154. Building Luxury The Right Way With Tim Sayce

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People at the end of the day paying for certainty, they want to make sure that whatever they're wanting to achieve, it's a massive investment, probably the highest ticket item that they're ever going to spend. They want to make sure it's delivered well. And so I think that's all been the backbone of the business. The building, you know, that's, that's what we're started on. We can do that. That works really well. That's the passionate part. But operating a building business, I think that take has been a really good strength for us in the current marketplace.

Welcome to Professional Builder's 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 Tim Sais from Kai Construct in Queensland, Australia. Tim, welcome to the show.

Thanks, Will. It's good to be here.

Yeah.

Great to have you on. I've heard you on a couple of.

Other podcasts and excited to have you on ours today.

I'm looking forward to it.

Cool.

So do you want to kick start.

By just letting us know a little bit more about Kai Construct? How would you describe it to a stranger?

So, Kai Construct is a residential building company. We're based on the Gold coast in beautiful Queensland, Southeast Queensland, and we focus on new home construction in the Gold coast and hinterland areas. The main people we help is time pool professionals that have zero time. But they're looking for that professional team to deliver their project in the least amount of input from them, but for the biggest result for their project. So little input, biggest output makes sense.

What type of homes are you building? Like, what price point are these people working towards?

Yeah, so our baseline price point starts around the 1 and a half to 2 mil mark in the new home construction, leading all the way up to the 5 to 6 million project point. And it's definitely in the luxury bespoke space. And generally our clientele who have built one or two times before and they've like, they've had to live in a home and make it work for their family around the current home. They've now got this opportunity to build their ideal layout or their ideal lifestyle to either raise their family in or create this really inviting space if they're older, so that all their family can come visit them and they can create all those memories there as well. And because at the end of the day, what we're creating and what we're building with people is all around family and connection, and that's what it all boils down to.

Yeah, I love that you've actually done a phenomenal job of positioning yourself as a luxury custom home builder on your website, from all your branding and messaging and everything like that. So I want to dive into that a little bit later in the podcast episode to understand some of the decisions you made there, but to kickstart a little bit further and dive deeper into what your business does. Can you just explain your unique strengths and how you've positioned yourself in the market to be able to deliver those homes?

Yeah, definitely. Like, I think the core base of KAI Construct has been really defined about the clientele that we work for and that we work with. And so that whole entire structure of our company has been in a way where it's done in a much larger scale operationally, doesn't mean lots of people, but just how we approach every task or challenge or problem that we're going to, either on site or off site. And I say to the team, if we were to solve this problem, but we had a hundred of that same problem, what would we have to have in place as a business to effectively deal with that? So we may never deal with the volume, but then we're, we're looking ahead of like, what's the best tool to implement within the business. So by that I mean, you know, for example, project management software, it was, it was never a thing, five, five, ten years ago sort of thing, but now it's like, if you don't have it, you can't really operate efficiently. And so that was the biggest. That's one of the biggest strengths that we have alongside the team that we have within the business, is that we needed to solve the communication issue between all stakeholders, which is the leading factor in things going sideways in construction or people having a great experience during construction. One of the unique strengths of KAI Construct, I firmly believe, is our approach to how we operate as a business off site. The majority of the workers, lots of construction owners know, is all the prep work before things actually get decided, things get done. So my background has been on the tools, building bespoke Beautiful homes, one to three a year tops. My whole entire apprenticeship and then doing carpentry contracting as well alongside my brother on that space. And then I came back to the other side of the industry, which was volume home development. Large scale, lots of moving parts, high volume, where that whole entire side of the industry has to operate completely different to what I knew as an apprentice carpenter. All these systems and checklists and like cash flow and stage claims and, you know, call ups and call forwards and all this new stuff that came about working in that space as a site supervisor all the way up to an operations manager of a development company. When I started Kai Construct, I was like, well, if I've had this great opportunity to experience both sides of the industry, both bespoke customers, low volume to high volume, how can I integrate both those experience into how Kai Construct operates as a business? And the result has been this really unique advantage on navigating these turbulent times in the industry while still maintaining like the service and the commitment to the clients and that that's what now the Kai Construct brand is known for. Because, you know, time poor professionals want to make sure that their money is well spent and that their risk is reduced, which is what I'm all about. And so because of that experience and because of what we've been doing as a brand, that reliability is a luxury builder that delivers quality. And certainty is like, certainly no matter what climate it is, is the key factor that I believe people come to Kai Construct for. Because people at the end of the day are paying for certainty. They want to make sure that whatever they're wanting to achieve, it's a massive investment, probably the highest ticket item that they're ever going to spend. They want to make sure it's delivered well. And so I think that's all been the backbone of the business. The building, that's what we're started on. We can do that. That works really well. That's the passionate part. But operating a building business, I think that take has been a really good strength for us in the current marketplace.

Yeah, sounds like a phenomenal point of difference. How have you managed to balance the efficiencies of the volume side of things with the custom side of things? Because I think you mentioned off air, like every home's different that you build, Right. So how do you get those operational efficiencies built into your process? What have you implemented?

Yeah, I'd say like the project management software has been the only way that Kai Construct has been able to grow to build more than just one project at A time we've had stages in KAI construct where we have built, say like Mountain Home, for example, it was the top of Crumbin Mountain. And we started day one. When all of that craziness started was when we started the project. And that was actually a great time to understand, like, we can't do more than one project if it doesn't involve myself like directly in helping and managing on site. So it was hard at the start trying to think what are the key drivers that actually are relevant from the volume world to deliver a custom project. And we found that it all started with how volume homes are scheduled and how they run a project from a timeline perspective. And so bringing that into how we estimate our projects, that whole entire process of estimating and scheduling the project at the same time, we could very confidently say to our clients, no matter what the outside environmental factors were, that if we start on this date, we can finish at this date again. That created a lot of certainty for both them and for us because then we understood our costs around that of what we could actually deliver. And the other key component from the volume was communication. Is it all stuck in one person's inbox or is it all visible for the whole entire team to be able to act on and see and then in turn provide better service to the client? Because it's not relying on me getting back to them at say, probably 1am in the morning at the time when I was working on site, doing work at night, and then, oh, hang on, I need to get back to that client before I go to sleep so I can check that off. So the processes operationally helped massively. And it started from the planning stage and it was a bit of a slow burn, to be honest, Will, because it's like you want to implement one thing, but because construction has a drawn out timeline, you only really see the results in six to nine, sometimes 18 months, depending on how fast your business is building through things to be able to test and measure is what we're bringing into the business from our past experience actually going to work. And so, yeah, there's no real direct answer on that, Will, but there's key components that we are still working through today, to be honest. Like what it's actually relevant to how the business is performing right now.

Well, it's nice in theory to have a start and an end date and provide that certainty to the customers, but in practice that doesn't always work out as easily. How do you give that certainty when you're relying on contractors or material suppliers and all Sorts of different people.

Yeah, I'd agree. Like construction For a builder with so many factors outside of our control, if someone doesn't turn off, sorry, turn off, turn up to a job site on that particular day when they said they were going to commit to it, it pushes everything right. So I learned by trial by fire scenario on the scheduling side, to be honest Will like it was, it was. I scheduled all our projects, albeit they were a bit smaller at that time, as if I was a volume site supervisor which had its benefits because we built extremely fast. The, the flip side of that coin, which my brother will probably attest to, is that on site was hectic and so it was working out that hey, we can build really fast, efficiently. When we had a smaller group of trades that we were working with because the project size was smaller and we were doing like 80% of the work as a carpentry team to now maybe say like a three year build, which was what Kingfisher was, which was the absolute most challenging build. Cause it was during all of that time period where price rises were going up, there's delays. We had 128 days of rain on that project. And so it came down to like clear communications and setting expectations. And I think that is the biggest thing that I've learned with schedules is just being upfront with clients. Like this is the perfect scenario and yes I have eight weeks of buffer time over your project, but this is why. And I explain that to them and I also explained it to the team going, we have a buffer zone. It's not to be used but it's, it's there just in case. And that alleviated the pressure from the team of working till 6pm sometimes for you know, at times like two to three weeks straight where we had then more output from our team because they were working less hours. But we're still getting the delivery of the project done and we could actually navigate problems better and be more flexible with our, with our team of subcontractors. So there's no silver bullet. There's like lots of little factors that when tweaked and adjusted to how your building company runs, I've personally found that it's paid in spades for everyone involved for the client's journey. Like I said, you can have the fancy photo at the end, but if the experience during that point all the way up was stressful, turbulent and unenjoyable, it's sort of like a false economy of a nice photo.

Yeah, that's great.

I love that reflection on just the Communication, especially up front. I mean, most people, you'd hope you're working with customers that are reasonable, Right. So if you're working with the right customers and you're upfront with them about why you have the buffer time, all that kind of stuff, I mean, it just makes a lot of sense that therefore you can ideally meet the schedule, but also if you don't, then you've communicated that effectively with the client and.

It'S been upfront and honest. And I was actually scared the first few years of my business to even say that because I'm like, does that mean they're not going to sign up with me? And I'm going to have a massive cash flow issue as you grow in your business. Like, because I wasn't confident in. I was confident in what we could do, like the skill set, like, no worries, we can build that. But I wasn't confident as a business owner at that stage of growth to go, well, this is why, like, I knew why, but I didn't know how to convey that to them. And sometimes that can be like, it can backfire really badly. We haven't had that experience to that point, but I can imagine how, you know, building for the wrong client or the. Not really the wrong client, the client that isn't aligned for how you like to run your business. And that really comes back to, well, who you attracting into your business and then what does your brand represent? And so it's this. Again, it's a. But it's a long spool of time to actually work all that out.

That's a perfect lead into our discussion about your brand, actually. So thanks for. Thanks for doing that. But before we dive into that, what project management software are you using? Because I'm sure there's plenty of people thinking about that right now.

Yeah, definitely. So I've been through a number of them and right now we are with Buildertrend and we've been running Buildertrend for three years and we use 98% of every single feature that we can on it. Wow.

And that's a lot. Because there's a lot of features.

There is a lot of features. And we've had some great feedback from BuilderTrend, but. And by no means at all, it's not all done by me. Like, it's. I have a really great team member, contract admin that she is absolutely phenomenal in implementing certain things, might have an idea about how we want to use the software, but the implementation is done by someone who knows it intimately. And that has been A really big lever in our business to help with the overall outcome.

Did you ever work with a consultant to help you implement that or do you just did it all internally?

I was fortunate to be able to find someone who had dabbled with BuilderTrend before. And I sort of said to her, like, let's just invest all your time to know that inside and out. And I know there are great consulting companies that help implement that and I have had discussions with them, but we're at a point when we did talk to them, we had already worked through that over the year, year and a half. If I didn't have that person, I would definitely find a consulting company that knows that software to help structure it for the business. For sure.

Yeah, makes sense. Thanks for sharing that.

Let's dive into your brand because as.

You mentioned before, working with the right kind of clients and attracting the right kind of kind of clients is really important in managing the experience. And obviously your brand reputation and all those different things. The name Kai Construct actually holds a personal significance to your family. How do you want to first give the context around why that's significant and how it's actually guided the direction of your brand?

Yeah, for sure. So Kai Construct is inspired by. When we first started our family, we had our first son, his name was Kai. And it just was a random conversation on the weekend and I can't remember who. It wasn't me, but someone rattled it off and it's like, oh, Kai Construct, that sort of rhymes. And then it just, it just stuck. And I don't know exactly. I think it was like a week or two later. And then Lauren, my wife's like, you know, that's a pretty cool name. And it's exactly what you want to build the business about, which is family connection. And that whole entire component of like understanding that from the bespoke world and then bringing that into how we start our own brand. Like our own brand. And I think that brand started with that reference point because we wanted to personalize construction. I knew that we couldn't build, like, I don't want to be a volume home builder. I want to build maybe tops, three, four homes a year for the, for the right person. And at the time when we first started Kai Construct, it appeared to be a super transactional industry. Like, there wasn't a lot of, like, no one was really doing video. No one was really storytelling about who the builder was or the results of the projects or who the people were within the business. And we were fortunate early on to find and align with a great media company that understood what we had in our heads trying to convey, but couldn't visually get that out there. And we wanted to convey that and then amplify that into the marketplace so that the people that we were attracting into the business, which comes into your point earlier, Will, about, you know, who are you building with and, and that value alignment we found great results in. Like, we were working with people that we enjoyed being around. There are a number of clients that we are good friends with today that have been a result of them finding our business and just instantly clicking, going Ashley, those that we get where they're coming from and we like their values of that. And so it is, it wasn't intentional, but that whole entire brand has just organically built from the direction that we hold personally, Lauren and myself on how we live, and that's transformed through to building the brand of what Kai Construct is known today.

Interesting that you said it kind of wasn't intentional because my next question was around from a, from my perspective, looking at your website, watching the videos and, and how it builds, this perfect story about this, the type of homes you build and the people you build them for and really positions you at that luxury end of the, the market. It looks so deliberate to me and that I wanted to ask how you made those decisions to represent your brand in that way online.

I'd say, like, it wasn't intentional at the start of Kai Construct, but I know now, being seven years in, we've had a lot of learnings around as we've been growing. There's, in any business, you're like, well, what's my direction now? And it's sometimes good to come back to like, the branding and the, the ground zero of your business of like, you've built for three or four years. And then we sat down and go, is this something that we're still, are we on the right direction? Are we enjoying what we're doing or do we need to shift something? And I say with like a running joke with a few of my friends, it's like behind every builder is a wife running Instagram and the creative side of how it looks and feels. And a big part of how Kai Construct is, is Lauren's eye for detail and that natural gift of expressing visually the emotion that we wanted people to feel when they find Kai Construct. And so we want to reflect our personal style on how we like to live, which is on acreage, with room, raise a family, private escape, a place to enjoy with friends. Right? And then convey that in the Style of fonts, the colors, the certain shapes that are used. The layout is deliberate in each section of that site. There are times, Will, where I looked at my website before we got it redone and I just couldn't Google it because I was just. There was so much going on, but I still wasn't happy with the website, which every builder does. But then over time, like we just redid it two years ago, and the stark, not difference, but the improvement in how we were represented in clients referring us and who we built for again, created that certainty. And how you describe the website is exactly how people. We want people to feel when they go through it. Because we wanted to stand out in a very busy world and. And the Gold coast is a very busy space in residential construction. And we wanted to make sure that as we grew the business that we built with people that we resonated with, that we could all enjoy the journey together. And it all comes back to the family. And that's why we've put that out there. And it's a true reflection and it's an authentic reflection of how we personally live even to this day. That's what we like doing. And so if we can create that for other people, that authenticity carries through everything and shows through everything and video and visuals just adds that second or third dimension to that.

Yeah, authenticity is a great way to look at it, actually. Like, every interaction I've had with your brand has married up with the interactions I've had with you as well, which is important. Right. You don't want to have this experience online and then you get into a sales call or a meeting with someone and it's totally different.

Definitely, definitely.

It's also comforting, I think, for the builders out there, that on face value, looking at your brand and everything, it looks so deliberate and well put together and it positions you in a great respect. But at some point you weren't happy with it. Right. And you were still figuring it out. Yeah.

And I think, like. And I've gone into that trap too, Will, of like, sometimes you're not happy with your website and. Or you're looking at your peers that have built it before. Or I've had been very fortunate to seek out deliberately a couple of builders that have. Are doing what we wanted to do in a different space and different area and just sort of pick their brain of like, well, how. How did you approach this? Like, what. How did you end up with your building company or your development company like that? And it came down to the similar journey of what I've just explained they were just like, you know, we just started listening to actually what we liked doing and everything evolved from that. Like, make no mistake, there's a lot of heartache and work to get to what everyone sees today where it is. I think it took like a year, which is the longest time. The web dev company was like, are you guys ready to launch this? And we're like, ah, not yet. But it's like this ever ending process of getting to a point where we are now genuinely super happy. But we also gain that from being super happy with where we are in the business and what we do and not questioning are we doing the right thing and just completely focusing inward on this is us. Everyone else is doing their thing and that's great. But as a business owner I'm super focused on this is the one thing. And that in itself has cleared so much up for us vision wise, goal wise. As a business, our team know exactly what we do and what we don't do. We've passed out plenty of projects that look great on paper, but that's not our style or we don't want to build there and we're not known for that. So why twist the model?

How did you get to that point though? Because I think that's really powerful to be so clear about your purpose and direction and vision of the company. So it guides everything you do from your customer experience to the brand. Like you're saying, but it's not an easy journey to get there. How did you go through that process.

With lots of sleepless nights and deliberation and talking with other people? Uh, it's, it's sometimes super confronting. I remember when the first project I said no to the spreadsheet and cash flow was like, you should definitely say yes to this. But the type of client and the build, my gut feeling was like, this doesn't align with the, the brand. Like, are we really going to enjoy the next year and a half building this together? And the honest answer was no. And I remember saying to Laura, like, I'm going to pass this project up. I know, like believe that we can get what we want, like growth wise for the business and to support the team and all the other mechanics that are just part of business. Right. But it's like I don't want to like not enjoy going to, driving up to that job site and just wishing that it was handing over. And I've been there before, like early on where you're just taking all of those projects and when you're doing it at Scale and it's like a two year build and there's lots of money and lots of other stakeholders, either architects or interior designers. Do you really want to put yourself in that position? And the honest answer is no when you think about it. Yeah. And so it was a really hard step, just being completely honest. It was super hard to actually make that happen. But when I did, it opened up other opportunities because it's not like I would have been committed to a job that I didn't enjoy. Required all of my focus on me personally that my team couldn't particularly implement because it's a really complex process. But then I would have lost a year and a half of building the brand or marketing or talking to people that we would thoroughly enjoy building with. And so it's like two steps back for what? Like two steps back, three steps forward sort of analogy. And everyone's heard that, but it's so true in different, in different ways. And it was challenging. Am I glad I did it? Yes. Because everything we build now, and it's the majority in the hinterland, to be honest, like it's not from the highway to the beach, it's the highway into the hinterland. It's great. Plus it's easy to build. There's so much room on those sites and everyone has a lot of, a lot of fun doing it. So. Yeah. Does that answer your question, Will? I guess, like it wasn't easy, but it was worth doing it is what I'm trying to get across. It does.

I mean, it's so hard to look past the short term cash flow issues or everything else. Right. And make strong long term business decisions, which is what you're talking about. Right.

And sometimes those decisions can't be made while you're trying to grow the business at the same time. And we've had times where I'm like, I just want to keep ramping up the whole entire amount of projects and type of projects. But the reality is it's like, well, just slow it down a bit. Don't grow the team as much or don't stretch and buy that massive office space that you need initially and just bed down what you like doing and then let your project and your workflow help scale the business. And I think everyone's in this rush to grow the biggest business. And I found that the level and section of where Kai construct is now is not only the most rewarding but also the most profitable and also the most win win scenario for both client and for us. And that's also knowing what you're happy to build because, you know, we're raising a family now. We've got another little girl who's one. And I know you've. You've just started your family too well, so, like, your priorities change as a business owner or whatever situation you're in to be able to actually have that flexibility and time. And so sometimes when you grow in your business, your family side of life can. Can get out of balance. And so now we're at a stage where we've put in a lot of hard work to get where we are, and it's still a lot of work to maintain it, but it's just bringing that back, that equilibrium in business, which is challenging.

You made a good point.

It's not in the best interest of the clients if you're not doing the type of work you want to do for them. And that align with your systems and everything. Right.

Definitely. Like, if you're not passionate about building it and it's just a chore, your client's going to pick up on that.

Yeah.

And a number of times, like almost every single time at handover, the client side was, we love this house even more because the people that built it cared about it. You were so passionate the whole entire way through. Your team loved building. They're always smiling. That's why I'm a big fan of having our carpentry team in house, because they're a direct reflection of your brand that your clients see every single time they come and visit their job site. And so it. What. What is it that intrinsic value, they call it of like, it far surpasses the value of money that's transacted. It's the. All the emotional stuff, which comes back to Brandon. How people feel when they find us, how do people feel when they build with us, and how do people feel once they've moved into their home and they don't have any maintenance or defect issues or anything like that? They can just enjoy their home because we've made it true. Turnkey ready. And so that's. Yeah. That needs to be consistent all the way through.

Yeah.

That feeling that the client gets when you do the handover is there's no. To your point, there's no silver bullet. There's no one thing that created that experience. It's micro engagements. There's thousands of micro engagements in there. The carpenters, everything, like everything that happens throughout that build process gives them that final feeling 100%.

And I've made a big focus point and effort that if someone calls the office or Someone has an interaction with one of the team on site, that the same response of energetic politeness, professionalism is conveyed not just from me, because as a, as a builder and a business owner, like, I'm not on site as much as I would like and I'm not building as much as I would like, but does the client feel and have the same interaction with my apprentice as they do with me? And if we can make that consistent throughout the brand, then that's a win for the client. Because I have certainty from the initial conversation with me and all of that prelim design and that whole entire process, given the scale of projects, to then know that the apprentice knows while that wall is there for Rex to dog in the laundry. Because we wanted to create that, because we do the whole entire handover process with our on site team. So the disjointedness that clients feel when they feel some person doesn't know what's going on, I experienced in volume because you had a salesperson selling the dream and then we had to build a set of plans and no one was talking to each other. And so one of the biggest things that I wanted to solve was that communication line and how everyone felt, both my team and the client, that whole entire process from start to finish. And that's a challenge to manage and get right all the time, but it's definitely one of the number one focus and core values in the business. Yeah.

How do you get that consistency with as the team grows or you bring in new team members? Is it about hiring? Is it about, you know, training and systems?

Yeah, it's a. I'd say it's a combination of both will and as car construct grew, like, the first person that I needed to hire was someone to help me with production site, which is my brother. So I'm very blessed in the fact that we did our apprenticeship together. We worked together as carpenters for seven years. So we don't actually talk much, but we build the exact same, if that makes sense, on site. And so in that we thought, well, that's the whole entire family. So coming back to brand, that actually applies to our culture within Kai Construction. And so we're very. I'm very disciplined and very strict on who is within the team at Kai Construct because I treat them, Lauren treats them like our family as much as possible because when they know that they're looked after, they're gonna provide us with the best result for the client. And so we've been very strategic with who we hire. We haven't got it Right. All the time. So if anyone's listening, they're like, oh, you know, you should just get it right all the time. It doesn't happen. Nice and simple. But knowing your brand and where you wanna go, you attract those people who wanna work for, for you, for that type of brand. And, and who we are, like, who, who I was when I was doing, doing a lot of social stuff online. And so we've had a great core carpentry team of carpenters reaching out to us, going, do you have an opportunity? Like our most recent addition, she was like, I've been following you guys for a year. I'm moving up to Queensland on the Gold Coast. Is there any opportunity? And if someone like that reaches out, it's not through seek generally, but from a carpenter base, then I know that they've been watching what we do and I know they probably want to build what we build and therefore they have the same culture and values. And so obviously we're testing and making sure everyone gels on site, which is a big part of it. But having that consistent brand and communication to clients, back to your point earlier, Will is having the similar people in your business and team, because I don't call them staff, because staff is what you hit someone with and if you're treating them like a stick, you're probably going to get that same result back from their input into your business. So everyone knows that we are a team. It's not just me. That ended like four years ago where it was me holding everything. There's lots of other people managing their wheelhouse exceptionally well, but they get my support personally from them to help them solve the issues, even if I'm not the only person talking to the client. So culture plays a big part and it has to directly reflect your brand. Otherwise, like you said before, they're going to hear one thing and experience completely something different. And that doesn't last long. That probably ends pretty much every single referral relationship you're going to have.

That's a great reflection the brand you've created. And for any building companies out there looking to develop a brand that aligns, you know, from start to finish, it's not just about, for the clients, it's, you know, to your point, for recruitment and everything else as well.

Definitely, definitely. And it just, it makes everything easier when your brand can do the majority of the heavy lifting and you're not having to sell the client and why you're a good builder or sell a new team member in a very competitive labor market right now, which Everybody's experiencing is like, well, who can offer the best outcome really? Who can offer the best work environment, who can offer the best sort of like lifestyle alongside work for both clients and for internal team. And if the brand can do the heavy lifting, it makes your life as a business owner so much easier for it.

I want to talk a bit more about the brand quickly and maybe it's, maybe Lauren needs to be on for this, but you can, you can do your best to kind of fill in the gaps.

Sure.

Seems very deliberate.

You've put all this work into understanding your vision and aligning it with the brand. What principles have you followed so that that experience for potential employees, potential clients is so consistent across every platform.

From a consistent see point on platforms, it has been a lot of work and it's also the 1 percenters. So the type of messaging that's used on the website is deliberately worded on our Instagram. Even the posts, even how I present some like say stories on Instagram about informing people. It all comes back to our core values, which is really easy to do when you're authentic about it. Like, I know we're coming to like sort of full circle here, but the principle is like it's, it's pretty much how Lauren and I would like to engage a builder. If we weren't builders, that's essentially the lens that we're looking at it. And so our vision was to go from for luxury family forever homes in the hinterland to developing properties that people might want to buy and build. Like when it comes to like the line with the company's vision and how it's deliberately done, it all stems back to what's the overall outcome? How do we want people to feel when they interact with us? And the pages of the website and any content, any emails that get sent out to people all speak the same wording, branding around that. And it's all how we talk, it's all how we, we like to convey ourselves within our team. And so if we're not pretending to be one thing or the other, it's super easy to, to make that consistent. It just requires a lot of work, which is why Lauren's been great at implementing how she sees things. And you know, because sometimes guys, you know, we can't, we say things but we can't visually put that, put that together. So it's been a great partnership for us working together and it's actually helped in our relationship knowing that I'll deliver operationally the building side. But if it comes to how something is meant to look, to feel that is squarely in Lawrence Wheelhouse as the creative director. So it's a good comparison. It works really well.

Yeah. Yeah, sounds like it. And I guess there's that good division. So you don't. You're not clashing your heads on certain things as much.

Yeah, like Lauren was involved with the interior design component and the selections with the clients in the early years and we just found it was all in consuming in our business. And so with all of you know, Lauren's exceptionally well at conveying visually how things are meant to feel, but it was just too much to actually bring that into client work as well at the same time and raise a family. So it definitely helped understand that for ourselves.

So is Lauren the champion of everything to do with how you're perceived externally or do you have a rulebook of guidelines that other people can follow as well?

Yeah, so that's a great point actually because Lauren doesn't have a lot of time at the moment raising two little ones. So we have had to build a brand guide and a playbook on how everything is conveyed and done and that has taken time and that has finding the right person who has, you know, been in the business now for over three years and her and Lauren like she's now aligned with how Lauren thinks and wants to convey things and how I would like to convey the building component across. And then yeah, it's like having that style guide, as corny as that sounded when I first started Kai Construct and these, you know, marketing people, like you need a style guide and all the rest of it. I'm like, can we just put words on a paper? But I, you know, you know, so naive back then, but it's like it's words on a paper, but visually on how it looks almost means more than what the words are on the on the paper to a point. And so that has helped create that again, like extending the team and being able to work my way out of certain things in the business and for Lauren as well, where that consistency still comes across no matter who's doing it. So, you know, I don't do socials, I do all the content, but it gets posted up in a certain way every single time. All the photos are done and scheduled and mapped out months in advance, but it's all in line. So it's minimum input, maximum output. And I learned that from the media company that we work with and it's been a great tool and metric to look at things because sometimes people will they look at social media As a builder going, we're busy enough, how can I post like once a day or twice a day or even once a year? The reality is it's just you can't do it. So find someone who can that does it in your brand, whether it's in house or externally.

Yeah, I think it's important. Like if you've got that rulebook in place, while it takes a lot of time to get there, it enables you to then outsource and hire people to do that work for you and feeling confident that they can execute on, you know, the brand that you're looking to execute on, which then saves you a ton of time and you get all the benefits from it as well.

It's like one of my mentors says, like you have make a time and management time in your schedule and you can't mix the two. And the maker time is that creative space where you can do like high value tasks like creating that playbook. Here's how we post on Instagram. Just do it once and it will be used thousands of times over the course of the business. And then the manager time is just like your operations. Like there's days that my team know, don't jam my mornings up with meetings on site, or I'd prefer to do an afternoon meeting with a client and then do all my on site commitments for the team on certain days and other days it's just for me to work on things with Lauren or for me specifically on key things that no one else can do but me. And there will always be those components in a business. It's just giving yourself the time to do that. And it's really hard early on and I didn't get any of that time for the first three years. But now it's one of the main priorities that I'm very vigilant on protecting. Is that maker time?

Yeah, it's a great tip.

So, Tim, I wouldn't be doing my.

Job if I didn't ask. Since joining the association of Professional Builders, what impact has it had on your business as well?

So the biggest change that I have had is financial acumen. One thing that builders, myself included, to the nth degree, is that we're great at building, constructing, making things work. But all the financial acumen around a building company and the key areas that affect that result, like marketing, sales operationally, which is ironically nothing to do with swinging a hammer on the site was the biggest shift because I'm a big fan of data now and understanding what is going on, why the learnings within the courses and the information that APB has on their online portal was really something that made me aware of what I didn't know and that was a little bit scary to start with. Going what you know, there's so many other factors to business that we're not taught as carpenters being a tool based builder, but it makes you aware of it and also how to implement it, how to. And I wanted to fast track that further. So I got some personal coaching along the way to ensure it's focusing on the right areas out of all of that content that is available to focus on the specific areas of my business and doing it in a really strategic way that now like the biggest takeaway is I have structure in my business, like my team can act on things process wise. I have clarity where I am within Kai construct and what we're going and then what we need to do to reach the next goal point and more importantly how to stage that out because it can't all happen at once, right? So like all of knowing what is going on means I can actually switch off and be present with my family outside of the business, which is ultimately why I'm doing this in the first place, which is why every single builder is doing it in the first place. And for so many years I was unable to switch off because I just didn't know what was going on in my business. And having that information along lots of other areas as well has helped me get to a point where I can be a lot more present than what I was. Which in turn helps you reset and become a better business owner in all the areas that you need to be as well as be a better father, be a better partner and enjoy life rather than feel like you're always behind the eight ball. And so that's been the biggest change for me.

That's awesome. Thanks for sharing that. I mean that financial acumen piece is so important because it's kind of scary to dive in and understand your numbers if you're not fully across them because you don't know what's going to be there, what surprises might be there. But, but it's actually scarier if you don't because in the long term, to your point, it's always a stressful point, you're not confident in making decisions in where you can invest your money and all that kind of stuff. Right. And once you get that locked and loaded, you can, to your point, start to create space to do other things and then you know that improves your life and everything from there definitely it.

All perpetuates from there.

Amazing. Well, Tim, this has been like a really enjoyable interview, I must say. I could probably talk to you a couple more hours because everything you're doing really aligns with the way I think about building companies and the way APB talks about it as well. So I appreciate you coming on and sharing so much. There's been a ton of value there.

Any final advice you want to give.

To any builders out there that might be not as far along in the journey?

I think construction is hard, is challenging sometimes, but staying authentic to who you are and backing yourself and knowing you can make that work and conveying that to your clients and where you want to go is the biggest takeaway. Just, you know, focus on one thing and what you want to do and block out all that noise and you'd be amazed at how much traction you can gain in the shortest amount of time.

Awesome. Great advice. And for anyone out there that wants to check out Kai Construct, I'd highly recommend having a look at their website, having a look at their Instagram and just getting a feel for how Tim and Lauren have represented the brand online because they've done a fantastic job. The website is K A I K O N S T r u c t.com au kai construct.

Awesome Tim.

Well, yeah, thanks once again for coming on. Really enjoyed it.

Likewise, will appreciate it.

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