna help us so that when there is something that comes up that we can overcome it, it doesn’t turn into an issue. So, you know, regardless of the size or the type of disaster that they’re dealing with, it’s an unexpected disruption in their life. Their home is their safe place, and here we are. We’re coming in strangers. And maybe day one, we’re invited strangers. They’re happy to have us. They embrace us, but then we’re there for a few weeks or a few months, and they really want to get their life back, and they want us out of their property. Right? So there’s so many things that are going on, at the beginning of the job. And with all of our team, we wanna make sure that they understand this isn’t just a job site. This is someone’s home. It’s their castle. So we need to really treat their home with respect and their contents with respect because we we truly are guests. Next slide, please. So if we think about a bank account, you know, we make deposits and withdrawals. So as we get to know the insured, the homeowner, we really wanna start building that bank account and making deposits. And that’s I have an empathy, having open and good communication. It looks like the with the previous speakers, there’s been a lot of discussion about establishing a relationship and good communication throughout the whole life of the job. We wanna show them our professionalism and care. So something’s probably bound to go wrong on a a big job. So now we wanna make sure that we’ve built put money or put deposits into that emotional bank account so that it can they can absorb it. Next slide, please. So let’s just take a quick look at our team. We have, you know, different positions and roles of all of our players. And the next slide. So let’s break it down. We wanna talk about managing that relationship with the insured. So usually, the contents manager is gonna be the first one to meet with the homeowner or their family members, and we wanna ask a lot of questions. Things like what’s important to you? What are some sentimental items? And we’re also gathering information from what the adjuster expects and, you know, information from maybe the the PM that we’re working under in our own company. And then when the contents manager hands that job over to the field supervisor, They’re the liaison now between the contents manager and the homeowner. Now a lead tech, that’s someone who if the field supervisor gets pulled away and maybe they’re having a one on one conversation with the technician and they’re just not available, then the lead tech is the one who is directing things. The homeowner might come to them and ask them questions. So the important thing is that the questions always are fed back to the on-site field supervisor. If they don’t really have an answer, then they’re reaching out to the contents manager. Now the technician, their role is to greet the homeowner, pet the dog, say hi to the kids, be courteous throughout the length of the job, and assist when it’s appropriate. So and that might look like something like maybe helping the insured carry something out to their car, but we never want the technician to have to answer technical questions. So in in our company, I always taught that everybody is a customer service rep. Doesn’t matter what position you’re in, everyone can smile, look the homeowner in the eye, be friendly, be kind because the insureds are not really gonna understand, like, what our job looks like, what we should be doing, or how we should be doing it. But I can say from experience that through a trauma, even though, like, you are traumatized by events, kindness still gets through to you, and that’s remembered. I did a job once in Huntington Beach, California. It was close to the beach. It was high humidity. Part of the roof was gone. They had a lot of artwork and antiques. And I spoke with the insured, and she asked me specifically to protect this huge round wooden antique table. So it would we couldn’t get it out of the house because we couldn’t get a truck in the area yet. And so we covered it, and we told everybody, you’re gonna have to walk around this table, you know, slowly, carefully. But, you know, at the end of the job, she thanked me that we took such good care of that table. So you never know what’s gonna be important to each insured, and that’s the importance of, like, getting to know them and letting them approach us. We wanna ask them questions and have that open communication. Next slide, please. So we wanna make deposits into their emotional bank account, and there’s so many different ways we can do it. Arriving on time, calling ahead if we’re gonna be running late, introduce ourselves and our team. And one of the things that I’ve always done with my crew members is not only did I have their logo on their shirt, I had their name. Because it’s really intimidating to have strangers in your home and, you know, you’re talking to maybe a lead tech or a field supervisor, and you get on the phone with the contents manager and say, I was just speaking to don’t know their name. They have blonde hair, blah blah blah. So just by having our names on our shirts can really reduce the level of stress for them. Showing empathy. You know, there’s times where they might pull us aside. They’re crying on our shoulder. They’re talking to us. I’m like, come on. I gotta get back to work. You know? But that time is precious, and they remember. You know? So that can be a a nice deposit. We wanna explain what’s gonna happen next, manage their expectations. We don’t wanna overpromise, but if we can overdeliver, that would be great. So I don’t like to act like we’re the miracle workers coming in. They they experienced the peril, and we’re there to mitigate it and to make things easier for them, but we we can’t always fix everything. There are going to be total lost items. So we wanna always say, you know, we will attempt to clean. We’ll we’ll do the best we can. We’ll keep you informed on the progress of the item. Excuse me. And then we wanna protect their house itself from further damage, so putting down floor mats, at the entrance is great. One thing I make sure I do when I’m doing a walk through as the contents manager with the insured, I’ll say, may I enter this room? May I open the door? May I open this cabinet? May I open this drawer? I’m looking to see where how you know, where the soot traveled, and I just need to test. So I’m explaining things as I go, but I’m always asking permission before I open up a drawer or door cabinet. And I do it every time until they say, Barb, Barb, don’t have to keep asking. It’s okay. You can open and look at whatever you need to. That permission is priceless. So we we want them to feel like they’re still in control. Anytime that we can give them options, we can start packing out your dining room tomorrow morning, or if you prefer, we can do the kitchen. What’s your family schedule looking like? You know, how can we help? We don’t wanna interrupt asking questions like, where’s the best place to park? We don’t wanna get your neighbors upset, you know, so we wanna be careful, like, where we position things. And you might wanna let the neighbors know that we’re gonna be making noise. Those kind of things really help out. Remembering the family’s names, their pet’s name, and then I like to find out the name, what they call each room. So the room off the off of the living room. Is it a family room? Is it the den? Is it the study? And I wanna use those room names in my estimate, on my boxes, inventory, everywhere. So there’s consistency, and it’s familiar to them so that when the boxes come back for the pack in, it it’s not the yellow bedroom that now got painted blue. So we wanna make it personal. Okay. Next slide, please. And we wanna avoid creating the deficits, those withdrawals. So that’s showing up late, messing up their schedule, not calling them back, not keeping them informed. How about showing up like we’re in a mood ourselves? We need to leave our problems at the door because, you know, they’re dealing with their own. We wanna, be careful not to turn around in the neighbor’s driveways, and no smoking on the property. The next slide, please. Okay. This top photo is the real deal here. If you’ve heard of Lladro, l a d r o. It’s a collectible and they they used to sell them in jewelry stores, so they’re kinda high end. This piece, if you go on to the website replacements dot com, it is valued at $650. So a technician broke off Moses’ finger. Moses was pointing up at the sky. So as you can see in the photograph, his his pointer finger is gone. Well, they attempted to glue it back on and didn’t tell anybody. They returned it to the client, and the client noticed it right away and was very irate. You know, how dare you try to repair something without letting me know? So if you were to look on, Google now, this is where I got this particular photograph of Moses without his finger, and it’s now for sale for, like, $60. So the value just went down so far. And there’s ways that we can get things repaired, so there’s a proper way of handling a situation like this. The other photograph, this was actually I was writing an estimate for a company, and this was in their photographs that they were gonna send off to the carrier. So I I suggested that they delete this one, but they were tossing the contents. So this was at their shop. So, hopefully, they’re not doing this at the job site, tossing things around in the trucks. But imagine if a homeowner would see this. Right? You could say, well, it’s packed really well. Barb taught me how to pack. But it’s like we need to always be on alert that we’re always being watched, and, you know, it can make a huge difference the way that we handle things. So, also, something that is inappropriate in a home is for us to be talking loud, like, horseplay, laughing. These people’s lives are torn upside down, and for us to come in and we’re having fun, it’s just inappropriate. Next slide, please. So one way that we can manage expectations, with the example of breakage, you know, thing accidents happen, but if we can manage the expectation, like, this is a form that I have in my job planning system, which it has dozens of forms for the job start up process, and I use the same process every time. So this is, we go over these points with the insured one by one, and they can initial as, you know, as we talk to them about it, they acknowledge that, you know, we discussed it, and then they actually sign the entire form. So we wanna have the paper trail too, which is important. But this one, it says, if we were responsible for damaging an item, we reserve the right at our discretion to repair, replace, or reimburse you for the item based on fair market pricing. So I’ve been in the industry so long. I’ve seen contractors being held hostage for their check over what the homeowner claims, you know, to be something that was broken or, lost from their belongings. So if we set this expectation from day one that they don’t get to tell us, you know, an exorbitant amount, of what the the item was valued at, There’s so many resources now to determine the true value, and there’s also the option of a repair. So I did break an antique item on a a pack out in Santa Barbara. It was a high end home. I broke a piece, and I looked around. I found a repair. It was a man who worked out of his home. He was an expert, and he did a museum quality repair on the item for $100. And he said that it didn’t affect the value of the item. So just knowing that there’s options. And then websites like replacements dot com, eBay, we can find duplicates that’s gonna actually be much cheaper than even us trying to repair it ourselves. Next slide, please. So this is my damage breakage form that we use internally when we we break something. We noted, how it was broken, who broke it, and how we resolved the issue. It was either repaired, replaced, or reimbursed. So this has been a great tool as well, And so this isn’t a surprise to the homeowner. Like, if we do break something and they think they’re just gonna eat cash, it’s like, no. Remember, you signed, you know, when we first met with you that this is our policy. And so then it’s not so much of a disappointment, and there’s parameters now for us too that protect us. Next slide, please. So I worked a job in Chatsworth, California. It was very memorable. The home had $250,000 worth of contents in it, collectibles, antiques. They had some antiquities. And so we we want to view every single item. They have thousands of items, all different sizes, values, whatever. So this is one particular item, and, you know, you can research it. I love Google Lens. You know, we can find out values of things. So we don’t wanna take it for granted. Oh, they got so much stuff or, you know, we never wanna use the j word, you know, junk. These are their personal belongings that are very valuable to them. Next slide, please. So the backstory on this one, this is just one snippet view of their collections. The homeowner had been traumatized by a moving company who got called in by the adjuster to do the pack out after water damage. So the moving company was packing wet contents, and they the homeowner knew, like, that doesn’t seem right. So they also saw the moving company mishandling their contents, and so they stopped. They called called the adjuster, said we don’t want them in our house anymore. So my client got called, and we we met with the homeowner and the homeowner’s contractor. The contractor wanted the pack out to be done in in two weeks. I asked my client how many technicians do we have to work with. He said seven. And so looking at the scope of the job, I said, you know, there’s no way we can do this in less than three weeks. I need three weeks to do it. Otherwise, I’m not gonna be involved in it. So we did get, we were able to do it. We got the three weeks and day one. So the homeowner is, like, really traumatized from this other company. Now we’re strangers, a new set of strangers coming in, and we’re coming in specifically to deal with all the high end pieces. So day one, I set up my packing station. It’s on a ceramic tile floor, And that little piece that was behind on the previous slide, the lady who was working with me who I’d never met before, who her main language was Spanish, and I only know a little bit of Spanish. We were working together, and just as the homeowner came around the corner, she saw my technician hold a piece of bubble wrap against her belly, and she rolled that little piece of artwork. And she was away from the table, and the homeowner freaked out. And it’s like, you know, she, like, kinda scared us. We didn’t see her coming, and she was so upset with what she saw. So I had to just, like, stop the operation. I took her aside. I apologized to her. I said, I understand why you’re so nervous, and I’m sorry of everything that’s happened to you. I said, you know what? You know, we should be working over top of the table. I said, I’m going to take some time, and I’m gonna give more instructions to everybody. And, you know, like, some of these pieces are kinda tricky. They’re shaped odd. Could you maybe show us, like, how you’d like them wrapped? And so then she had antiquities. If you look in this photograph, there’s a penguin cookie jar on the bottom, and behind it are two vases from a church in Europe that’s from the fifteenth century. So these were antiquities priceless. So we took those type of items to our kitchen, set them aside separately, and then I had specialized boxes made for those. So we had a good outcome. She loved us, and every other day, she would provide us with lunch, and then I would take her lunch every other day. And pretty much every day, we had lunch out on her patio, and we got along really well. I was only involved in the pack out, and my client, they did the storage, the cleaning, the pack back, and I touched base with everybody after the job was finished and nothing got broken. So the homeowner and I, we stayed in touch for a couple of years after that. I would call her if I had questions about a collection or ceramics or collectible. So it turned out really well. So even though we started off on the wrong foot, we were able to rescue the situation. Next slide, please. So just remember, like, every single touch point or interaction that any of our crew has with the insured is priceless. It’s an opportunity. It’s a moment of truth to make a good impression. And we want the insureds to be able to get on with their life. They had this disaster. They can’t live in their home. They don’t have access to their contents. They don’t need to be hanging around at the house watching us do the pack out. They’ve got more important things to take care of. So if we can build their trust until that point where they say, Barb, you can look at any drawer, any cabinet that you need to. That’s what’s going to, you know, let them get on with their life throughout the rest of the project that we’re dealing with them. So, you know, let’s just always be looking for ways to build that trust and make those deposits. Next slide, please. So like I said, I I taught my crew that every one of them was a customer service rep. We all can make a huge difference in someone’s life. Those little kindnesses will shine through even on someone’s worst day. It might be the only kindness they were shown that day. So, you know, we we don’t wanna minimize a smile, you know, looking someone in in the eye or maybe bringing cookies to them or something. Always looking for those opportunities. Next slide, please. Okay. So I I showed you my damage breakage form. I I’d love to share it with you. And I also have a customer care fund that I had used with my team. And to give you just a quick overview of it, they had a daily allow they had an allowance, I’ll say, that if something went wrong on the job and, like, if they could go out at lunchtime and do something, bring something back for the insured to make it better, they they were empowered to do that. They didn’t have to call me as the contents manager to get an okay on it. I mean, I’d appreciate knowing what they were thinking, but being able to do something in the moment to make a difference is really important. So I’ll I’ll share that with you too. So feel free to email me at barb@totalcontentz.com. And in the subject line, just say customer, “Customer Care Fund,” and I’ll send those three things to you. So thank you so much for your time. I believe we can do some question and answers now. Thank you so much, Barb. I really appreciate you sharing all this information. I I really love the the focus on empathy. I remember when I took one of your trainings, I remember the main takeaway was one of those stories that you told about how you put together these kinda, like, to go bags for the homeowners that had and you wouldn’t really think about it, but it’s, like, toothpaste, toothbrushes, some, like, just hygienic things that you kinda take for granted with apparel that’s happened, but it really it’s such a human human touch. And I think that that’s a thread that goes through all the things you’ve shared. So it’s it’s really true. I think we have a couple questions from folks. I’d I’d love to kind of ask and see if we we get some some feedback. So we have a question from Keely who was wondering, what do you do when you have a tech who is technically very great at the contents of work but just doesn’t really have the people skills? We could maybe look for a webinar or some kind of training event that we could send them to. They may enjoy it. I think, you know, putting them to work with someone who is more outgoing and someone who could point out opportunities, you know, because some people are shy or they come from a different family background, and they’re just not used to that, to having to to interact with people. So, you know, those are a couple suggestions that I would recommend. That makes sense. I think it’s something you kinda work through together, and it maybe is a muscle that they end up building over time. Some people, I feel like, are natural at it, whereas some people, they kinda work at it. But most most people you’re working on working with are good people. You just need to learn the skills around it. Right? So Yep. Makes a lot of sense. We have a question from Josie Rivera who’s wondering, in that initial inspection with the homeowner, could you walk us through what good questions there are to ask and how you manage or set those expectations? Sure. I like to get them talking about their contents. I’ll ask them, like, if I see that they have collections or that they like Disney or, you know, like, certain characters, I’ll ask them about those things and just get them talking about things that they like. And then, I have a form that specifically is for them to identify items that are worth, any whatever threshold you set. Can you tell me if you have anything in this room that’s worth 500 or more, 1,000 or more, you know, high end home and might be everything there? I’m also asking, do you have anything that everyone in the family knows that it’s broken and that it’s just being held together, if you could point that out to me so that I can set it aside. If you have anything of extreme value, like, I might take that myself in my vehicle back to the shop and put it in a locked room. So just like, one thing I’ll do is I’ll say, can you tell me about this piece behind me? And let them say if it’s a oil painting, it’s a collectible, they got it at goodwill. You wanna let them talk about their contents. And I like to say that, I like to ask them while they’re honest. So while they’re traumatized, they’re not thinking about things. You know? But once they start talking to family members and friends and everybody’s like, oh, you know what? You could get more money, blah blah blah. So I like to talk to them as soon as possible and kinda one on one. I think that makes sense. You want them to honestly, it’s maybe unfiltered. You know? You want them to just kind of share share. I think it’s it’s really important because memory is a very odd thing, and so sometimes people might misremember or change things up as well. I think even the way you put it, I really liked where you’re framing it in a way where you’re trying to ask the questions so that you can help them in the best way possible. Maybe they might say, oh, this swan was put together and perfectly fine, but you’re asking those questions to see if it’s kind of fragile because you don’t wanna break it or damage it or you wanna take that extra care. You’re asking these questions for a reason. Right? Another question I ask is do you have anything that’s multiple pieces that we should know how to handle it first so that, you know, if we just take it with one hand, it could fall and break. So that’s one of a good one too. Yeah. No. That’s very true. We had a question from, who was wondering, do you think it’s better for a person to go in first and document all the contents before the crew starts, the pack out and kind of what the process would be for that? Not not so much. Like, I feel like it’s really important for the contents manager to go one on one, meet with the adjuster, the homeowner, walk the job, you know, ask all these important questions of the insured, get familiar with what’s on the property. And then for that information to then, like, have a conversation with the field supervisor who can lead the team. And I guess the the reason that I prefer to have my whole team show up on day one. And when I say whole team, I’m talking to maybe, like, three to five people, and I like everybody to arrive but then have specific roles to play. So for example, if if we have the inventory taker that’s gonna be, creating their Encircle inventory, I like them to get started right away with furniture that has nothing in it or on it. So, like, in a kitchen, I would want them to inventory the the kitchen chairs and leave the labels behind on the item, and I always get ahead of the packers. And then at the same time, we have everybody the rest of the crew, they’re bringing the supplies in. They’re setting up their staging area with all the supplies. They’re making boxes. There’s so much busy work that they can do while the inventory taker is getting ahead of them. And then the inventory takers, it could be one or two people working together, but, you know, the initial goal is to inventory the large pieces in the rooms that they’re working in, and that lets them get ahead of everybody else so that it might take half a day for the team to get the whole job set up. And one of my favorite phrases to share is slow it down to speed it up. If we send in ten people all at once, it’s gonna be overwhelming, and that might be why they’re asking, should we just send one person in to set things up? So I I think it’s, like, two opposite extremes. But if we can have everybody with a a job, then the whole job is, like, progressing. Once the furniture has been labeled, now the runners can come back and start wrapping and packing those items, and the inventory label goes on the outside of the packaging material that can be taken to a holding area or to the truck. And the idea is to clear out that room of the furniture so that you can come back in with your packing table and start packing boxes. So, I have like, we we have our workshop this week here in Pittsburgh, and we just developed a whole new sheet. This is off the cuff, but if you email me, I’ll send you it’s like the the process. Like, the if you have five people on a job site, what they’re each doing, and I’ll give that as a bonus today. Thanks much, Barb. Yeah. That that really does. I think, we have just one last question, and it’s it’s, from Dominique, but it’s it’s a question I think we’ve asked had a couple of questions regarding hoarder situations. And we were just wondering, you know, what’s your process on a home with more of a hoarder situation? It’s very delicate situation, not only for the contents team, but emotionally for the insured. Do you have any advice or or anything to share on that topic? Yeah. I mean, each one is, you know, is so unique. Like, each person is different. I’m really careful not to call them a hoarder, but I’ll say it’s a hoarding situation or high content, job. But if we can there has to be somebody assigned to them, basically, to keep them, you know, busy, keep them calm, explain, like, what’s going on, so that maybe the rest of the crew can keep moving. If it’s a severely, like, a, like, emotional person, I there’s even a gal in the industry who specializes in this. Her first name is Melissa. She got remarried recently, so I’m not sure of her last name, but she’s amazing. You know, she is trained to deal with people with that condition. So if they get if it’s severe enough of a situation, we might need that extra help from an outside consultant. The situations that I’ve worked on, it’s really given that person, a lot of attention. And, know, I hate to say, like, just keeping them occupied so that they’re not so traumatized by everything going on around them. I think yeah. You said it very, very well. Just being present with them because it’s it is traumatizing. And the language you use really affects the way that people see the situation and also see themselves. So I think very, very well put, Barb. And I think we need to have good communication with the adjuster so that they they know what’s happening. So we don’t wanna, like, shock them with our invoice later. But if they can understand how much time it’s taking us and why, it helps. Definitely. Thank you so much, Barb, for for sharing this information and also just taking the time to answer all these questions. It it really is insightful. Every time I hear you speak, I always leave learning something new, and I I love that. So is there any last things you wanted to share or anything, like, closing statements wise you wanted to to share with folks? No. You know, we do have our new contents pro membership site. It it’s kinda like my my legacy project. I wanna be able to share as much information as possible to the industry. So if you’d like to check it out, you know, or if you have any input, if you have questions, things that you need to know, I tell everyone in class to just text me, and I’ll help you out. And if I don’t have the answer, I can reach out to other industry experts that will help. So there’s a lot of help out here for you that wasn’t here 30 years ago, so just take advantage of it. Never hesitate to reach out to us. That’s the thing. I’ll always ask for help. I I folks that work in contents, I find are the friendliest out there, so definitely reach out for help and and communicate with the community. Thank you so much, Barb. Really appreciate you taking the time. My pleasure. And with that, that’s a that’s a wrap on our Encircle Contents Bootcamp. Thank you so much for taking the time and and kind of listening to all this information. And I wanted to really thank our, five speakers, Brad, Ahsan, Demetrius, Lynn, and Barb. They’re the people that are out there doing the work every day, and and they showed up and and gave you a lot of their expertise and insight, and we appreciate it much more than we can say. To end it off here, I just wanted to summarize or or boil down some of the things that we’ve learned today. Contents really has grown up. Expectations from carriers, homeowners, and the industry are higher than they’ve ever been. The craft still matters. Technology makes for good contents work, but it doesn’t make bad contents work good. Trying to figure out a place for the expertise to really shine for the technology is is really, really important. Systems are at scale. Building good systems in order to kind of have your teams lean on a process and do that good work reliably is really, really important. And packouts are really where trust is built or broken. Your crew is your reputation, and that standard has to be held on even on the hard days. So that’s, that’s kind of a lot that we’ve learned, and it’s really, really exciting to hear folks talk about their their real experience. Well, that’s it for today. Thank you all so much for joining us, and we hope you learned a lot. Thank you very much.