Chris Rucker, VP at Allied Steel Buildings discusses, what sets Allied apart, and why are we a top steel fabricator, with Steve Heil, VP at Allied Steel Buildings.
It’s the EXPERIENCE!
Experienced Steel Fabricator
Hey, everybody, Chris Rucker here with Allied Steel buildings and I wanted to talk to everybody today about why we’re different. It is a question that we do get a lot, from our clients. Why are you guys different than the other company that we’re talking to? And having been here for 16 years, I’ve seen this company evolve into what it is today, and I can confidently say that, what Allied is, it’s an experience. It’s an experience that really brings a bunch of different solutions together. Now you’ve got fabrication companies that are good at fabricating. You’ve got project management companies which are good at managing projects. You’ve got logistics companies that are good at logistics. It’s not often that you find a company like Allied, which brings all those items together into one comprehensive experience. Fabrication, project management, logistics, procurement, and after delivery, on site presence is all things that we offer. Steve, what do you think about that?
Well, you’re right, Chris, because I’ve been with a bunch of different companies, not a bunch, but a few over the years, and Allied is different. We go after things and we will find a solution that other companies just won’t do. And that’s really what our people come to us and say, how do we find the end result here? How do we get there? And you might start out over here and end up way over here and go, that is what works for them, and it works for us. And the good thing about Allied is, that’s different than everybody else, we’ve got options. We’ve got different plants, different fabricators, different people we go to, that can do different things for us. And this person we work with may not be great for this project, but these guys over here do this stuff really well. I think that’s what makes us different. And if you’ve got just a manufacturer, that all you have is that one way of doing it, and it doesn’t fit, you’re kind of stuck. So it’s kind of a unique thing. We’ve done a lot of crazy things over the years, right?
A lot of crazy things, yeah.
We’ve learned a lot, right, over the years?
Yeah. You and I have been to five or six different countries together.
Allied’s On-Site Presence
That’s one thing Allied does that a lot of people don’t want to do, different countries, be on site, be there. You travel. How many different passports have you gone through? Panama, what, 100 times? More? 120 times. Who’s going to go to Panama 120 times? And it was worth it, right? We had a lot of business down there, different countries, Colombia, Peru, whatever. It’s been an amazing ride. And the things we’re doing in the States now, too. I think the international group really gave us a real good segue into the US because those types of crazy projects we did internationally transformed us into what we can do here in the US.
Yeah, that’s true. If you can travel to different countries, freight to different countries, go through all the different obstacles that you see in different countries. These projects that we’re now starting to do in the US, which really, it’s been the last couple of years, we’ve really started to ramp up our large scale projects here in the United States. You can translate that success very easily right here, locally. Last year, we finished up a million square feet over in Texas. We didn’t utilize just one factory. We utilized multiple factories in order to fabricate that structure and get it done within the time schedule that was required, and we keep doing that. These large scale projects, they’re different than just a small warehouse. There’s a lot to consider. There’s staging, erection, sequencing, making sure that the steel that you’re sending out is able to be erected when it arrives. You’ve got to think about a lot of things like that, right?
Right, absolutely. That million square footer now, it’s not Panama City, Panama. It’s San Antonio, Texas, I was on that job site probably 30 – 40 times over the course of that project. I’ve been on that job site 30 – 40 times, to make sure everything was going smooth for those guys. They understood what they needed. That project was very complex. We had hanging steel, we had cranes, we had all kinds of platforms. We had class A structural. That’s another one. We did trusses. We actually built two bridges for this project that span 200ft clear. And they’re big class-A structural that a lot of companies aren’t going to do, and Allied can do that.
Pre-Engineered Steel Buildings, Conventional Steel Buildings, Hybrid Steel Buildings
Right. Hotels, convention centers, we did a baseball stadium. When we’re presented with a unique opportunity, a lot of companies will say, no, we’re not going to do that, or they don’t know how to do it. The experience that we have over the years and overcoming all these obstacles and learning new ways to do things, not just in this country, but in 69 other countries has allowed us the expertise and the staff and the knowledge to accomplish these types of projects.
You made a good point. That knowledge we have, not just us here at Allied, we got a great group here, but we have great people, partners, engineers, detailers. We’ve got great people out there that we utilize. It might be a project that we haven’t done in the past or maybe something that’s a little bit trickier. Some of these high seismic areas, some of these crazy multistory buildings that have special load requirements, special design requirements that we go up to an SE (structural engineer) engineer that we have. We have some SEs on staff, but we also have outside teams that say, I can do this job for you. They know how to do it the best way, and our customers have confidence in us because we know the right people and we’re willing to work with all these different people.
Early Process Contributors
Our experience with these projects is one thing, that just leads to the knowledge that we have, that we can add to your team. But our ability to get involved in the beginning of the project, during the design phase, during the coordination phase, and to really add that expertise, whether it’s talking to your engineer or architect or your project managers, that’s part of the whole Allied experience that we can offer.
I think it’s a good point there, Chris, because how to make somebody trust you, I think it’s confidence, when we get involved with them right away, on their design team, their engineer, their architect, and we have the ability to talk with them and tell them how we can help them on their project. They have a confidence in us because we have the ability to do it. And that really starts the whole project going that, hey, you guys can do this project. We believe you guys know the parameters of the project, whatever that may be, it changes. That’s the key, the confidence in us, and that’s where the trust comes from.
We’re With You All The Way
Sure, and it doesn’t stop when the project is delivered either. When a client engages Allied on their project, that confidence really transcends throughout the whole entire experience, through project management. I hear over and over again from our clients, your project managers are so communicative. They’re there, they’re either on a Zoom call or they’re actually on site. And just that presence and that constant communication and coordination, it sets us apart from anybody else that I know in this industry.
You can see the realization of that is how many times people come back to us or refer us, even better, right? And we love that referral business. Hey, you need somebody who can do this project for you, Allied is who you want to call. And we’ve got plenty of our vendors that tell their other customers, hey, talk to Allied, they can help you out. They come back. And once we do a project with you, typically we’re doing another project. That’s just how we do things. We’re not looking for the one time hit, we get some of those, but for the most part, it’s referral and repeat business is how Allied goes to market.
Our Clients Keep Coming Back
75% of our business is referrals and repeat customers coming back to us because they want to experience that same experience they had the first time. There’s no reason to go anywhere else after that.
And that’s changed over the years. You said you’ve been here 16 years, Allied is 19 years old, I’ve known you 16 years, ever since you’ve been an Allied, I’ve been doing this 33 years, Allied’s change a lot. Before, it was not a lot of repeat customers, that was the market. But now when you have bigger projects, larger projects, big GCs, big developers, huge developers, million square footers. That’s hard to find. We’ve got multiple projects right now that are right at a million square foot. That is just unbelievable.
Why Are We Different?
Why are we different I mean, we could go into pricing. Why are we different? We’re not the lowest price. Steel is steel for the most part. Fabrication, quality is very important.
Yeah, let’s talk about that, why we’re different, because that’s the key. Right I’ll chime in on it too. That we send a lot of people, we travel a lot, to job sites, to our plants, to our vendors, our people we use, that other people won’t do. They’ll assume that everybody is going to have great quality, and we assume, we expect that, but we’re also going to verify, and we’re going to be there.
All right, Steve. Well, thanks for being here. Really appreciate it. We talked about a lot of different reasons why the Allied experience sets us apart from others.
Yeah, we did. I think you hit it early on about why we’re different. This whole experience. I think you’ve said it before. People ask, “what am I paying extra for?” And you always say, well, here’s your team. Behind you. Right? Here’s the project managers. Here’s the project coordinators. Here’s our team. Here’s people who go to the site. We will be on site with you, if you need us there. We’ll do things that other companies won’t do and that comes with a cost. But it’s worth it, I believe. Right. And you might pay a little more for Allied. We might be the lowest price too. But you’re going to get better service and better quality.
Yeah, absolutely. We’re not just pushing paper back and forth here. We actually have a comprehensive solution that we’re bringing to the entire project.
We opened a factory to meet our client’s needs…
