BLDR Corp - Current
rebecca: Hey, Chris, can you hear me? Okay. All right. Can you hear me through the AirPods?
Chris LaFay: So I do this thing when I'm the only one on the meeting where I hop in early, I mute myself so I don't get distracted because like, you have to work on something and you just kind of lose track of time. So I hop on, I mute myself, and sometimes you just forget about technology. So such is life.
rebecca: Okay, so how do I sound to you?
Chris LaFay: You sound great. You work good.
rebecca: Perfect. Awesome. Okay.
Chris LaFay: It's a pleasure to actually see your face.
rebecca: Right.
Chris LaFay: I think this is the, the first time in probably like three years that I met somebody new who I've just never met before, only chatted with them on the phone and then started a project with. Without actually like seeing their face. I'm like, it's kind of like we're transported back to the 90s here for a little while.
rebecca: That's right. Well, referral. Referral goes a long way, so.
Chris LaFay: Exactly. Yes. I. It's how I've survived for 20 years, so I will take it. So today's docket is the structure of today is going to be relatively simple. I have taken the style guide that you saw in that loom video. I have made some general stylistic tweaks to that that I feel like are just more in line with just like.
rebecca: The brand aesthetic, which I appreciate. So, you know, like, I'm coming from a place that I really do like to lean on designers credibility, background and experience. So I have, you know, no qualms with that as we go through this process.
Chris LaFay: Awesome. That's fantastic. And so all the building blocks that you're going to see on these pages are all the same. They just have tweaks done to them to where I think makes sense. The other thing that you're going to see, which is something like, because of the, the speed of this, that's going to be very much different than normal is we're about to look at like a seven page website that has dummy content and like not dummy content, but like it's AI generated content, but it's pulling from the EMJ website the context and ideas of the competitor sites as well too, from like a structure standpoint and just piece in. And so you're going to see kind of a fully fleshed out site. And we haven't really actually talked about like messaging structure and things like that. So. Okay, I, I preface all of that with what you're gonna see. I'm not expecting this to be like at 90, like that's not the goal.
rebecca: Sure.
Chris LaFay: Even the layout, like, the block organization. I'm not really, like, I'm not 100. Like, this is not my. Like, here's everything I think it should be. I'm using this as almost like typically we go through like a wireframe round, but we're skipping that. So view pretty much. Yeah, so, like, view this more as like the wireframe. Like, we. You'll see all these blocks utilized. We can take blocks from page one and move them to page two. This is the, like, ground level starting point from a content perspective.
rebecca: No, I understand. And that's a good place to start because being so visual, it's. It's a great place to start. I'll know what I absolutely think is not going to work for us based on what I know in my head. I plan on dropping in those boxes. So if it's gonna be a lot of content, I'm with you. I get it. Yeah, I think. Fair enough. I built enough of these on my side at least. And you built obviously enough of these that I think we're at a good point. So.
Chris LaFay: Awesome. So I basically put the appropriate level. I'm not gonna say the minimum level of effort, but the appropriate level of effort to get your wheels turning and not lock solid. So that plan is to go over all of this today, have all the different layouts done. We're going to talk through kind of tweaks and adjustments because I know you have ideas and concepts in your head. So this is the time to be like, okay, this is actually how I think this should go. And then we'll move.
rebecca: And I took notes on here, so when I'm looking at my phone, I'm looking for my notes to compare to kind of the things I said, things I wrote, and then the things I've later thought. So I'll be kind of double checking my stuff here.
Chris LaFay: Perfect. And I'm going to go ahead and record this because this is going to be heavy on the screen sharing side of things. We will more than likely say smart stuff that we will want to have access to later. That is the plan, at least. So, okay, here, let's go ahead and dive in right now. All right, so this is going to be the homepage. This is my starting point for the homepage layout. We have large hero section. I embedded the video that had most of like, the drone. The one that had most of, like, drone type of shots in it. I went ahead and picked a script font just for kicks and giggles, one that didn't look too childish, one that didn't look too fancy. I tried to thread the needle there.
rebecca: Okay.
Chris LaFay: This is kind of where that hero text would go with a CTA kind of showcasing some icon pods here of whatever. I don't think pre construction construction, project manager are the right things here. I think we probably want to focus more on types of clients here. But I didn't really know exactly how you wanted to thread that. But the idea of actually putting something here that might have some small calls to action at the bottom I think would be good. Showcasing a little bit of a divider here using kind of an aspect of the logo. And then we just have our standard kind of flip flop column. So whatever we feel like is important from a services perspective to showcase. This is kind of where we flip flop these. I didn't know what I would want to put here, so I didn't even put in title sections on these. And then we have kind of at the bottom of most of our pages you're going to see these two blocks kind of in repetition. One is the kind of the gallery view of linking to the different project portfolio pages with images on them. And then at the very bottom we'll have like a thin call to action strip that allows you to start a project. And these two you're going to see at the bottom of a lot of pages. Just because I feel like it's a good way to end most pages with, excuse me, something visual. Get them to the portfolio and get them to a call to action as well if they get down that far. So that is page number one of the general layout. Tell me what your thoughts are here.
rebecca: Go back to the top.
Chris LaFay: Yes.
rebecca: Okay. So love text built. Love the whole very top services because it is more simplistic, which was my goal to make those. I think that, yeah, the video running is nice. I'm not sure that I love it centered versus right aligned or left aligned,.
Chris LaFay: Meaning this section here. These sections here. Okay.
rebecca: Yeah. And I think the reason why is. I think because I'm seeing this big giant white box which I know is trying to grab me. I don't. I might like it better, I guess if there's maybe some transparency behind that a little bit. Maybe it's just too big and blocky and white for me.
Chris LaFay: What if we did this and I'm going to show you a different. A different block. Give me one second. Now, this is not. This doesn't have Texas stuff inside of it, but what if we went for something like this to where the image, the video was a little bit more full Blown. And then the text was over here on the side.
rebecca: Still don't love it.
Chris LaFay: Okay, go back over here.
rebecca: Probably prefer this over that, actually seeing that.
Chris LaFay: Okay. So one of the reasons white block,.
rebecca: I guess, is my problem. Maybe block color is different. I don't know.
Chris LaFay: One of the reasons I like having this is just like a core user experience thing. The reason I like having text in a box when there's video is. Is primary primarily for legibility. So large text like this is simple because you have large white with that black drop shadow. So even when the video goes to, like, light to dark scenes, it's still legible. But paragraph text like this, when you go from light to dark scenes in the video, that becomes. It becomes a lot harder to read. And that's my core problem because I want that text to be very much legible no matter what.
rebecca: Yeah. And for me, like, whatever we put there isn't, like, must have information. So for me, it's such a it. This page is about the feel, the aesthetics of who we are. Like, I want them to land here and go, okay, I don't know that I need anything in that box that's important to them. I mean, right? No, I think that's better. Okay. I almost feel like there's nothing in that box. I need to tell them. Okay.
Chris LaFay: Now from a. My. Let me actually back up a step. Let's go. Actually, let's kind of go back to like, core discovery meeting conversation.
rebecca: Yeah.
Chris LaFay: The type of the. The person that is going to this website.
rebecca: Yep.
Chris LaFay: Are they already bought into using you and they're just confirming that you exist and that you're real?
rebecca: 70.
Chris LaFay: 30 Leaning towards yes, that's the case.
rebecca: 70 Will have been familiar with us, worked with us on a site and looking for more information. 30 Might have never found us before. This is their first introduction to. To us. They stayed like, oh, they're doing all the hebs. Who are they? Like, so they already have a.
Chris LaFay: Got it.
rebecca: Nobody's gonna be blindly finding me. Let me say that for sure.
Chris LaFay: Okay. So in that case, I'm fine with it. Most of the time when I. I'm a. My default with hero sections, especially on homepage, is for the actual header to both describe the problem and the solution. So built Texas stuff actually does not check that box for me because I. When people arrive here, I want them the first thing that they see, which is normally the header one tag right there. I want them to know what you do and how you solve that problem. And. And then that paragraph that goes underneath it as the ability to use like two or three sentences to really more kind of round out that statement with a call to action to like get a quote, get in touch, etc. But I also understand relation based work. That's literally all I do. And that's why I actually built my site the way that I did, because 70% of the people going to my site have an idea of who I am. So. So I'll make a note of that. On the, on this style of hero section, we will drop the box and center, center, align the. The title here.
rebecca: So, and then one. One thought. One thought would be to your point, if we had, let's say, built Texas tough. What if we had just a one liner description, not in a box, but underneath it, like almost like a sub, mini, one line introduction.
Chris LaFay: So it'll kind of be. It'll be. It'll basically.
rebecca: Like that. Yeah, like that. Okay. I would, I would probably rather that than. Because again, I don't need to tell a story in here. They need a story. They need to dig into about us and get into the other stuff because they're really blindly not familiar.
Chris LaFay: Okay, that sounds good.
rebecca: Okay. Okay, great.
Chris LaFay: So before. So what I want to make sure. What I would like to accomplish today is I would like to go through each of these pages in general and see if there is enough that's correct here. So that you can start writing content today. So.
rebecca: And do you want to know about fonts? Do you want to know about colors? Do you want to know.
Chris LaFay: Yes. So let's actually, let's think about how we want to bucket this up. Let's save colors and fonts to the very end of the conversation because I think we can accomplish that in about two minutes. In terms of the layout of the rest of the homepage, do you have the blocks that you need here to tell the story that you want to tell on the homepage?
rebecca: I love that bottom in orange, by the way.
Chris LaFay: All right. And that's. I'm there.
rebecca: We'll have a project in mind. I really like that. Yeah, it's a great call to action,.
Chris LaFay: Which I'm trying to. My goal here is to use the orange color as minimally as possible so that whenever you see orange, like action.
rebecca: Items, I'm noticing you're doing action items in origin. I like that.
Chris LaFay: Bingo. And I, I do use it for little accents here and there, but in reality.
rebecca: Yeah.
Chris LaFay: My preference is that like the little accents and stuff would actually be an alternate color so that the orange is always the button color.
rebecca: Yep. Nope. Yep. Like that. But I think that from a content standpoint. Let me go to this first top pre construction. Construction. Let me just sit on this for a second. Yeah.
Chris LaFay: And by the way, we have a million icons.
rebecca: Okay.
Chris LaFay: The library that we have has probably think maybe 2000 different ones.
rebecca: So yeah, these are fine. I'm not that picky on those. So these are not link boxes what I'm seeing. These are just gonna be static boxes of short information burst.
Chris LaFay: I would recommend that these do have the ability to add a button, but I would recommend kind of keeping these as like a mental checklist section.
rebecca: Right.
Chris LaFay: I like to use the second section right after the hero typically for like, do they do the things I expect them to? It's almost like the easy wins of like they can kind of glance at it and be like, oh, okay, cool. They said all the right things, I can move on sort of thing.
rebecca: Yeah. Yeah, I feel like they do. I. I think that that works.
Chris LaFay: And then this is where you drive. Start driving people to different pages on the site. So these are more like the. The problem solution sections, if you will.
rebecca: Right.
Chris LaFay: I'm not going to scroll here. I'm just going to stay here. It's all the same.
rebecca: Yeah, you're good. Yeah, I'm just kind of comparing with my notes here.
Chris LaFay: Excuse me.
rebecca: You're like, Yeah, I think we got this. I think this would be fine. I think that would do. I think I have in mind what I would place there.
Chris LaFay: Awesome. And then these are the project buckets. I did not include other in this because it's 10 total buckets and 10,.
rebecca: If I understand you, those are just the buttons to take me to more grocery, more medical. Okay.
Chris LaFay: Those link off to the portfolio pages with like that gallery where if you click an image, it zooms in and it shows the text. Yeah, these. These all link to those. You have teasers. Yes.
rebecca: Okay.
Chris LaFay: You have other in there. But 10 is so hard to arrange because you doing five columns is way too small. Three columns leaves one at the end. And I was like, I'm just going to cut off other because it doesn't really matter.
rebecca: Yeah, right, right. Yeah. Okay. And then I might reorganize these because like at the end of the day, I don't have much from government or senior living, so those would want to be on the bottom. I don't have much from entertainment, but these are areas we want to go to. So I'd probably stack higher the ones we actually do but. Or we alphabetize. I guess you know that too.
Chris LaFay: And this block is actually shared. So an update on one of them will then update it across all of them.
rebecca: Sweet.
Chris LaFay: Okay, so, okay, that all looks. From what I'm hearing, that all sounds good.
rebecca: It does. I mean I'm finding the places that I love it and I really like, like, I don't want news and I don't want the happening stuff that I see a lot of them at all on us. I, I want just really, this is us. This is what we do. If you're looking for something else that's somewhere else, like. Yeah, okay, I think, I think that's good. Yeah, that's a very strong start. The strong start. I like it. Yeah.
Chris LaFay: So the rest of you're going to see a lot of similarities in these inside pages. That is somewhat intentional because consistency helps people kind of glance through things and read through things faster. On the other hand, it's not super like it doesn't matter at the end of the day. So pretty much every inside page is going to have this type of header section, hero section image on the left, some basic content on the right hand side. It might be flipped around on some pages, but this is the, the standard. Oops. Then we have a little bit of a blurb of what the page is going to be about in general. We have our icon pods for the purpose, mission and value. Kind of pulled a concept from. It wasn't the EMJ site, it was a blue site. I don't remember what it was called.
rebecca: At the moment, but remind me, where did you get this page from? This was the company page.
Chris LaFay: No, this. All the content. So all the content that you're going to see here, the foundation of it was you're coming from emj. So that is more factual. But then I also use styles and structures from the sample sites that you listed in your Word document. So all the content here is AI generated. Because I knew you were going to write all of it anyway.
rebecca: No, I wouldn't say content. I was asking where did this page come from? The homepage. You click something and got.
Chris LaFay: Oh, I'm sorry, underneath Company and who we are.
rebecca: That's what. Okay, that's it. I missed the who we are. Okay.
Chris LaFay: No, no problem. Sorry about that. So we have purpose, mission and values. And I pulled the layout from one of the. The sample site that you had that kind of had that three column layout there.
rebecca: Like it?
Chris LaFay: I like the idea of using the accent font kind of with like almost like kind of section dividers if you will.
rebecca: Really like that, huh?
Chris LaFay: Fantastic. Another little section. If we Wanted to talk a little bit about culture. Something along those lines. Some various stat pods and then again.
rebecca: And maybe this is where I would see that. There you go. I'm wondering if we shouldn't color it.
Chris LaFay: Yeah, we can. Pretty much anything can be colored. I'm not going to say 100% of everything, but most everything can be colored.
rebecca: Or I mean like even a back band, maybe it's a. You know, I want it to stand out a little bit. So however we do that. But I like that. I think that's. I definitely wanted that in there. So that's a good spot. Perfect.
Chris LaFay: Awesome. And then we have the same bottom two blocks here as we have on the other sites as the other pages as well. Is there enough here for you to.
rebecca: Sink your teeth into purpose, mission values? Absolutely.
Chris LaFay: Fantastic. We'll move on then. Leadership. This is a simple page. This is going to quite literally just be kind of headshots and simple bios. Now I. I'm also wouldn't mind if we actually nix the leadership page and actually put it on like the who we are and made one of these pages a little bit longer. I don't know what your leadership wants to do with that, but this is a very short page. Doesn't necessarily have to stand on its own. So.
rebecca: Okay, I'll think about that. I'll think through that. It's a possibility.
Chris LaFay: And that doesn't. That doesn't matter. You could. It doesn't matter today. Just whenever you do your content.
rebecca: I mean I will say it. Our business is a people business. They hire us because they know these people. So it probably is going to need that leadership just to really stand out or to be higher up. So that's one thing is it's very important who are the people beyond the projects for what we do. So makes sense now I might get rid of culture and community and just throw that somewhere.
Chris LaFay: Yeah, totally. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
rebecca: One.
Chris LaFay: And this was when we were talking initially on the phone. Phone. I think that initial 30 minute call that we had while I was sick. This is what I was trying to get like. I feel like there's consolidation potential here that you don't necessarily need all these pages. I did consolidate the subcontractors into one page that I went ahead and did.
rebecca: Okay.
Chris LaFay: And so we have culture.
rebecca: Yeah.
Chris LaFay: Here.
rebecca: Yep.
Chris LaFay: Similar blocks. Another icon section here for what serves every project. Some stats.
rebecca: Yeah.
Chris LaFay: Another little thin strip. Toss on a different view of photograph. These don't click or anything. These are more. This is more just like texture photos gallery.
rebecca: Nice. I Like the movement. Nice.
Chris LaFay: Yes, exactly. And it kind of pauses and zooms in a little bit when you hover over them as well too. So that's nice. And then of course we got our call to action there at the bottom. And then employee owned, some again, similar structures here. I wasn't a fan of kind of having the exact same block back to back, but I also did like the juxtaposition of. Because I, I, I, I've been a part of companies that are employee owned and I love that. And I, I like the juxtaposition of showing like this is what it means for you and this is what it means for them and why this all comes together. I like that. But I don't know if I like the execution of it, but I kept it in here because I didn't know of any other way to do it succinctly, so.
rebecca: And I think maybe what, the only thing I missed in what you're saying out of this is I think we probably need to do a word play on the why this matters for your projects. Why this matters if you work here. So you and your something to differentiate because they kind of bled together because the familiarity. So I think if we can draw out or increase, maybe it's the you and the your that we're calling these or you know, the word matters. I think just that will solve the issue because I do like it and I do want them because that is a place that we come from. So.
Chris LaFay: Exactly. I like that idea.
rebecca: Okay.
Chris LaFay: Yep. Again, another simple little call out there.
rebecca: Yep.
Chris LaFay: Project in mind. Bada bing, bada boom. Go to services.
rebecca: I want to look at this one on the other three phases.
Chris LaFay: One, we've got to talk about the different phases of project. And here's a, here's a different view of that two column block. So we see in a lot of these over here that we're using kind of this general structure for two column layouts. We have this other alternative view where the image is a bit bigger and we have this like pod on the side.
rebecca: And so I like that pod on the side on this.
Chris LaFay: I do too. And so for this one I went ahead and used that for kind of that alternating back and forth. And so we have these and then on mobile they just all stack. The image goes on top, the pod goes on bottom.
rebecca: Okay.
Chris LaFay: And so we have our various different phases there. I would not be, I would not be sad if you wanted to add a one of the outlined call to actions at the bottom of each of these. I'm a Big fan of every section having a call to action.
rebecca: Yeah.
Chris LaFay: And these are good details here for that. And then we have our projects in our cta. Do you have enough there to work with for the services page?
rebecca: Well, let me look at one other competitor real quick and see.
Chris LaFay: And also something that I was thinking about as well. Like I know on this page the way that I have it laid out, the icons at the top are the phases of pre construction construction project. Not phases, but construction of that idea. These larger kind of blown out sections can talk about more about like the actual services that you guys do in more detail. So this could be your almost like your process section of like step one, two and three. And then these are like how you actually solve problems for people.
rebecca: Yeah, we could combine and figure out how to tell that story earlier.
Chris LaFay: Exactly.
rebecca: Okay. Yeah, no, I. I guess that I'm just going to look at EMJ one more time too.
Chris LaFay: Excuse me.
rebecca: Yeah, no, this is good. This just does it so much better.
Chris LaFay: Fantastic. Love it. And head over to careers. So some reasons why what it's like to work here. And then these are the. We were talking about like the different like types of people. Like you had like four or five different. What we were going to have is subpages originally. This is where those subpages kind of aggregate into like you know, start students and entry level experienced professionals, laborers and skilled trade, etc. This is where you kind of define what each of those segments look like. And so all of these links can link out to the same hr, external portal. That's perfectly fine. And then you have over here your subcontractors where you actually have like that long winded form to actually.
rebecca: You're really hungry. You're gonna fill this out.
Chris LaFay: Exactly. Yeah. So these are for your full timers or even part time.
rebecca: Go the very top again. Yeah. Okay. I don't love that.
Chris LaFay: The content or the layout.
rebecca: Just the landing page when you click there. Right there.
Chris LaFay: Okay.
rebecca: I'm thinking maybe what. What's right below it. Maybe I just need. Maybe I just need that swapped that up top so it hits them first so that people who choose to build.
Chris LaFay: It do we just want to put. I want to literally just put this text. We want to drop, drop this. I'm sorry, let me rephrase. Migrate the content of this into this section.
rebecca: No, I feel like, Like I want that centered up top.
Chris LaFay: Sounds good. Let me go ahead.
rebecca: I feel such a good introduction. I want that to be what they hit on first and then drop their eyes down to whatever image And. Or yeah, and even if the image is a little smaller or we place it behind it, or, you know, like maybe it's not.
Chris LaFay: Sorry. I'm sorry, I did not mean to interrupt you. Go ahead.
rebecca: You're feeding off of what I'm saying that you're good. Keep going.
Chris LaFay: Hold on one second. I'm gonna do. Give me one moment.
rebecca: Like, the picture falls back super transparent. It's not like I need a certain huge standout image here. This is going to end up just being some, you know, stock photography image probably.
Chris LaFay: What if we did something like this? Hold on. I'm going to delete this. This is not final by any stretch of the imagination. But I do like the idea of having some type of image of people together up top of the careers page. What have we done?
rebecca: And I am getting team photos done. Those guys together, and they're individual, so I can set it for this. Whatever we. I like that, you know, like that just to me.
Chris LaFay: And so if you can make that to where it's a fair. A good, like thin horizontal image, that would be better.
rebecca: So, like, you know what, if you have any people pictures that you know exact the size you want, I will tell a photographer.
Chris LaFay: Fantastic.
rebecca: You just send over to me what that looks like and say, you know what? We decide on this. So you need to get your team photo. Yeah, awesome.
Chris LaFay: Okay, that sounds good. Because I think we do this right here and have a. A thin photo that's probably about half the height. Half the height of this. So it would cut off about like.
rebecca: Right.
Chris LaFay: You see my mouse? Yeah, you can see my mouse about right there, give or take. So that way you can see almost everything on top of the desktop. And then you get into this.
rebecca: That. Yep, that's. That's what I like. So I think that is a better hit.
Chris LaFay: And then you have all the different blocks here for all those different subsets of employees that you would hire on. So you can then put content in here for those.
rebecca: And then now do we need to maintain that many? How many do we have here?
Chris LaFay: Let's hear you have. Basically what I did was I took your. Let me pull up your document. Excuse me.
rebecca: I don't love. I don't love the back and forth. If you're looking for a company and a job, like, I don't know, I want them doing that.
Chris LaFay: Basically I put one in there for careers students, entry level, experienced professionals, and then military professionals. So like a pod for each of them so that you could talk specifically to those different audience segments. But if you don't want those at all. We could basically just have. We could finish the page right here. You could have an overview of what it's like to work here. See all open positions. And then we delete all the other ones down, down and call it a day. Because you have your data points and your reasons why.
rebecca: What if we did. What are your thoughts on having starting here, like everything above this fold here, but at this point, What if we had one picture, let's say right aligned and then the, the buttons all stack left.
Chris LaFay: I mean, what you mean by. Explain what you mean by that because I'm, I'm not. The mental picture is not there for me.
rebecca: Yeah. So swap this. Where the photos on the right.
Chris LaFay: Okay.
rebecca: And then. And then now we've got the text box on the left. But essentially we're getting rid of. We're going to change what it's like to work here to whatever join us. Let me just keep it simple. And then you're gonna have the orange button, drop downs for each of those. Student, military, whatever.
Chris LaFay: Oh, okay. Hold on. Okay, I, I got it.
rebecca: And that takes anybody. It makes them feel like, like, oh, well, I'm just, I'm a student. I mean I'm a. Even though you and I both know it's not going to take them to some other page, it's going to take them to the apply. But it might make them feel like. And maybe there's a way that that back end will know it's coming from this. They hit the student button, it's a student. They hit the whatever button. It's a. This. That's what I'm going to try to get them to recognize on their back end.
Chris LaFay: God. Okay. Okay. So what you will need to ask your HR team because they will all technically be the exact same link. You need to have them give me different variations of that same link so that they can do that tracking now. And they may or may not be able to do that. That I don't know.
rebecca: But me too. I don't either. I did ask. I've got a call with the Oracle people that are with the program that we're paying for because we're actually upgrading from where we're at. So I'm like really pushing to get this done now. And I said even if they don't have it done, I need them to expand, explain to us any nuances while we're building this out asap. So that call is this week. So I should have answers for that. If I can't make it that way at least. Even if it's just those things, those, those people feel like, oh, I'm a student, I'm applying and I'll just tell Lauren, you know, hey, at the end of the day, Lauren, you're gonna have to really vet that still says they're at A and M. They're at ut. Like, you know, yeah, we tried. And maybe in the future if you're hr, portal can do it, it can do it. But until then, all these are just one link to one place. They're not differentiators.
Chris LaFay: Okay, there we go. So. So this. So I actually recommend not having full blown buttons because that would be a little bit overkill. But having them be kind of in this like bullet pointed. Bullet pointed list where they're hyperlinks that go out. Yeah, that's what I would recommend doing. Does that sound good?
rebecca: Okay.
Chris LaFay: Yep, yep, perfect. And then we have our subcontractors page which I combined kind of. I took, I took information. There were two sites that you sent over that had good structures to them and I kind of took pieces from both of them effectively.
rebecca: Okay.
Chris LaFay: So again, icon pods here for your standards kind of general information. This is all generic. I don't know if this information is right. So do not hold on to this at all.
rebecca: But okay.
Chris LaFay: This is the list of information needed just kind of in like two different things so that people can prepare before they get to the form, walking them through what happens after they submit. And then here is the long winded application which I, I basically when I built this out, I had robot friends go through the form on one of the sites that you sent me and there were hundreds of trades and I was like, pick out 10 for me because I'm sure that those will be end up being different in general.
rebecca: Okay. And so if I just want to say the first one's required, all the others are optional and then that way if they don't have another one, we're good.
Chris LaFay: And that's actually the way that that is. So the main one is required and the other ones are not.
rebecca: Okay, I see. But okay, go scroll up a little bit. Okay, keep going. Voila. I like it. Yeah.
Chris LaFay: In 45 minutes on a first time ever actually meeting each other walk through probably a 65 website build out on a first shot. So not too shabby. I'll take.
rebecca: Not too bad, not too bad. I made good enough notes and you had good enough perception to read into them.
Chris LaFay: That.
rebecca: Good enough.
Chris LaFay: That's what I'm talking about. So let me, let me walk you through how to give me information. Because if you send over information in a structured format, that means I will be able to use me and my team will be able to go in in a very easy way and apply all of these things all in one fell swoop for you. So there's this little magic red button over here on the right hand side Y. What this is going to do is when you click on it, it's going to take a screenshot of whatever you're looking at.
rebecca: Okay.
Chris LaFay: And what would be the most helpful is if you want to change text, click and drag a little rectangle to let me know where that text is that you're making a change.
rebecca: Type it all copy exactly as I want it. Okay.
Chris LaFay: Exactly 100%. So basically one screenshot per type of request. If. If that makes sense. So like what I would do, like if you're editing like all of this text over here in this section, you could do one ticket for like subhead, header, paragraph. Done.
rebecca: But if you don't want me to. You didn't want me to do. Let's say if I. If I didn't like. Yeah. So let's say I don't like the four standards. Every text built submeats. I want to change that. I'm going to highlight it, do a comment. I also, let's say don't like safety, quality, reliability in Texas presence. I'm doing a second separate one.
Chris LaFay: Think of them as sections. So like every kind of like every. If you kind of noticed on every page there's like a lot of like horizontal strips. Whether there's lines there or not. Think about it in terms of sections. So one to get per section. So like this right here would be an entire section.
rebecca: So I'm calling the four standards a header and you're going to know I'm. I'm referring to that.
Chris LaFay: Bingo. Exactly.
rebecca: Yeah. Okay then safety, quality subheaders inside boxes change to this. Okay. Content believe. Okay.
Chris LaFay: Huh.
rebecca: And so just keep writing it all in. That explains feedback. That's the only thing I am. I'm not touching any of these others signings. All that won't allow me.
Chris LaFay: Yeah. So the. So when you actually go in here, these. I'm logged in. You won't be. The only things you'll see are improve this drop down for improvement. Which you don't have to worry about that at all. That's just. It's a default with the thing that we use. And then explain your interesting. And all of these other things you will not see.
rebecca: Great. So I get to work kind of live in my own respective way. I'm seeing the box, where it's at and how to put it. So. Okay.
Chris LaFay: Exactly.
rebecca: Right. And then what if, let's say I want to go wild. I say, oh, I want the word reliability to be all orange. I just say that to you.
Chris LaFay: Let me know that there will be some pushback that I'll have on stuff like that. Because there's some blocks that are not built for those micro adjustments. Some of them are, but some of them are not. And.
rebecca: Okay.
Chris LaFay: My goal with things that I say no to is in an effort for consistency and long term editability.
rebecca: Yeah. And I'll tell you why I'm wanting it. And you maybe have a different solution. So. Okay, I don't expect to be doing that, but as I get into things sometimes my brain starts to. Yeah.
Chris LaFay: And also, just so you know, like things that look the same across multiple pages are probably programmatically the same. So like for example, the, the border widths that you see everywhere, that border width is the exact same across the board. So if we're changing the border width of one thing, all those border widths across the board are changing because they're all connected together. So there will be some things that I say no to that you might have a micro adjustment for because they might have other impacts down the line.
rebecca: Yeah.
Chris LaFay: And so if we had two months for the project, those things might change to yeses.
rebecca: But yeah, I hear you.
Chris LaFay: It feels like from an aesthetics perspective, we're about 85 or 90 there with aesthetics, which is.
rebecca: No, I agree. And like I said, I'm not. This is not a shopping cart sellable site where I really, you know, these are nuances and construction people who already are going to be floored by how great this is because this is not something they live in. They're very, very antiquated in my industry. So there's not going to be any overthinking because yeah, they just, they're going to be thrilled that you see something like this.
Chris LaFay: Yes. So in order for us to hit our deadline of launching by June 1st, I, I need to have all this done, all of your stuff input in by Friday, May 8th. That is the drop deadline that should.
rebecca: Be able to be done.
Chris LaFay: That will then give us a week. Ish. To then go and actually take all the feedback, put it all in and then let you review it with everything in there. Also, one note that I did not make. If you have so went through the videos and took screenshots of the timestamps Those are all uploaded into the back end of WordPress. If there are any particular pictures that you have that you want to include in that form, that marker form that you can fill out, you can attach images. So if you're like, oh, we want to use this image, upload it with it so that we can knock out the content and the images all at the same time.
rebecca: Meaning as I'm making comments, change the verbiage to this. There's a button to upload.
Chris LaFay: Yes, there is. Let me. Did I miss that? Hold on. I know there. Yeah. Okay.
rebecca: I was ignoring everything else because you were like, no, you're not changing any of this.
Chris LaFay: You're not right. You did exactly what I told you to do. No. So over at the. So in this form, like in the scrolly area, you won't see any of this stuff, but right above Create task, you'll see add attachments.
rebecca: I see it. Okay. Yep. Okay. So you'll pretty much know because only one section should have one image. Okay.
Chris LaFay: Exactly. Yes.
rebecca: Okay. I'll try to be cognizant of that. And I feel like I definitely owe you the leadership photography. That team horizontal. Let me know the specs photo because we're trying to get the guys together next week to get those photos done. I'm dealing with the photographer right now, so it's a little bit of a thing, but for location.
Chris LaFay: But I like in mass photos. If you want to just. There's that Google Drive folder that I gave you where you can go ahead and start ordering, organizing those portfolio images. If you just want to create a folder in there that's like team headshots and just put them all up there and then just send me a word doc with like, here's all the team bios so you don't have to go through like one by one and. And screenshot that, like, that's. That's all fine.
rebecca: Okay.
Chris LaFay: And we didn't look at the portfolio pages. There weren't any there yet. But those will be in the next round.
rebecca: So. Yep, that's good.
Chris LaFay: Does that sound good?
rebecca: Nope. Feeling really good about it. It's a great, great start. Love it. Chris, Great.
Chris LaFay: Fantastic. Thank you for being true to your word. And when I said, hey, we're going to build you a site that looks like the style guide, is that okay? And you said, yes, and you actually meant it. So much appreciated. My team is always worried about, like, this is going to be a quick turn. We got this. And it's always like, oh, can we have the moon as well, like no, no, no, no, no.
rebecca: Are you back now?
Chris LaFay: The. The box is here for the project. The box isn't here. So.
rebecca: Yeah.
Chris LaFay: Much appreciated. Thank you. Any questions before we wrap up today? I know we're a little bit over time at the moment.
rebecca: No, I mean I think we're good. Like I said I and, and really just looking at that, I mean I think I'm happy with, with fonts. I think I'm happy with colors. I don't, you know, none of that to me looks like any of that really is going to make a difference by going any different direction. I think it's, it's nice. So I just, you know I need to really craft this brush verbiage in the way to sell the messaging. So I, I don't think there's like I said any other changes to that from what I gathered out of it as I went through. Worked well.
Chris LaFay: Fantastic. Awesome.
rebecca: Well, yeah.
Chris LaFay: If you have any questions as you're going through this, I will send you a follow up email with the URL for this because that is important. You need to know how to access it. And also a sample photo of what I feel like are the right dimensions for the image. They're not the photo. The photographer's not be able to take it like that. But as long as he or she is thinking it's going to get cropped to this, that's the.
rebecca: That. Yeah, exactly. So they can get the right. Yeah. Because they're going to need to be thinking about where they're taking these pictures and how these people are so. Yeah, exactly. I like it.
Chris LaFay: Awesome.
rebecca: Okay, let me know if there's anything else I owe you that's coming up quicker than later that helps you as you get through this. But if.
Chris LaFay: Long winded email that I sent you. So one of them is your website hosting. You will need to get that was.
rebecca: I was my. I did get with my it. So he is actively working on it. I hope to have an update today tomorrow at the latest of where he's at with that because I am like I definitely want to get this under construction page, you know set and I, I definitely want to get my IT because I'm asking them to do something they haven't had to do. We've been outsourcing. Yeah. So you know I, I just. They need to take this in house and we need to be able to manage this. So it's silly. I have a 7T team and I'm like why are we paying some guy to keep the lights on at a Website. I'm not going to even be using him for anymore. Last thing, I want him to have access to another site as we're building out all these new websites. I don't need that guy who's bitter that he's not getting the business to be controlling them.
Chris LaFay: I mean this is why I don't do website hosting. I don't do it. I, it's, it's a, it's cheap. First off hosting is not expensive. I'm not going to retire off website hosting. And it's typically the. You either, with websites you either have a lot of long term plans and you need long term help that you're actually building stuff or you just need light staying on and quick fixes stuff. And the thing is at the end of the day, even the quick fix stuff, I would still much rather you own your hosting so that in case that you don't like me anymore, you don't have to talk to me like.
rebecca: Yeah, I mean I just, I didn't make sense to me the way they went about this with the resources we have in house is wild. So I'm like, I know. They're just like oh God, we have to do. Yes, yes you do. You have to do this because we are now a family of companies and we've got like five companies and this, this is the beginning of the way things should be. Like I'm trying to get this set so all the others as we come to it, you know, we can have this like symphony that we represent because. And, and that's just setting me up for failure the way I feel it.
Chris LaFay: So I have a random question for you. We're over time right now. Are you okay? Because this is actually.
rebecca: Oh yeah, I'm good for. I am okay.
Chris LaFay: You're talking about other websites and things like that and we've done some work before with like family of companies in general in, in the future for other websites, do you want them to have a similarly structured look and feel to where they all kind of feel similar but like. So let's take the text built site. Let's say that we had the exact same layout options. The colors were different, the fonts were different, the accent icons were different. The borders were rounded versus square, the drop shadows were faded rather than solid. But they all shared that same core starting point to where if you made it.
rebecca: In my world, of course scaling things is the best for my sanity. And we are all in the construction. All of ours are, are the drywall place, the cleaning services, they're all same Similar industry. So I say yes cautiously only because the real challenge is only within this Text built with emj. Because text built is taking the reputation of EMJ and applying it into Texas to create the footprint. I'm worried EMJ might want more individuality but everybody else not a big deal. So I think there's some places we'll be able to scale that I think we'll have to have some more really unique uniqueness to emj because they're going to be one of my last sites to do honestly. Because everyone else either doesn't have one at all or it's just so terrible. Which timber builder is my number two? Timber builder was God awful. It was better for me to take it offline. It was a better service to us than to have what he had live. That's how bad it was. So it's got a running 50 with under construction. Right before he went to a convention because I about died but I saw the content. It, it was so terrible. I said you're doing a disservice. So like you know, all of those would, would make sense. I mean I think there's enough that makes sense to do this but there will probably emj when it comes time, I'm gonna probably have to direct them to have something more unique to being the national footprint and help re establish them for what they're continuing to do. Less Texas.
Chris LaFay: Really Shocker.
rebecca: I know doing a lot of work to get them out of Texas but. But if they have a dick sporting goods or a national brand that has the GCs throughout the country that do all theirs, we would actually have EMJ in Texas. Gotcha. Only for a big national brand. That.
Chris LaFay: Yeah, which, that, which that makes sense.
rebecca: So I would say on, in most cases I would be able to say, you know Chris, we could just replicate this, do the tweaks, tweaks and we could call it a day.
Chris LaFay: Yeah. And so when we're thinking. So getting that WP engine account will definitely be very helpful. When we think about site number two, there's things within WordPress. I'm not going to dive into the technicalities now because it's not worth it, but there's basically ways to share code between websites. So there's pros and cons, there's, there's, there's good and bad with that it from like a general like coding structure standpoint, if you make a change in one spot to something shared, everybody gets it automatically. Which is great.
rebecca: But yeah, no, I mean, yeah, I got it.
Chris LaFay: So there's that Piece of it. But having all those sites within one WP Engine account is going to be a lot easier for y' all long term than having your own. What WP Engine is called managed hosting, which basically they do a lot of the upkeep for you, they do some updates for you. They handle all the weird server back end stuff that nobody really wants to manage. It's a little bit more expensive. But your IT team doesn't have to go in and actually manage server data points and things like that. And so I say all, I say those things to you then case your IT department comes back and be like, we could do this for $5 a month somewhere over here they will have more of a headache at the end of the day. So.
rebecca: And so did you give me. Was that included in what I forwarded to them?
Chris LaFay: So yeah, not that level of detail. But if they give you pushback on why does this cost $20 a month versus this rando hosting company that costs $2 a month? It's because WP Engine handles a lot of this stuff for you. I don't know how, I don't know how weird they are about that. I know.
rebecca: Oh no, I mean he, he's so weird. He doesn't want to do it. But I mean other than that, the head IT guy knows he kind of has to. So this will be easier for them to do whatever I say. Yeah, I think he's just going to do whatever I'm saying at this point. But you know, I told him marketing will be doing the edits, marketing will be doing the bulk of legwork in the back end or working with our designer if it's something we can't control through our portal. So I'm like, you guys just need to keep this thing paid, alive, hosted. And if I end up with a technical troubleshoot because it's offline, like you might have to make some calls. But that's an IT thing. So.
Chris LaFay: Yeah.
rebecca: Okay, cool.
Chris LaFay: I just want to make sure that was covered because that will having something at WP Engine will set you up for success for a while without having to get IT involved in every small, little tiny thing.
rebecca: So thank God. Yeah, that's golden.
Chris LaFay: Perfect, perfect. Awesome. I'll go ahead and send that email to you and then I'll renote the WP Engine thing, reno the image library thing inside of Google Drive and if all that can be done by next Friday, we're good.
rebecca: I will be on it. Absolutely. Awesome. Thanks so much. Have a good one, Chris. Nice talking to you. Bye.