122. Building A Well Rounded Business With John & Joel Van Lagen

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Use the guys that you trust and they know how we think, we know how they think. We're not guessing. It saves so much time and actually money in the end of the day.

Welcome to Professional Builder Secrets, the podcast for building company owners wanting to grow safely and securely. I'm your host, Will Blunt, and today I'm joined by John and Joel Van.

Lagan from Joe's Carpentry in Ontario, Canada. Welcome to the show.

Thanks for having us.

Yes, thanks for asking. I'm very excited to be here. We listen to your podcast, every one of them and we're very excited to be part of it.

Yeah, perfect. Well, it's an absolute pleasure having you on. We've had a brief chat a couple of weeks back before we planned this interview and I've done so much research into your company and really excited to hear more about the, the history. So, John, maybe I'll throw to you, what's the story behind Joe's Carpentry?

Well, it's kind of an exciting story. So Joe's Carpentry started by my father, Joe. That's where the name Joe's come from. He immigrated back in 1966 into Canada from Holland and he worked in the, in a, in a local cabinet shop, basically doing building cabinets. He was shop foreman up to about 1975. At that time, that company was in a transition of ownership from father to son. Things were not going very well, so he decided basically to bid on a local school cabinet job and if that worked, he would start on his own. He got that job and he did not have any place to build these cabinets. So he rented a barn locally from a farmer and built his first cabinets in that barn. And that was the start. He hired one employee that just came out of high school right at that time. That employee stayed with us for 25 years before he became a high school teacher. After that, basically then he continued, we built, he didn't build a shop on his own property, continued in that cabinet building, finishing, finishing millwork of cabinetry in residential market as well. He did some exterior claddings and roofing and stuff like that as well. That basically stayed that way up until about 1990. That's when I came involved. I went to school, trade school for a machinist at the time, 1990, when I got out of school, done my school, it was in a. We were in a recession here in Canada, wasn't that much work. Dad had a job out of town from a friend of his. He said, hey, I've got some work, you can work with me. And I never stopped from there. So that's how I got involved in the business. It was not planned. So I was kind of thrown in with no training besides what I knew from my dad growing up. About two years later my brother William also got involved. William is a much more hands on skilled carpenter than I am. So because of that I. My dad had me focus probably start focusing more on the management financial side of the business where William was more on the hands on and building cabinet side of the business. So we both had our kind of separate ways. As we were part of it, we started to grow because we wanted to grow again. William started focusing more on the cabinet side of things, building cabinetry and I focus more on the financial and the contracting side of things. Doing that as my hands probably wasn't as good with my hands as he was. We kind of stayed on with that. We started to grow the business slowly with the two of us involved. I think we're. When we. When I started there was two employees. When William and I got going, we got it up a little bit, you know, probably to seven or eight employees. Then in 2005 that succession plan started in place and William and I became owners in the company. We are a family run business. William and I are brothers and our sisters or sorry, our wives are sisters. So we're double family. So we are quite heavily in it that way. So it brings its challenges along the way. Yeah, but it's done well for us as well. So then in 2005, William and I, we became owners at the same time. We actually separated the cabinets into a separate company called Carver Cabinetry. And Joe's Cabinetry continued on which we still work hand in hand today. We share a showroom. We try to do as much together as possible from there. So that's kind of the biggest things now that our kids are getting older. William has two sons in the business. I have two sons in the business. I have a daughter that also helps us out. We are now planning our secession, just starting that. So that's one of the big things that we're working on, and that's. That is going to require a lot of thought, a lot of decisions to make, which is going to be fun and challenging at the same time. We have grown this business. So we have about 20 employees here in the contracting side now and about 20 in the cabinet side. So about 40 employees from when we started of, you know, three or four. So it has grown greatly. And it's bringing, you know, we are at a point now where we need to bring that second generation or third generation in.

Yeah.

And they have to build it in a way as well that they can sustain and that they can handle, and they may have to grow more as well. We've gone kind of where we could, and we were at the point where we're kind of okay now, stuck, and we need some more advice. And we sought that out in professional advice from there. That's kind of where. Where we're at in the history of the company.

It's actually kind of neat. I can't show you, but on our wall in the showroom, one of our walls in the showroom, we have the actual history board up.

Oh, cool.

And it gives it, from 1966, when my grandpa immigrated to. To present day of how the company has grown. So it's actually pretty neat. Clients really like looking at it.

So one of the unique stories of that is the first job. My dad did those cabinets in a school. We started replacing them three years ago, so they lasted that long. And now we're doing new cabinets in that same school.

So I think, I mean, family businesses.

Are common in building, but to the extent that your family is involved in this business is quite unique. I believe it is.

It definitely is. It's something that we've had to learn on how to communicate and how to respect each other. You know, look for our strengths, you know, help each other with our weaknesses, try to keep a good communication open as possible with each other so we know our direction, so we're not really going, you know, opposite directions without knowing. And we do try to keep up with that with meetings about every. I think every quarter or so, we have two companies. Just as an official family meeting, we call it just to review what are, you know, what directions, where the challenges are, what maybe needs to be assessed or addressed, and what we need to focus on for the future.

And there definitely are challenges working just with family. It's. Yeah, it's not. Sometimes not easy, but other times it's super rewarding.

So what do you find the biggest.

Challenges, Joel, I think knowing everything about each each other, so you know everybody's strengths and you know everybody's weaknesses. It's a benefit. But it's also like if, if things aren't going 100%, things can go off the rails really quickly because you know each other's weaknesses and you can prod them out a little bit. But it also has this very rewarding side of it. Like you can get together at the end of a long week or end of a couple months and be very happy with what everybody has done has brought to the table.

And how do you separate the work from. From social life and the weekend and things like that?

For me, for me, it's actually, I find it pretty easy.

But do you find that your whole family talks about work at, you know, barbecues or whatever, you know, family events, those kind of things?

We, we try to keep it separate that way. We've kind of like. I think our parents have kind of instilled that work is for work. There is things that spill over and they will. But I think our fathers have said, you know what? Work, if you have issues at work, do not bring that home.

That's one thing I think we've done that we've kind of did a way that our wives are not to be involved in the business. Yes, they hear about things and yes, they will protect their husbands, but we've kind of instilled that they have no decision in the matter and they have to step back when we make a decision. We try to keep most of big work related stuff. We do not discuss it when we're together. And as a whole family, we just, we find that's not the place for it because then we have bigger families. Like, I have seven children, William has six children. We have their spouses in there. We have grandchildren in there. Yeah, we have siblings like our own brothers and sisters. William and I, you know, they're somewhat involved and if you start getting everybody into discussion, then it doesn't go well. So we just keep it away from. Like I say, we got the. There's the family room and there's a business room and we need to keep that separate. And that's what we try to really do that way.

The other good thing is like, we as cousins that are involved in the business are kind of the same age and we do have some of the same hobbies. So whether it's golf or whether it's some other sport or doing stuff like that, when you're out there, you're not really Talking business, you're having a good time competing with each other. So in that way it's kind of a separation from the business.

Yeah, I mean that's really powerful. It's good to have that separation like you mentioned, and that you're able to do that is probably one of the reasons you've been so successful for so long. What sets your services apart from other builders in area that you work in?

Yeah, so the biggest thing, the biggest thing that sets us apart is we provide like as a contractor. We provide like the full package for a contractor. We can do everything from building a brand new house, a custom house, to doing a small little bathroom renovation. And there's not many guys in the area that do that. So there's a lot of companies in the area that'll build a house for you or there's. But the. On the renovation side, our competition, there's not a whole ton out there and I think a lot of people stay away from that side just because they're. They don't know how to price it. So in, in when times get slower, some of the guys that build new houses do come back into renovations and we'll try to pick off that market but they don't stay there very long. They're gone within a couple years and they're back to building houses or. Yeah, they just didn't know how to price it and they're out of business.

So yeah, we're finding like I find in the renovation market very hard to get a fixed price contract in this area from the local competition which we, we will give fixed price all the time. We do not like going anything cost plus. It just creates such a conversation every time and it's just not worth it. Been doing this for 30 years plus myself, I love the renovation market. I love the challenges it brings. I love basically the what we can make out of something else. When somebody else wanted to walk away that we could, we're able to build something for them. Um, that just excites me and that just gives me drive to continue in that market.

One of the like how the business is kind of focused in on is, is my dad. He does like that challenge of figuring out problems that some people don't can't find. So we have shy more towards the renovation addition side just because of that. And with the market where it is, a lot of people in this area are finding it easier or they can't afford a new house so they have to do something to revitalize their. That they're living in and they come to renovations and that's where our market is.

Yeah.

So if you, if it's a competitive advantage to be able to price the renovation projects effectively with the fixed price contracts, how do you go about doing that? Because I know there's, there's a number of more complexities with, with renovations that can cause challenges with that.

I think that is a lot of experience. I remember, I'm going to say about 15 years ago even I had a con, a competitor contractor come to me, said, how do you price renovation? I said, years of experience. I've always been a numbers guy. I've always been a numbers guy and I love building formulas on how to arrive things. So I would do a lot of auditing of what happened and then apply that information to the next job that I priced. Over the years, I've been able to perfect it fairly well and been able to train others to do that pricing with it. Joel's now doing most of her estimating and he's picked it up pretty quick, even though he doesn't have as much experience as I do in that, in that, in that way. So I think that's what it is. You've got to get that data. You got to use the data you have and, and use that to your advantage where a lot of people are not collecting that data or don't know where to go look for that data.

Yeah. With that, like on the estimating side, it's actually quite easy to do the estimating is by knowing the historical data of like, let's say you're doing a bathroom tear out, you know exactly how many hours that should take. So you average it out. So some, sometimes you're like a bathroom could take you 20 hours to demo and the next bathroom takes you 30. But you kind of know that. So you, you kind of work that into your pricing a little bit. So you may come, our pricing may be a little bit higher than the competition, but in the end it's, it'll work out for the client in the long run because the competitor might be doing not a fixed contract, but based on the hour. And then they say it's only going to take 10 hours. It takes them 25. There's all of a sudden there's huge price differences there, which we don't have.

Yeah. I don't think people want to get a shock. Right. When all of a sudden there's an additional cost of x thousand dollars they weren't expecting. Makes it hard. Do you have any clauses that factor in contingencies for overrunning the fixed price.

Though we do use some allowances in certain areas, like we'll say finishing areas like maybe flooring, the tile type of flooring, cabinetry. We'll, we'll put in some allowances in those things which, you know, could be some. Bring some variables, but we want to have that stuff all figured out with the client.

Yeah.

Prior to us starting the contract so they know where they're going. We don't like to bring too much of this stuff. Once the contract is running, we want to get all the details as much as possible upfront.

And I think using the same sub trades makes a big difference. We know their pricing, they kind of know what they're getting into already. We don't have to explain it to them. When we send them stuff to bid on or quote by quote out, they know exactly what we're getting into. So it's. Their price is set. So on that way, like especially plumbing and the flooring and even the cabinetry, even though there may be some allowances there, most of the time we don't even have the allowance because we already know what it's going to be before that we sign the contract.

Yeah. So you've just got sub, you've got subcontractors that you trust. Right. That can deliver a quality, you know, outcome and quality product and, and the pricing fits within your model.

So yeah, I can absolutely say that. We, the contract, we basically use the same subcontractors all the time. And some people say, well, you should price them. And my experience is when I use another subcontractor every time things go wrong, they do not price in what I expected. They don't think that's their job. It just ends up costing me money every time. And I, you know, for the experience of the client, use the guys that you trust. And they know how we think, we know how they think. We're not guessing. It saves so much time and actually money in the end of the day.

It even saves time on your estimating side of it because you're not pricing around and trying to figure out, going through their quotes, everybody's quotes, trying to figure out who's the best bid on who has missed what you're, you're estimating is so much quick, quicker. And on the other side of it, they can service us. So we have about 10 to 12 jobs going at one time here. If we're getting a different electrician every single time, one electrician around here might only have two guys working for him. Well, he can't service us if we need them on five different jobs. So the electrician we use, they. They know that they can service us and they will have an electrician. If I have a problem tomorrow, I'm going to call him. He's going to have a guy for me tomorrow.

Yeah. Do they often have a lot of other clients as well, or would they centralize a lot of their work around your projects, do you think?

The. The electrician basically has a crew for us now? They do other work, they have other clients, but they have a. A crew that we know in and out. So they, if we call them, we're getting that guy and he's coming to our site. The plumber, our plumber, we do a lot of work with. They, they send us a lot of work and we send them a lot of work. So booking them in, obviously they have other clients they have to deal with, but they also can service us very quickly. So.

Yeah, I mean, it's great that you've developed those relationships, John. I think the one thing that stood out for me is on top of the subcontracts, the subcontractor stuff is making your decisions based on. And the pricing decisions based on the numbers and the data that you've built up over many years. I think that's really powerful. I mean, that's the best way to make any decisions, right?

It is. And that was one of the things when, as far as, you know, progressing the business. To get that information out of my head, getting into pricing programs and stuff, which we have been doing, because I, I knew a lot of these things in my head and I. And when I had to go, we'll say, teach a new estimator. I struggled to get that information, what it was and that they understood it. So once you start making new templates and stuff in your pricing programs now, and Excel spreadsheets, which we used to use, that has helped greatly.

Yeah. So what tools and manuals do you have internally which helps you, you know, keep a consistent pricing for all your projects?

So we use buildertrend basically for our online management program. All our pricing goes through there, all our costing goes through there. All our basically financial stuff is connected to QuickBooks, all go through there. We did start with Coconstruct and then we did the changeover last July on that. So that is where most of the information is. We have templates in there, we have price catalogs in there, and we try to use it to the fullest extent that we can. And that's where the information basically sits. It's just A matter of being able to read the template and enter the information from there.

Yeah, that's been. That must, must have been a game changer moving to software from a spreadsheet. Do you think?

Yes, it was. It was a challenge. It was a very much a job. We did Coker structure originally. Right. So we kind of started on our own learning slowly. We were getting up, you know, pretty. We pretty well had all figured out what we wanted, pretty all aspects and then we wanted to make some changes and there were certain things that coastruct was not doing that we requested. So last year Joel and I went to the Vegas home show or the International home show in the US and we met with buildertrend who had taken over coconstruct and said these are the things we like to change. And they said, well, buildertrend does all this stuff and we're not going to update CocoStruct anymore. So we said okay, great. You know, that's great, great. So we'll have to make that change. And we had to make that change in a full changeover was in July, I think of 2023. It was pretty challenging. There was things that we had to learn that we didn't understand and things weren't going the way we wanted to. And so we did some learn, you know, self learning, teaching. We sent one of our employees to Nevada for some training. We felt when she came back that it was too generalized way to generalize. So we tried to still do some more stuff ourselves and then we came across the where they will do in house training here at our location. So we signed up for that and we had that in beginning of December. It's been a game changer. I would recommend it to anybody that isn't with buildertrend that they have to do this. It costs money and it costs time, but it is a game changer. They are great when they're working one on one for you. Not generally generalized for a whole bunch of different people because they really focus on what, how, what and how we do it. Yeah, it's been great for us and.

That'S really helped us and for our employees it's been beneficial. Like especially our secretary, she was struggling through it and just, just simple quick tips that's improved for her. And also our project managers that they. We sat down with the project managers and went over exactly what they needed to do and then they can pass on anything that their experience back onto our other employees. But that's been huge. Just getting our employees to be able to have that in House training. It was great.

So you basically had a build a train consultant like come and how long did they stay with you for?

So they were here on site for two days but they spent, I think it was four weeks prior that we had zoom meetings with them. It was four or five weeks prior we had a weekly zoom meeting with him. So we discussed every different aspect on the different times. So he really was able to focus in on what our challenges were in all these different areas. So he knew when he came here already what where we wanted to focus. Since then he's still working with us at the moment where he's working and we pretty well got what we call our process flow with Bulletrend done and he's going to give us that with a kind of a manual afterwards. So he's still working with us. I think we have another meeting on Friday with him. I'm kind of on one of the last things. So it's not like it's just a two day on site. It's also the prep coming to it and then the follow up afterwards that they do with us.

Yeah. Sometimes with like a new software program it's complicated to integrate with a new business. Right. So having someone come out and dedicate the time to actually doing that must have been huge for you guys.

Yes.

And he also like built templates specifically for our company. So that was huge. And the estimating side and also in the scheduling side.

Are you guys heading back to Vegas this year?

We're skipping this year.

Oh no.

I see some of the recent, well, social media stuff format maybe just, just go for it. Because we really, Joel and I went last year. We really enjoyed it. It was the first time for us ever to go to Vegas.

We.

It's a huge show and we did the, we walked the whole show, everything that was there. We now realize that we probably wouldn't do that. We would focus mainly on where we want to be.

Only I think we'd go to some seminars.

Yeah. And go to some seminars and stuff like that. So. But it was great. You know we were able to meet with the APB there and contractor staffing source and all these people that we kind of knew and you know, it's great to meet face to face and.

Yeah, this will be my first year. We're right next to build a trend this year. Which is cool in the, in the, in the hall there. So. But I've, I've heard so much about the show. We're very interested to see how it plays out.

Let's keep Going will. Maybe he'll convince my dad to let me go.

So. Yeah, well, you're welcome to come and say hi if you do get the chance, but I'm sure we'll go next year again anyway, so maybe then.

You spoke briefly about referrals, Joel, in.

Terms of getting some new business from, you know, the subcontractors you work with.

How else are you generating new business?

I know you've got a really prominent online presence with your website and social media. Does that help?

Yeah. So we. We drove up a lot of business through our social media. Just. We use Facebook and Instagram mainly. But being in the area for, what's it, almost 75 years now. No, no. What is it, 40?

It's about 48 years.

48.

Too much. The word of mouth is. Is a lot of our business, too. And then because of our subs, especially the Plumber, the plumbing company we use, we get a lot of bathrooms there. They refer us and we refer them to. For every. Everything we do. So. But on the online side of it, we just started with Builder lead converter, and I know you've seen our website, but they basically redid our website, so to put in chat boxes and to. When people need information that we. They send us their email and right away they're into a lead and we can deal with them straight away. Where before we didn't actually have any of that. So if somebody visits our website, we had no idea who they were, where they were coming from, but now we can kind of see that information and we can deal with it accordingly.

Okay. Yeah. So did you find build a lead converter through APB Rewards?

Yes. Yes. So, Clint, I had seen it in there and Clinton mentioned it. We were. We did have a CRM before, but it never. We never really got traction with it. We found it hard to deal with.

So we.

We were kind of looking for something new. I was looking around and looked at a few different ones. I think there was something. Was another one that we looked at that I seen on APB Rewards. And then Clint had mentioned this one to me and he referred me to talk to another APB builder here in Canada that has had experience with it. So we were able to talk with. With him and. And say, how do you. How do you like it? And that's kind of what sold us on it. We started with them in the end of November. So we're still in there. What our implement stage within my. My daughter Kayla is kind of the champion behind that one. She does most of that stuff along with my assistant Jody. They're still learning it. We're still. We've got a few campaigns with them and we've got some leads that we're working with right at the moment from that. I think we sold one job so far, but there's more in the pipeline once we get that all. It's not completely up and running. Hopefully by the end of February, we should have the full implementation up and running with drip campaigns and nurturing campaigns and. And all that stuff.

So.

And it's a great way to see what's going on. It's all recorded. You got the dashboard. You can watch conversations going on.

Well, you said you're a numbers guy. You should be numbers with marketing as well, right?

Yeah, yeah.

No, it's. I'm trying to get them to set it up exactly what I want it for. My KPA workbook. Yeah. My next thing with Kayla, I said this. I like to have that. You know, this, this and this. You work with Rick on that if you can. So that's kind of one of her. Her next things to work with Brick on. But I'm quite excited about it. They're, you know, they've added a few lead magnets to our website chat box. I know today there was something from the chat box that came in that looks pretty. Pretty good.

Okay.

You know what I mean? And even some of the clients have been using it. I've been recording some of our phone calls with clients from it. So it's. It's new to us. We're all getting trained on it at the moment. But I think it's going to be, once it's up and running, really good, it's going to be a game changer knowing what works, what doesn't work, and where things are coming from.

Are you using paid ads as well to drive people to your website?

We do a little bit of paid ads on Facebook and it's not much. Very little, Very little. It's just a matter of Kayla doing her posts from there. She does, you know, fixed or the finished photos is basically what I told her. I said, when you do post, you. You finish photos. You don't do work in progress photos. Because I see so much of my competition doing that and that interests me, but it doesn't interest the client. The client wants to see the finished product. So she's been doing that as well. She does some fun reels and stuff for that too. I think we had one fun reel that tracked about 30,000 views or something like that. So she was quite proud of doing that, that helps you get followers. Right.

So yeah, I think also on, on the Builder B converter from like a management side of things, you can see where your sales are at in, in different stages. So like it tells you like okay, they've set up an initial meeting or they had a phone call or they're now working on signing a contract so you can see where the leads are sitting at. So you as the numbers, you can put your values or your expected values on that, those jobs and then you can have the, the amount, let's say it's 500, 000 is now sitting in. We're working on signing a contract with them. There's $500,000 worth sitting there and we know that right up off the hop.

Yeah.

And once you've got that all set up, you can start to see where there's gaps right in your pipeline where you might be having people fall off, conversion rates drops and then you can improve your processes.

Very good.

So you've worked with APB for a little while now and you mentioned Clint Best, your coach. How has working with APB changed the way you do things at Joe's Carpentry?

Well, I think it's been huge for me. As you said, I was kind of a self learned contractor businessman and there was always things that plagued me that I just did not make sense to me. Back in 2004 in that time range I was, I was struggling with it then already and came across a consulting company that basically said they could do wonders for us. So we started working with them. It was a disaster, total disaster. They were just all. Their biggest thing was to get money in the business fast as possible to pay their hefty bill and they really didn't care. They just wanted to move so fast. It sent me over the edge basically. I went into a depression. Things were not working, nothing was working thanks to the family and especially my wife. They, they pushed me through it. They pushed me through it. I got back up and running again. But I was very cautious for a number of years from that, you know, still very cautious. Things still plagued me and this went on well probably for almost 12, 13 years back. About three years ago I was scrolling Instagram and I came across one of APB's posts and the question they had on there was something that was plaguing me that day and I said, you know what they said they have the answer. I'm going to find out. So I did the, the form and within an hour I think I got a phone call from Somebody we were able to set up, then an interview or kind of a get to know with Clint. And we went right into it, full, full thing, coaching right away, everything. And I, I will never regret it one bit because I just then I felt, you know, first I was kind of apprehensive. It's another consulting company, but they had such a great system and how they want like laid it out on the steps to go to and it wasn't like you had to go fast. You got to go from this step and then we go to that step and then we go to this step. And that has helped me. Great. So probably the biggest thing that probably helped me, I always knew we were a cash up front heavy company and what, what money is mine and what is not my money. It always plagued me and we made some bad decisions based on cash flow at times because not realizing that in the WIPA calculation probably is the number one thing that made me rest at night. Understanding what was my money, what was not my money, learning to know my true fixed costs. You know, back then we were basically, we learned to know what our true fixed cost was and basically our margins were covering that, if that. So we weren't making money. We figured that out. But since then like say we've over doubled our margins from that point. You know, we are within almost in the middle of the benchmarks of custom homes and, and rental and renovation margins. We're basically in that mid, mid range right now. And our net margins are, you know, our, our overhead is probably a little higher than some people because we do have a showroom, we do have that kind of thing that we want to give that service to people. But our net margin is probably within 3% of where the benchmark is. Um, which is great because if you asked me three years ago, I ever do that, I would never been able to do it. So that's one of the things. And it's just having a coach like Clint, he, he, he knows you, he, he puts trust in you and he makes you accountable. That's so huge. I, you know, anybody that asked me, would you, you know what is APB worth it? I would say absolutely. And go in it with two, you know, both feet. Don't just dabble at it, go in with both feet and it will pay for itself. So that's been huge for us.

That was a really cool story. Thanks for sharing.

Finding Clint has been a big help for him as well. Just getting him to be able to explain and then systemize the business so he has an easier Time explaining exactly what he's talking about. And that's been a help for everybody here.

And Joel, do you and other people in the team dive in and use the training portal. Portal at all?

I have, I believe my sister has, but. And a couple of sales. The sales team has as well? Not everybody else, but yeah, the sales team has.

Okay, cool. So if you're within a few percentile of the benchmark for net margin, John, what's the long term goals then for Joe's. Joe's car? What's happening next?

As you may know, I just joined up as an elite in the elite coaching session. So part of that was to get, you know, optimize the systems. I want to become a level 10 builder. We're at about level four at the moment. We're kind of stuck where everybody else is stuck at level four area, which we're working on. But everything has started beyond that already. But it's just not finished. And I know, I think you listen to one of the podcasts or story from Ryan Stannard where he basically finished it off in a year. And I think I'm kind of at that point I thought myself, well, I should do it, but maybe I shouldn't. But I think Clint said, you know what, you're a great candidate. You got it there. Let's, let's go for it. And he's helped me so much along the way. Ready? I can't say no to Clint. And so we've dived in and we've had our first session planning session about three weeks ago. We've had a few sessions since. So I'm looking forward this year. It's going to be challenging, I think, to get over a few hurdles, but with Clint's on, you know, on the back watching and helping and the systems that APB gives us templates, all these things, it should get us through pretty quick.

Yeah. So seeing Clint more regularly will probably hold you accountable to the. To moving a bit faster, do you think?

Yes, yes, I think so. And we can focus on one area for one week instead of having doing 4 hour, 4, 4 areas once a month. Now we can use the basically the four. One week this, one week that one week that. So we can really hone in on, on a certain area and establish a plan of what we need to do to finalize that as I need to get this company ready for secession, that it's, it's got the systems, it's got the things in place for when the next generation or the next owner takes over, that it's going to be sustainable, that it just, you know, that doesn't just stop when I walk away. And I, I think I've seen great strides in that in the last three years already where I can go away for a while and things just continue on here. I'm sure there's always some challenges, but we're quite happy with what we've seen. I just came back from Mexico last week and things went well when I was gone, so I was able.

Well, I think I'm going to put a note in my diary for 12 months time when you reach level 10 and you can come back on the show again.

It'd be amazing if we can hit it in a year, but it's gonna be, it's gonna be a stretch.

That's very cool. Yeah. For anyone out there that's not. Not familiar with the professional builder levels, there's, there's 10 of them. They're on our website. You can check them out. And they're kind of a progression of the stages of business growth, I guess. And systemization, would you call them?

Yes, yes, Very cool.

Well, what other advice would you give.

To builders out there that are going on their own journey from your experience?

Well, basically, when you're struggling, you know, you need to find a mentor, a coach that cares about you and that is professional about it as well. Not just that, you know, they leave you alone. But that has helped me immensely. Finding that association that focuses on what you do, not a generalized thing, but what you do. You'll never quit learning. You need to be focused in on, you know, reading books, reading, doing trainings of that focus on what we do. And I would suggest that anybody that is struggling with any sort of these things, do not be afraid to step into something like this. Like with apb, it will pay for itself, you know, three, four, five times over, no problem. Even though there's an investment, it's a great investment. And don't continue on when you're struggling. If there's a problem, you need to figure what that problem is and get an answer for it. Just don't say, well, go away and I'll just work harder and, you know, more. Put more hours in and we'll make it through. It's just too stressful. Family's too important for us. I've learned that, that, you know, you can't just ignore them. They're important and you need time with them. And, you know, other than that, you know, we. Family is very important to us. We believe, you know, everything we do, we need to be on our knees asking for from God's blessing on it because without his blessing nothing will work and we strongly, strongly believe in that and we've seen his help in our, our life.

Like the people in place in your business is super important. So I know like one of the things Contractor Staffing Source did, the first thing they did was say to my dad, you need an assistant or admin assistant to be in the office. There's something missing there. You have too much on your plate. And that has been a huge help for, for my dad to focus more on going out to the elite mentoring but also for everybody else in the office. They're, they're now, she's now picking up the slack of what was or what was missing and the other people can focus on their daily tasks.

Yeah, that's awesome. Contractor Staffing Source are also a rewards partner with apb. So if anyone any members out there looking for help finding stuff in North America, they're a great, great option. Joel, I was going to ask what advice would you give builders out there that are in that next generation are coming into a family business.

So it's not all guns and roses. I don't know. It's, it's funny stories. I got fired once.

Okay.

But no coming back. It's been really good. Be open there. You're not. Every day is going to be perfect and you got to talk about the issues. If you don't talk about him, you let them fester. You are going to have major issues down the line and small things become really big things at that point. Yeah, it's, it's been really good coming back. I think I have a different appreciation or outlook on life a little bit. When I was then when I was younger I couldn't work with my dad. So when I was younger I think we kind of both have our own roles per se that we're not in each other's face all the time. And that relationship has. Has grown incredibly since I've come back. I would also say like it probably is a really good thing like for if you have family members coming in like sons or whatever them to go out of the business for a couple years, find something completely different or even work for another builder just to get a different perspective. Having a different boss. I think kids coming in or family members coming in think they have a little bit of a. Not a different role but like maybe have some benefits. Yeah, it's, it's not like my dad is probably harder on me than he is on any other employee, I can tell you that. But no, it's been really good.

Yeah, it's an interesting story in terms of getting that perspective externally and coming back in. It's probably giving you a different way to look at things.

Oh, 100. 100.

Well, guys, thank you so much for coming on Professional Builders Secrets today. I've had a great time listening to the background of Joe's carpentry and hearing about all the great things you're doing. John, the biggest takeaway I took was, you know, look at the numbers and also if you, if you're struggling, if things aren't going 100%, you know, ask for help. Don't, don't go it alone. So I appreciate you sharing all that advice, but yeah, thanks for coming on, guys.

Thanks, Will.

Yeah, thanks for having us, Will. We really appreciate it as well.

Cool. Also, a big thank you to our listeners wherever you are in the world.

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