Level Up with Duayne Pearce
I take on the role of an authoritative voice that fearlessly communicates truths drawn directly from my lived experiences. With a genuine sense of ownership, my insights are free from any hidden agendas – they truly belong to the audience. My stories and journey add remarkable value, the key now lies in harnessing its power effectively to help others.
My purpose is to create a new residential building industry. My mission is to inspire unshakable self-confidence in my colleagues in the industry, empowering them to orchestrate prosperous, enduring, and lucrative businesses that bring exceptional projects to fruition for our clients.
My goal is to foster a deeper comprehension among clients about the identity and functions of builders, redefining their perceptions.
Level Up with Duayne Pearce
If You're Not Striving For Excellence What Are You In It For?
Join us as we sit down with John Harris, an influential figure in the construction world, to uncover the secrets behind his success and the fascinating journey of modern home building.
John, who has been nominated for Australian of the Year, shares his expertise on managing client expectations, the evolution of housing demands, and the critical importance of clear communication and education in the modern building environment.
check out Duayne's other projects here...
QuoteEaze
quoteeaze.com/Free-Offer.html
Live Life Build
livelifebuild.com
D Pearce Constructions
dpearceconstructions.com.au
Head over to revelsaunas.com.au and use the Coupon Code LEVELUP10 on checkout to receive 10% off any Revel products.
We're on a mission to elevate the professionalism of the residential construction industry, and help everyone enjoy building and renovating homes.
Easy to use Quoting software for Builders. Produce professional and accurate proposals. Quickly and accurately measure and markup plans in minutes. Win more jobs and track costs. 21 Day Free Trial.
Head over to Duayne's website here for other podcasts, merch and more...
duaynepearce.com
If you can't picture what your ideal client is and their ideal project and budget and know that you can deliver it on time, on budget with excellence, pick a different marketplace.
Speaker 2:G'day guys. Welcome back to another episode of Level Up. We are still on tour in Tassie and I just cannot wait to get this next guest in front of you. I've got a massive list here. He's actually been nominated for Australia of the Year. He's won the Pride of Australia medal. His definition of success is doing what you want when you want, with the right people, how you want to be doing it. He's been a fashion model. He's owned and run multiple home design centers across Australia. He's a huge advocate for consumers. He's worked with multiple builders, or he's worked with master builders for nine years. He's worked with multiple volume builders. He's done seven years leadership training. There's not a lot that this guy has not done in our industry and I cannot wait to see where this conversation goes. So a massive warm welcome to John Harris. How are you, mate?
Speaker 1:Better when I see your smiling face, Dwayne. Hey, we're certainly not in your garage, are we? Eh? No, I thought I was going to get flown to Brisbane. Shay promised me a trip on a plane. That's a nice intro too, and even though we missed a few there too, when I worked for the master builders, I was just on the committee. I didn't want to be the leader, Just to make sure that you know, at the time the master builders were like oh, the average age of members is 68. And I'm like that young. What are we going to do to re-engage with young people? And at the time, Facebook and MySpace and all that had started up. So I went and did a project on that and reported back, but I was also doing it for the hi at the same time.
Speaker 2:Slightly different memberships in tasmania, although many good builders are members of both and I'm sure that's the case australia wide, but they're different. Yeah, I've been really looking forward to this chat because I've. There's a lot of people that you and I both know, um colleagues in the industry, and everyone speaks so highly of you and and everything that you've done throughout your career for the industry. So, yeah, I want to deep dive into a few of those, because I know well you and I have rang up for a quick phone conversation. An hour later we're still on the phone, so this could go all day. But what's been your driver? Why have you been so passionate about our building industry?
Speaker 1:Same reason as you, I reckon, twain. If I was involved in hairdressing or being a barista, I'd want the best there. If we're not striving for excellence, what are we in it for? Oh, I'm just going to be a half-assed kind of good builder. That's not enough. And likewise for mums and dads to invest now goodness knows $700,000 plus in a build. Those people are in the wild, wild west, unless you've done it before. And typically you know.
Speaker 1:The reason we spend so much money on advertising and marketing is we've built a house for someone. Why didn't they come back automatically and why aren't they referring their friends? So when you work for a couple of the bigger volume builders and you go to a display village $50,000 worth of free appliances, $60,000 worth of this and that and people are fooled by that it's like can you do the job and will you finish it on time? On budget, there was such a big disconnect and you know you work in a home ideas centre or a building selection centre. When I went in high school 1978, to the building information centre in Sydney, you know nine storeys of ideas. It was quite different then than it is now. Back then you bought a house in a subdivision and that was it. Put your name on it. Chuck wagons in the west we used to call it, but that's very different now.
Speaker 2:We all want a bespoke lavish house, the old champagne house for the beer budget, yeah, um and everyone wants like this, is very passionate about this topic, like everyone raves on about the cost of building, and yet no one's talking about people's expectations yeah, yes it's expensive to build, yes, but have a think about what people are wanting.
Speaker 2:Like it's not, like I remember, even when I was apprentice, like I probably saw the tail end of it, like you. Like houses still had, occasionally, one bathroom, they still had a carport. The house, the cars weren't housed in the house, it it was three bedrooms, it was like a multi-purpose family dining room. And I know you're passionate about this as well, because this goes on to the way we live these days, where two people have to work to be able to afford everything. So no one's talking about getting back to the bare bones. Everyone just keeps banging on about building is expensive and yes, it's f***ing expensive because you f***ing want a list a mile long. Like it's good, it's common sense managing expectations podcast, episode 29 actually, and I just swore you said your grandkids.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right, shay will take it out and say it again but it, but it.
Speaker 1:All those things are true, and I think you and I spoke in that one hour prequel where's John good enough to be on my show that managing expectations is part of the reason we have nightmare clients. So if you put your lateral thinking hat on from Dr Edward De Bono, what would you do about that? Well, your marketing would be on educating people Sorry, how much does? And Jared Kemp, of course, at Homes for you or Build for you, as he's quoting an estimating service now.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So you can go online and bang in what you want and then it'll tell you how much it's going to cost. So there's no recommended retail price on a house and, yes, you can build it more economically than others and it doesn't have to be in the bronze spec on your house. There are economical ways to go about it. But there are economical ways to go about it but, there is no recommended retail price. So I remember working in a display village in Perigian Springs Up in.
Speaker 1:Queensland? Yeah, and people would walk in and go. How much is this house, mate? It's like this one, just like this, with everything in it, including the artwork. Yeah, it's $718,547. Do you have a boat? No, well, there's a jetty. It costs 40 grand. I just saved you 40 grand.
Speaker 1:Uh, where's your block of land? Oh, up there in the tambourine hills, all right. What's the soil type? No idea. I said, well, okay, so subfloor, this house is on solid fill. Yours is going to be on red volcanic dirt. Do you know what? No, I don't know, I haven't done a soil test. Well then, any price will do, mate, because until someone goes and looks now, that guy actually built that house on his block up there, big sweep and views full 360 of queensland. We had to put one meter cubed concrete pieces together and build the house on that. It was like the one above highly reactive volcanic could blow at any time, kind of thing. You know so. So he didn't have expectations about what he did or didn't want it. He just saw it, liked it, wanted it, and I think that's the element.
Speaker 1:You and I mentioned it the dissatisfaction with my existing living arrangements is the trigger point for people to go. I want a new house. What am I going to do? Build a new house and blah. So we're now saying he or she or those who spend the most amount of money on online, google keywords, adwords, etc. Are the best builders. What could go wrong with that?
Speaker 2:yeah, I made it's crazy. Just because you've got a lot of followers or you're getting a good google review means absolutely nothing, but it's like it all ties in with like. So, like you just said, like homeowners get dissatisfied with their current living situation. I quite often find they get an inheritance or they get a better job or they manage to save some money.
Speaker 1:Whatever the reason.
Speaker 2:Social climbing, yeah, and so they want to improve their living situation. Yep, and I feel like, because of a lot of the way the real estate agents drive the market and the media TV shows, tv shows People end up living in houses. So people end up fully committed to a house and they lose all their lifestyle. Yep.
Speaker 1:Over 30% of their income and two have to work.
Speaker 2:Mum and dad have to work. You don't get time with the kids. Everyone's flat out trying to pay the mortgage.
Speaker 1:work, yeah, mom and dad have to work, you don't get time with the kids. Everyone's flat out trying to pay the mortgage.
Speaker 2:Disconnected from reality, unhinged from my family, I stumble on supporting the anz or my favorite bank yeah, but then they it's a crime, if they actually and this is something I've actually become really, really passionate about is working with great designers and architects that find out how people live, find out their hobbies, their family everything about them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And you can actually design an incredible home that suits the person, and it doesn't have to be a McMansion. Yeah, it can be affordable. Yeah, you've just got to educate people.
Speaker 1:Yep, and no one builder typically can change the nature of the Australian expectation of home standards because the blocktacular and everybody else is pumping it into expensive and lavish, which is okay if you've got the budget for it.
Speaker 2:What do you call it? Blocktacular?
Speaker 1:Blocktacular. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I said I wouldn't swear so, otherwise we'll use some other words, but I suppose the reason that I have that unique perspective on it and the reason that we're here together is because we know what the problem is. What's the solution? How can anyone build a? So what is the solution, do you think? Well, I think at some stage, and you said it before, if we know what Ikigawa isn't it? What am I good at, what will people pay me for and what does the market need? And if you've seen the big ikigaya, it shows what am I good at and all that kind of stuff. And and, of course, you half your podcaster about it. You've got to get good with people, whether it's the consumer or the team. You're not going to out earn your personal development. That's for you, kyle's at a.
Speaker 1:Say that again, mate you will not out earn your personal development it's the most important thing, isn't it?
Speaker 1:you have to spend time, money, energy on yourself, yep, yep I I'm not sure that anyone I know watching this will know how much money and time I've spent and committed to myself. But you know, you know I'm a public speaker and I do it professionally. I get paid two and a half thousand dollars an hour to come and talk and blah, blah, blah. Yeah, you'll get my invoice later, show. But but I've sat in that audience watching others for 25 years to give me the right to get onto the stage to think I know a little bit about the topic and I won't go and talk if I'm not the subject matter expert. I want to sit in the audience and learn and listen. So I've worked with and sat in the audience for some pretty incredible people and learnt a lot. I've got a briefcase full of notes from seminars and webinars and workshops that I've been to over a long period.
Speaker 2:What's driven? I like diving into this because it took me a long time. Over the years I've been to different seminars and things and I'd like to hear your take on it. Why do you think it's important, or what motivates you to spend more time, money and energy on yourself, self-improvement?
Speaker 1:I did for a very specific reason. I understood what henry ford said, which is, no man or woman and I've cleaned it up will amass a personal fortune in this or any other century unless they utilize and understand the principles of time leveraging and duplication. I as an individual can only and I'm lucky, I've got a 30 year old son to Tommy the builder and he used to ask me how am I going to earn more money quicker, faster? Because you know we all like to work and he is a 30-year-old builder and I'd say, tommy, from there up the potential is unlimited. From there down you'll get an hourly rate. So unless you start leveraging other people's For people, people that aren't that are listening, yeah, you just, oh, from the neck down, sorry, my neck top computer is where my potential is for the aspirational builders listening. That is where the empires of the future are. The empires of the future are the empires of the mind, not the calluses on your hands which are from the neck down.
Speaker 1:Yeah from the neck down. We're worth 45, 50, 60, 90 an hour. But if it's just you, as my son has just realized, the tax system is going to take half of it and there is no easy simple. So the better you get, the more busy you get, the more tax you pay. Hang on, that sounds like Russia. So now we've got builders that have paid their accountant more money than they would spend on personal development to hide the profits carefully through trust, et cetera. Yeah, that's not my shtick. By the way, I know plenty of billionaires who have builders who have become millionaires because they've understood the principles of time leveraging and duplication and all of that is Time.
Speaker 2:Is the? So the number one we used to when my wife and I built QuoteSpec, which is now QuoteEase. It's an incredible platform. Allows builders and traders to do all their quoting and estimating, and I used to get it back then. I still get it for that now, and then I have Live Like Bill with Amelia, now Mate. The number one thing I get told from the entire industry it doesn't matter who I'm talking to is I don't have enough time, and reality is you've got plenty of time, you're just prioritizing, do?
Speaker 1:you want to do something on time management?
Speaker 2:Definitely.
Speaker 1:It was a topic that I spent many years and because I realized that we're not filming all of it. If a builder goes to Microsoft Outlook and downloads a week to a page, print it out. What time do you get up Six? What time do you hit the site? 7.15. Get the boys ready. Then we have coffee, lunch, lunch, afternoon tea, go home, do invoices, kiss the kids and wife, hide myself in the office till 11 pm, start doing live life build courses at 1 am, get up 20 minutes sorry to cut you off.
Speaker 2:We we're very strict on time management. We get our, we get our members locking in time five o'clock in the morning, one to two hours a week yep, good man yeah, it's the way to do it.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to give all of your members 10 more hours a week ready.
Speaker 2:Yeah when yeah.
Speaker 1:When you look at your weekly time, write in when the kids come home from school. Say to your wife on Mondays and Wednesdays, I'll get them. Get off the site. It won't fall down. If it needs bracing, do it at 2 pm. But if you look at when you get up and when you go to bed and you just allocate 20 minutes a day to business improvement or self-improvement first, let's do the self-improvement one, Within a year you've invested 40 minutes a day, five days a week, times 52 weeks. It's not quite a uni course but it's as good as a TAFE one and you'll have that deeper understanding. I could list off four books straight up that people should read for minute one Skill with People Les giblin, because they're in $3.99 and it's 33 pages of human insights. Um so skill with people. There's giblin being happy and making friends from andrew matthews have you heard of those?
Speaker 1:that's a good one yeah, I've seen andrew a couple of times phenomenal. If you're going to get into marketing or whatever, just contact dwayne, he'll send you my details and I, I must say I'm not a business coach, I'm not a builder's coach. You know I don't do that for a living. Yeah, but I've indeed worked for over 2,000 builders in five countries of the world. You know Berkshire Hathaway, warren Buffett's customer, yeah, and his building company was one of my customers. Yeah, I did their sales and marketing analysis and review. So yeah, with one of their franchisees. And I've worked for Hotondo and all these other builders. I can't even remember who I've worked for.
Speaker 2:What's the other two books then? Is it a four-hour work week? One of them?
Speaker 1:No no. I think if you're at square one today as a builder or a tradie or a man or a woman. Surely the key things and I've heard a lot of your podcasts talk about the relationship between partners, and I won't use husband and wife just living in domicile partners. Read what would be the best book Five Love Languages. You've probably heard of that one.
Speaker 2:I've heard of that one. I haven't listened to it.
Speaker 1:Great book. Great book. Ladies and gentlemen, we all have a method of expressing love and receiving love. If you don't invest in that normally, give it. Marriage counselors give it to you when you're going through divorce too late. Yeah, so so. And of course, a lot of those books want to sell you more stuff.
Speaker 1:Just read the principles, do the test, understand how you want to have love and your partner, your significant other, does. Now I'm in my 40th year of marriage. This year it's important, isn't it? Five different women, but 40 years all up, no? So so yeah it, it is important, and it's probably a topic for builders that you certainly, when I was a boy, you wouldn't have touched. You would never discuss that kind of crap. Cut it out, john, take a teaspoon or so, man. So now it is important. We do talk about mental health and all power to some of your podcast guests for their full vulnerability. We watched Brene Brown's Netflix special for an hour and a half. There's one you should watch, ladies and gentlemen, because that talks about topics that I've never heard spoken about, and I've been actively seeking topics for 40 years.
Speaker 2:John. That's something that I'm incredibly proud of this podcast. It's a safe place where people feel comfortable, that they can be vulnerable, and I know it's been an enormous turning point for me, but I firmly believe now that, like, if you are in a place and we we do this with our live like, build community, like the, the space we've created there is incredible. And when you're, when you're surrounded by like-minded people that are striving to achieve the same things, that are very supportive, that have dealt with similar situations, and it's you feel safe enough to be vulnerable, that's where the floodgates open. That's when the real magic starts to happen I'm with you, buddy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, we benchmark the master builders in tasmania. So I have indeed worked with and for master builders tasmania and master builders victoria, and I'm very clear about what I have and haven't done. I can still remember it all. Mostly, we benchmarked the master builders of Tasmania. Do you know what the number one thing was that people were members for and it had the highest satisfaction of any membership in Australia. Just throwing a plug, no, I said it was membership and association. It wasn't, it was fellowship. The word was fellowship Getting together in a room full of builders and of course that's changed because there's females there now and and there's probably all kinds of people in there now and we are welcoming and accepting of everybody that wants to share that common improvement. Again, this is not about wallowing in the pity of where we are today. This is about momentum. This is about what happens next. You know, you could almost draw a line in the sand today if you're listening, and say this is the sum total of everything I've done in my life. From tomorrow, what will I do differently?
Speaker 2:Yeah, make every single day improve it.
Speaker 1:One minute, leave Les Giblin in the toilet, keep developing and I must admit, I stopped. You know I got to that point. Now I've got nine grand kids. My oldest is 39 years of age. I'm not interested in making me a better person, because it's not about me, it's about them, or you or the customer right. And so I had the focus on myself for a long time and now it's totally off. It's all about selfless service and legacy. What, what legacy will I leave behind? Yeah, you know. So helping others and improving the building industry you don't get medals for it, do you?
Speaker 1:No, you don't get nominated for Australian of the Year for it, for everyone listening.
Speaker 2:We've got the Pride of Australia medal sitting in front of us here on the table. I'm sure you're very proud of that.
Speaker 1:No, I'm not, and it's a topic of conversation with myself and a lot of other people. Not only didn't I expect it, it's not warranted that medal if it relates to what I think it does is the efforts of 300 people in Tasmania. So I put it around people's necks and get a photo of them because it had nothing to do with me, I just talked about it. So there's a great disconnect in society too, dwayne, that we think talking about stuff and and bitching and moaning about it's going to fix it. What are you going to do?
Speaker 2:well there wouldn't be too many people like you, like you, john, that are spruiking like getting all the other people out there, like most people, would take the award and look at me, look at me like that's the world we live in now I have it in my office as a point of shame that I haven't fixed and changed anything yeah so it drives me on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I have to live up to it to keep doing someone nominated me.
Speaker 1:It wasn't rupert murdoch and the mercury. I'm serious. Yeah, you know that medal was for something totally unrelated to the building industry, but I took everything I'd done out of the building industry and many of your listeners are also working for sporting clubs and charities and we give, give, give, give, give till. We can give no more. But talking about it doesn't do anything. It has to be action. Only action cures pain. So, no matter what state your listeners are at when they listen to the video or the podcast, may I say, if it gets that bad or if it's too tough, ring someone, for goodness sake. No one suffers alone. No man or woman is an island, and if you don't know what the answer is, what is it? Worry doesn't cure anything, only action.
Speaker 2:So if you're, worried about something.
Speaker 1:call someone If you don't know the answer.
Speaker 2:call someone, you've got to take action.
Speaker 1:Yeah, don't let it burn your stomach up and give you fretful nights. Take action If to burn your your stomach up and and and give you fretful nights. Take action if, if you even know what the problem is, you're a genius to then seek advice to fix it. That's hero stuff.
Speaker 2:Well, another thing is don't don't worry. If you don't know what it is like, that that's a big thing we. You don't know what you don't know. Yeah, that's right. So if you're, if you're lost or you're struggling or you're not having the business you have or the life you have or the family you have or the butt or anything, don't be afraid to just put your hand up and ask a question or talk to someone about it. It's okay, because I didn't know what I didn't know for a very long time.
Speaker 1:We can do a whole comedy routine about known and unknown knowns. And when you apply that to the building industry to take your beautiful relevance straight back to what don't we know. Well, consumers know, bugger all. They think it takes two takes to make a dog kennel in the backyard and Scotty can built nine of them, and they just didn't film it. It took three minutes and two letters of paint, sponsored by Dulex, and the hammers and the nails and the screws. That's a formula. I happen to know how to do that and I'm happy to share it with Dwayne on episode 27.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about that a bit, because I know you're very big on funnels and marketing and attracting the right types of clients. I'm huge on that. I think that's where it's another area where the magic happens. When you can attract people that are attracted to you with a personal connection, rather than worried about the figure on the bottom of a piece of paper, that's where the magic happens. How do you go about that?
Speaker 1:That's a big conversation and I'm guessing that almost every listener is at a different stage in their business. Again, it's a stock take. In every other business you can do a stock take and say, dan Murphy's, tomorrow, all that old wine's got to go In your trading life as a builder and I'm assuming that most of you are builders got to go in your, in your trading life as a builder, and I'm assuming that most of yours are builders, not tradies.
Speaker 1:No, we all kinds of trades builders, yeah, and I'm just mindful to to to know that a builder that builds custom luxury is an easy one. To go from one to ten million as an aspirational builder, build two or three and have a small team. That's a license to print money. Those people probably don't need my help. But for else, whatever you put out there in the marketplace has to be about why they should choose you. Now I think you guys talk about charging, to quote and proving value. Pca or whatever it is.
Speaker 2:Quotes quotes gone. Yeah, quotes gone. It's got to be proposal Proposal. Thank you.
Speaker 1:I think I started teaching builders how to charge for the original site visit in a concept design in 2002. And I've had conversations with builders saying mate, no one's going to pay me, to quote as a matter of ethical conversations flow from that topic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I jumped on the charge for a quote bandwagon I think it was seven or eight years ago with Builders Coach and I thought it was a fantastic idea. But I got straight back off it two or three months later because I just saw it being another thing that was going to give the industry a bad name because no one was putting a system behind it, and so they all thought that that's brilliant. I'm going to get paid $1,000 to produce the same shit piece of paper that I did before.
Speaker 1:Do we want to go one step before that? Yeah, when you say I want to attract the right client, all of our messaging, whether it's TikTok, instagram, facebook site boards, vehicle signage, the whole shooting match. If you do a stock, take today, write down all the ways that you currently attract new clients and then grade them Cost of lead, that's a good one. And what am I saying? Is that attracting? Am I resonating with my ideal target market? We can call them the golden ticket clients or your avatar, whatever word you want to use. But if you can't picture what your ideal client is and their ideal project and budget and know that you can deliver it on time, on budget, with excellence, pick a different marketplace, go and build decks, lift old Queenslanders up there's a billion dollars' worth of work there coming. So knowing who your ideal client is then dictates what you say. It guides you about the information you relieve to prove value that the person rings you. They only want to deal with you.
Speaker 2:Now how? There's never been a better time to do it. Of course there's never been a better time to do it, Of course there's so much demand 300,000 new people a year.
Speaker 1:If you move here from another country, there's no way you want to build a west-facing, black-textured, black roof, no-eaves house with five bedrooms and a thermonuclear generator with an air con on outgassing volatile organic compounds under a set of high tension wires. So so yet we you and I both know that most of your custom luxury builders once they fix the basics, there's no stopping them but it's, it's I.
Speaker 2:I don't think there's a better time to to be in the industry and look, it took me a long time to get into it but ultimately, like my building business is booming, got incredible clients, very profitable quotas, is growing like we're really starting to push that out there now. Live life bills doing incredibly well. All that has come from me putting myself putting my ugly mug on my phone, walking around my job sites, doing these videos and talking to people yeah, and all power to you too, mate.
Speaker 1:I mean. So you didn't even get a medal, you know, know, but you and Amelia have changed the face of the building industry. For the people who have listened to your podcast To see an architect and a builder say, okay, we're doing all right, let's go and invest in this, it's just mind-boggling. I mean, I look at builders that do it and think why would you do that? Why would you expose yourself to taking on other people's challenges? Expose yourself to taking on other people's challenges, both from mental health, the financial, the business, and you don't even know if they're craftsmen.
Speaker 2:Maybe because we're winning Like it's unbelievable how well Live Life Builders is going. Look my well again. Just to add to that list before you. And I wouldn't be sitting here doing this podcast. We wouldn't be Australia's number one construction industry podcast if I wasn't putting my ugly mug on social media.
Speaker 1:You're showing vulnerability and investing in it and doing it. Most people just talk about it. Yeah, so people can every single person like.
Speaker 2:We talk about this a lot in Live Like Build. The ultimate way to attract the right types of client and separate you from the builder next door is to be yourself videos, talk about what you do, why you do it, how you do it, and you will attract like-minded clients that connect with you in as friends yes, yeah, that's right how they, how they enter your funnel with the mindset of duane is my mate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I like what he says and I believe it. Yeah, let's be frank, the one word there is is is attraction. Yeah, how do I attract my ideal client? And who are they? I had a builder in hobart ring me up. Oh, johnny, we need your help. Come down and help us. And I'm like, yeah, no worries, man. Um, just look at your last 10 profitable jobs for me. Describe them, their cars, the schools, how they found you, how did they find you? And we'll, we'll get going and we'll give you a little sales and marketing analysis and review and a bit of a stock take and set you in the right way. Billboards and advertising and bigger yellow pages, adwine.
Speaker 1:I got down halfway down the middle of the highway. He rings me up and says oh, we don't need you now. I'm like what do you mean? I'm halfway down the highway. He said well, we did what you said and we've discovered that four of them were news agents, three of them were pharmacy and they all know each other. And I said so what are you going to do? Sponsor the pharmacy guild and association and the news agency? He said yep, he said, but they also all live in one or two suburbs, and I said so. Billboard? He said yep. I said what's the message going to be for those time pressured enough to know that they work 24 hours a day? So do we? You know, we're here for you when you need us, all that kind of stuff. You know, yeah, know what the fear, uncertainty and doubt is and address it with trust, confidence and belief. And, like you might have mentioned already the word authentic yeah, be you, but be a. Be the best you. Yeah, be a good you. Be an. Improving you. Well, you.
Speaker 2:Well, I think it does get very hard. I think with the social media or I know with social media, so many people are seeing that they want to get their business to a certain level, but they're seeing and this applies to all industries, not just builders they see other people doing certain things and they think why can't I have that, why can't I do that? Why is their business going so well? Why are they getting those types of clients? Why are they getting those good jobs?
Speaker 1:Why are they making?
Speaker 2:all the money Fuck, forget everybody else.
Speaker 1:Just do it for you. Yeah, you said something very important.
Speaker 2:You don't know that someone else is making money Outwardly.
Speaker 1:The banks will lend you quite a lot of money. That gives the impression that you're doing well. But who have I worked for? I'm not even going to mention them. One of them was money talks, bulldust walks and at the end of the day, your wealth is judged by free and available cash flow. So at the end of one house, if you draw up stumps and do a stock, take on your money, you've got $723,412 in the bank. You're doing okay. If you're leveraging that into other properties, et cetera, you're doing okay. But you know you and I are talking because we want to help those that are probably struggling as well.
Speaker 1:I call them aspirational builders. I want something. I know I can be more. How do I get there? What's my skill gap? You know, yeah, and that's you know. Know to your credit, that the reason it's your year and the reason that people are attracted to is because you've gone with authenticity. There's the tip. How do we attract the ideal customer? We speak their language. Yeah, you know I've worked in display villages where everybody is from other countries.
Speaker 1:You know I put a prayer room in a display home for for those from the muslim faith and people. I was mad. It was just a cupboard. I put Mecca on the ground facing north, without mentioning Mecca, just the indicator saying north, and people opened the cupboard and instantly got what we were saying. No one's ever done that, yeah. So that's that equalise and separate thing. Yeah, know your market If everyone in your market is from India, or everyone's of this or from that, or I lived in Paddington and renovated houses in Mossman and there were no husband and wife combos back then.
Speaker 1:It's the pink market. How do I deal with NDIS? What are these opportunities? Again, it still comes back to the Ikigaya one about what am I good at, what do I like doing as well, and does that market market exist? We can't all want custom luxuries. What is it? Today, 2.4 million australian families are under housing duress. Don't focus on them. If, if, if, four million australians are over the age of 65, do we become an adaptive living specialist? You know what do we like doing? What are we good at?
Speaker 2:ask other people if you don't even know ask someone how do you know all these numbers?
Speaker 1:because they were on the radio. When I come in and I'm still studying to become more relevant I've read the Weekend Australian Time magazine in the bulletin cover to cover for five years, just as part of that personal development. So if I'm in a mining camp and we're talking about mining and investment properties in Townsville, I better know what I'm talking about. The spot price of nickel I know it's gone down.
Speaker 2:So keeping up with the times.
Speaker 1:Seek to be interested in other people that you yourself will be appearing interesting. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, I don't expect anyone else to do it, but you know, if you're going to be successful as a builder and people are the conduit to wealth get good at people. Yeah, a team, yeah, yeah, a team. Together, everyone achieves more. It's such a throwaway line, but what can we learn from richard branson about building teams? Holding hangar meetings yeah, you know where you get everyone together and talk about productivity. You know that we could do a podcast just on productivity and team meetings are huge.
Speaker 2:You've got to have team meetings with your team. I had a team meeting with my team yesterday morning. Before I come down here, I'm away for three weeks, yeah, and I finished up that meeting by telling them how much I trust them.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I know that I'm 100% comfortable to go away for three weeks because I have 100% trust in all the older tradesmen and my supervisor and my office staff and I know that they're going to get things done, of course, you have transponded your own efforts. I know that they feel great.
Speaker 1:If you're looking at your neck top computer is in the cerebral hemispheres because you can't physically even be there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it's not just a meeting saying hey guys, this is where we're at.
Speaker 1:This is what needs to be done. I've left all this there. Make sure it happens.
Speaker 2:No, you've got to reinforce, you've got to get that culture in your team where you make them feel part of the business, not just someone that turns up to do the work every day.
Speaker 1:Spot part of the business, not just someone that turns up to do the work every day Spot on. And employing those people and finding those people will come also from your marketing when you're attracting the right kind of clients. Yeah, and look. I suppose, with what you and I have seen, a few trends come along and go, and the one about telling your story. It's almost an anathema to what the customer needs to hear. Yeah, they need to hear your customer's story.
Speaker 1:Is Jackson Digny one of yours? Jackson in South Australia has the most comprehensive YouTube channel. I rang him up one day and said Jackson, do you know that in South Australia five times more people have watched your video on bushfire awareness and compliance than kitchen design? He's like no, I'm like well, what does that tell you? You? So, if fire is the challenge or unrealized potential in your property is the is that is the issue. Identify those opportunities. I'm happy to come and do a chat on any of that, because you know we ran property investment workshops in four states of australia and miners used to turn up and say I'll have one of them. I'm one of them. Thanks, mate. Spend 1.5 mil with a beer and a little conversation in broken mandarin with me in the townsville arms hotel yeah, you know and and as long as you can build trust, confidence and belief and remove unfair uncertainty and doubt.
Speaker 1:How does that relate to your ideal customer? What are the words we use and a lot of us? Unless you grew up wealthy and always went to private school and associated with a hierarchy of society, those people won't be familiar to that language, won't be familiar. You know work in an audi showroom for a poor showroom for a few weeks. That'll teach you about. You know dealing with with high net worth individuals. You know they are a unique thing and and if you're good at it, great. A lot of those people don't reveal their wealth. You don't know what they're worth, so you don't say what's your budget on the first meeting and how much are you looking to invest in this project? Yeah, you know. Yeah, have you considered any particular architects and designers?
Speaker 2:yeah, like it's process.
Speaker 1:You used it before process. How we attract people and put them through a process where they come to you on your terms. Dwayne, I don't know if anybody's mentioning that word on your podcast. The customer, customer must follow your process 100%. If builders are watching this and they don't, sorry, mate. No, no, go for it.
Speaker 2:Builders break this. They're so desperate they don't know their cost all those types of things. They're so desperate for the next job.
Speaker 1:Yeah, even if they have a process nine times out of 10, they'll get in a cash flow situation and they'll break their rules because they think that that's going to be the perfect three people quoting this job. The other one might be more desperate than me. I'm only making 12.8 when I look at it. Where can I undercut myself and haul my corporate profit out of this project? To win this job? To keep the men busy? Yeah, and which of those men will visit me when I'm in the psych ward? Because that's what you're doing. You're actually quoting against another builder's desperation, exactly, you know how are you going to go with that.
Speaker 1:I used to use this example with builders because I'm a big one for evidence-based selling. If I haven't got the evidence, it's just a nice little story, right? So if you bring people into your funnel and you take them through a known process like going to the hairdresser and this is one for most of your clients, most of your your businesses are talking to women women are still the homemaker. If you're in other, alternative relationships, one is the homemaker. That's been the case for 20 000 years since we got out of caves, right? Yeah, if you don't know what to say and how to say it and when to say it to that person, it's a. It's a tough conversation. The minute you do know you're on song, you've got a shot, right. Yeah, you go to the hairdresser with mum would have been a barber. They cut your hair, they talk to you, fluff you around, talk to mum, yeah, give him a short back and sides and out. You go from the time you're six to the time you're 50. You go into the barber or the hairdresser ladies, and it's the same conversation.
Speaker 1:My wife goes to the hairdresser. They sit her down, fluff her hair around. What are we doing today? To put a bit more grain, take some out. Uh, cut here, do this, do that color curl? Four and a half hours later and two glasses of Riesling. She gets to the counter, she pays 296 bucks and they book her in again for six weeks.
Speaker 1:That's a process that was never, ever written down or described to any of us, and every woman in Australia probably, and many men, go through that process. You go to spend $758,640 on a house and you have no idea. Yeah, no idea. Oh, look, honey, such and such is offering granite benchtops. Let's build a house with them. Yeah, you know, it's all. Systems of process, no process, no process. So how? A house with them. You know it's all systems of process, no process. So how we attract people for our process and I'd love to share some stories about which builders I can name them, the 50 top builders in australia who have nailed this well, they don't adapt, and well, I won't name them because they've all got competitors and and what they learned they paid lots of money for.
Speaker 1:Well, good luck to them. If you want to be a financial planner, it costs a lot of money to become one of them too or a surgeon.
Speaker 2:The volume builders do it very, very well and look, look, we all bag them out and complain about them and the quality of the jobs they build and stuff, but they've definitely nailed the sales part of it, like it is a full process. There's no changing around. You go to a display village, you light the house, you pick your finishes, you tick boxes, you sign the bottom and you pick your house up in six months when it's finished. Yep, like it's, and so I.
Speaker 1:And they didn't go broke in the meantime.
Speaker 2:Well, hopefully, but that's, I think, something that people overlook is that is only a very particular type of the market. Like Shea recently built a house and like he's seen how we build, compared to a volume builder builds um and it's a very different outcome. Very like it's chalk and cheese. So horses for courses everyone's. But I think we can learn a lot from it. If and that's what we do a lot with live life build up, we are all about systems and processes and that's why our pack process, our paid as a consultant through the early stages, is so successful, because it's actually it's a process you can sit in front of a client and say for me to get you from here to here, we have to do all of this and when you can lay it out in front of a client and you'll own it.
Speaker 1:And should I be lucky enough to win your building project, this will form part of the first payment.
Speaker 2:well, if you want to remove the risk, and give a guarantee no, but you don't even need to do that we don't do that first time a builder argued with me vehemently about charging.
Speaker 1:To quote, pay to his consultant is obviously what I was trying to teach him, but not with those words, and I said to him just say this 30 seconds. It took his wife, took a photo of the cheque and sent it back to me. It was for three grand. I said, mate, it was a concept authorization meeting. You were only supposed to charge $1,157. And that was your break point. You give me $1,157.
Speaker 1:I come back to you with a line drawing and a few elevations based on what we discussed. Your wife's out picking finishes and talking to Rhys Conversations keeping on going. And now we're going to working drawings and all that kind of stuff. We've watched people get paid online before they've even met people for working drawings, yeah. And the guy said to me oh, that'll never happen when he got five in one month at $5,575,. It proved the point that if you do these particular things online, you can win.
Speaker 1:The only safe place may I say it to your listeners is not Facebook, tiktok and Instagram. Say it to your listeners is not Facebook, tiktok and Instagram, it's your website. You still have to get your website right. Now here's one for you. What percentage of builders know the science of eyeballs. When you open up a computer screen, where do your eyes go? How do they work on the screen? What must the woman or the homemaker need to see above the fold? Well, there's a webinar. Yes, you are, you know it inherently, but to teach someone else to do it. There's a webinar. Yes, you are, you know it inherently, but to teach someone else to do it. This one of your podcasts is on it attracting the right client and taking it through.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you don't need me to do that, certainly not in this conversation today. But I just want your listeners to know that that is a known, known creating a website and it costs 1500 bucks. To the last time I did it. Where you put your navigation bars. What, what you see above the fold, what you say about yourself, what you show to people, the font, the colours. All of that is known, dwayne. All of it. And it's economical. Yes, you've still got to be Facebook, tiktok, instagram, pinterest and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:Nobody wants to see your dog on the back of a ute howling along to meatloaf two out of three ain't bad. It's a nice post for your sub trades and their mates, but it's not what mrs 2.4 kids in a lamborghini in the husband's garage wants to see. To build a custom luxury, 30 pint, five million dollar home in double way. How does that work? How do those builders get to build those houses? You know so. So you've got to identify what you want, when you want it, what's your business plan, your maximum output, and work backwards from there. Just say well, gee, you know. Look, what were my last 10 profitable jobs. Who were they? Where did they come from?
Speaker 2:Well, most builders don't even know if they're profitable, mate, because they're not checking all their numbers. That's definitely a whole other conversation.
Speaker 1:Don't they? Do they still not know? My mate, caleb Patterson, lives in Yakondanda yak and because he's building across the New South Wales and Victorian border, he has to go and get two building licenses. I don't know about your definition of a crime, ladies and gentlemen, but that's pretty close. So he goes and does the the um the course in New South Wales and Victoria and I said to him so what was the financial component of training like this is recently yeah the bloke said at the front of the class open up the textbook to page 57.
Speaker 1:Everybody did that. He said so you get all of the products and the materials you're going to use. You add 10%. You look at all your trades and you add 5% of their costs. You put together the quote on the double glazing and insulation and this and that and the concrete and you do a Gantt chart and bang, there's your profit. Any questions? No, let's move on. Yeah, that was the training. That was it less than an hour. Caleb said and I'm. And so I met caleb and and I said do you think that's correct? He said no, it's morally reprehensible that we'll be taking people from cert for great builders on the way to being craftsmen and give them such a level of ignorance but it's.
Speaker 2:Our whole industry is so broken around this. So I would love to know the numbers, but I I firmly believe that 80 to 90 percent of trades and builders are trading in solvent and I'm happy for anyone to reach out to this podcast, reach out to me on social media and prove me wrong, and I know there's a lot of builders out there that'll be thinking they're making money. And, like I said, anyone reach out to me, I will go through your numbers with you and prove you wrong. Yeah, there is you reckon's that high.
Speaker 2:There is very, very few builders making money and the worst ones that look like they're making a fortune by doing their own developments and things. They're only making good money because they're making the money out of the sale of the project, if they actually price the job correctly. And when you're doing your own developments, ultimately, if you set up properly and structured, you're doing your own development. So, ultimately, if you set up properly and structured, you should be doing the development for another company that you're, that you own or whatever. You shouldn't be building it under your own name and all those types of things. That's a whole other topic. But they they make the money because they they've become the developer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I knew I didn't even want to talk about that because I knew that you knew that quite a lot of your people would see that as their progression. Yeah, but just remind the ladies and gentlemen, if you're, not a client of live, life build or a great coaching and mentoring company. You're right that we either pay attention to the fully automated sales funnel or we pay attention to our numbers, but in actual fact, you've got to pay attention on both well, this was a big.
Speaker 2:This was a big thing for me, because I was no different to everyone else. Every builder you talk to, their dream is to do their own projects. Is it? Well, most of them Not in Tasmania, mate? No, no, she wasn't. And they think by doing their own projects it's going to solve all their problems.
Speaker 1:They're going to make more money, no more dealing with clients.
Speaker 2:They don more money with clients. They don't have to deal with clients, they can make their own decisions. But reality is, if they're actually running a sustainable, successful, profitable building business, understanding all their overheads, covering all their overheads and costs, including paying them a salary for the role they play in the business, adding their company profit onto that, because to have a sellable business, you've got it, your company has to make profit even after it's paid you. That's right. Yeah, you actually make more money doing jobs for clients and again, I'm happy for anyone to reach out to me and prove me wrong on that take the live life build challenge.
Speaker 1:Ladies and gentlemen. No, it's true, it's the duane, it's the duane pierce level up challenge is it a level?
Speaker 1:is it a level up challenge? Yeah, because here in tas, if you're a spec builder, as we used to call them, and you've been in it for long enough and I'm guessing you've been in it for more than 20 years yeah Well, we've come through a recession in that time 2008,. All men and women became very equal then, when panic stations set in at interest rates and global economy falls apart. So, if you're going to identify a particular silo of people to target, if you're going to identify a particular silo of people to target those who are wealthy, who have already passed the intergenerational you know cost of living crisis right now, today, in 2024, in march those are the ones to probably target.
Speaker 1:Now, what do they need? Well, they all need adaptive living, they all need grab rails in their showers and etc. Etc. You know, those things are known, knowns too. But if builders are still going broke, yeah, ring duane, because I couldn't be bothered. I used to sit there with people online in england or america or new zealand or australia and look at people's sales and marketing. I didn't care about their financials. I didn't think I could fix them because I'm not a qualified accountant. But then I've discovered that most accountants don't even know about work in progress payments and adjusted accounting things.
Speaker 2:Oh God, I'm very, very lucky I've had a very, very good accountant around me for a long time. But again you've got to deal with professionals that understand your industry and the reality is most people are dealing with accountants that are just doing the general moment data accounting.
Speaker 1:I know builders that go to ITP. Yeah, I know builders that go to ITP, yeah. So, dwayne, why don't we address that too? That if every builder holds their right hand up and looks into the palm of their hand and their fingers make a cup, they've got five fingers typically, unless they're carpenters, then they've got four or half a thumb. Each of those fingers are a core element of your business. So this is called pivot point management.
Speaker 1:You, dwayne Pearce, can walk away from your sites because you've almost reached Nirvana, that if something goes wrong on that building site, they're going to take a photo or do a live chat with you. That didn't happen five years ago, so I mastered technology. But each of your fingers becomes an element of running your construction company and you need to know what those elements are, what they look like done at best practice, and then who's going to do them. And then you ideally want to employ people who want to do it better than you, who will dig in harder than you will and really put their shoulders to the wheel and want to do it better than you do. Yeah, and that, ladies and gentlemen, is the recipe for success. Until you build that team, you can't out.
Speaker 2:You can't earn a fortune building your own houses even if you think you are well you touched on it before when you that magical place where you're attracting the right type of clients is also attracting the earn a fortune building your own houses. Even if you think you are Well you touched on it before that magical place where you're attracting the right type of clients is also attracting the right type of team members.
Speaker 1:Yes, based on your personal development. If you're a rat bag, you're going to attract rat bags and rat bag clients. There's no doubt that the law of attraction works in construction as it does in fast food. I'm serious At 3 o'clock in the morning you want a doner kebab. You go to the closest one and the nearest one. I used to say this to people when we were justifying PAC. I'll use your terminology If your child, if your daughter, breaks her arm at mixed martial arts jeez, I've changed that a bit over the years you take her to the nearest doctor yeah, the nearest doctor, yeah. Or the Launceston General Hospital, and spend eight hours in casually and the doctor says oh, your daughter's arm's really badly broken, you need to see a specialist. What does your mind say?
Speaker 2:$800.
Speaker 1:$300. $300. Yeah, an unknown, ethereal expense, right? If you've got a cheaper one, can I go to a cheaper surgeon? Is there a neurosurgeon that's cheaper for my child? No, you go for the best.
Speaker 1:Well, in the building industry, when the woman, the homemaker, sorry is dissatisfied with their current living arrangements too hot, too cold, too big, too small and we can go through all them as another workshop, the minute that homemaker says I've had enough and hits the internet, that's your moment of truth. We all read that book, moment of Truth. And then they've got to go through a known process. And if you can take them through that process as quick as you can, as simple and painless, based on a professional relationship, you will be paid as a professional. If you don't, you'll be paid as an amateur. And you've either got a known process, that's, that's gold there, what you just freebie for the listeners, right? But if you go through life, never and of course we're not dealing with self-esteem today I used to say to builders man, you're a great builder.
Speaker 1:I used to give the awards to the builders on stage for hi and mba for nine years. Here's house of the year. Well done Everybody. Ladies and gentlemen, sponsored by Karoma. And if you go and speak to the builder are you a good builder, are you a great builder? Oh, no man, I'm just a chippy. I'm like, oh my God, you just won house of the year at a straw bale and off grid, on an island off the coast in 50 knot winds, and you just say to me you're just a builder. So not only do we need to lift how we are perceived in the market, we need to lift ourselves.
Speaker 1:We need to lift how we talk to ourselves. Yeah, the self-talk book Shad Helmstead, or what to Say when you Talk to Yourself? Great book, ladies and gentlemen, and others.
Speaker 2:That's a perfect example. Builders. I ask this question when we get new members in there. If anybody asks you what? You do what do you tell them? And everyone says a builder, yeah. It's like, well, what's separating you from the builder down the road? Because he's going to say I'm a builder as well as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, people ask me what do you do? Well, I have just met someone a minute ago who works for moxie property. What an incredible new industry that is. He said what do you do? And I, we've just met and I don't want to bore you. What do you do? And then I'll engage and slip it in.
Speaker 1:So, because my wife and I said we would never both work, that's dictated, that one of us had to go out and work to cover both incomes and that when you've done it for 35 years, means that you work wherever you can, whenever you can, for whatever income you can. But as you become a professional, in one or two, hopefully three things, and especially in building, it might be that you love serving customers. It might be that you love doing the site works. It might be that you enjoy dealing with architects and designers. Whatever your icky guy will be, that becomes your highest hourly rate. So I used to sit down with builders and say if I can help you earn $1,188 an hour, would you be interested? Yeah, how many hours a week will you work? All of them? Okay? And then how long before you've earned 1.9 million, you've cleared your debt? What are you going to do then? How many are you going to work then? Oh yeah, I'd go down to 12 hours a week. You've mentioned the four-hour work week. You can get it down even even lower than that.
Speaker 1:As you know, you're here in Tasmania and your building company thrives on. You know that that's where we've got to be having. That's the mindset I mean, let's. If we're looking for grabs, for a show reel, guarding your mind as a fortress is step one. You don't. If you hang around with drop dead losers that speak badly and you know that's what you'll become if you're always associating with aspirational people that are prepared to smack stuff out of the park and, yeah, be a little bit vulnerable. But you know about personality types as well as I do. Some people don't want to reveal. I don't. I'm not one to sit around and suck my thumb because I've realised at my age it doesn't do anything.
Speaker 2:Let's jump into mindset. Mate, I know you're big on the mindset, but mindset ties everything that we're talking about together, doesn't it? Because you have to believe in yourself. You've got to stop telling yourself that you're just a builder, or you're just a chippy or just a bricklayer. Whatever it is, you're a professional.
Speaker 1:Yeah, good point. So what's step one? How do I go from today? I listen to the podcast and it says I should do a stock take on myself. You go and buy a pad of yellow sticky notes and you put one on the dashboard that says I'm getting better every day, in every way.
Speaker 2:And I know it sounds cheap and nasty and American.
Speaker 1:And oh, come on, everybody, come on down, let's kick some gold. But it has to start somewhere right. You have to reprogram the oh, I'm just a builder, or I'm no good at that, or I wish I was right-handed, or I don't get the right clients. Start changing it coming out of your mouth, because if I tell you you're an ugly, tall, useless whacker, you might believe it, but if I tell me that, I will definitely believe it. So what we say to ourselves and how we reprogram that for success it might sound wanky, but I did it 100 and I think another.
Speaker 2:Well, I know because I do it. Another incredibly valuable thing to do and I've talked about this a lot is just take a moment to write down in a journal what what you think of yourself. Are you the? Are you the best at what you're doing? And like I've taken a step, never um further this year, yeah, yeah, and I'm continually asking myself am I showing up? Am I beautiful? The best father to my girls? Am I being the best husband? And I can honestly tell you right now I'm not, like I.
Speaker 2:I want, I need to spend more time with my kids. I need to put more effort into doing date nights with my incredible wife. Am I being the best employer? Like, probably not. There's people in my team I need to spend some more time with and put some more effort in and and support them. But if you're not being a hundred percent honest with yourself and you're asking yourself those questions, you're never going to get the mindset that to be successful man, I just got a shiver down my spine when you said it, because those are not the topics that I normally address with people.
Speaker 1:I've discovered I can't lift someone up. All I can do is set an example so I can talk to you about becoming better. I can show you how to implement a strategy. I can show you the tactics and fully automated sales funnel and dealing with where even to sit at the table and which hand to use to sign the contract. You have no idea how many HIA building contracts I've signed. So you asked me what was the fourth book? Now we're at the point, born to Win from Lewis Timberlake. There's a couple of others that contain tests that show the eight core areas of your life. You just name six of them Wife, family, work, spiritual, et cetera and you go around and rate yourself from one to ten and some people it looks like a broken wheel.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and for some people it's not bad with sixes and sevens and they're happy with their situation. But the minute you move it out to eights and nines, man, people want to talk to you. People are interested in you. Yeah, it's not about being the best builder. It's about being the best builder you can be and it starts with you. Really, yeah, you know. Yeah, 100% why would anybody work for a grumpy, miserable, swearing builder that has no leadership ability?
Speaker 2:Yeah, In Live Like Build, mate. It's funny because our millionaire and I designed our own. We call it our elevator wheel, and everything in Live Like Build is focused around our six P's, our core elements, and then they're broken into 14 segments.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:And the whole point of that, like you just said, is to get it as even as possible. But I use it almost in my daily life now, that wheel, because I find well, definitely myself, a lot of people in our industry, the way that we operate tends to be we're very visual and we get lost very easily. So by having that wheel to whenever I'm lost or I don't know what to focus on, having that wheel and being able to fill it in and see where my lowest grade is.
Speaker 1:So you redo the test.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you just keep redoing the test, you cause some things up. And so part of our wheel is personal. So we have wellbeing, mental health and exercise, and because we know that's a core part of your success Because if you're not right, nothing around you can be right so filling that wheel out regularly and just being again being honest with yourself, isn't it?
Speaker 1:yeah, it's just, yeah, exactly, I like the words you use, I'm uh, I'm trying to relate normal business back to the building industry because it is such an unusual business. Yeah, you know we're laughing about kyle zanetto, one of your champions. You know if he'd gone into the hospital the other week and they chopped his wrong arm off? The surgeon doesn't lose his house.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm glad to come back to this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, but if Kyle builds him a house and he doesn't like the granite, he doesn't come up with the final payment. Everyone's in trouble. There's a lot of sphincter clanging going on, yeah. So we are vulnerable as business owners of building companies and we've all seen building companies, you know, fail, and the last few years, yeah, well, but it's become a news item. So now we're seeing it. Now we as builders have got to be careful that we inoculate ourselves from being the next news story.
Speaker 1:Well, how do you do that? You do a stock. Take today. You sit down and say, well, geez, you know, dwayne was right, I've drawn a circle and personal was not bad Exercise. Most builders get lots of exercises, jumping to conclusions and flying off the handle. But that's not enough. You know, I've got to pump the tires up on my wife's bike and say, come on, honey, let's go for a ride, because we forget life's so busy. So we're really good at our business and things are firing. I've got shiploads of money and the kids are like who's that man, mummy? Oh, that's your father. You know, yeah, and that is a very common thing in australia and it was, and unfortunately, people like you were changing it.
Speaker 2:That was me, but you're changing it I talk about it all the time, like for the first. It's one of my probably biggest regrets, or probably one of my only regrets is for the first two to three years of my oldest daughter's life. I very rarely saw her.
Speaker 1:My daughter will watch this and listen to this and will say to you the greatest joke they play against me is what do you know? You were never there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that like it hurts.
Speaker 1:Put that on my tombstone Well, it doesn't, because I know she's joking. And now that they've got kids, my oldest daughter came up to me and hugged me and said now I know what you went through to give four kids a lifestyle. Well, so the moral of the story is, ladies and gentlemen, don't have too many kids.
Speaker 2:Yeah but I take that very seriously. So I me too, and that's why I, when I ask myself, now, am I being the best father I've got? I want to make up for that. I want to have a business that's thriving and allows me to spend time with my kids, but I don't just want me and my wife to have that.
Speaker 2:I want my employees to be able to do that and like even last week I thought it was fantastic like a couple of my team were able to take some time off for 10 school swimming, carnivals and Easter events and those types of things. So, yeah, it's yeah, good on you again, it all comes back to.
Speaker 1:It's the way to do it, but, as you know, when you run a business of your size, it becomes birth deaths and marriages. I've got nine grandkids so I might have missed out on my kids and if I'd known grandkids were so good, I would have had them first. But going to their sporting events and being the quiet guy on the sideline watching under-sixes play soccer or AFL we drive 500 kilometres to go and watch the grandkids play footy.
Speaker 2:Is that possible in Tasmania?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it's very wet when you get past the 300-kilometre mark and it is a round trip. Is Tasmania more?
Speaker 2:than 500 kilometres.
Speaker 1:Mate, if you drive from Cockle Creek to Marawa, that's a six-hour journey At least, even if you speed all the way, which I've never done.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I'm only joking.
Speaker 1:This is.
Speaker 2:We dropped off here last night and it just Like, even landing at the airport, it felt like we'd gone back in time. We actually went and got some groceries. This morning we're like Go to Flinders Island. I feel like we've have places like that. It's awesome Peak hour.
Speaker 1:Oh no, the lights changed and I didn't move through. Yes, I did. There's no such thing yet in Lonnie as peak hour. It's 10 minutes out the freeways. I mean Launceston, for all its failings geographically, is in a bowl and the smoke builds up here and it's got the convergence of the three rivers. But peak hour is a pretty short argument. Once you're out of the CBD, you're on a highway, either north, south, east or west. You're out of here.
Speaker 2:It's marvellous for that, mate. We'll start to wrap it up, but one thing I really wanted to get to talk to you while we're down here building codes, building codes and probably shouldn't have left this till last because I know it's a hot topic but what's your opinion on? What do we need to do better when it comes to the quality and standards in?
Speaker 1:building in Australia. Thank you for the opportunity to get at least one part of my presentation so wrong, because it's only my opinion. The disconnect between the National Construction Code, the planning systems of Australia and the materials we're allowed to use and use is fatally flawed, for two reasons. One is the Minister of Housing who I know hi, jackie, has never built a house, not personally. She and her partners or her friends might have built houses and they've all got the horror stories. Her advisor has also never built a house, never been involved in the building industry, isn't even from Australia.
Speaker 2:How does that happen? Seriously, how does that happen?
Speaker 1:Popularity contest, haven't I done well? I haven't even mentioned the election that's just been on. So if the housing minister doesn't know, then she has advisors and lobbyists and pressure groups. It's a squeaky wheel, isn't it? Nick Proud from Power Housing is, I'm sure, one of your customers listening to this. Tim Reardon, the HIA economist they know what's broken and yet we can't seem to fix it. So all change is political. So we as builders can't just talk about it and whinge about it. We actually have to do something about it. So we have to do something about it. So we have to go and talk to the housing minister to say the reason buildings are catching on fire with a cigarette lighter is because someone let illegally manufactured, non-standard products into the country. That's one problem, dwayne, how do we fix the next generation coming through tafe and school?
Speaker 2:the amount of money that that issue has cost.
Speaker 1:Oh, 835 million. No one's talking about that one, although ladies and gentlemen sitting there in a fund to reclad the buildings. But as we sit here today, dwayne, someone is still importing that same product into australia. It hasn't gone away. The deemed to comply versus the national construction showed must save lives, must make it. They're broken and for those of you who haven't heard tim law's presentation, I've got to send it to shay. That can be a, a document that lays it out quite clearly and it's like, oh, my goodness, he knows what the answer is and it's going to require a powwow of experts the building designers association, structural engineers and the builders to say what's the answer.
Speaker 2:But it's going to be. I'm keen to hear your opinion on this, because I feel like there's social media is actually really helping this, because we've got a lot of fantastic people that are voicing their opinions and making people listen like stand up and start to listen about condensation and mouldy houses and ventilation and all these types of things. But my big thing with all this is we cannot have standards in Australia that are a blanket over all of us, because we have so many different climate zones, weather zones like fire zones yeah, like environmental areas, vegetation protection, like there's just, there's so much, yeah, and they've tried to make a standard set of rules to cover it all and it's never, ever going to work.
Speaker 2:And, like you, to me you've only got to go back in time a bit, like up in queensland obviously I'll talk about that because it's where I'm from and I know. But, like to me, it's simple. You look back at the old houses that we like 100, 120, 140 years old, off the ground, a little bit, big wide verandas, big wide overhangs, lots of ventilation accidental solar, accidentalidental solar wind that we bull-nosed verandas People are going to whinge it.
Speaker 2:They're fucking cold in winter and all those types of things. But I'm big on this bandwagon as well. We expect too much from our homes and our cars and these types of things.
Speaker 1:If it's cold.
Speaker 2:Put a jumper on. Everyone wants to save the planet, everyone wants to reduce fossil fuels and all these sorts of things. Fucking, put a jumper on and turn your air conditioning off.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we can't pretend that government isn't keen. Because I got a phone call from a bloke saying what kind of insulation have you got in the house? I said oh, blow in, charlie Fluff, it's probably toxic, I don't really want to muck around with it. He said it lost some people, some people died doing that, but we should keep going with that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it just wasn't implemented properly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course, if you're relying on the government to help you. Ladies and gentlemen, you're in big trouble, yeah, because they're not here to help us. They're here, as Ted Victoria said to me. John, our goal is to get out of your way and keep our hands out of your pockets. Well, bless, ted Bailu. The National Construction Code is taller than this table. You can't know it all you know, and it's too complex already. And we're struggling as an industry, obviously with 80 or 90% of people you heard at first, ladies and gentlemen, trading in solvent in the building industry. It's just not being done well enough. Well, well, because it's such a big spend and a big investment, maybe we should take it seriously. Yeah, you can't become a hairdresser without two years of TAFE yeah, you know kind of all these ears rolling around there's got to be.
Speaker 2:there's got to be more consultation and, like I firmly believe it needs to be split, like every state should have its own set of rules. Obviously there's parts Planning schemes. Yeah, Electrical plumbing.
Speaker 1:There's parts that can be standard Tick.
Speaker 2:But there is definitely a lot of parts that need to be separated into different areas because Would you like to meet the housing minister?
Speaker 1:Oh?
Speaker 2:I'd love to mate. Let's get her on, she's just down the road.
Speaker 1:I've got her private advisor's phone number on my phone.
Speaker 2:All right, well, she's coming up next, ladies and gentlemen, next podcast. Yeah, yeah, she's coming, Jackie.
Speaker 1:And so, even if she means well, like we had the conversation with the last Attorney General, lisa Archer that they've got no idea what the problem is. In Tasmania, the building industry sits within three ministerial portfolios. How's that going to go? Yeah, and it's administrated by the department of justice with treasury and finance. It's like, oh my goodness, and none of them have built homes I don't look, I don't.
Speaker 2:I definitely don't know everything, but from what I see is tasmania is really leading the charge. Like zara held the event down here last week. Like you correct me if I'm wrong but like in tasmania you can actually get funding to cover courses, like zara's, of course, like you don't get. Like when I did zara's course up queensland I had to pay for it now, ladies and gentlemen, there's your first letter to the local editor.
Speaker 1:We have a thing called keystone training in tasmania. So a percentage of every build, the money goes into one account and it subsidizes the improvement of builders in Tasmania, as long as it fits within the building code. So we can't teach them or fund their training to get better as people, but we can to use a new DeWalt power tool. Now it's not quite insanity, but Keystone are indeed a leading light and that money sits there to fund it and they've tightened it up a lot, dwayne, over the last few years. You don't get points for sausage sizzles at a leading light and that money sits there to fund it and they've tightened it up a lot, dwayne, over the last few years. You don't get points for sausage sizzles at a leading green box and learning about the new healthy power tool. It's got to be dedicated training, but the scope of that training that should be subsidised needs to expand.
Speaker 1:Where is the mental health thing? Where is the? Okay? I passed a certificate for builder carpenter, then I passed a certificate for builder carpenter, then I became a builder. That's it. I don't have to do anything. I've got to maintain my compulsory professional development points have we got that in every state of Australia? We don't have to do that. No, no, we've got it in Tasmania.
Speaker 2:And I'm sure, builders. So builders have to do that down here don't they?
Speaker 1:CPD points still apply as far as I know, I know the building designers and the architects.
Speaker 2:Yeah, see that should be compulsory. Live Life Build's been working on an accreditation program for all of our members. Yeah, lovely People again. This could go on for hours, but I'm happy to thrash it out.
Speaker 1:You obviously know the solution For me, because it is an issue directly relevant to builders. If and when the building industry needs help, I mean, how can it not be fixed and perfect when we have two such great organisations as the HIA and the MBA? They must know these problems exist and they have great people working for them.
Speaker 2:Fix it. Call the minister in. I'd beg to differ there, would you?
Speaker 1:Well, you haven't met the right ones, then, mate.
Speaker 2:The ones.
Speaker 1:I've worked for have just been exemplary. I'm not going to mention Brian Look.
Speaker 2:I shouldn't again put a blanket over all of them. I'm sure there's some incredible people there, but I don't know. My view is that they're there. They might be wanting to do the right things, but the overarching powers don't let them. Something's stopping them and it's political.
Speaker 1:If we can't pull Jackie Collins in here and say, jackie, here are the things wrong with the building industry in Australia. We think these are the solutions. It'll never happen. So you're right. The reason you are excited and this is your time in the sunshine is because you know what the answers are.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm willing to put my opinions forward.
Speaker 1:Yeah, most of them, yeah, and they're not just opinions, they're value judgments, mate. They are considered and you are a subject matter expert. Fortunately, we also have another session on Thursday where we're going to drill to detail on exactly these topics. That's why I didn't think you'd ask about it today, because I'm not a builder and haven't built a house or a structure for some time. Although the ones I have, you can tell, because they've blown down those specific drilled-to-detail problems, they're also council, state government and then federal.
Speaker 2:It's a huge, huge, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So maybe we do need that powwow, that summit where all the heads get together.
Speaker 2:I'm hoping our next podcast where we're going to do a bit of a panel discussion, you're going to lead the conversation. I think I'm really hoping that podcast will get out to a bigger audience and that we can really try and solve the world's problems. But before we wrap it up, is there anything else you'd like to get out there before we wrap this one up?
Speaker 1:No, except in one thing, because I did a 10 tops thing, that's what I'm asking.
Speaker 2:I've seen you this year.
Speaker 1:And I only wrote eight. All professionals need a coach. In my other life which I have, you, which you haven't got on your list I also work with high performance sports people and legends and icons of of their industries right, so we had a business that we would bring three or four. So I've worked with phil the power, the dance champion, all the way through to Ian Botham and people like Dean Jones. Rest his soul. When you talk to those people, they were all good, right, but they all had a coach. It doesn't matter if you're listening today and you think you're real good and you're not one of the 80% trading insolvent, even if you're the best, the best. Tiger Woods had a coach. Even Michael Jordan had a coach. They had natural talent, they had natural ability. It might have been identified and nurtured by good people like you, dwayne, but they still had a coach. We only know what we know.
Speaker 2:Someone looking from the outside in can nail it Like you said you email me your maths, ladies and gentlemen, I'll tell you if you're building company solvent I wish you can look at it and know it and fix it I wish I had of been more aware of this young, like when I was younger, like I only really got into this in the last probably, I'd say even five to seven years, and I'm just getting more and more addicted. Like we're only in uh, what are we in there mart, like nearly at the end of march, and I've already spent over 40, ten dollars this year on personal development. Like people think that's, that's crazy, but I have already put plans and action in place. I will get that back 100 fold, yeah, yeah, like yeah, well, I I'm.
Speaker 1:We're looking at my medal, which is great, and I'll put it on in a sec because I like to wear it to iga. Mostly, you know the fact that you're prepared to do something about it, and you're not alone in that. But, uniquely, people are attracted to you. There's this core group of builders aspirational as I call them who know where they are, they know where they want to go and they know damn well that they don't know what they don't know. There's the comedy routine. So all power to you and your efforts, and Amelia too, and to Shea too, for jumping in there and doing something. Talk doesn't change anything. We can have Jackie Collins here now. Lay out all the problems. Jackie, something has to change. You are responsible for the legislation that fixes these things. By the way, builders resist change and have resisted change from day one. So we could do a session on change how to accept change, how to adapt it's a very and again, that was me like I spent?
Speaker 2:I spent the first 15 years of my career, mate, like not wanting to well, every now and then thinking there was a better way, but then asking the questions and getting told to fucking harden up. Mate. That's just the industry deal with it four nil.
Speaker 1:Ladies and gentlemen, d that's just the industry. Deal with it 4-0,. Ladies and gentlemen, dwayne's used the F word four times over and used it once, but you're right. If the answer is political, if the problem is political, as I believe it is, and that the disconnect between council, state building codes, et cetera, et cetera, let's get some cut through.
Speaker 2:Let's fix it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like personal development, oh if you don't, if you don't have the people skills and there's coaching don't go and approach the minister one thing that's really helped my journey, mate, and helped me become a leader in this industry is for a while, I was trying to change it and now I've.
Speaker 2:I've given up on that. I'm creating a new one, and anyone that wants to get on my journey and create this new industry with me. A huge part of that is personal development, working on yourself, because we are going to make this industry more professional, we are going to set new standards, we are going to change building codes and regulations, because our group is growing rapidly and with people like yourself that are I'm now through this podcast, like, and people are listening and putting me in touch with people like yourself that are I'm now through this podcast, like, and people are listening and putting me in touch with people like yourself. It's just incredible the information that we can now get out to the people that listen to this podcast, but no, you said personal development thing is huge man and we we've realized that with live life build.
Speaker 2:So for those that don't know like live life build is not just a million, I anymore like um. I think this year there's seven other coaches in the business. So we have mindset, expert leadership, expert mental health and wellbeing systems and processes all your finances and data.
Speaker 1:There's some good-looking topics there, some good people.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And you would have attracted others that want to change it up and make it better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but we're covering all bases and that's why I keep coming back to you can't just have what you need to run a good business. You have to be in the right space, the right mindset, the right Correct.
Speaker 1:You're not going to break a world record as a high jumper if you don't have a good coach and you don't know what you're doing. Wrong, tomo, I've worked with Jeff Thompson five times and, apart from being an absolute maniac who wanted to kill people, his bowling action show it back to all those guys. They all had coaches. You know, if you don't play for australia and say no, no, I'll do it my way. You might have been able to get away with that in the old days. What did richie benno and those boys used to drink beer and have ciggies in the in the change room.
Speaker 2:people think this is definitely my view, like people think that coaches are only for the elite, do they? Well, that was my view for a long time. I only thought that high-level sports people or more professional, peaceful house coaches. I didn't think that a coach was for me as a tradie, or as a carpenter, or as a builder.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I could see why that would be very real and true in Australia. I know there's a couple of builders that live within a K of this house and they also would see themselves as just wanting to do okay, johnny, I don't want to break any, make any waves, I just want to cruise through life, earn a couple of grand, and that's good. But the minute you want change, the minute you want a better home life, the minute you want a better relationship with your kids and your family and your workers.
Speaker 2:You have to change it starts. You have to change it starts with you. We will go on for hours and hours.
Speaker 1:We'll uh, we can't there's another person coming up. Give me a dirty look. Hello, what are you? Here to talk about no come on, that's not as important as this, it's average is not good enough no, it's the cream of the crap. Like do you want? That's what average is.
Speaker 2:But do you want to be in a situation where a fan like your child gets sick and you can't give them the right medical attention that you would like to be able?
Speaker 1:to give them, or a family member gets into trouble.
Speaker 2:Your parents retire.
Speaker 1:Do you want to be able to give back to them being able to do what you want, when you want, where you want, with who you want. Yeah, which is Not tied to money, that's success.
Speaker 2:Which is what you are.
Speaker 1:For those of you who haven't read Craig Johnson's book the success, which is what those of you who haven't read craig johnson's book the first australian soccer to play, the first australian soccer player to play in the epl have a written shivers again down my spine, ask.
Speaker 2:Read craig johnson's book about what money meant to him we're gonna have to um, when you're editing this one show, you're gonna have to do a list of all the books that john's uh pointed out I hooked him.
Speaker 1:I hooked him with a legal company once, I don know why, and the lady got talking about the fact that they have a reading program for the solicitors. Because if you think builders are bad with people apparently lawyers that's why they use them for lab experiments, because they don't have any feelings and they're much easier to find than rats. So she said, what's your reading list like? And she paid me $500 for my reading list.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, if I was a solicitor and I wanted to draw right back to where I am today, what do I need to learn first? You know, because personal development just spit it out there nicely. Yeah, it's been going for quite a few years. And you know, do I want to read Think and Grow Rich? Do I want to read how to Win friends and influence people? Oh, johnny, you mentioned skill with people. Start basic and if you're not a visual or an auditory or kinesthetic learner, plug the podcast in. Ladies and gentlemen, I think if you just went through with your seven coaches on your podcast series, that would be a pretty good start. That counts right that counts.
Speaker 1:We don't get certificates and merit awards. You just notice that life gets easier with people. We can talk about the book. I'm okay. You're okay too. You know that's called transactional analysis, which is the third wave of psychology. I don't know anybody in the building industry that studies the psychology of sales, except myself and how that relates back then to how people make decisions. If you don't know why and how they make decisions, it's always going to be a bit harder for you, isn't it? Sure, persuasion and influence, quality products, service testimonials, et cetera, et cetera, are important, but again, you're not going to learn it by yourself. It doesn't just happen. Nobody becomes organically aware of the fact that they need personal development.
Speaker 2:But this is the thing. This is why you need a coach.
Speaker 1:As well, and you don't even know me, we um. If shay throws his headphones on the table and says, listen here, boys, get out, the next person's in. He's operating in a child state. If he says, hey guys, we've, guys, we've got a minute to go, he's in the adult state. But if he says now, john, I told you at two o'clock we were going to finish he's in his parent stage. Parent, adult, child PAC. We are operating and choosing to operate in one of those mindsets 24 hours a day, and you can have an argument with me and throw and yell and scream, and then the phone rings. Good afternoon, it's John. And it's my choice to change from parent to adult, to child, and the goal is to remain within the adult state.
Speaker 1:The minute we become a parent or a child. We're victim from a child perspective. Parent I'm a dictator. The more time we spend as an adult, the better. All of our relationships, duane, are based on adult to adult. I'm not trying to teach you and I'm not having a regimental about the building industry, because I know that that's not going to fix it, but by remaining in my adult state and talking to people as an adult, not trying to tell them what to do or not trying to chuck a tanty no, you can't have going to bench tops, lady. It's five grand a square meter. Yeah, whatever, it is that book alone.
Speaker 2:I've been reading it for 33 years I've never put it down and I've never finished it.
Speaker 1:Transactional analysis the original version, because everybody's bastardized it now over the last 25 years. The original book.
Speaker 2:I'm okay, you're okay all right, we'll check it out, mate. John, thanks so much for coming on today. I've seriously, I could keep talking to you for hours. We'll definitely. Well, we're having another one in a couple of days, but look, you've had an incredible value to all the listeners today. I've learned a lot. I'm definitely gonna get shader right down all the lists of the books that you've you mentioned through here and I'll check them out, but I appreciate your time, mate. I know you're a busy man, but I've prioritized my grandkids man.
Speaker 1:I've got all the time in the world till I'd pass away and I know it's nice of you to thank me to come in. I wouldn't have met you if it wasn't for Zara Dakota from the healthy home.
Speaker 2:Adrian. Adrian. Adrian Ramsey from Sunshine Coast, put me in touch with you and I've never met him, I don't think.
Speaker 1:I think I spoke to him once, briefly eight years ago, and he's in queensland and I'm in launceston and then zara recommended you literally a week later and, ladies and gentlemen, that's how you will attract a seven hundred thousand dollar, build at 38 net profit word of mouth and referral based on professional relationships yep, now cheers for your time.
Speaker 2:Guys, if you look, if you like this podcast, make sure you listen, subscribe, share all those types of things, because we can't continue to deliver you incredible value if you aren't helping us get this podcast out to the world. So have a cracking day and we'll see you on the next one. Are you ready to build smarter live?
Speaker 1:better and enjoy life.
Speaker 2:then head over to live like buildcom forward slash elevate to get started everything discussed during the level up podcast with me, duane pierce, is based solely on my own personal experiences and those experiences of my guests. The information, opinions and recommendations presented in this podcast are for general information only, and any reliance on the information provided in this podcast is done at your own risk. We recommend that you obtain your own professional advice in respect to the topics discussed during this podcast.