#1 – Vendor Management With Chris Sockriter

1-vendor-management-with-chris-sockriter

Intro:

Welcome to another episode of the Modern Facilities Management Podcast brought to you by Stratum. I'm your host, Griffin Hamilton. This is the show where I interview industry experts who share their stories, strategies and insights into modern day facilities management. From hospitality to commercial real estate and everything in between, we'll learn what it really takes to succeed as a facilities manager.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Good morning! Today I've got Chris Sockriter. Chris, how you doing? 

Speaker: Chris Sockriter    

Very good. 

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Well, Chris, let's start out tell us who you are and what exactly you do.

Speaker: Chris Sockriter    

So yeah, my name is Chris Sockriter. I work for SOTL concepts. We're a Restaurant Group in lower Delaware. I run the Asset Management Department and Asset Management is a fun term for facilities management. But we do have 12 restaurant concepts, we have three concessions concepts, an office and we're hopefully soon to have a warehouse that we take care of.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Now, how did you get into facilities management and into the role that you're at now?

Speaker: Speaker: Chris Sockriter    

I kind of fell into it a bit. My path to get here was a little crazy. So, I started out as an HVAC technician, worked for a couple companies locally and then started my own company doing HVAC work. I really wasn't into refrigeration or hot foods. And through opportunities that came up I kind of started working for [inaudible 01:39] as a vendor. And through that it was kind of like a long interview process. They kind of liked how I did things and I kind of liked the company. And after four years, the owner came to me and just started talking about hey, why don't you come work for us? We'd like to bring that part of the restaurant industry in have you be hyper focused on just our stuff. 

So, we did that, I started working for him three years ago and through need, I guess you could say, I just kind of started taking over more and more, started getting a team together that would do the restaurant work and then I started doing more of the management side. So, I kind of fell into it, there was a need and I could feel it so that's where we're at.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

It's very interesting and where you're at now and kind of your path to getting into it, what is your exposure been outside of the restaurant space with regards to facilities management?

Speaker: Chris Sockriter    

Very little. In fact, it's funny. You're the first person that kind of pointed me to that like you are a facilities manager and I was kind of like oh, that makes sense and I didn't realize you could get a degree in facilities management, I never looked into it, it wasn't like on my radar. And then, in conversations with you previous to this, it was like oh, that is actually what I do okay. So I'm just actually starting to get into it and kind of figure things out. But yeah, you're kind of the one that turned me on to that.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Don't give me too much credit. Well, I guess on that point because you did work your way through on the maintenance side specifically around HVAC which is very common route getting into that role. Explain your point of view on facilities management with regards to restaurants as opposed to different industries and kind of the differences you've seen from [inaudible 03:36] to high rise or commercial property versus what you guys are working with.

Speaker: Chris Sockriter    

So I think one of the biggest things is and I have this conversation with a guy that I work with the most like all the time. We are a hospitality company so everything that this company does is approached from that manner. So when you think of like construction or some sort of facility that does canning or a brewery or something like that, somebody that would manage those things, you can kind of have a hard edge, you can kind of run that with an iron fist a little bit and in what I'm doing, there's a lot more nuance to it.  We're working with restaurant managers are kind of my customer I would say. So, you can't run the facilities management side of it the same way you would run a construction business or that other more hardline facility. So, I think that part of my job is working with a design team and making sure the restaurant looks beautiful and the plants are all watered and making sure that. It's very I don't want to call it [inaudible 04:56] but it's very like detail oriented in that way and it's a lot less hardline, get it done, get things, whatever you want to call it. So, I think that's a striking difference that I can see and having not really experienced the facilities management side on that side, I can only imagine but I would think that that the restaurant industry being a hospitality kind of company, we soften a lot of what we do to that point to being a hospitality side. So little difference, I think.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

At the end of the day, the folks paying the bills for your organization are the ones that are really truly embracing the aura, ambience that at the end of the day, you are creating that right where your point, making sure that the plants are watered, when someone walks in, they have a great first impression. And I guess with that, tell me more about the restaurant concepts that you guys have. Are they more sit down, fine dining?

Speaker: Chris Sockriter    

Yeah, I would call it casual or upscale casual in some cases. We've got a bunch of different concepts. So, we have seafood both high end seafood in glucose, like Rehoboth glucose south and Bethany, we have like a fried Matt's fish camp, more casual I wouldn't call it fast casual but still all sit down dining. We have a pizza place so like artesian pizza, we have a tequila area so, Mexican food and tequila and stuff like that. So we kind of have a lot of different things going on and I think that each concept has its own personality. I like to call them my children so each concept has its own things that are easy for me and are less easy for me. So, our team jokes are all the time that things kind of go in waves. We see our southern concept might need attention and it acts up. Like I said it's like a kid. It acts up and it wants attention and you give it to it for a while and then it comes down and something else acts up. So that's kind of how the flow goes which is kind of it's a weird thing to be a part of but that's definitely happens.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Which concept is a redheaded stepchild?

Speaker: Chris Sockriter    

They all are. They all are at certain points. It's for whatever reason, it doesn't matter the age of the restaurant, it doesn't matter the concept. It's like this week, it might be glucose Rehoboth which is only four or five years old, they might have motors going bad and oven goes bad and the fryer quits and the hot water heater quits or whatever the case may be and then we get all that stuff kind of fixed and back up to snuff. And then crust and Kraft has a problem and they've got a flooring issue and the roof leaks and there's a motor there that's bad and one of the refrigeration pieces we can't get fixed. It just depends on who needs the most attention. Like I said the best reference that I can give is that they are children.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Very cool. So, again, go back to your background as a vendor I mean that's a really unique story starting out as a vendor for Citadel and then how full-time employee. So, you've got an issue relationship on the vendor side seeing how you were one and now you are vetting out vendors, sourcing vendors. Talking about that, what is that process like in your new position?

Speaker: Chris Sockriter    

So, I look at vendors as relationships. So, from my side, when I was a vendor, I always appreciated communication from whoever I was working for. And in [inaudible 08:43] case, they took an active effort to listen to my criticism which may have been founded in sometimes unfounded. But I always felt like I was heard. And I had a meeting with them one time where we kind of created a way to work back and forth just through an Excel spreadsheet. And they kind of put in place some one person that could gavel the information flow to them and then to me because I was getting calls from 12 different restaurants and then trying to funnel all that myself. So, I kind of came to them with a problem like I can't be on the phone all day and be fixing all the stuff. So, we got to figure out a way to streamline this. I think what I look for in a vendor is that kind of communication back towards us, what are you struggling with? What do we do? Well, I'm willing to change and pivot on whatever we need to do to make their life easier. So, I'm looking for that first and foremost and then the relationship side of things, I want to know where you're at in your hiring process. I want to know how your jobs look, are you backed up? Are you up to par? Can we load you up? We'll pull back a little bit and I'm in it for the long haul. I think that a lot of vendors there are some that come in and they want to get the job done and they want to roll on and they think that may be the end of that whole relationship. I look at it a different way. Every job is an interview for the next so if you come in and do a great job in whatever you're doing and we have a good talk and a good relationship, when you leave, that's an open door for the next conversation, for the next job, for the next thing. 

So as far as vendors go, we have a couple great vendors that we've been in business with for a long time and we have that. We have a meeting every year and we kind of go through hey, this is what this year presented us with and this is how you handled it and this is where I think we can improve and when I say me as in like our department and our company can improve and then they also kind of give feedback where they think they can improve and we have an open and honest conversation about it. So I think for vendors that's one of my biggest things is creating that relationship. 

And then secondly, there's a skills gap that exists and especially down here, we're in lower Delaware and we're kind of on a peninsula. We don't have the talent from cities and a bunch of feeder programs that feed talent into our vendors. So there's electricians and plumbers and construction people, they have trouble hiring and some look at that as a roadblock. They can't get past it, they're not going to try to get past it, they're not going to try to solve that problem and those vendors are short lived usually. The ones that we end up working long term with are the ones that can see that and look at as a challenge and go after making those adjustments and finding the right people bring in a man and get them set up. And a good example of that is our hood cleaning service. We had a decent company and they just had trouble with their team. They couldn't get a solid group together that would do the job well every time. It was a consistency issue for us. That's a big fire hazard if it's not done right and they can also ruin equipment if they're not covering things or they're not doing what they're supposed to do to keep our restaurants safe. So we hired another group and they look at it at a completely different thing. That's a tough job to fill and I think you know that better than most. But that's something that I found a stark difference in that the second company that we hired really looked into filling those roles and keeping those people happy and making sure that they were consistent and following up with everything. So, from a vendor standpoint, that's what all I can really ask.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah, and I do have an intimate knowledge with my experience in that realm and staffing is especially now extremely difficult. And restaurants in particular have been slammed here with COVID and there's a trickle-down effect right where vendors are also getting impacted. And that is something we're having that relationship and having a thorough vetting process when you choose your vendors is imperative as you continue to ask for your case, [inaudible 13:29]. So that's a great there, great advice. And to any vendors out there, you should take that to heart and have a thorough interview process as you bring on employees. So, with that and you're constantly building relationships with your vendors, looking past COVID and five years down the line specifically around vendors and that relationship with facilities managers, how do you think that's going to change in the future?

Speaker: Chris Sockriter    

So, I have a very strong opinion on this. I may be completely wrong but in the way I see things moving forward and for our case specifically, we look at this all the time. It's becoming more and more apparent that we are to a point where to get the service level that we're asking for, it may be possible for us to bring in our own people internally and not use vendors externally and there's a bunch of different reasons for that. 

One of which is financial reasons. Obviously, if you're paying a plumbing company a couple $100,000 a year depending on what those services look like and how they break down. It may be possible to bring in a full-time plumber pay them benefits, put them in a truck for $100,000 a year, $120,000 a year and only farm out the things that you'd have to buy the big expensive trucks for. So, we have grease trap pumping is in line flushes and stuff like that. We're not in any position to go buy a half a million-dollar truck to do those things. But for everyday service which we have a ton of, we have a lot of sprayers and valves and hot water issues and maintenance that can be done on the hot water heaters and stuff like that. So, we, as a group have started to look into those things. When does it make sense to pull in versus hire out and that really depends on the vendors and I think it depends on the area that you're in. There may be places that are loaded up with great plumbing companies. There may be places that are loaded up with great HVAC companies or great vendors that can come in and work on hot foods. One of the issues here is our hot food vendors are just nonexistent. We have two that are semi local, larger companies so Hobart and EMR and I think they struggle with the same things that most are struggling with, finding new talent, keeping them, keeping them happy, not working them 120 hours every two weeks, just crazy amounts of overtime and stuff like that and these guys are getting burned out and I see it. I try to keep track of that stuff pretty regular to make sure that we're getting the best that we can from our vendors and to kind of monitor when it's appropriate for us to start looking at those things. 

So, I think in the next five years as that skills gap, if it doesn't start to close, if we don't get people coming into those trades, I think that you're going to see more and more facilities pull that stuff internal and try to manage it internally just from a cost and from being able to hyper focus on what we need is a huge asset to us and I think that'll play out in these larger facilities. Imagine like a canning facility where you didn't have a welder, you had to call a welder every five minutes and there may be only one or two welders in the area. And if that guy is at your facility every day for two or three hours, it's not a large gap to go from him being in his own vehicle to putting them in your facility with a cart and a welder on it. That gap is getting less and less. So, I really feel like over the next five years that could be a legitimate thing that you see in these larger facilities.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Taking it back to [inaudible 17:46] as you're looking to build this out over the next couple of years, have you put thought into what that team dynamic is? Do you foresee it being technicians that are just generalist or use foresee yourself having a plumber and electrician and have an internal team that specialize in one thing or the other?

Speaker: Chris Sockriter    

So, it's interesting. I think the dynamic that you're talking about is going to be dictated by the people that we talked to. So, we just hired someone actually in the last two weeks who wasn't in HVAC or hot foods. They were actually part of our sprinkler team like a fire sprinkler team but this person fit with our team perfectly. We already knew him. He worked for us in that vendor role and he was someone who mechanically we felt could pick up on the job fairly easily. So, in my mind, he was a perfect fit for the team and the skills part of it, we figured we would teach. So part of my role is to kind of do that, pick good people and then mold them into [inaudible 19:11] need. So, I think that the people that come available will partially dictate that. 

And then secondly, I think that they'll have to be specialized in certain things like you're not going to bring in somebody who's never done plumbing before, doesn't like plumbing and then say hey, you're a plumber now. But I think that a lot of times you see where technicians kind of get burned out on their own field. So, like a plumber who's done plumbing for 15 years straight, every once in a while, he doesn't mind moving chairs or putting up a tent or whatever else we've got going on. Like sometimes it's nice in the way that we do things to have someone who specialize but then they're part of a bigger team and we can bring them into that [inaudible 20:00] umbrella and we can offer them different opportunities. And the other thing is cool about that like a lot of times for a specific vendor like a plumber, there's a very narrow path forward. So, if you work for an established company where there's people in the front offices and sales and all that stuff, your path forward in that company may be kind of stifled or at least, it's going to take a long time before whoever's in front of you passes on and goes to another thing or retires before you can actually get an opportunity to move up. And in our company, we're still growing and we're kind of moving all over the place. So, there's opportunities for things all over the place. 

So, I think that's where I see our strengths and that's where I kind of want to take that team building thing and kind of move forward with it. Like I know that the guy that I just hired, his opportunities might be where I'm at. He might become the facilities manager and I might be moving to something else in our company because there's a need that I might be able to fill. So, I don't think anything has to be super specialized. I think that if somebody has plumbing experience and understands it and we're looking for that kind of plumbing thing but they fit with our team, I think that's more important than having the skills necessarily upfront. 

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Hire the person not the skill set. 

Speaker: Chris Sockriter    

Yeah, exactly. 

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Especially with where you guys are at and in that growth stage where it's the beginning of that process of building out the team and seems like you guys have established a culture that is probably or at least that seems to me the number one priority as you're hiring and building out and with your experience coming up through HVAC and your actual hands-on technical experience that can be taught right. You can change someone's personality and work ethics. That's a very important point as you guys do grow. Looking at where you're at now, what has it made or who has made the biggest impact on you and your career?

Speaker: Chris Sockriter    

So I'm going to not do the cliché answer. So, my father obviously is in the trades, he does canvas and I watched him over the course of his career and I would say that he taught me a lot of things. He taught me work ethic and he taught me perseverance and stuff like that. But as far as my career goes, my first boss in the HVAC world, his name's Donald was far in a way could have been the make it or break it. I was only 20 years old and he could have been the typical boss in that world and really beat me down and braided me until I either quit or succeeded but he was really cool and he gave me a lot of leeway. And he used to tell me all the time that if you break something or do something that I haven't done, I'll be impressed. And that was always kind of a cool thing to say to somebody who you know as a technical person and somebody who does this every day, you're going to mess up, you're going to break stuff, you're going to make misdiagnosis, you're going to diagnose a compressor that's not bad, you're going to smoke a motor because you wired it incorrectly or whatever the case is. 

So having him give you the confidence to say look, I've done it, been there, you smoke the motor. Yep, done it, been there. Here's another one, go figure out what you did wrong and don't do it again. I think that was a huge part of building confidence and kind of showing me what I was good at. I think something that a lot of people can take from that kind of experiences. 

When I was younger, nobody really pointed me to what I was good at. They pointed me to what they wanted me to do. So, it was like oh, you got to go to college, you got to do this, you got to do that. And I think Donald was the first person that pulled me aside and said man, you're really good with your hands. You know that right? Like, you're picking up on this stuff super quick. You can [inaudible 24:29] and that it took us like three days and he's like man, you can [inaudible 24:33] in a unit now, three days you got it. He's like that's not a normal thing. Sometimes it takes people a while to do that so you're really good with this. You might want to consider pursuing this. I think you'd be really good at technical work. I think you'd be a really good technician. 

So, kind of having that little push behind you to say man, you're pretty good at this stuff. So, I try to take that everything that I learned from him and apply it to you know what we do now. I stole this saying and I use it constantly for the guys that I'm training. Look, I've messed up a lot of stuff and you're going to mess up some stuff too and when you do, we'll laugh about it, we'll move forward. And I've also made it very clear to the ownership of the company that when you hire somebody who doesn't have 10 years experience, there's an investment obviously up front for the payroll side of things and 401k and all that crap. But there's also the investment that you're going to see down the road when this guy either doesn't diagnose something correctly or causes a problem with logistical things or smoke something that we ordered and took a week to get, all those things are part of learning. And unfortunately, as an employer, you kind of have to take on that responsibility and I think they've done a good job of understanding that and letting me kind of take those lessons and let them be learned. 

So, it's kind of a cool thing. But yeah, Donald was definitely a great person to kind of get me into the industry and teach me and show me what was going on and I think that that's been a big part of my success through my career.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah, it's really embracing failure right, where you can't shy away from it, you have to take that risk, you have to break something, learn from it and then move on. 

Speaker: Chris Sockriter    

He always used to say too and I kind of adopt this as well. I don't look at it as failure. It's an opportunity to learn. Everything that you do and in every day that you do, there's something that you can improve upon. So, I don't look at things as failures, everything that we do, if it doesn't work the way you thought it was going to work then it's an opportunity to sit back and go man, that did not go the way I thought it was going to go. But I wouldn't say that I failed and get all down and like that what was me kind of thing. It's like the sports reference that we talk about all the time. You can't worry about the last play. There's another play come and you got to get ready for that one. So, he used to tell me all the time that anything you do wrong it's just an opportunity to learn. So, like I said, I take that same mentality going forward.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah. And you alluded to this a bit ago but going from him recognizing that you're good with your hands and to consider this type of career path. And that is something that I've connected with so many people that they've kind of fell into this industry right. And looking forward, there are going to be more traditional paths of getting a college degree specializing in this or whatever certifications that you have. But I think it's an important point to make. Not everyone's built for college, not everyone is meant to sit in a classroom, take notes, memorize it, take a test and forget it right which is 90% of college at least for me. But it's going to be really interesting to see the direction and this new way of facilities managers getting into the industry and realizing that there is a pretty sexy path into facilities management just continuously adding responsibilities. And frankly, the possibilities are endless with the way that we're going and the how essential this function really is.

Speaker: Chris Sockriter    

Yeah, so, to speak to that point, that's something I'm super passionate about. Not dissing on college at all, there's a place for it. But showing the opportunities that are out there for younger, high school aged kids and maybe even earlier, maybe even as eighth graders come up and start looking into, in our area, we have a tech school and we have regular school I guess you could call it. And when it first started out the technical school was just that, it was a technical school and anymore, it's no different. It's got some technical aspects to it but it still leans more towards traditional school and I think that you pick that in eighth grade. You pick which high school you're going to go to an eighth grade and I feel like man, in eighth grade, you have no idea what you're doing with your life. In high school, I had no idea what I was doing with my life. So how do you pick a career and then on top of that like if somebody had sat me down in high school and like looking back with everything that happened, it's pretty clear to see that I wasn't heading in that direction. Everybody, the counselors and teachers and stuff like that they're all pushing you in that direction but that's not where I was going to be most successful. And nobody sat down to say hey man, you probably need to look in a different direction. You're good at this but I think you're going to struggle here and that's an honest conversation. Maybe it's one it's tough to have but I think somebody's got to be trying to have those conversations and parents need to be open to the idea that that's not a consolation prize. Like going into the trades, going into Facilities Management going into something where you're not at a desk all day doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to be a failure, it doesn't mean that you can't have a great life and have a great career. And I think that somebody or some group of people like me or HVAC or plumbers or electricians, we got to get to those kids and say hey, look, this is not what you see on TV. A plumber is not the big guy under the sink with his butt crack hanging out. I know plumbers that are ridiculously smart and fluid dynamics and they understand valves that I don't understand, they understand flow in a way I won’t understand. And maybe when you start, you're going to be putting pipe in the ground and you're going to be connecting things but as you get further in those careers, a lot of that stuff is engineering and a lot of reading and the technology that's in these trades changes at a rapid rate. So, look at a mechanic. A mechanic 20/30 years ago was turning wrenches and that was pretty much the extent of it. Now, a mechanic is figuring out why your Apple CarPlay won't work. So, it's changing so rapidly that I think these opportunities are so big for these younger generations. I just hope that people are getting out there and explaining what it is and showing them why it's a good thing to get into.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Absolutely couldn't agree more. And like I said earlier, college isn't for everybody and it's not a bad thing. Frankly, we need people that are good with their hands and my father, he buildt a house from scratch and I regret not paying attention when he pulled me outside and was trying to show me how to be as handy as he is and frankly, I'm jealous of people that just catch that and that is just a different skill, right. And so, that is a great point where that needs to occur, that needs to be not a push towards college, just because that is the should mentality. You should go to college, you should do what makes you happy, you should with you something you're good at and there was usually interlock there and that this is just the route that I think like you said, they're needed and there is a ton of opportunity and there's only more and more opportunity as we continue to grow on.

Speaker: Chris Sockriter    

Yeah, and I think something that I heard I actually think Matthew McConaughey said it. There's a difference between happiness and joy. Happiness is a reaction to something that happens where joy is something that you obtain. And I think that when you talk about work. I get joy from fixing stuff for whatever reason, that's just how I'm built. When it's broke and it comes back to life that's like my little joy okay, and it could be anything. It could be a relationship at this point, it could be an employee like now that I'm teaching something and they get it like that's where I find the joy in what I do. And I know accountants that find joy when they find an error in a spreadsheet and I cannot wrap my head around that. But that's what makes this world so awesome is that there are people that can do those things and find the joy in finding those numbers. And there are people like me who can find joy in fixing something and there are people that can find joy in creating. So like I just think and especially for my kids like that's one of the things I keep talking about with my oldest daughter. She's 12 and she's starting to kind of understand things a little better. And when we started having that conversation about college and I was like college isn't the end all be all and don't get me wrong. If your job if what you want to do requires a four year degree or her mother's a teacher, if you're going to be a teacher then you need a degree, that's how it goes. But there are so many other opportunities out there and not all of them require a degree and some of them require getting in and training and we have the perfect example of that. [It's inaudible 34:42] we have a chef program that that basically builds a line cook to a sous chef and hopefully to a chef and so those kinds of opportunities are out there as well and you're being paid while you're doing that not paying for it. So, a lot of opportunities out there.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Absolutely. Well, Chris, definitely appreciate the time here this morning. Any takeaways, any last tidbits of advice for people listening?

Speaker: Chris Sockriter    

As far as tidbits, I think that embrace the path that you take. Like I said, I never would have expected as an HVAC person eight years ago, that I would be sitting at a podcast talking about facilities management. That's not the path I thought I was taking. But it's been fun and it's been an opportunity that that I didn't think I would have and I think that don't put yourself in a box. I didn't really see myself in this role and I think there's things about my job that I do that that could lead to other opportunities, a little bit of construction management and some other things. So, I think the biggest thing is don't put yourself in a box. If you're an HVAC person that doesn't necessarily mean you're going to be an HVAC person forever. The opportunities are all over the place and your skill set will take you in different directions. If you're a plumber, electrician or mechanic or whatever, there's other things you can do. So, I think that would be my biggest takeaway is don't put yourself in a box and don't limit yourself on your career path.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Love it. Well, again, Chris, definitely appreciate the time here this morning. Pleasure catching up and we will talk soon.

Speaker: Chris Sockriter    

Thanks for the time. It's awesome. 

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Take care. 

Speaker: Chris Sockriter    

Thanks, man. 

Outro:

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