137. Marketing Your Strengths With James & Alice Pilcher

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Are never realized into a completed built project and that can be for many reasons. But I would say the biggest reason is that the end design was nowhere near the end the initial budget and that will just stop the project right in its track.

Welcome to Professional Builders 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 Alice and James Pilcher from Milam Construction. Welcome to the show.

Good to be here.

Hello. Will you.

Thank you.

Fantastic to have you on. I've seen a lot about your company on social media and also at a number of APV events. I've run into you guys and have always been really excited about hearing more about the Milam story and where you've come from. So I appreciate you taking some time.

Thank you.

James, do you want to kick off with your backstory? How did you get to where you are today?

Sorry, the best question. Oh, well. Well, my story is that when I was 2, I lost my hearing and as a result of that and not having a lot of speech at that age, my world became quite visual. And I guess the biggest part of what you see visually is the built environment around you. And that was the beginning of my interest in buildings and construction. You know, being driven around in the car and seeing these building sites every day of the week and seeing them progress through throughout, say, the stage of their process. At that point I decided that was when I decided that I was going to become an architect. So I did an architectural degree straight out of school and then through my experiences working as one, I realised that we didn't get a lot of exposure to the building side of things. So we would complete our drawings and our design and then we would be told, thanks very much. The project manager or the RR builder and the client are now going to take it from here. And we wouldn't get to see. Well, I wouldn't get my interest in seeing the building. I wouldn't see that being fulfilled. And so at the age of 29, I decided to take a step back and Set out to become a builder also. And so I put down my pen and my ruler and I picked up the broom and the hammer and I just started working as a general foreman, sorry, general labourer, and just worked my way up, working underneath a relatively old school builder who taught me everything. And he told me that I needed to get an understanding of every single trade. Not necessarily know how to do it better than people such as the concrete car, the painter, the plumber, the electrician, but at least have an understanding because that's what building is all about and being able to converse with those. So after a while I finished my certificate for building and also my required experience working under this licensed builder and I became a licensed builder in addition to my architecture registration. So that put me in a point where I am one of the few people today in Australia that hold both those qualifications and registration licenses. Yeah. So that's, that's where I am now.

I love, I love that story. As you said, I can't imagine there's many architects that decide that they want to get their hands dirty and become a builder as well. So it's very unique.

It is. There's not many builders that wear black turtlenecks on site.

And I guess I was telling some of my contemporaries about what I was setting out to do already being an architect and now starting to become a builder. They said that's very backwards. Most builders set out to become architectural designers, not the other way around. But I think my love for seeing things being created, whether it's a design on paper or whether it's a built form coming to life, those two things are really what motivates me. So I guess that's why I needed both. I wanted both.

Do you think having both gives you a competitive advantage in the market?

I do. So it's a point where having both enables us to provide above all confidence in how much a project is going to cost for the consumer. Having a designer who has building experience enables that designer to design something that is within the practicalities of and say limitations of building. And in addition to that, know how to price it. And as builders we know that pricing is all elemental based on what goes into it. It's not a simple price per square meter, which a lot of architects use as a, as a guide. And that guide is so misguided.

James or Alice, if you feel like you want to jump in here, do you feel like there's customers coming to you wanting whole experience and that's why they enjoy having both sides of the coin?

Yeah, I think So I think everyone would appreciate that. We live in such a busy world and we know that our customer avatar is you know, working families and you've got mum's working in the city, she's working five days a week, she's got young kids, she's got school emails coming out of her ear. She needs someone, she and her partner, husband, they need someone to help them on the journey of essentially making a larger family home as their family grows and needs more space. And so to be able to come to that one stop solution where from the very beginning you're not only getting an understanding of what you can do design wise within the planning controls or the CDC requirements of your site, of your home, but also to understand at the very beginning if your budget is in line with your design aspirations or whether you need to be more flexible on either side. And so from that very beginning it helps really, it helps our customers understand what that end outcome is going to be and we can support them all the way through. And that it's the time management side that I think is a really big driver as well as that cost assurance about or that certainty about what it's going to cost.

I can tell you got a marketing background, Alice, knowing your custom avatar very well, which is good to hear.

I do, I do, yes. Confession. 20 year old, 20 years in marketing. But my background was in financial services marketing for 20 odd years. But as so James and I have got three young children of our own aged under six and so we have a really good understanding of what our customer they're feeling in that stress. But for us as a family, for me to come into our family business, Mileham and to bring that marketing skill and to take that pressure away from James so he can really focus on his core skill set, it's a really good working partnership and it means that we have our own divisions of labor, so to speak in the company. We come together on strategy and planning but then we go away and we stick to our skill sets. So yeah, and it's very refreshing to be in an industry which is more creative and tangible than financial services, which is quite frankly the opposite.

I think that division of labor is super important in a husband, wife, team. I know just from a much smaller example, when my wife and I cook together, we have to divide up the obligations. We have to have one head chef and one sous chef for the night otherwise we'll end up arguing about it.

Yeah, you do, you do you know who's in charge of what here and there's too many cooks in the kitchen, so to speak. So, and I think that's a really important aspect to why we can work together and then go home and manage the family load as well.

James, back to you for a moment. Architectural services traditionally have been a higher end option for home builders. How have you made that more accessible while also keeping it a high quality?

It's a good question, Will how? And it's something that one of our missions or purposes that we want to achieve is to make architecture more accessible. So I think there is a perception that architects don't. It's all very opaque, it's all very, you know, turtlenecks and you come to us, we don't need to come to you kind of mentality. And so it's quite an elitist perhaps service. So, oh, I'm going to go and visit my architect. Sounds like a very braggable right to say so, but it should not be that case. And what we are trying to do is make it more accessible and approachable. Now in my career, and I don't mean just at Mauham, I mean in my, in my previous careers as an architect and I've also worked as a project manager and a development manager and also as a client too, I have seen many sets of drawings, be them by a drafting company or be them by a full blown architectural firm. And be they bought a deck all the way through to a full house or a childcare centre or Woolworths supermarket or hotel. I've seen all these sorts of things. What is one thing that's clear is most builders will only look at 20 to 30 architectural drawings and we'll look at another set of drawings say for stormwater and structural, but that's it. And just two weeks ago I was introduced to a terrace house job and it was just a renovation and the architectural drawings were 82, two pages just for architecture drawings of a renovation of a terrace house. It's unnecessary. So what we're trying to do here is only produce the necessary number of drawings for a particular job. And we only have to achieve an understanding for our client, enough drawings so that our client understands what they're getting, enough drawings so that our builders understand how to build it. Nothing more, nothing less. And so that is where I think we're sort of sitting in the middle. We don't produce the bare minimum number of drawings that say a drafting company may do. And we do not produce anywhere near 82 drawings for a terrace house renovation.

It sounds like the best of both worlds for the customer though.

Absolutely.

Yeah, yeah, it's about streamlining the offering to the customer, both through what our company. So just to provide a bit of background there, Mulham, we provide the full design and build outfit, but we also do design only and build only jobs. We want to provide that ultimate flexibility to our customer. So but at all elements of our customer service offering, we're always looking at how we can, can we streamline and automate that offering for our customers, which ultimately allows us to offer reduced cost to the end customer and bring about efficiencies not only in timeline, but also in financial management as well. And that's something that's really important. And so yeah, we do want to be able to offer an architecturally designed home, which we know has a greater value when you're selling your home, if you can say it's architecturally designed, we want to be able to offer that to a broader base of the Australian customer market. And we recognise that there's a very good service offering for award winning architectural design that may break new ground. But for us, we want to be able to offer the skills and expertise of an architect to a broader customer base.

Yeah, and James, you mentioned it earlier, it gives confidence to the consumer around the price and because you control the whole design of a project, you can also price it more accurately and therefore there's no hidden costs or minimum. Minimum hidden costs. I guess that's.

That's right. And you know that. I think I've heard from an APB podcast or something or conference that it's. I'm not sure where this figure comes from, but I think it's quite a widely accepted figure that about 40% of custom designs are never realized into a completed built project. And that can be for many reasons. But I would say the biggest reason is that the end design was nowhere near the end the initial budget. And that will just stop the project right in its track.

Yeah, they blow the budgets and the emotional impact on that, you can imagine, is extreme because you can spend up to 12 to 14 months working with an architect, go through the stresses of third parties and DA or CDC approval processes and then at that point, once the construction drawings are complete, the builder comes in and says that's a beautiful design, but it's a million dollars over your budget and dreams are blowing up at that point. And we have had clients that we may have lost in the initial stages of the design process and they've gone to an established, well known Sydney brand and they've experienced that and they've turned around, they've come back to Us because we provide that certainty from that concept design stage. And that's really important in an industry which is currently going through a lot of trust issues with the consumer base. But that's something that we can tangibly provide.

I hope you're using all of that messaging in your marketing, Alice.

Yeah, we've got, we, we're doing a lot of work in the background really refining that messaging to. It's one thing to have your messaging and. But it takes a lot of effort to really refine that messaging to the point where it gets clarity with the end customer, especially when that end customer is coming in with blindfolds of, oh, everyone wants to rip me off. It's, it's an art. And I think we've got a bit of a way to go, but it's our most important. It's my most important remit at the moment is to get that messaging really tight and for the end customer to really understand our value differential.

Well, for all those people that James mentioned, the 40% or whatever it was that didn't fulfill their dream home because it was over budget, you're providing some sort of hope for them, I guess, in a way. That's the way I see it.

Yeah. Yeah, that's right. We want to remove that fear from the whole process James mentioned. There's so much opaque experience that goes into the architecture. We want to remove that. We want to remove the fear of, you know, every single person that's built a house that you speak to says the budget was blown. We want to remove that fear. And, and that's something we place a very high value on.

There's something I want to add to that. So as a, as a combined builder and architect, a lot of builders and or architects are skeptical or afraid to work with us. Or say a builder might be skeptical about referring one of their clients to us for design services only because they feel like they might then lose that client to ask to come building. And likewise, when an architectural firm is opening up tenders, they are skeptical about letting us participate in that tender because we are also architects and we might convince the client of some changes for value engineering. So in a sense, quite a fair bit of our work is that one stop, shop, design and build. And so it's not a guarantee, but it is certainly our reputation that we need to work towards is that we will design to our client's budget and then our ability to deliver that as well. And if we can continue to do that, then we will stay in business and grow because we're not really going to get the business from builders referring their client to us for drawings or architects inviting us into a tender. So while it's beneficial for clients, it's also a little bit, say, harmful in a way to our business because we've closed the doors on some opportunities, as you said.

In the long run, though, if you stick to your guns, then you'll. You'll be known for that, right? Well, you are already known for that, but even more so. Yeah. Alice, before we had a briefing call, before this podcast, and you spoke a bit about your bhag, your big, hairy, audacious goal. Do you want to just explain a bit more about that?

Yeah. So this has been a really interesting journey and one that has been really interesting to look back on, because when we first started with APB and the page, the strategic plan on a page, which is one of my favorite templates for from apb, and, you know, the first thing is, you know, what is your bhag? Where do you want to be? Who are you? All of that. And when James and I first, you know, brought our heads together on that and we came up with our first bhag, what we realized, and it was actually through one of APB's action plans that made this point for us, is that initial bhag was very much about James and I and what we wanted to achieve for our family. So it might have been a bhag for our family, but it wasn't the right bhag for Mileham. So we went back to the drawing board on who is it that we really are? Who's our avatar? What are we trying to achieve for them? And what we've come to is through really getting to the point of what our value proposition is, being the architect and the custom builder and being able to provide that cost certainty to our end clients. Is that going. We actually sort of went back in history a bit, and there's a concept. So there's the Master Builders association, which exists in Australia, which we're also members of. But the original concept of a master builder actually goes back a couple of hundred years. And if you think about the stunning structures you see in Europe, you know, the cathedrals and the palaces and offices of government, a lot of those were built by what was called a master builder. And that master builder, he was the head architect, the head builder, the head engineer, he was the person, and it was a heap. He was the person that had the purview across the entire project. He was a single point of contact. Think where it's Going, what went wrong, what went right, all those kind of things. And we thought when we looked at what's happened over the annals of time is that industry has become extremely fragmented and segmented. This has happened across all industries, whether it be computing or whatever it may be. And the customer has to go to multiple touch points to get an outcome for a single service or a single product. And what we want to do is bring the industry back together. And this our bhag, which is also our company vision. It is aspirational, it is a little bit scary. And it's mainly scary because I think it'll be might get under the skin of members of the architecture industry and members solely of the building industry. But what we want to do is restore the customer expectation that your builder is also your designer and your designer is also your builder, so that it doesn't matter where you're looking at financial, timeline, structural or design, you have one person, one organization answering all those questions for you. So you're not jumping between to opposing views, which we see a lot of in the industry. So that's our bhag. It's about restoring customer knowledge that you can have this service provider. And we're not the only ones out there. There's a few design and build outfits that are really starting to pop up now, but we want to bring that back to the customer that you can and you should expect that your designer and your builder have 90% of the answers. Third parties excluded, third party consultants. But you can get that single view on your project, which has a lot of. It saves a lot of waste in the financial side and the time side and I guess in the argument side between what can be built versus what should be designed.

Cool. Well, it's amazing that you've got something like that written down. I guess you call it written down these days.

Yeah.

How do you actually go about pursuing such a big goal, though?

Oh, that's a big question. And I think we've got. There's a lot of ways we can go about it. I'm quite a systems. I like to work through systems and processes. So the way that I'm looking at working this through this BHAG and pulling it down into the various tactics and strategies of our company is looking at every stage of the customer journey and that is looking at the point where they're starting to think around their kitchen table that they want to do an extension to their house all the way through to the end of the project and looking at all of those little points along the way. And how can we educate them? How can we bring assurance that this is the way to go forward? So there's a lot of work that needs to be put into. Has taken us. We've been with APB for 18 months. Two years. 18 months. And it has taken us this long to get to this bhag. And so now we're looking at, well, how do we implement that into the customer experience and every customer touch point on the customer journey.

Yeah, very cool. James, do you have any thoughts on the focus on that customer experience and how you impact the whole journey?

Yes. So what's the most important thing is, I guess, setting expectations at the start of the whole project. So of course one of those is cost. There's two more things. One is the design and the other one is the scope of works as well. So we need a budget that aligns with the design and for the design to also satisfy the scope of work that they want. So if there is a disconnect, one of those three need to change. So I think builders will be familiar with, say, the golden triangle of building, which is for a project to be called a success, it must have been delivered on time, on budget and of good quality. Now, quite often most projects are delivered with two of those three. It was on time and it was on quality, but it cost a lot more. That's not uncommon. Or it was on time and on budget, but the quality wasn't very good. You can name any kind of combo. So if we apply that sort of triangle to the architecture side of things, that for us is again, the budget, the scope of works and the design and so that we can keep an eye on the cost because we are builders.

Yeah, that triangle is a great metaphor. And I think to your point, if you get the expectations right at the very beginning, you've got a better chance to achieve all three.

That's right, yes. And that is, you know, we don't want to get to the end of the design stage and then surprise them with an unaffordable build quotation for their construction works. We really can't afford that as a business. So we need to set the expectations at the beginning and I guess throughout the stage of our design process and stages, say concept stage, design development stage, planning stage and all that, we update our cost estimate for that particular job and it's quite powerful because we can come up with our first cost. So our first concept. And also at the same time, put on the table our first cost estimate and go, hey, you know, this is your five bedroom house. But this is actually how much it's going to cost. So what do you want to do? Do you want to increase your budget or sacrifice a few bedrooms? So we leave that right there and then for the client to reassess the situation before they perhaps go and waste six or nine months on design fees and of course, time.

Yeah, very good for the consumer. Okay, shifting gears, and this is a bit of a selfish question on my part, Alice, I'm gonna throw back to you about the marketing of your building company. Cause you said in your own words before we jumped on air that you're very much a marketing driven company. So tell me about your marketing and where you found you've got the best results.

Oh, it's definitely content. We from the very beginning of Milehem, so we're about four years old, we have been developing both short and long form content to push out through our digital channels. So social media, through our email newsletters, to our lead and client base, through our website, of course. And so by short and full and long form content, there's long form content, which is the blogs. And we spend a lot of time if we identify themes from our current customers. We're constantly getting questions about a certain thing. We produce a blog on that. And then on the flip side is the short form content, which is the FAQs. You know what other consultants do I need to engage those? Kind of. Just answer that question quickly. So, and what we do, I spend. I'm a big believer in grassroots lead generation. You know, as a lot of listeners out there will appreciate, we're all aspiring to the 3% of the revenue being allocated to marketing and advertising. And that's something that we are working towards. But until we get to that point, we're really looking at what are the free platforms that we can go out. So I spend a lot of time on various Facebook groups that are focused on renovating or own a builder or that kind of thing. And you'll see common questions that come up and they'll say dacdc. How? What? I don't know, I don't understand. We've got a blog on that. And so instead of going in and saying, hi, I'm a builder, I can help you, we take the softer approach of. Here's an interesting article on that topic and what we've found through some market research that we've done with Scott Bywater, who's one of your partners, copywriting themselves, is that a lot of our clients have seen us, they may not have engaged with that content through a Like or a comment or a share, but they've read it and then they've come through to us through an inquiry on our website. And so we can make that connection between the educational content we're putting out and how that's opening up those initial trust lines with our future clients. So it's about that the content side and then the flip side is about making it as easy as possible, or not the flip, but the other angle is making it as easy as possible for the customer to engage with this with us. So tech enabled automation wherever possible. So we use HubSpot to automate our customer inquiry lines so that on our website our inquiry form has all of those pre qualifying questions that help us determine whether or not this is aligning with our avatar. And once a customer fills in that form, they're presented with the calendar where they can book available time. So we don't have to chase people, we don't need to find a time that suits everyone's calendars. That power is in our customers hands and that gives them the ability to be on the run and still engage with us. And we've found that to be very successful, it not only frees up James's time in terms of finding time to meet everyone's calendars, it frees up the customer's time.

Yeah, I love that. That's all the back end stuff that you're doing really well. The thing that caught my eye as well was your Instagram feed because it's extremely well balanced and does a great job of representing the homes that you build. But I'm sure that's very deliberate. Do you have a strategy for how you approach that?

We do. It's a little bit of a balance of being a bit of a digital brochure, a brand brochure with all the beautiful photos. But behind the scenes on that, every couple of post or so will go into a bit of a behind the scenes reason why a certain decision was made or who we worked with on a certain project, whether it be this marble benchtop supplier or whether it be a painter or an interior designer, whatever it may be. Because what I want to do on Instagram is to give the customer an enjoyable but still informed experience so that it's not all about, hey, look at us and our beautiful photos. But there's an element of here's how we could help you and your similar challenge with your California bungalow that's on a sloping block. And so to give a little bit of a way about how we go about solving the customer problem. With your family home and its block challenges, it's just finding balance.

Yeah, yeah, it's great way to. And to your point around the educational content. I guess it can come through with the visual side of things as well, just subtly throughout.

Yeah. And, and I, we have been using Chat GPT to draft those blogs and anyone out there listening. I started off not knowing how to work. I just went in there and played around with it and the way I went around it is. So one of our blogs, DavCDC is number one on Google for that topic. So I took that topic and I put it into ChatGPT to see what they came up with and it was a very. It was a pretty good match. And so it's a great way to start playing in that AI sphere is take something we already know, test it. You're always going to have to edit and fix it up and correct terminology or building codes and things like that. And that's fine. You should be doing that with anything you're producing. But it's a really good way to start putting your toe into the AI. And it doesn't cost me anything to do it. It takes 30 seconds and it's free. Like why wouldn't you.

Yeah, that's a great tip in itself. You know, basically answering your customers biggest questions that they're also googling and using chatgpt. Chat GPT to do it is going to take you no time at all. Actually there's a process in our AI action plan. I'm not sure if you guys have done that one yet, which has a prompting process for writing content in GPT as well, which is really quite powerful.

Yeah, yeah. And I'm getting really excited about the abilities of AI to now produce that video content which can go into our digital marketing and that can feed through to our social platforms, our website. So there's a lot of exciting stuff here that marketers for the first time are now going to be able to start accessing for free.

I want to come back to James in a second because I know that Alice and I have just been having a conversation about marketing for the last five minutes. But before I do, you mentioned HubSpot. You mentioned ChatGPT. Are there any other software products which have had a huge impact on your company?

Yeah, we're actually onboarding one at the moment which we. It's an Australian company and it's. We're bringing it on board to manage all about HR systems and processes. It's called Employment Hero and I've got no, you know, I'm just a customer, I've got no affiliation with them. But where I as I'm onboarding this and I'm pushing it out to our team, both our design and our on site construction team. Not only does it all the leave management, expense management, all of my policies, company policies go out to employees and they can view on their iPhone and tick it off, but what we're discovering is that all of that on site health and safety requirements through Health and Safety Australia, all those things that you need to have in place in the event of an accident or injury on site, we can use this platform to push that out to our team which has. It's really fast, it's simple, it's quick and it's easy. So Employment Hero is going to be a game changer for our company in terms of freeing up the drag time that can come into all of the HR side of your business and all the safety side of your business. I use Canva for basic marketing design. Another Australian company, we use HubSpot, of course, we use Asana for our architecture, project management and we're just starting to lift the lid now on which project management software for the construction side of our business. And you know, there's pros and cons and I've listened to a lot of these podcasts and everyone's got the pros and cons for all the various solutions out there. So that's sort of the next big SaaS that we're looking to onboard.

Yeah, it'll be interesting to see where that lands because everyone seems to have a slightly different way they like to work and therefore a different construction management software which is suitable for them. But lots of other great tools that you mentioned there. So thanks for sharing. James. It wouldn't be an APB podcast if I didn't ask the question of what is the biggest impact that APB has had on your business.

Yes. So I think will the biggest thing has been about getting closer to the financial numbers. That really is the gist of it. It's about ensuring the, as you guys say, grow safely and securely and you cannot ignore your numbers. So what I think has been the biggest thing is knowing what is, I guess the general industry average of what people are marking up and not being afraid to put that particular markup on your project. But it's not just about the markup because that's only one thing. I think the most important thing is ensuring that the correct amount of that trickles down into your net profit and ensuring that you at the end of the day from day one is being remunerated properly for your time and effort as a business owner, as an architect, as a builder, whatever it may be. And that that really is. It is to make sure that as you are growing, you are also taking your share, as you should, and not paying yourself last. Because quite frankly, you probably won't last if you did that.

Yeah, I think, you know, one of the earlier when we went along to the first APB dinner before we were members and we went through an exercise with Russ and Scott on screen, which was essentially to cost how much you are worth per hour and then apply that into all the parts of the business where you are not charging for those skills and expertise. And for us, one of the first big changes we made and was off the back of that dinner 18 months ago, was charging for our quotes. And when we sat down and did the numbers, it was like James was working, spending all this time pulling together quotes for free. And the difference. And you know, now we do charge for our quotes and the difference in. It's a classic thing if you can give it away for free. The customer tends not to value your expertise as highly. And if they're questioning a couple of thousand dollars on the quote, what are they going to do when you start to get to a couple of hundred thousand dollars on the build and you're going to be scrimping and saving and it's going to be very hard to make your profit margin, your target profit margin out of that job. So it's also a great way to test. Charging for your quote is a great way to test how much a lead is valuing you from the outset. And that gives you a red flag or a green flag about whether to pursue and what levers to pull. And I think, you know, the other thing, like for me personally working with apb, being on the business strategy side of our business and the marketing and the operations and the HR and all of those kind of things, the quarterly and the annual planning, those templates are incredibly valuable. I have it open all day, every day on my screen and then having that monthly. So we do the monthly coaching with Jacob and he's amazing and he just, he keeps us with our head up. Look at your goals, keep looking ahead, look where you're going. Because the moment you start looking down, you start to focus on the dollars and cents, whereas if you start looking up, you really start to look at bigger numbers and bigger goals and where are you going and why? And it's reinvigorating, you know, on that monthly basis and for me, that's incredibly invaluable.

Well, thank you. Thanks for sharing that. It sounds like you're heading in a great direction. You got your numbers in order, you got your bhag in place and you're thinking about that regularly. So I'm really glad that you're in a good spot.

I've got one more thing to add to that, Will, is that we took up the opportunity to go to the summit at the Gold coast last year, which was that apb. What do you call that summit? Sorry, Will.

Yeah, Professional Builders Summit.

Yep, that one, yeah. And you know, it was a. It was a nice size. I think there were about 200 builders perhaps. So it wasn't like a overwhelmingly large 5,000 person event. And so it had a really good intimacy level to it where we could open up and talk to fellow builders about many different sorts of things that affect us as a business or personally or have a whinge about clients and how do you, how do you resolve certain issues with these clients or. It's all about clients, isn't it? So that was. That's a really nice thing to have and swap business cards and call up someone in Melbourne or someone in Queensland and just maybe see them again this year at another summit. So that, that was kind of a good club feeling, but group, it's a group support network, not a herd mentality, you know what I'm trying to say?

Yeah, and it was a very supportive environment to be in, to be able to share struggles and wins and, and to. Yeah, it, it was, it was a really. And the content was. I got pages and pages of notes and it, it just, it was, it was just a really, really well executed event. As a marketer, I've been to a lot of those in 20 years. So, yeah, it was, it was very, very good.

Shout out to Kayla on our team, who coordinates all of that. But the community aspect is what a lot of people do value because to your point, it can be quite isolating in your own company. You can get lost in the day to day and not come up for air and be able to talk to someone else that is going through the same challenges and therefore be able to, you know, share that experience and help it overcome it together. And I'm sure there's lots of builders out there that will value your input as well on the things you've been through.

So thank you.

Cool. One last thing, one piece of advice do you wish you had received when you first started? Mileam James, let's start with you.

Oh, I think piece of advice that I would have liked is to just always be about cash flow. Forecasting. This building game is a real yo, yo in, money in, money out. Which way are we going up or down? Like, it's just to be able to see clearly where you're going and to be able to forecast your ins and outs in terms of cash can go a long way to keeping you sane.

Yeah, no, and I have to agree with that. I've always appreciated a budget, but coming from background of finance, where I guess a lot of people around me, I was on the marketing side, but they're obviously in the numbers side. And so numbers just float and flowed and flowed and flowed and we actually get to a point where we take it for granted. But on the construction side and the big numbers that go in and out and how they don't cross over and so you don't get this even in and out sort of payables and receivables, you really have to have the courage to get down into the weeds of your numbers and to really have the patience to go across every element of your business. So, you know, we had an instance recently where things were going well and then the annual insurance came on, came in, and I was like, oh, and you really have to. There's an element where you've got to be in business for a couple of years to know what those ins and outs are. You've got to keep a record of it and never underestimate how those cents add up to dollars and really keep an eye on the money that's going out of your business. Is it delivering value back into your business? And if it's not, have the courage to say, I'm canceling that subscription or I'm getting rid of that, you know, whatever it may be. But it takes a bit of courage to do that because sometimes when you get into those weeds of the numbers, you see things that are quite uncomfortable. But if you get across that and just map it all out and we work with the virtual cfo, which is a very. It's an emerging industry and there's lots of them out there and they're great to work with and they do that forecasting for you, and they do the risk analysis and they do the scenario mapping, and that stuff helps you pull the levers on where your strategy is going. It's really important.

Yeah, I love that. And to your point, it does take courage. Having run my own business before, it is quite frightening when you get down into the numbers, deep into the numbers, and you really need to do that to make sure that you've got the confidence to grow safely, like in the future. The same way that you guys are giving confidence to your customers around the price they're paying for their property.

Yeah, it's, it's a very, you know, short of buying the house, renovating the house or knocking down and rebuilding it, it's the biggest thing you're going to pay for. So it deserves to have the confidence around it that, you know, you know how much your mortgage is going to cost you, you should know how much it's going to cost to renovate or knock down, rebuild the house.

Awesome. Well, Alice James, thank you so much for coming on Professional Builder's Secrets today. I've had an absolute ball chatting to you. There's so many gems in here for other builders out there to listen to and apply. So I really appreciate you opening up and sharing so much today.

Thank you, Will. It's been great.

Thanks, Will. Really enjoyed being on this show.

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