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.
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Duayne's back in the hot seat for round 2 with Lewis Dawson as he asks all the tough questions the listeners want to know.
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We're on a mission to elevate the professionalism of the residential construction industry, and help everyone enjoy building and renovating homes.
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the conversation needs to stop between everyone going. What are you charging? What am I charging?
Speaker 2:reality is we all get better, we all educate ourselves, we all spend time, money on ourselves. We we run better businesses, our clients are actually going to get better products and the cost of building will come down. I think we'll leave that at that. All right, team, buckle up. We are back for round two with le, with Lewis, so this is going to be an absolute cracking podcast. Oh no, this guy's like my long-lost buddy. Now we catch up and we can talk for hours. So we had so much feedback from the last podcast where Lewis interviewed me went for a long time. We'll try not to make this one go for as long, but Lewis has got some awesome questions that, uh, you guys have reached out and asked. So, um, I'm really looking forward. I'm a little bit nervous again because we never know where this is gonna go. But, yeah, sit back, relax and uh, yeah, let's get into it. How are you, mate? Yeah, good mate. Thanks for having me again. Thanks for coming back yeah, no worries.
Speaker 1:Well, you're down in my neck of the woods now, so come down to sydney and yeah, it's good, thanks for reaching out and yeah, but I had heaps of positive feedback and and everything from it's actually kind of knocked me back in my place a little bit like kind of like oh, people reaching out to me and and people recognizing me, like I went to a thing the other day, like I told you, and a couple of blokes said, oh, you're lewis, I listen to the podcast, and I was a little bit like, yeah, imposter syndrome, like, oh, you know, it's really people are listening to that kind of thing, so it's good that, uh, you know, people are listening to the shit talk now.
Speaker 1:And it was good to see the real side of you as well. So yeah, and see all that raw emotion, I was buzzing for days after it like it was really um, it was good, it was I was like therapy mate yeah, it was yeah, it was good chat, but look, we've just been talking before.
Speaker 2:Um, we started recording like I think lew Lewis is a lot smarter than he looks. He's definitely a cracking bloke. I'm keen to see where today's podcast goes. How have you been, mate?
Speaker 1:You've been kicking goals, yeah been good, just been working hard. I went on a family holiday. I went to Bali for the first time with the family. Everyone says there's a bit of bogans in that. I must be a bogan, because I loved it. It was dead set. Get over there with your family. We stayed in the heart of cootah with all the bay. It was great, it was, it was awesome.
Speaker 1:So went away and just been, um, yeah, really working on my business and trying to implement some new like you know kind of systems and all that kind of stuff. And just you know, you kind of kick-started me. Um, I got out there in the building community. I've been going to a couple of events and different things and just trying to, you know, just fall back in love with the building industry, which is good, so, yeah, and just been working away and knuckling down and and whatnot. So, yeah, it's good to be back anyway. So we'll jump straight into it.
Speaker 1:These are the questions. So I've been hit up by a few other people, um, about a couple more questions and things we could have talked about, and we will keep it a lot smaller than last time. But so where we, I think where we were and where we finished up the last time was. So you talked a lot about your own childhood and about your own and you know you just want to do, you know, the best for your family and give them everything that, like you, didn't have.
Speaker 1:And I think that's what, realistically, every kind of man I can only relate to. You know, being a man and a father, you want to give your kids the best childhood possible and your wife and your family and and give them everything. And, like you, you know you're obviously doing all right and you're kicking goals. But it's like, well, the reason you got to where you are and I find this with most successful people that you talk to, they've got some, they've been through some shit to to build that resilience to then be, and that resilience has helped them get to where they are so then they can financially and whatever, provide for their, for their family. So how with you you know being in a different situation with your kids is how are you going to help build that resilience with them and kind of give them those good values without spoiling them and giving them everything, and kind of that?
Speaker 2:Look, people will probably judge me all different ways for how I do this, but like I'm pretty old school, like you hear the stories of like generations. Like one person does quite well and then their, their kids, sort of get involved and run with that and do even better, and then and then the next lot of kids get spoiled and end up it's all gone, yeah, taking advantage of it, and then and then their kids end up back to square one again or something along those lines. And I don't want to be like that, like lines, and I don't want to be like that, like, um, I'm trying to install a lot of old days, old-fashioned values. I believe in my, my girls, um, I don't know, I'm pretty, I'm pretty hard on them, that they're, they're fucking good kids like it's a hard balance, isn't it?
Speaker 1:because you want to give them everything you didn't have, and then you, you look at them and you think, fuck, yous have got it easy. And then you're back and then you're like I don't want to be too hard on them. So it's a really hard balance, I think, to kind of.
Speaker 2:Our kids, like my girls, are 11 and well, 13, just about turning 14 in two months. But like my wife and I are like we I don't know good cop, bad cop type thing, like we're similar, we're all on similar lines, but like I'm definitely harder than what, what she is. But, um, like our kids have a list of chores they have to do, like there's daily jobs and they they rotate like one dozen one day, one dozen the next day. Yeah, there's quite often arguments about that because someone forgets that's their day or whatever. But and and like so that simple things like they. I'm a big believer of making your bed. I never made my bed when I was growing up, even when I was single.
Speaker 1:I never have and I still don't.
Speaker 2:And look, the thing that made me make my bed was my wife. When I met her, it was just one thing that I absolutely loved was staying at her house because her bed was smick, is it the?
Speaker 1:bed.
Speaker 2:Is that the only reason?
Speaker 2:No, no, that's not the only reason my bed hadn't had the sheets washed, for who knows how long. You'd take off the bed and they'd stand up themselves. So yeah, just simple things. I'm so proud my girls get up quite early. Generally. They're up before I leave as well. One of them's got to catch the bus, and so they'll get up generally and make their bed before they go downstairs have their breakfast. They've got to empty the dishwasher. They've got to take the recycling bins out. They've got to take the wheelie bins down.
Speaker 2:What are simple things that I believe should be done and like we've we've installed a routine into them that like we've still got to encourage them here and there. Then they get, like they get a little bit of pocket money each week, and then we've got a list of jobs that, um, like we'll sit down we haven't done it for a little while actually, but like we sit down as a family and there's a list of jobs that we put dollar values on and that could be anything from $2, $5, $10. And those jobs are bigger ones, like washing the car, cooking dinner, cleaning the bath and the dog, and so if they want something, they have to earn it.
Speaker 1:What about the conversations, like I kind of had this with my boys. I came back from when I was young I didn't go on an airplane until I was an adult and could afford to take myself and I kind of like the kids are just there ordering room service and swimming and I just thought, oh, you know, this is an alternate universe. So when we got back, I kind of had a conversation to say, you know, like this, come with hard work. This isn't just normal. Don't just think you're going to grow up and this is how you're going to live. You've got to put the effort in if you want this kind of thing.
Speaker 1:Do you have the kind of conversations? And because, obviously, that kind of dinner table conversation, yourself and you, like you know, mom and dad run a business and um, do you have those kind of conversations with them about the success and the and the failures that? I know the ins and outs, and also the conversation of um, maybe one day, if they because a lot of builders do this with their son, you know, come from the nail bag on, you'll have the, you know, blah, blah, blah, but you've obviously got daughters. And now you have the, the conversation where, yep, you can come and throw the nail back, or there is a position in the business, or do you just keep that separate and let them?
Speaker 2:no, they want to come in this. Oh there's, there's a good chance. One of them will throw the car bag on the other one. I don't know the way it's going. She's probably going to be a building designer at Arches or something.
Speaker 2:But look, even with that, our number one rule with our kids, mate, is we do not put pressure on them.
Speaker 2:Our number one rule is as long as you try your best at school, at sport, whatever, as long as you can sit, look me in the eyes and tell me that you've put in your best effort. I don't care what the results are, but my eldest is really getting onto it now. She has to catch a bus at 10 past seven every morning for an hour and so she's on to the podcast. She's listening to the podcast and really sort of getting interested in like just she'll bring something up with me and I'll, like it'll take me back a couple of steps. Like holy fuck, like you, yeah, you're listening to the phone. That's awesome, yeah, um, and so we have. We quite often have conversations uh, especially more so with my oldest one like I really want to them to understand, like I don't want them to just see that mom and dad work really hard and I don't want them to just see that mom and dad work really hard and I don't want them to think that life's easy and we can just have whatever we want.
Speaker 2:Um, so, like, I educate them a lot. So she's starting to my one that's nearly 14 there's a lot of conversation about she wants to get a job like she's done a little bit of work experience already with my sister's cafe and um, she's starting to ask about dollars, yeah, and so I've there's lots of conversation about. Well, you know, if you, if you get a joint maccas in 18 months time, like your, your pay is going to be I forget what it is 14 bucks or something an hour. So, like you know, those are williams boots that you like and that, like the rat stuff, you Harriet stuff you want to get for your horse, like that's whatever, like whatever the dollar value is. So top, divide that by your hours. Like you have to work that many hours just to buy one pair of boots.
Speaker 1:And she's like oh, yeah, that's really makes it real.
Speaker 2:Doesn't it? When you cut it down to smaller things like, uh, you know, when we go out to dinner and like a meal's $40, like when you start working, like that equates to three and a half hours' work you have to do to pay for one meal.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so she's really starting to acknowledge like effort for reward. Yeah yeah, so yeah, look I, we are all reasonably hard on them, but they, they appreciate it like they've got a horse.
Speaker 2:now a lot of people, um, it's I, I think that's a real yeah, like it's not a thing a lot of people can have definitely yeah um, so there's fees every week to have that on the site, that on the property that we have, and then food and then just fuck and all the shit that goes with it. Yeah, yeah. So camille, like camille, and I pay for, yep, most of that. But, um, like they, they get pocket money from aunties and uncles. Now, they know that if they want a new saddle, they want a new bride or whatever it is, but they're, they're paying for it yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, that's good. So then the the conversation comes up, the the daughters go all right, we want to come into the family business. How do you approach that? So is that?
Speaker 2:oh, there won't be any any benefits. Mate like they'll yeah, they want to come in, they'll, they'll have to start at the bottom of whatever role they want to do.
Speaker 1:Yep, and you'd encourage that. For them to just take it on the only way to learn and be successful at something.
Speaker 2:Mate is doing it. I don't know. This is my opinion anyway but if you serve someone that grows up and then gets given a business, it's going to end in disaster. You've got to work your way through the ranks. You've got to understand the business. I will treat my kids no different to I treat anyone in my team and when it comes to that sort of thing, I have a few rules.
Speaker 2:Number one don't hold back. Don't give a fuck who you are, how old you are. If you overtake other people too bad, that's their loss, your gain. Because that held me back for a long time, being worried that I was overtaking people that were older and been in roles longer than I had. So I really encourage my daughters and my whole team that if you're striving for something and you put in the effort and you show me and you get the results and I will quite happily keep rising you through the ranks, and I think that's the only way to really appreciate what you earn from doing that. If you just get handed things your whole life, I don't know. My opinion is that you don't value them and you don't treat them right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's a really good point because a lot of us guys like people listening to this podcast, the small business owners, whether it's design, building, whatever, and in the building industry and it's a good conversation because, like, I don't come from a family where my parents were self-employed, so it's kind of like you want to build the resilience in your kids and still like, yeah, dad owns a business, anyway, he's got his own name on his shirt and he's got a. You know he's got a podcast and this and that, but it's like you, you know, how do you still build that? This just isn't going to be you. You're not going to walk in and then start your own. You've got to grind through.
Speaker 2:I don't know if sheltered is the right word, but, like I said, we are old-fashioned, so, like it was funny because I was even just flying down here yesterday to do that gig last night, like my oldest was up early, we were having a few conversations and she's like so where are you going, dad? And I'm like, oh, I'm off to sydney again. She's like, oh, you've been away a lot this year. You, um, what are you doing this time? And I said I'm speaking tomorrow night. And she's like what do you mean? I'm like, oh, I'm the guest speaker at an event and she was blown away. She's like what do you mean? Like people are coming to listen to you and I'm like, yeah, their dad's moving up in the back, but, um, and then, yeah, so they do see his dad at the end of the day.
Speaker 2:Really though, yeah, yeah, but we don't like my, my daughter, my oldest daughter, only got a phone um last year, and that was only because she had to catch the bus yeah, that's cool at 14, that's 12, 12 yeah it's a hard thing.
Speaker 1:The phones now with the kids they like. When to give it to a woman, oh, it was purely so.
Speaker 2:We, like she had contact with us, so the bus picked her up from the bottom of the street it was. It was a massive decision for me, like I'm like fuck, she doesn't need it. Like the bus will take her to the bus, we'll pick her up, I'm sure the bus driver will manage them. Blah, blah, blah. Anyway, we got her phone. So they have no social media. They've got Messenger. There's a few little groups of friends Each of them have, so my youngest one has an iPad. She can communicate on Messenger, but there's no social media, no Instagram, no Facebook. It's good, none of that rubbish, I forget. There is one thing that the kids communicate with, but with the oldest one that's probably causing the most conflicts. Because I just can't get over what held horrible when I was at school. There was teasing and all that sort of thing, face to face, but the shit that goes on these days and I think I don't know if I'm I feel like girls are worse.
Speaker 1:Definitely yeah.
Speaker 2:And so the shit that goes on and the teasing my daughter gets because we don't let her have social media is ridiculous.
Speaker 1:My son's going through a similar thing now. We don't let him have a phone. We bought him like a parental control phone so you can't have all the other stuff on it. So just so, if we drop him down the skate park or he's doing, because I like to give him a bit of freedom he can kind of roam around a bit. And then I was like, oh, I'd like to be in contact with you. Not cool, like the other phones. So he always goes where he hides it because he doesn't want to get picked on because of his phone. Yeah, because as soon as you give that phone you take part of their innocence away. You know, and it's a and a lot of the parents, you know no judgment out there, but he's got some mates that have got full access to whatever they want and it's just like oh, they're just yeah, I'm not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, kids, kids need to be kids. No, that's the way my wife and I look at it like they need to be kids, they need to be kids. That's the way my wife and I look at it. They need to be kids. They need to spend time being kids playing outdoors.
Speaker 1:Yeah, as soon as that innocence is gone, it's gone, so you need to just prolong. You want your childhood to last as long as possible. I probably was still a child up until I was like 17, really, I agree, I was as well mate.
Speaker 1:When I started work I like I was yeah, there's a lot of shit, yeah, and then you hear the worksite lunchtime chats and you're a man before you know it. You think, jesus christ, these things are real and then that's it, your innocence is gone and that's. I'm actually reluctant to put on really young apprentices, because I've even like counseled a few of their parents to say, just stay in school to year 12, like I'll give him a trial, then like he's only you know, and they're like no, he's not, school's not for him and that. And I'm like all right, but you got to understand that he's a boy and when he steps here he's a man and I can't shelter him from that. And then you know it works. For some people it doesn't work, but it's I don't like you get these young, innocent kids and you kind of like look, mate, this is you don't want to be in this world just yet, but some of them are men, a lot younger but yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:I do a similar thing because I I think exactly the same. Like they, they're used to sitting in a classroom being sheltered and like that right from the first 10 minutes on a job site. So I warn them that they're going to hear swearing, they're going to hear different language, you're going to hear things getting spoken about they may not have known about. Yeah, yeah, yeah, some of that. But yeah, look, I think kids have got to be kids and you've got to. I'm super proud that we, my wife and I, never stopped living our lives when we had our kids, like we still went camping, we still went away.
Speaker 2:Like they got to play in dirt, swim in creeks, jump out of trees. Like just do shit that kids should do. Like even now we've got our farm. Like they take off on their quad bikes, they're seeing snakes, they know how to handle themselves if shit goes bad. We're just teaching them common sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a hard thing to come by these days, so that's good. So, yeah, that's a good conversation to have. I reckon that one, because a lot of us out there have probably got the same things going on with our kids and how do you approach all that? So we touched on it just then with the apprentices. So the next one was that from the people. How do you keep the good guys? How do you? What's a way other than offering people more? How do you keep a good team? What's, what's your strategy and not mate, I'm no different to everyone.
Speaker 2:Like. Honestly, the team is the hardest part of running a business. I don't give a fuck what anybody says or how all these experts tell you. You need to run and manage a team and I'm a huge believer that on-site is a different environment to what any other business operates. You're physically working side by side, you're smelling each other, you're sweating on each other, you're leaning over each other like it's so, trying to manage everybody's different opinions, values, cultures, thoughts. Like it's a fucking full-time job, like and look people, some people don't like it. I'm I'm known for occasionally saying it's like running an adult childcare centre. Some days it just feels like that's what it is. You're literally fucking managing people, carrying on like fucking two-year-olds.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can have the wrong person in the mix and it just makes everyone that is good want to leave. So you've got to really get the chemistry right. But then if you get too much chemistry the same, then it's just a big fucking. Yeah, it is a playground because everyone's having a joke. So you need that, you know you need to really toe the line it's hard, mate, like we got.
Speaker 2:We've had a few guys over the years, um, that are incredible craftsmen, incredible tradesmen, but they, they try and overpower everybody. They're brought up with old-fashioned values and they stir the team up. It's a battle.
Speaker 1:So I've got a similar thing going on in my business now and I'm sure a lot of people do where I've got some really good young guys that have, like I say, done their time through me and also spent, and I want to keep them on. What's a way that I can keep them involved and then make it so? How do I hang on to them? Because a couple of them you can see in someone's eyes when you think you know. If they want to go out and do their own thing, I'm more welcome to it. You go out, but what's a strategy to try and offer them to stay with you? And then what would you recommend recommend? What have you used in the past to hang on to good, good guys?
Speaker 2:that I used to go out of my way, like especially when we had a huge, like big, carpentry gang, like I used to get out of my way to try and hold people off from more money, like and and I learned the hard way like, if someone doesn't want to be working, if they're not there for the right reasons, they're not worth having there, um, and you'll end up just they'll never be happy, you'll keep throwing more and more money at them and they'll never be happy. So people need to be there for the right reasons. But I believe there's two different types of people in this world. There's people that are just quite happy to just cruise along through life, come to work every day, do a great job and just appreciate having a job, and there day do a great job and just appreciate having a job. And there's other ones that are going to always be striving to get more or um, actually there's probably three.
Speaker 2:There's ones that are striving to do just better and keep and get to their own business, and then the third one is the ones that I don't like and they're the ones that just keep expecting more and they'll never be happy and they just think the grass is always green on the other side. Someone's always going to pay them more. They're always worth more. So I don't know, I think I've matured a bit in my old age. One of my rules now is that I will pay you. Like I'm very open with my team, I will pay you whatever you want. If you want $1,000 a day, I'll pay you $1,000 a day. But just just so you understand whatever I pay you, my business has to make three times that to be profitable, because that's what it takes to run a business with overheads and everything all right, I'm moving to brisbane and duane.
Speaker 1:I want five thousand dollars a day. All right, let's go.
Speaker 2:If you can pay me 15, I'll pay you five grand yeah, no, but even on that, like, that's not out of the question, yeah, like, so I think this is a good conversation. Like people, I've put a lot of time and effort into thinking about this. Like people, everyone sees value in different things and we're all brought up like I was anyway like thinking that value was hard work. Hard work is not value. Like if you and we've got a couple of people in our team that are that way and they just think that flogging themselves every day, running around busting your ass, and that getting a lot of work done is value. That was me for years and it's still, and to me that is very that's. That's a little bit of value.
Speaker 2:But the real value is a team that communicates and gets on, a team that collaborates and helps each other out, a team that gets on and there's no yelling or arguing and it's just like, because for me that's no stress.
Speaker 2:If my team's getting on and I know that everybody on that side is comfortable, that's no stress to me and that's adding value, because then my focus can be on other things. But if I've got a team where there's a member that is constantly stirring things up, then that site is on my radar constantly and it's in the back of my mind and every time you get a phone call from that site you wonder if it's going to be someone's fucking off because someone's upset someone or stuff like that. So the other values are like just turning up to site and everything's clean, everything's in order, everyone knows what's going on, there's notes on the whiteboard. Like to me, the biggest value you can add is taking stress off me so that I can continue to grow the business that's where I've changed, where I like I'm still on the tools and obviously doing the carpentry thing.
Speaker 1:But I taught all my young guys, just let's get it done, let's get some meters. And we just used to and nothing was clean, nothing was organized. So now I've kind of trained them all to do that. Then I get to sign them, like, where's the material for the next day? No one's communicated with you, no one's letting the waterproof. No, that's ready, no. And then I've like you've started over here. But then this wall's just easier. So then you like you know, and there's half, and they're like, but we just thought you were coming and we just wanted sheets on the walls, and I'm going oh well, I have to back train you and say so now I want things done, I want everything documented.
Speaker 2:I want you know everyone filling out their diaries, you know ordering quantities, thinking about not just today but tomorrow, and it's kind of it was my fault because I was just like let's get shit done. And then you realize, yeah, getting exactly what you said, getting a whole bunch of work done. Well, the value is in. So people don't understand how much is done off site and how much that a business owner has to deal with, and that's constantly going through your mind and so that to me, that is, you know, like the best value you can for me as a business owner. That is the best value you can for me as a business owner, my staff, the best value they can add, like you just touched on, is like me turning up to site, seeing that there's all the gears on site for them for the next week, seeing that someone's written a note on the whiteboard for the supervisor that something needs to be ordered, like because that's the amount.
Speaker 2:Like people don't understand the inefficiencies and the wasted time. When you're constantly turning up to site, everything's a shit fight. You spend the whole time you're on site putting out fires. You just no one's thought about what they're doing the next day so you're madly ringing around trying to get gear delivered. Or you've got to fucking cancel and do something so that you can rush the hardware and then get something back to the site, or someone's forgotten to tell you something, so you haven't asked the trade that's coming, and so you waste like 80% of your day simply just trying to stay one foot in front of the other.
Speaker 1:I tell my leading carpenters I say you've got to get the nail bag off because you know all the times that the boys are giving me shit going. Oh, what have you done all day? And then I say, well, you've been busy for weeks now because I've been organised. And I tell that to the leading company You've got to have the nail bag, you've got to be just one step ahead. I said you might think let's get the nail bag on. Lewis is paying. Need to be mature enough to go. This is what I need to do. Everyone go away. I'm now doing this kind of role, yeah.
Speaker 2:I think people struggle Like supervision was one that I struggled with for a long time but my supervisor, todd, he is just absolutely next level and my wife and I give him rewards for that and pay him well. But to me, and look, look, there's always team members and even subbies that will make smart ass comments like oh we, we haven't seen todd for a couple of days or he doesn't show up till nine in the morning. But, like I know because I see emails from todd at 5, 30 in the morning or six in the morning organizing materials and doing stuff like that they don't see that value. Yeah, they just think that todd's a supervisor. He should be on site at 6 am in the morning when they're there. He should be up there, ask, asking them questions, doing things. He's thinking ahead, he's making sure.
Speaker 1:It's an old school way, really thinking that you know the most successful and the best trade is the ones that's just breaking. He's breaking his back and he's there and he's just there and that's really probably the person that's running their business into the ground, because it's all in the back end and that's the same with leading carpenters, foremen supervisors, whatever role you have, even if you're an apprentice.
Speaker 1:Sometimes I tell my apprentices, if I say do this, you need to say no, lewis, I need to stop now, I need to clean and I need to stack the timber. And I said that's a role. He said no, lewis, I'm not going to be helping you do this now. I'm going to go and get the site ready because you've given me that role, so there's a place there for everyone.
Speaker 2:The number one thing that everyone should do more work on is their organization skills. Like, even if it doesn't matter what size your business is, at every stage, even your carbon is on site they should work on their organization skills. It shits me when you turn up to site and it's all it always takes the same person to be over things Like I. One thing that I hate is when, like, I can turn up to site and in five minutes I can have the site turned around and running like clockwork and so, yeah, having people that are that see the value in right, so I tell my lead carbon is like I don.
Speaker 2:Having people that see the value in, so I tell my lead carpenters, I don't give a fuck if you don't pick up your hammer all day, but you stay ahead of your guys. Make sure it's marked out, make sure that the gear's all here that we need. Have one person cutting, one person installing. You might come back and help hold it there while it gets tacked on and then you go away, keep marking out. One goes away, cuts it, one nails off like, yeah, a good carpenter isn't always necessarily someone or tradesperson that's good on the tools.
Speaker 1:They're good at managing people and finding their strengths. Like you could be a couple of guys that you know I've had work for me and stuff people like, oh he's useless, he couldn't hang a door. I'm like, well, wait till you see him. He knows this person's doing that you he knows like he's got it going. So it's like he's so valuable for me. You know he might not be you know what you think's the neatest thing in the world, like trade wise, but that kind of skill is so valuable to have.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, like bringing that back to keeping your team, like you can't force anyone to work for you and I think you've just got to, so that I think you've just got to so that, like. So I'm really big now on trying to educate my team. And there's members that just run with it, love it and keep improving, and there's members that are just stuck in their old ways. I can't change that. And then the next thing is that I'm huge on and some of them again, some of them run with it, some of them don't but I'm huge on finding out why my team gets out of bed every day. So, whether that's to save up money for family holidays or they want to buy a house or whatever, I am really big on finding out what drives them so that I can.
Speaker 2:Because for a lot of people it's not about the money. So some people might just want to know that if their kid's got something on at school, I'm fine. I won't dock their pay or whatever. They'll still get a full day's pay. But I'm fine, like I won't dock their pay or whatever, they'll still get a full day's pay, but I'm fine with them going to a school assembly in the morning or helping their wife out by picking up the kids giving them that freedom and that helps them stick around, because a lot of guys wouldn't be like that.
Speaker 1:That's a really good point there. That's to find out someone wants and then service that need. Don't make about the money yeah, someone's a mad surfer, just be like, look, mate, when there's when the swell is on, like yeah, it might be, you know, three or four days a year where it's perfect, I'm not gonna hold you here like you can go and do you and be yourself. So I think that's a that's a good point to bring out of that and I love that you just brought up the serving thing.
Speaker 2:like I and again my old-fashioned guys hate that, but like, like I'm constantly saying to my team, like I don't give a fuck what it is and it comes back to the organisation thing just let me know.
Speaker 2:So, like, using that scenario, if it's surfing, like back in the day, like we had one bloke that was a surfer and like it used to fucking shit me, like if the surf was on, I just knew he wouldn't be there and it would drive me nuts, whereas now I've completely flipped around. Like if he because you know, like you can see all the reports Like if he was to come to me on a Monday and say, hey, dwayne, like with the weather predictions, like it's looking like Wednesday is going to be a fucking cracker. Like do you mind if I come in at 10 o'clock so I can get some waves in the morning Nine times out of ten, I'd be like, yeah, no worries, mate. Like go for your life. Like, yeah, we've all got to figure out what we're living for and I I firmly believe now, if you can, if you're, if you can understand what your team's living for and give them the opportunity to do it, they will stay with you yeah, that's a great point.
Speaker 1:There. Your brain is like a filing cabinet because at the start of this conversation you go I've actually done a bit of research on this and you can see your eyes going back in and everything that you'd say and he's actually so thought through and you can see there's years to the process. So, like you said, that used to shit you and that would have shit me. Someone said, oh, can I have one day off a month to play golf, in comp or whatever? I would have been like no, and spew up in here. I don't care, you can spew as much as you want, but you're coming. Because that's the same thing.
Speaker 1:And I always I've got a saying with my guys. It's like, don't call in sick. I said dr lewis will let you go home and I'll say you're sick or you're coming to work. I'd rather you're laying on the ground and but now it's like with that thing, go and have your mad monday, mate, and that lets them go. You know, well, you know. And then those times where I'm like, look, boys, we've got to work a saturday because we're behind, and then they, they pull in for you so so 100 it's got to go both ways.
Speaker 2:But yeah, both ways look, I'm especially the members with um, because I know how much I missed my kids because I was, so the business took over and it was it controlled me and like, even with my team now, like the ones that have younger families, or even, like I even say, wives and partners, like, if you're, there is so much shit that we only get one shot at, yeah. Like our kids only go to grade one once, our kids only go to grade two once, so their kids only have these assemblies. Like they might only get the opportunity to perform in a school play once. Like you might have a girlfriend that's fucking graduating something. Like she's only gonna do it once.
Speaker 1:Like yeah, fucking, and it feels good to like like. I can imagine that feels good for you because all these business podcasts and all this bullshit talk about money and profit, that's you know. But it's like building that culture and having that company where it goes both ways and like like. It'd be a great feeling to know that. You say to one of your blokes and I'm going to say to my blokes not very many of them have kids but say you're never going to miss a milestone. You need to do swimming lessons on a monday morning for an hour.
Speaker 2:You go and get in that but you still have to push them, mate, because it's this our society is just driven these days to be get as much debt as you can. Both parents work. Everything's just flat out busy. So it's all good for me to sit here and say this is what I do and this is what I believe in, but, like, honestly, come the start of next year and the start of school, like I will have to send messages out. Like I'll put messages in our Slack channel, I'll message my team, the ones that have got kids, and say, mate, messages out, like I'll, I'll put messages in our slack channel.
Speaker 2:I'll message my team, the ones that have got kids, and say mate, like I know your kids are starting school next week, like do you need monday or tuesday morning off? And I've got to push them like and there's still only a couple that will do it yeah just, oh, no, it's fine yeah and I'm like well, whatever, like I can't push it on you, but the it's there if you want to take it, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, we better move on to the next one. Anyway. Shay's over there taking deep breaths. You know thinking Shay should do the next podcast. I reckon he should do a health and nutrition one. You should see he's jacked. I don't know what he's on, but I want some after this. He's jacked since last time I've seen him. You see the veins popping. Bit of tradie nutrition. We need it. We're all you know. The diet's horrible the meat pies and Red Bulls.
Speaker 2:Wait till you see the level up man bras I'm wearing.
Speaker 1:So these are the big ones, right, and I'm a big. I'm sceptical on this too, and it's go. Let's be honest about the builder's margin. We've heard you throw these figures up there, upward of 20 and that, and then just the talk on the street. I'm at street level down here and is there's no fucking way I'd win another job if I'm charging this much and then, and that's just the so. So hear me out here. So we've got the builder's margin and the and the thing, but it's just so ingrained that people are just not even accepting that figure and and automatically just saying there's yeah, there's no way that that's even realistic. So talk a bit more about that, just briefly.
Speaker 2:Well, at the end of the day, numbers don't lie and it doesn't matter. So the thing is with this every single business is different, like it doesn't matter, and this is our business. Our industry does not understand this. Our government bodies don't understand this. There is no set figure, but we know from like with my live life, build business like and that like we would be pushing 800 to a thousand builders now that we've worked through that, have done an overhead calculator and we know from that that it takes between 16 and 24% just to cover your overheads. So when I say there's lots involved in that, but just to get a few things straight, those overheads include a salary.
Speaker 2:So why this is so unbelievable for some or most people in our industry is most people in our industry aren't paying themselves a salary. They're simply just taking the crumbs that are left over at the end of the job. You need to get in the mindset that you're an employee to your company. So when you hear all these massive companies around the world saying that they've turned over $100 million or a billion, there's like Hutchies, builders, whatever. They turn over $1.2 billion or something and they say that they've made a 2% profit. That's company profit. That's after they've paid all their owners and all their CEOs tens of millions of dollars in salary. So when we talk about overheads and company profit, there's so much misunderstanding and there's a lot of education that needs to be done around that.
Speaker 2:But number one, your overhead is like it doesn't matter. You could be a one-man band. There could be two guys, both on the tools, both with an apprentice, both with a tradie. Their overheads will be completely different. One might have a brand new dual cab, one might own his car. One might have a vehicle for his tradesman, the other one might not. One might have phones for his staff, the other one might not. One might give them fuel cards, the other one might not. One might give them fuel cards, the other one might not. This whole, what's your overheads? What's mine? It doesn't work. That's why you have to dive into it. We've got an overhead calculator. You've got to dive in. You've got to enter the numbers in, you've got to work with your accountant. We have members that have overheads around the 8%, 10% and 12% as well. Yep, generally they are those smaller guys that don't have admin staff and all those types of things.
Speaker 1:So pretty much all these people out there, all these builders, talking about margin, and it's a crock of shit. They need to work out what their overheads are and then work out what profit company profit they want on top of that.
Speaker 2:Mate, there are so many parts of this. We could talk for months about it, but like just one thing I really want to get across is that in our building industry people don't understand it's your business, it is. You have the responsibility to set your business up however you want. You don't have to work to what you've been told. You don't have to work to what our associations say and your overhead manages that. So when I'm saying these numbers 16, 24 percent that's because these guys have understand. They've figured out the role they play in their business. They figured out they can't do it all their own. They figured out they need, uh, admin staff or they need a project manager.
Speaker 2:So the the those figures are in that overhead yeah and so numbers are so misunderstood in our industry and then and then, like I said, like ultimately, on top of that, you want to be putting a minimum of a 10 company profit like that's. That's where your business becomes sellable and that's where people will buy your business. If you have a business that is structured, everyone knows their roles, everyone's getting paid a salary for the role they play and your company makes profit, you can sell your business your business, yeah, otherwise you're just self-employed, really, and that's it exactly right.
Speaker 1:That's a huge problem all the people kind of that, well, pretty much then. So everyone that talks about this, all these builders, they're really not running a business, they're really just self-employed.
Speaker 2:I had a go at this master builder thing last night that started telling me I'm sweet, I got cash in the bank, we just did a renovation, it's sweet. I had the cash and I said what's your overhead? I ran on 20%. I said where's that figure come from? And 20 I said where's that figure come from? And you couldn't tell me. I was like well, how do you know you're making money? So what do you mean? Like well, what? How have you figured out that 20? Yeah, I just put 20 on every job. Like well, so you're making assumptions like then that? And that's in reality that's what our whole industry does. They just make assumptions that what they charge. But I guess, back to the other part of that question. Everyone hears those numbers and says fuck, I'm never going to win another job, yeah, or?
Speaker 1:you just keep doing what you're doing and charging you. Yeah, you're 10 hoping to get 15. That's kind of the going rate on the street is but reality.
Speaker 2:Reality is the numbers don't lie. So if you work through your overheads and I I get so many builders tell me that they've done it with their accountant and they've come up with this figure and like it can't be, mate, like tell me a bit about your business. They tell me I was like well, that doesn't make sense. And then like they fill out our overhead, they join up, they fill out our overhead calculator and they're fucking, like the accountant was telling them they're eight percent. They fill it out, okay, and they figure out they're 17, 18, 20, because they no one's worked out their role in the business, no one's worked out the salary they should be paying themselves. People don't understand why should you be the business owner, whether you're a trader or a builder or an architect or a designer? The reality is most building designers and architects don't know their overheads and running costs either.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:So why should you run the business, take all the responsibility, all the liability and get paid or earn the same or less than people that work for you and then expect to pick up a few crumbs, maybe at the end of a job? That that's your bit of a bonus.
Speaker 1:You said something there that's a really good one, like the liability you hold. I reckon a lot of builders don't factor that in, like you get callbacks whether you're the best builder or the worst builder in the world, things go wrong. And if you don't factor that in, well, look, we don't.
Speaker 2:I don't factor it in.
Speaker 1:Yeah you know, if that's not factored in, just there's no callbacks that's just how we.
Speaker 2:That's another story for another day. But, like we do, we know all the overheads, we know what our company profit is, and out of that company profit we do put in a way for a little bit of percentage into an account.
Speaker 2:It just sits there and if anything ever does come up maintenance, whatever it comes out of that. So again, we're not there, we're comfortable. But all these builders, and look, I did it too, like six, seven, eight years ago when I really started knuckling down on this. I did the exact same thing. I'm like man, I'm struggling to win a job now. I'll never win another one. But the reality is, when you know your numbers because it's black and white, like this is the thing. When you do your your overheads and it's on paper and it, then that sheet of paper is telling you that you need 22 to cover your overheads. It's black and white.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you put any less on your job be a liberated feeling, wouldn't it, knowing you did it all correctly, because a lot of builders are sending that it's going to contract phase and they're just but also, mate, I still get builders argue.
Speaker 2:I had a bill last night trying to argue with me saying, oh, if I put my like, he was sort of saying oh look, I I know my overheads are more than I'm charging. They're roughly this I'm like, why, like? Well, why aren't you putting that on? He's like because I won't win any work. I said so you're trading insolvent. And he didn't understand it.
Speaker 2:I'm like, mate, if on paper it says that you need this amount of money to cover your overheads, including paying your salary, and you're charging less, that is why your bank account's not building up. It's not building up. It's where you never have any cash flow. It's where you need the next job to pay for your last job, because the numbers don't lie. If you need 22, that is what you need. You can't just pull money out of thin air. It's a whole other conversation, like you can. At the end of the day, once you know your numbers, it changes the way you show up, it changes your confidence, it changes the way you talk to people. Once you know your numbers, you will never do another cost plus contract ever again. You'll only ever do fixed price contract and it will become a lot more about how you educate your clients on what they're going to get. So when you attract clients that come to you because they know they're going to get a great product, the price doesn't come into the equation. But it's more than that. Like the reality is.
Speaker 2:If a client people say we're expensive all the time, like I hear. I hear feedback and smart ass comments and shits all the time. Like we get family tell my wife and I will net. We can never build with you. You're too expensive. And the first thing I tell everybody is we are not an expensive builder. We know what it takes to run our business and we do things properly. If you want to pay someone to not do things properly, that's fine, go over there. But if you want a house that's built to code, everything's done. If there's a better way to do it, it's done better and you want a house that's going to last 100, 200 years, then you come and build with us. If you want to work with a builder, that's going to be very stressful, be variations and nine times out of ten is probably going to end up dearer than us in the long run um, and you only want a house that's going to last 20 to 30 years.
Speaker 1:Go and build with the cheaper guy yeah, well, I think we'll leave that at that. And pretty much, unless you've worked out your overheads, don't talk about builders margin. Go get educated. Don't the conversation needs to stop between everyone? Go, what are you charging, what am I charging, you know? And how are we ever going to win a job? Go work out your overheads and then fucking wake up to yourself and then see what you got to charge. So we'll put the lid on that one but that's just to wrap up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but the hardest part with that is that a lot of accountants and bookkeepers and associations they don't understand it either.
Speaker 1:Yeah no, well, fuck it, I'm one does no one. For years I was signing cost plus 10%. I'd send a 50 grand and make five grand and think, fuck, I just made. Literally I didn't make money for those years. It wasn't enough. And then I I yeah, I didn't even know what my overheads were at all, I just was charging 10% because I was like, oh the really good builders get 15. I'm just starting, so I'll charge 10 and be cheaper, so then I'm more likely to win a job. And I was winning every job I was pricing.
Speaker 2:But do you know what was in that? 10% or 15%?
Speaker 1:No, no, I just wrote the number because that was the recommended one and that's what people were getting. So I earnings. I just wrote 10% and I thought so I used to be a chippy and make an hourly rate. Now I'm going to make money on all my guys and then every other invoice that normally goes. Then I'm going to make 10% on that Little did I know that 10% wasn't covering I wasn't on the tools as much, so it wasn't even covering my way. That was the years I ran a business where I was paying my carpenters not even lead carpenters more than me, and it didn't. It really hit home when I something went wrong and I need a little bit of money for a rainy day and I was like, well, hang on a minute, I don't have any money. And I'm like I'm live taking on all these, live, taking on all the stress, and the roof is getting paid, the bricklayer is getting paid the water they're all charging their 20, 30% margin on their work.
Speaker 2:Know your numbers. In this game you you have to deal with an accountant that understands our industry like a trade accounting firm, or you go to someone like katie from profit first for trade. He's like, um, yeah, there's no other way to do it. Like if you're just dealing with an average joe blow accountant, you're all you come to live, life build and we actually work through your numbers yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So the summary on that is everyone's margins different because their business is different. So whatever you hear on the street, guys might work for someone, not work for someone else. And if you don't know your overheads, go work them out now, because you know like best advice is do not take advice on overheads from anybody.
Speaker 2:Yeah, work it out work out your own.
Speaker 1:That's the first time I've heard that, so that's good, because everyone kind of goes on. What's the general group doing? Everyone tries to feel out like, oh, you know what, how you, you know it's the same thing. It's like oh, we're talking about pro climber. It's like what rapper, you guys, what do you what? Everyone. It's like oh, they're doing it, so you know, I'll do like he's a good builder and that's what he's charging, so I'll do that little. Do you know that his shit could be hitting the fan and and whatnot there?
Speaker 2:so but like we need to wrap this part up. There's so many parts of this like. Because the other part is like you go to these accountants and they sit down with at the end of the year and go, oh look, you, you've made 150 000 but your company's made a 90 000 loss. So unless you get taught or understand so number one if, that's if, if your accountant's telling you that you personally made a certain amount of money and your company has made a loss, you're stealing from your company. It's illegal, you're trading insolvent and I operated like that for years. I didn't understand it. So it's a big thing to get your head around.
Speaker 2:But the other big driver why this problem is so bad and with what you just touched on there, so say, you're a builder that is just running with 10 and so in your mind you think that every job you do, you make 10. You start working your way up. You're doing a million dollar job. In your mind you you think you've made 100 grand. So you're buying this, you're buying that. You're roughly keeping the numbers in your head, thinking that you're just, you're within that 100 grand. If you don't understand that, out of that $100,000, you've paid $11,000 insurance. You've paid $7,000 for the year or for the period of that job, in fuel or $6,000 in fire. Like all these things, you'll be high.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like you're going out the back door.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's probably most of the industry. So, anyway, the next hot one the hot topics mate the hot topics on the street. This is the next biggest talked about. One which everyone just bullshits to each other is home warranty. So this is, like I said, this is probably a full episode with some experts on home warranty.
Speaker 1:Because, yeah, my experience with home warranty is, you know, like you kind of want to massage it to make it look good so you can get as much as you can. And every builder is looking for a loophole to get home warranty because to grow your business, you want to take on more work, you need more home warranty. And then, literally I see it every day where a builder is about to sign a massive job this is my first multi-million dollar project and they day where a builder is about to sign a massive job that's my first multi-million dollar project and they say how much home warranty you got, like where do you? And then they that it's, it's always looked at later, so they'll chase the work. And then, so what's, yeah, your advice for people out there and that conversation that builders are having on the home warranty kind of tunnel oh look, I'm I'm definitely no expert on this.
Speaker 2:I think it's definitely an area that our industry, associations and government bodies need to work on. One way to work on that would be talking to our industry and understanding how it operates a lot more. But the other side of that is, again, knowing your data and knowing your numbers. Builders aren't doing forecasting, so we've got a forecasting tool. I literally did this on Tuesday, so we're currently submitting all our paperwork for our next level of licensing and I was shitting my pants because it was looking like I didn't think we had enough assets to get the turn like to allow us to do the amount of work that we've got coming up for the next 12, 18 months. And and again, it's just, it's just like we're talking about with the overheads and stuff, like there's a lot to get your head around.
Speaker 1:so I think what a lot of guys are doing. Or is my experience as well. You're sole trader for years and you can use your own personal assets and you get, like I've got quite a big amount of home warranty. As a really young like I'm talking 23 years old I could and I was thinking, fucking, why are they giving me that? But you put it against your own personal asset and I was lucky to just have. But then when you switch to a company, you got to start the home warranty journey again and I think a lot of builders. This is where it comes down to the numbers like you're talking about and the amount of.
Speaker 1:If I had a dollar for every time I heard you say you've got to know your numbers you know I'd probably have a few grand, but like it's true though, yeah, it's true, it comes down to your numbers, and if you aren't doing your numbers, it's just not working for you. But yeah, I think the big problem is a lot of guys are going to a company you know to run out of loss because your tax bill might not be there. Let's be honest, we're all in business, we're all trying to minimize tax. We're not avoiding it, we're trying to minimize it. And then it can bite you in the ass with the home warranty.
Speaker 2:so it's about, but you've got to again you've got to know your numbers, you've got to be working around all that like yes, but at the end of the day, tax isn't a bad thing. If you're paying tax, it means you're you are making money. Yeah, um, and look, the more money you make, the more there's actually more benefits to you. Like, the government supports people that are doing well and making money. Because if, if they didn't support people that were doing well and allow us to use our funds to do other investments and other things, the government can't fund all all the infrastructure and all this stuff that's going on. So they, they reward you for doing well. So that's a whole other podcast as well.
Speaker 2:I think we need to get an expert on the home warranty thing, because With the home warranty thing, you need to know, because obviously, if you want to do a certain level of turnover, you have to have a certain level of assets. I think different states have different regulations and things and that's why you've got to do forecasting. Yeah, like, you need to have forecasting sheets. You need to be forecasting the inquiry that's coming in what the possible dollar values are. They that they are like through our pack process, where we're encouraging builders to fill out these forecasting tools so they know what's looking like coming up, so they can be working towards. So, to give an example, like on this tuesday, like two days, three days ago, um, I sat down with my accounts manager because she spent the last two weeks getting everything together, so, um, and collating all the information that we've got to submit by november for our next level of licensing, and she's told me the figure, like we were.
Speaker 2:So we were right on the limit, like had to fudge a few things to, um, make it work, and we're gonna have to be very careful about the work we take on because we're going to be right on that sort of I think it's a 10 buffer yep but with the current work that we've got forecasted for the next two and a half odd years, next year again, we're going to be pushing it so like I've got her to do some forecasting and tell me like all right, oh well, this time next year what do we need to have in a bank account?
Speaker 2:And so I won't be stressed out this time next year because we've come up with a strategy now that over the next 12 months we're going to be building up some money and putting some money aside so that come this time next year we're going to be able to go to the next level and it's not going to be stressful. So it all comes back. Look, I know it's a pain in the ass and I know the government needs to understand more about how industry runs. But to understand more about how industry runs, but at the end of the day, we do need to take some responsibility and know our data and do some forecasting, like not just be running by the seat of our pants getting a big job in and then fucking complaining that we can't do it.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, well, from my experience you know, maybe did or didn't do this, but you put a job down on home warranty for a lot less than it is and towards the end of the job you ask for an extension and they say, oh, excuse me, um, mr dawson, you're not approved for this much. I'll say, well, I'm standing in the, I'm standing in the house right now and it's here, so that's too late and that's kind of how it's been for too long. So I think you hit the head nail on the head there where you said it comes down to your numbers at the end of the day if you're not charging enough. So that's where that 25, 20, 20% margin scares people. Well, if you're not making money, then you can't ever grow because you can't get the home warranty.
Speaker 2:Well, everything keeps coming back to this margin. Reality is it costs everyone in the long run. So these builders that aren't knowing their numbers, chasing their tail, wondering why their cash flow isn't building, substituting materials through the job, cutting a few corners here and there to try and make up some more money all these types of things are the same builders that are whinging three months, six months, three years down the track when there's an issue with the job and they can't afford to go back and fix it. At the end of the day, it all catches up. So the best thing that this industry can do is educate themselves, understand their numbers and how to run their business, charge correctly and even though there's clients out there, they're going to be listening and well fuck, we just can't keep paying more.
Speaker 2:Reality is building. I will fucking argue in parliament about this. Building will become more affordable when builders are running more professional businesses and understanding how to run their business and doing things to code, because the $50-odd billion that gets spent every year on rework and jobs that don't get finished and insurances that get paid out, we're all paying for that. But that's all built into all of our costs our materials, our labor. So the reality is we all get better, we all educate ourselves, we all spend time and money on ourselves. We run better businesses. Our clients are actually going to get better products and the cost of building will come down. No doubt about it.
Speaker 1:Know your numbers. All right, that's answering the questions from the street.
Speaker 2:If anyone in parliament wants to get me in there, I'm fucking happy to argue about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, dwayne, know your numbers, Vote for Dwayne. Know your numbers, vote for dwayne. 100 that's yeah, uh, that's good. So. So now just one more from me. It's just to wrap it up. I've been following your journey now on social media and now that we, you know, best mates, we're chatting all the time. Yeah, so what I've got written down here is what does a bad day look like for you? Right, right. So it looks like to me now. You're cool, calm, collected, you're ice bathing, you're kicking goals, you know whatever it is anal, gazing, grounding, whatever the new hot trends on social media are listening to podcasts, and that's a new one.
Speaker 1:You should get into it, guys. I've tried. It's actually all right. Sounds like a job. But so what does a bad day look like? So you, you know, like we all run building companies. Right, you can have as many things in your google calendar as possible, but it only takes a couple of the dominoes to fall and your fucking day can turn to shit. So you know what's the reality. Duane, you've slept through your alarm. Your phone's dead. You know, you did the ice bath warm. You can't get in. How does it go for you? So how does it go for you on those days? You still have them.
Speaker 2:Obviously. Look, I'm no fucking unicorn. Yeah, the business has bad days. I still have bad days Occasionally.
Speaker 2:I'll put that on Instagram and sort of give a little bit away, but there's still the odd day that I will have for a split second that thought like what the fuck are we doing all this for? And then I've got to pull myself up and say, no, well, fuck, you're kicking gulls, don't let this fucking stupid thing hold you back. But I'm really big on getting my team on this as well now. So we still have the same shit go wrong that lots of builders go wrong, like a delivery won't turn up on time. Only last week we had a delivery $40-odd where the cladding got delivered and the fucking truck driver fucked two of the pallets and pretty much completely destroyed half of the delivery. Um, at the end of the day, that is completely out of our control, like. So I guess, to take you back only six, eight.
Speaker 2:Well, actually, if we go back 10 years ago, I would have completely lost my shit at that truck driver. They probably would have been close to punch-ons. I would have been yelling and abusing everyone on site. I would have been making phone calls to anybody that I could to whinge about it and bitch about it and tell them that I'm not going to be fucking paying the bill and they need to fucking get another lady here straight away and they'll be wearing all the delay costs. Like I would have carried on like a pork chop. And I look back on it now and think, like I used to turn Ant Hills into fucking Mount Everest, like every stupid little thing that happened, I would just I wouldn't back off on it and like that situation like a delivery that had gone wrong. I would drag that out for a week, yeah, like it would destroy my week.
Speaker 1:So now you can have a bad day and keep it at a day. Connor, that's what you're saying. You just keep it at a minute. Yeah, break it up. Break your bad days up into minutes. That could be your thumbnails.
Speaker 2:Just don't have a bad day, have a bad minute. I think my supervisors on board now, like a lot of my team are on board, like I don't. If I turn up to a site now and someone's like, oh, the gear hasn't showed up, I'm like, well, go and work on that over there. Yeah, like there's. And look, I think a lot of that's come back to this. The way we run our business now like it's not. Like in the old days we were so dependent on. You're gonna hate this, but it comes back to your numbers. Oh, not, again. There's another dollar ching 2001. Like, honestly, like we were so I didn't understand the running of the business. So, like every, there was so much pressure all the time to just be get to the next draw, yep. So like when something went wrong, like delivery, the first thing that came into my mind was like, fuck me, if we don't get this cladding fucking finished, I'm not going to get paid.
Speaker 1:I reckon you just strike a light there with all the listeners. If you are knowing your numbers and that's not the stress, you're not checking your bank and that then those moments you're like, oh, you know you can accept those moments. But yeah, if you've got that inside you, that overhead and the money over your head, everything just becomes from an anthill to Mount Everest.
Speaker 2:Well, there's two things, mate. It's like being under so much pressure and so much debt that, in your mind, telling yourself that that delivery that just got fucked up means the boys won't finish that cladding until an extra week, which means I'm already behind. I'm going to be in that extra week late on my invoice, which means then the client's going to take 10 days to pay it. So, like in your in my mind, I'm just building up this fucking steam because I can see all the invoices that are going to keep coming in and I can't pay them. But the other side of that is I cannot control it. How?
Speaker 1:is your mind? Is it always going or does it slow down? It doesn't stop mate it doesn't stop.
Speaker 2:People wonder why I eat like a fucking horse, but my brain does not stop.
Speaker 1:Your brain's burning calories. Yeah, wish mine did that.
Speaker 2:It's the best weight loss ever.
Speaker 1:I need to think more then. So is that what Shay's doing? He's not going to the gym, he's just thinking sitting there I'm out now.
Speaker 2:The level up thinking diet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the thinking diet. We're on to something here, hugh the man, look us up mate.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I just am proud of my team, Like my team. It's very rare that anyone in my team now so our plumber's a real hothead, yeah, Like he's calmed down a lot. He will quite often just go nuts at his team on site and one of us might have to say to him, mate, like it's out of your control like you can't do anything about it. Yeah, yeah, um, but yeah, look, that's the two things like just knowing having the business running and being financial enough that if shit goes wrong, or job gets delayed.
Speaker 1:It's not a big deal but up shit craig anyway, then number two, just it's, it's out of my control, I can't control.
Speaker 2:And like the same thing like we talked touched on before, with the people showing up sick and stuff. Yeah, like mate, it used to, again all driven by dollars, like if I had team members that didn't show up. The first thing in my mind was like fuck me. Like there were two guys short, we're gonna be two days behind on getting the framing draw. Yeah, like what the fuck get to work. Yeah, yeah, get a doxy tv. Like fucking go take some pills.
Speaker 2:Like yeah, yeah, whereas, yeah like I can't control that that gets sick like yep, um so yeah things that are out of your control and your bad day into a bad minute, I reckon so yeah, yeah, I don't. I'm no different to anyone, mate. We still get shit going wrong.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because the building industry is just shit going. You're just Dealing, putting out fires all day, kind of thing. But obviously the better your numbers are.
Speaker 2:And just preempting things, to give you a perfect example, whatever. So today's, friday, the 13th, I'm pretty sure Look out, but our plane will be fucking late or something. I was thinking that. So to give you an idea. So next Monday we're starting. We've got to get a retaining wall in on a property that is on the waterfront.
Speaker 2:Uh, it's tidal and I we've done plenty of work in those areas before and I'm fairly confident that it's going to give us grief because we're going to um, I was trying to get it done with, uh, some screw piers and stuff and weld the retaining wall columns onto it. The engineers wouldn't have a bar of it Anyway. So it's board piers. So we've got a bit of a game plan around. We've got a machine turned up Monday morning, got $30,000 where the concrete sleep is showing up. We'll have a team on site and I know next week there's going to be a few phone calls backwards and forwards and there's probably going to be a few costs that might not go to plan because we're going to have to deal with something that's completely out of our control.
Speaker 2:We're going to be boring holes through a water table, so being aware that not everything works perfectly.
Speaker 1:Yeah because a lot of times you picture things in your head yep, machine's going to go in, we're going to do flow and if you allow for the shit, fight in there.
Speaker 2:I guess it doesn't sneak up on you. And well, I'm not saying I've allowed extra to cover, yeah, but I've had multiple meetings this week with my supervisor. I've had conversation with the client. Um, I've one of our team members up, it's going to be on site there, and just I've talked to the machine operator and we've just, yeah, I feel like as well, like being a builder.
Speaker 1:I'm working with a lot of builders. They can get almost addicted to when the like the stress and when something goes wrong and they love it like what the claddings? They're gonna be in their bonnet and it's like you know, the gorilla comes out and off they. You know I'm calling him and doing that, so it's almost. It's addicting that, that kind of that, and it's chaos and you know it's.
Speaker 2:I'm glad you brought that up because I don't know the exact wording or how to if this makes sense, but I think a lot of people. Because I did. I used that as an excuse not to fix it, because I'm like do you like? I used to always say, like it's impossible, like there's so much shit goes on, like it you can't fix all this shit, like you don't know what you're talking about yeah, yeah, yeah but it's, and because of that, like I was making every situation a thousand times bigger than what it really should be telling everyone.
Speaker 1:And yeah, the drama. You kind of get addicted to drama, as my wife likes to say. I'm a little bit addicted to drama, so it's it fuels you. You know you wouldn't believe it. The roof sheets rock up and they it's the wrong color and you know you're there and that just becomes your whole life you know why.
Speaker 2:Because when and I struggle with this, so this is something that I just struggle with when, like I just I keep waiting for something to go wrong, like when you get like team starts to go well, jobs start to make money, bank account starts to build up like family's good you're going on holidays, like it's almost like you're trying to like make something up, yeah, because you're like fuck what.
Speaker 2:Like something's gonna go wrong soon, like what's going on? Yeah, and it is really hard. Like that's something I probably have to work with every single day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, that's actually, like you know, on a different side, like what we talked about earlier on the first half of this podcast, that's actually a reaction to childhood trauma. He's expecting things go wrong, like that. So that's like a deeper issue and, yeah, that's kind of like an instinct and I have the same thing as well. I've always had this thing I'm gonna, I'm gonna die young. You know something, I'm gonna get struck by lightning. What is it? What do you say? Friday the 13th? It could be it for me, this could be it, but I got this in this feeling, I don't know why, this doom and the same with me, like when the building's going good and that I'm like thinking or something you know, when it's only a matter of time before phone rings and something's going wrong. But yeah, so so again.
Speaker 2:You and I can talk for hours, keep it out. But, um, to give you, well, I'll give you a really good example of something that went wrong recently. So this we're doing a 2.3 odd million dollar job at the moment three-story house, fairly steep site, um the, the basement or garage and guest bedroom store and sort of dug into the side of the hill. Um, all block work and the. The job was cruising on well, like, even though we hit a lot of rock and stuff. There was a variation for the client, but like team's going well, footings went in well, like the, the team prepped it. We did a huge pour, we poured the bottom and then we, we worked out all the heights, we poured the top, like everything's going sweet. Um, and then blocky comes in, so it's got all the 300 series down the bottom and then 200 series up the top.
Speaker 2:And it was a friday and my supervisor rings me and goes uh, um, I've just cancelled the core fill. Uh, one of the walls is 100 mil out and I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about? He goes, I got said how, like, we've double checked everything there and yeah, and look this and again, the credit to my team like one of our systems is prior to concrete, you do a final check on everything. They've come in that morning they've pulled their string lines and done their final check and all the set-out they've done for the block work like one wall, like one person at each end. They've marked the 300 blocks out. Someone's gone 300mm one side of the line and the other guy on the other end has gone the other way. It sent the walls ended up 100 mil out of square.
Speaker 2:And I was like you're kidding me, like I we've never done that, like that is in, whatever it's been, I don't even know, 18 years or 16 years of building now we've never, ever done that. And he's like what do you want to? He's like it's got to come down and I'm like, well, are you sure? Like I said fucking. I said do this, do that and give me a call back. And in my mind I'm thinking, fuck me, like that, that is, that's going to delay us a lot. I'm not going to get my. So on that, like to give you an idea, that was going to be the first we had an Earthworks draw, so that was going to be all our footings, reinforcing steel, caulfield block work, which was over a $200 draw on that job, which we would have submitted the following week.
Speaker 2:This has literally only happened two months ago, yeah, and anyway, while Todd's Todd, we're coming, coming up, he's gone away working stuff out and I'm thinking like, fuck, do we like, how do we get around this? Like, do we pack each side of the wall out? Do we like, just, yeah, frame it and then render it like what do we do? And I'm like, no, like fuck that, like that's it'll look good, but it'll always come back to bite us in the ass. And then, yeah, todd rings back. He's like, no, it's wrong, we've got to pull it down. And I'm like, well, fuck, it's got to be pulled down, it's got to be pulled down. And like that, in the old days that would have been fucking, throw the phone at the wall, like really cracking the shits.
Speaker 2:But it's obviously a sign of the culture and the team I've built now, because when Todd ran me back, he's like, yeah, we have triple-checked everything. It is 100 mil out. This is what's happened. Tim did this, I did this, it's got to happen. And in my mind I'm like, fuck, mate, do you know that's? I said I've done some quick numbers. Do you know, that's going to be somewhere between probably a the fuck up, and he's like, yeah, no, I know, but we've, we've, we're already pulling it down. I've already told the team to do it, we're going to save all the blocks.
Speaker 2:So, like literally again back to the team, the culture I've created, they had the scaffold set up for the core fill. So they, they pulled the blocks down, they scraped all the mortar off, they stacked them back in the poles where they were before it got built. They pulled all the reinforcing steel out. They, they cleaned the footing, they remarked it out. On the Friday Todd got straight on the block layer, told him what had gone wrong. He had had another job that wasn't going to plan. He got back there the following Tuesday and we ended up like it went straight back up and we core filled it. Like I think it was the following Wednesday and it ended up being like a $5,200 exercise and it was good because the team all took ownership of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, carry on.
Speaker 2:They apologized for it and we all moved on. So yeah, it just goes to show you like when you change your mindset and you yeah, because you tend to get those.
Speaker 1:Things can get out in your mind, your mind can just start going and then you start questioning everything you've ever done and next minute you're taking the whole house down.
Speaker 2:But if you well, I think it was really good for the team because that's the biggest thing, that's the biggest fuck up we've had for a long time, and I think it was really good for the team to see how my supervisor handled it and how I handled it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we all just moved on adapt and overcome yeah, yeah well, it's good just that you share that, because a lot of builders don't share their fuck ups and that's it's building and they're human beings and I'm no fucking different to anybody like I don't.
Speaker 2:I'm not sitting here doing this podcast and doing what I do, thinking that I'm an angel, I'm a unicorn and everything's perfect yeah yeah, like I'm here to show people that like, if I can deal with any of this shit and get to where I am and do what I do, like anybody can. Yeah, no, you do take things I'm not fucking doing the anal star game.
Speaker 1:No, Dwayne takes things well. He's ordered Eggs Benedict this morning. I walk in half an hour late, get my bacon and egg roll and you get a meal in front of you. It's clearly not Eggs Benedict that you just hook into it. No, not Eggs Benedict that you just hook into it and no stress, and got a frozen mango smoothie. No, but thanks for having me back. Anyway, it was good to just finish off the questions and I'll stay on the streets and anything that comes to me and hopefully we can do this again in another few months and yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, Lewis and I are going to get something happening that you guys are going to fucking look at. I'm excited. But, guys, thanks for listening. Another cracking episode. Um, yeah, reach out if you've got questions and, uh, go and check out the new website, get them, get on board with the merch and keep smashing it out. We'll see you on the next episode. Are you ready?
Speaker 1:to build smarter, live better and enjoy life. Then head over to live like buildcom, forward, slash, elevate to get started.
Speaker 2:Everything discussed during the Level Up podcast with me, dwayne Pearce, 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.