196. Our Expert Vs Our AI With Russ Stephens

Welcome to another episode of Professional Builder Secrets. I'm joined by Russ Stevens, the co founder of the association of Professional Builders. But this episode is a little bit different than usual. Over the past decade, Russ has helped thousands of residential building companies solve some of the biggest problems in their businesses, from cash flow and margins to delegation and team performance. And now those insights live inside a new AI tool we have built called APB Brain. So we decided to pit the real Rust versus AI Rust to see what happens. Stay tuned to find out. This episode of Professional Builder Secrets is brought to you by Apparatus Contractor Services. Apparatus provides full scope, end to end QuickBooks, Precision Construction accounting and CFO services for residential builders. If you feel like you can't completely trust your weekly and monthly financial reports or you feel like you're flying blind, Apparatus Root will rebuild and operate your QuickBooks accounting system and give you precision construction accounting capability you can trust. Learn more@apparatusteam.com or on the APB Rewards Partner directory.

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Welcome everyone to this very special session. We're going live onto Facebook and also we're publishing this on a range of different podcasting platforms after. But I'm Will Blunt, I'm the head of marketing here at apb and today I've got with me Russ Stevens, the co founder of apb, to do a very special session on our new AI feature, APB Brain. So if you haven't heard yet, APB Brain is our AI tool trained on over a decade of builder specific content. Everything from our action plans to checklists and templates that's available to our members and coaching clients. The avatar of APB Brain is AI Russ and today we're doing an interesting challenge of AI Russ versus the real Russian. So Russ, welcome to this session today.

Thanks Will.

Thanks so much for inviting me along when you've obviously got someone better to talk to now.

Yeah, we were doing a test run beforehand and it was a little bit uncanny how much AI Russ sounded like you. So this should be a bit of fun.

Good stuff.

Look, I say looking forward to it. I'm absolutely terrified. I mean, going up against something that knows everything about everything.

Well, everything about running a building company, at least potentially knows more than you. Do you think Ross or.

Oh, look, unquestionable. Because what we've been training APB Brain on is all of Andy's coaching sessions and knowledge, all of the action plans that sky has been putting together every month for the last 10 years, now, the podcast interviews. So it goes way beyond my knowledge and pulls in the combined knowledge of A very, very experienced team. So, yeah, this is, this is exciting.

Great. Well, what we're going to do today is the structure of this session is I'm going to ask a series of questions to Air us, but first I want to get your responses to those questions. So we're going to go the real Russ first and then we're going to go Air R Us.

We got second.

Sorry, can I go second? No, we're going to test it out. We're going to test it out. So we're going to ask five questions which are highly relevant to builders. These are questions that real builders have asked to AI R Us in our member portal. They're questions we get all the time from aspiring builders looking to improve their companies. So the five questions we're going to dive in today. How do I get better leads? How do I make more profit? How do I delegate tasks to my team? What financial numbers should I track in my building company? And how do I scale without burning out? So five pretty big questions there.

Good stuff. Let's do it.

Let's do it. So I'm going to share my screen and we're going to dive straight into it. All right, so here's something I've prepared earlier. I've got a range of windows open. What you'll see on your screen at the moment for APB members out there. This is the APB member portal. And if you want to access AI R Us or APB Brain, there's a little orange chat icon in the bottom right hand corner. So you can open that up and start a text or voice chat with AI Russ. And if you want to expand that even more, you can just click on the, the little expansion option in the top right hand corner of the chat. So I'll open that up. So we've got a full screen option of that. Uh, if you're not a member, I've got another page open here which we'll share in the, in the comments of this. It's called go.associationofprofessionalbuilders.com APB Brain and on this page you can access a 10 minute free demo of AI Rust and APB Brain. If you go to this page, click on that button and enter your email and first name, you can jump in and start using AI Rust straight away. So we'll be sure to share that in the links. But for now, let's dive in and see what AI Russ can do. Russ Stevens, the real one. Tell me how you would respond to a builder if they asked you how Do I get better leads? Yeah.

And I think this is probably, maybe indicative of a lot of problems in business. They're not straightforward silver bullet answers. I mean, we try to do that in marketing, don't we? We try to make everything seem simple. But I mean, some of these things, they involve more than one thing. So I always try to break it down into three steps for a builder, really, whenever I'm talking to them about a specific problem. So if I was talking to a builder about getting better leads, the first thing I'd say is that you've got to get your marketing messaging right first. That's the very first step. Too often we see builders jumping into advertising. They haven't performed this basic step. This is where you waste a lot of money. You generate leads that are unqualified, and then you might have the false belief that advertising doesn't work. So you must do this step first. You've got to get clear on your marketing messages. And when I talk about that marketing messages, I'm talking about your avatar. Get very clear on who it is you are trying to communicate with. Who is the type of person that you want to attract, what are their challenges, what's your niche statement, what's your usp? Everything related to marketing messages. It's all broken down in the marketing fundamentals action plan. So if you remember, you want to jump into that before you do anything else, if you've got a challenge with leads, because you've got to get your messaging right first. So once you've ticked that box off, the next step is to create content. So this is actionable content, content that your ideal avatar, your ideal client can actually use and implement. And you've got to think about where they are in their journey. So, you know, top of the funnel, maybe they're, they're thinking about designing a new home. You want to get them at that stage, you don't want to get them once they've done the design. And then you become, you know, just a commodity, just another builder quoting plans. So you've got to be a design and construct company. You've got to be entering the conversation going on inside their head at that early stage. But of course, you need content for all stages of the funnel. But you've got to be creating content and that can be quite challenging. But it doesn't have to be. You can literally engage a very experienced copywriter. You can talk to them, they can create this for you relatively quickly. But you start with a script. So think about the topic and the copywriter will give you the kind of the framework. But if you give them the, the title and talk about the challenges and the actionable advice you want to give, they'll actually give you the script. Then you can record it as a video. You can do it on your phone initially, get some initial video content. Later on you can go in the studio and then after that you can use AI to just produce them automatically. But that script, that can then be developed into a blog article. Now you've got a video and you've got a blog article. The blog article can be broken down into three emails. Now you've got an email campaign going to run through the week with three emails. And, and you can break it up into like a dozen, maybe even two dozen posts as well, which you can use across social media. That's the secret sauce that does lead to higher margins. And it does. And the reason it leads to higher margins is because the lead quality is coming in so much better. But step three is, unfortunately, you got to spend some money because you got to amplify that, that message and you got to pay to play. You're not going to get organic reach on Facebook and Google. You know, you can get a little bit, but really if you, if you're serious about generating better leads, you got to spend money and that will be 3% of your revenue. There's a two for one rule, 2% on marketing, 1% on advertising. As you get your content and your marketing messages develop, that will then flip to 1%, 2%. You know, as your business becomes more, more mature and you spend more on advertising. But Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Google, they're all proven channels that will enable you to bring top quality leads in. And if you've advertised on those channels already and the leads were no good, the quality leads are there. It's just your messaging and your content wasn't quite right.

Very detailed response, Russ. I feel like you're nervous that AI Russ.

I'm trying to cover all the bases. What's he going to say? I knew that.

All right, well, let's, let's see what happens. I'm going to do the voice chat just so it's a little bit more interesting and interactive for those listening on the podcast channels. But I'm just going to click on voice and we're going to ask AI Russ how to get better leads.

Hi, I'm AI Russ. You can ask me anything related to running a residential building company and I'll give you practical, actionable advice based on over a decade of training.

What's on Your mind, hey, AI Ross, how do I get better leads for my building company?

Getting better leads for your building company starts with understanding two things. Who your ideal client is and where they're spending their time. Now, here's the thing. Most builders think they need more leads, but what they really need is better quality leads. That means attracting people who are serious about building and can afford your services. First, you've got to showcase your expertise. Use your website, social media and and even YouTube to share content that demonstrates your value. Think video walkthroughs of your projects, testimonials from happy clients, or even guides like five mistakes to avoid when building a custom home. These act as lead magnets, simple free resources that people exchange their contact details for. Once you've got their email, you can nurture them through email campaigns. Second, invest in targeted advertising. Platforms like Facebook and Google are gold mines if you know how to use them. You can target people based on location, income and even their interests. And don't forget about SEO. If your website isn't optimized to show up when someone searches Custom Home builder near me, you're leaving money on the table. Finally, don't underestimate the power of referrals. Build relationships with architects, real estate agents, and even past clients who can send warm leads your way. Quality over quantity every time. What's your current lead generation strategy looking like?

Oh, the question on the end.

Yeah, there you have it. I don't think we want to ask another question now. The builders listening today can dive in and do some layered questioning if they want, but how do you feel about that response, Russ?

That was scary, wasn't it?

Actually covered most of the things you mentioned. They also dived into referrals. There was a couple of bits that, that you mentioned that you didn't go into, though.

I think it was more concise.

Yeah, a little bit more concise. What does that mean? Do you feel as if. Yeah.

As human beings, we're kind of. We're thinking, aren't we? We're thinking and talking. Whereas, yeah, the machine. It's just. It's the terminator, isn't it? It's just logical.

Yeah. Is there any limitations with that? For builders, if they're asking a question, do you feel like they could run in 20 challenges by relying on that information?

Oh, look, I think the challenge is asking the right questions because what we see in 95% of cases where we're actually coaching builders is 95% of the time they're actually asking questions about the symptom, rather than the cause. And our coaches are trained, not just trained, but they're using data as well to identify the cause of the problem and ask about that. So that, that could be a potential limitation. But that's not really the point of this AI rust. The other point is to support the members while they're working on things rather than, you know, be able to take the pace plates of a, of a highly experienced coach.

Yeah, and, and it sounds good, but a minute and 45 seconds of talking, which you can see on the, on the chat there, isn't going to tell you how to run a good marketing strategy. I mean, you need to go a lot deeper than that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

But pretty nice, Pretty nice answer. So let's dive into the second question and once again we'll start with the real Russ. How do I make more profit?

Look, there's a million ways and I feel like I've got to cover off as many as I can, otherwise I'm going to get outperformed. But maybe, look, I, I'll try and limit it, I think. I like to think in threes all the time. And probably the first one is the monthly financial reports. You've got to be looking at the data and you got to track your margins because we've proven this, I think, in the Sourci report. Oh, year on year, once you start looking at stuff, basically what gets reported on it, it gets respected. So you really got to start looking at this stuff and reporting on it. And we saw data in the source report as well, that the builders that produce monthly financial reports, they hit net profit margins that were 50% higher than those that didn't. So just by looking at the thing you want to improve and measuring it, that will have an effect because you're putting it top of mind. One example I'd like to give to builders as well is if you want to improve the margin, the net margin on your projects, you've got to start looking at the margin month on month as you work through because then it's top of mind. So when the client wants a variation, you're not going to give it away, you're not going to give it away for free or do it at cost because you're constantly thinking the margin. So this is how this psychology can actually work in your favor. The other thing, if you want to improve your margins is you've got to perform post project completion audits. This is where you sit down with your team and you analyze what has happened on a project. You're looking at the project Timeline versus the baseline that was set at the beginning. Where did you get the blowouts? You're looking at the budget, obviously. What was the actual budget? The actual figures rather than the, the budget that was set at the beginning. How did you get blindsided? What caught you out? And then you update your price file for future so you don't get caught out again. And that goes for scheduling as well. Things are taking longer than you expect. Make sure that knowledge is getting fed back. It's a nice feedback loop. And again, the data tells us that the builders that actually do this, they're achieving net profit margins that are 40% higher than builders that. And I can't remember the exact number, but I think it's more than half the builders are not doing this at the moment. And then investing in development and training. You know, I know when we look at how do I improve margins, we want something actionable. We want like it now. But the truth is there are so many ways to improve margins. You really want someone in your corner that's going to ask you the difficult questions and have the experience to go to the actual cause. And even if you don't want to jump straight into working with a, with a coach, start reading books. Because again, we've seen in the data the builders that read one business book per year, they have net profit margins that are way, way higher than the builders that don't read. I think the, the number in the source was 1% for people that don't read. Net profit average, 6 1/2% for builders that just read one. And I'll tell you what, if you only read one book, read this one. Professional Builder Secrets. There's a lot of good info and it might just get the, the juices flowing and give you the, the momentum to really get started.

Available free online for anyone that needs it as well. Interestingly, the answer to that question also ties into the first question about getting better leads. Right. Because statistically in the sourcing report, we found that investing 3% of your revenue into advertising actually gave you increased margins and profit.

Yeah.

And that's because of supply and demand, isn't it? So the more demand you can have for your services, that is what enables builders to increase their margins. And it's a really good point, actually. I probably should have covered this. But yeah, when, when you're in a situation which a lot of builders find themselves where you're actually servicing your demand, you're always dependent and that makes you vulnerable in negotiation. So, yeah. So you should be answering this.

Will I'M just rehashing everything you've told me, Russ, so. All right, well, let's put AI Rust to the test. Just a reminder for everyone, if you want to use the text option, you can do that. We're going to use the voice throughout this session just so it's a little bit more interactive, but the text is quite helpful if you want to actually have something written down. You want to copy it and paste it somewhere else can be quite helpful, but so let's dive into another call with AI Russ and see what he thinks about how we're making more profit.

Hey, just checking in. Have you had a chance to try out any of those lead generation tips we talked about, like creating a lead magnet or optimizing your website for SEO?

Oh, thanks for remembering some of the things I told you, Russ. I have a different question though. How do I make more profit?

All right, let's talk profit. The first thing you've got to do is look at your margins. Most builders I've worked with start out thinking they're doing fine with a 20% markup. But when you factor in overheads like software, admin and fixed costs, you're often left with single digit net profits. That's not sustainable. You've got to aim for a minimum 33% gross margin to ensure you're covering everything and still making money. Next, pricing for profit is critical. Don't just add a percentage to your costs and hope for the best. You need to calculate your fixed costs, set a target net profit and work backwards to determine your markup. This way you're building profit into every job, not just scraping by. Another big one is efficiency. Are you spending time on low value tasks? If you're doing admin work that could be outsourced for 20 bucks an hour, you're leaving money on the table. Focus on the $300 an hour decisions like sales, marketing and strategy that actually grow your business. And finally, don't underestimate the power of marketing. Builders who consist generate quality Leads through content CRMs and paid ads can charge more because they're in demand. When you're the expert in your market, you can command higher prices without pushback. What's your current margin looking like?

Great advice.

There you go. Minute 43 this time. So pretty consistent with the length of responses there. Anything that you noticed in there that you would have done differently? Russ or I like the way it.

Started with the actual margins that builders should be aiming for because I think that helps anchor because it's subjective, isn't it? Otherwise you know, how can I create? So I think that was good. I should have done that. And then linking it to P4P as well. I mean, P4P is another game changer for builders because we find that once builders use that calculator that gets them focused on their margins and you. Yeah, it gives them the confidence to say no to clients that are trying to negotiate.

I found it interesting that it used slang as well. It said 20 bucks as well when it was referring to outsourcing tasks.

Oh, a bit of retraining there, that's just not acceptable.

Very good. All right, well, let's keep it moving and move on to the next question, which is how do I delegate tasks to my team? A big challenge that many builders are facing is probably feeling overwhelmed and trying to do too much themselves. So delegation's a big part of creating more space for themselves to work on the strategic side of the business. Real. Russ, how would you respond to that question?

Yeah, and I think this kind of. This. This links into time management as well. And probably the first thing I'd start off by saying is that I don't believe we ever master time management. We only ever practice it. And the reason I say that is because this will sneak up on you as your business scales. Unless you're operating the business that you have no intention of scaling it, you're happy staying where you are. Things are going to be changing, and you're going to be in this constant state where you've got to be thinking, how can I? Well, delete, automate, delegate. But the final step is delegate. So you will constantly find yourself caught in this. This track. But early on, I think the number one thing to really address this challenge that you've got to get right is the mindset. And my dad, he was in business and he was a perfectionist. And I saw firsthand how that held him back in business, because no one could ever do anything in his business as perfect as him. And that really did. He actually ran retail shops and he would go from one to three, and his perfectionism would get the better of him. And he said, I could earn more money out of one shot, but it was only because he had the wrong mindset, in my opinion. You really got to accept that 80% is good enough and no one will do everything perfectly. And as you grow, you're going to start employing people that are actually going to be way better than you. I mean, Will is a way better marketer than me.

We've got.

Tyson knows more about sales than I do. Andy is a way better coach, you know, I don't know half what he knows about coaching. And then we've got Brent, you know, way ahead on AI and systems, you know, and that's fine. Yeah, that's what you want to be doing. You want to employ people that are better than you. But before you get to that point, you're going to have to go through this growth curve where you're going to be employing people that are not as good as you, they're not going to work as hard and as fast as you and do things, you know, as perfectly as you like. And you, you've got to have the right mindset to accept that. When you get your mindset right and you do accept that, your core values, that's another thing you really got to have in place in order to be able to delegate effectively. So if you've not got core values in your business, this could be at the heart of a lot of problems, not just delegation. I mean, if I think about our core values, we always do the right thing, even when no one's looking. That taps into integrity. There's no shortcuts that people are going to be doing in the background. We want people to treat the business as their own, spend company money like it was their own. So always do the right thing. Don't make assumptions, ask more questions. Again, we want people being objective and another important one. And these core values have all come from employing people, seeing the gap and trying to put a core value in, make a decision and own the result. This came about because we had a person that was not actually considering the consequence of changes that they made, so they would do something here and we'd end up with problems over there. So, yeah, we want staff to think about, if I change this, what are the consequences elsewhere? We just want them to think through. And then, of course, the final one, when you bring people on, you've got to train them and you've got to empower them. You've got to avoid leaning by abdication, which is very common in small business. We do see it a lot. You get very, very busy. And then even when you allocate this time to recruiting the right person, you find a gem. And the better they are, the more likely this is going to be a problem. It becomes too tempting to just, like, drop them in the deep end and hand things over. If you get that onboarding process wrong, it will affect the longevity of, of that engagement. So you've got to get that onboarding right and you've got to train Them you've got to hand over fully. You've got to hand over with systems and processes that they could follow, and, of course, core values, so they. They know how this company operates. There's more, I'm sure, lots more.

I mean, even thinking about coming up with core values and all that stuff, I think that's a much different, deeper conversation. But seeing AI Ross is only speaking for a minute and 40 seconds by the looks of it. Let's see what he comes up with. Our first question. Hi, Ross. How do I delegate tasks to my team?

Delegating tasks effectively is all about being intentional and structured. First, you've got to get clear on what you're doing with your time. I always recommend starting with a time audit. Track everything you do over two weeks. Once you've got that list, identify the tasks you're great at and enjoy. And separate them from the ones you hate or aren't good at. Those are the ones to delegate. Now, here's the key. Don't just dump tasks on someone and hope for the best. That's not delegation, that's abdication. And it'll come back to bite you. Instead, bundle those tasks into a clear role. Write a job description and set measurable outcomes, what we call KPIs. Then create a training plan to ensure the person you're delegating to knows exactly how to succeed. And remember, delegation isn't just about freeing up your time. It's about empowering your team. When you delegate properly, you're giving your team members the chance to grow and take on more responsibility, which makes them more valuable to your business. It's a win win. So what's one task you're doing right now that you know someone else could handle? Let's start there.

That was uncanny. Like saying, like, empowering your team. That sounds weird. It might sound scripted, doesn't it?

Yeah, the abdication bit as well. I mean, you basically verbatim said that a moment ago.

Is it listening? Is it as a. Has Varant set it up to. To listen into our conversations in our computer as well?

Yeah, automatically pick that up. I mean, you must have said all of those things many times before on podcasts and all sorts of things. Right. So, yeah, yeah.

You would hope it's saying these things, wouldn't you? Really? That is the point.

It still blows me away how it's able to connect all the dots there, though, and just actually pick out the right information.

Yeah, yeah.

Crazy. All right, two more questions to go. This one is an interesting one. It's getting A little bit more into the detail and then we'll go about. We'll go back, back out to 10,000ft for the last question, but for this one real Russ, what financial numbers should I track in my building company?

Cool.

Well, I really hope AI Russ gets this one right because the number one number as a builder, you've got to track and monitor and understand and calculate is your work in progress accounting adjustment. It's absolutely essential for builders because if you don't do this all your other numbers, they're going to be meaningless. Your financial reporting will be wrong. It will make no sense. So unless you do this one number, there's really no point in talking about any other numbers. So assuming that you are calculating your work in progress number every single month and probably just on that as well, this is something I've learned from our head coach, Andy. I always said, like people always ask us, do I need to do it if I'm doing cost plus? And it's, well, no, because it negates it. It's going to be zero. But Andy always says he always gets his clients, even if they're doing cost plus on maybe a very big build, they might have an exception where they do need to do a cost plus, he still gets them to do the WIPA calculator as a double check, a verification in numbers. Right. So I think that's really good advice. So that's going to come out of me hopefully, and it will make it seem like it was my idea, but it was actually Andy's coaching. But let's. So that's wipa. That's one. Working capital is the next number. Now, there's a lot of talk in business, cash is king. Focus on your cash. And. But for me, it's working capital, I. E. Liquidity, that is important, not the cash figure. The cash figure on its own. I mean, you can have half a million dollars in a residential building company on Monday. By Wednesday, you could have paid the bills, the bank accounts empty, and you still got subcontractors chasing you up for another hundred. So the cash number on itself, that is not really relevant. What is relevant is the liquidity. So we're looking at cash plus debtors, minus creditors, minus the work in progress accounting adjustment, because that is always a liability for new construction companies. That number that's left over at the end is a true indicator of your financial health. And if it is a minus number, please reach out to us because you're in serious trouble. The fact is, if you're in new construction or even if you're in remodeling, but if that liquidity figure comes out as a negative, then you're probably closer to running a Ponzi scheme than a building company. So please seek some help on that urgently. This is number one thing that sneaks up on builders. And then probably the third number is net profit. Because again, if you're in new construction, and I'm going to come back to this, cash is king as well, because I like to say, yeah, like cash is king, but profit wears the trousers in the, in the household. Because if you're doing new construction and you look after your net profit, then as long as you're profitable, the cash will look after itself. Because new construction is cash flow positive. Yeah, it can't be anything else. Unless you're like paying for an abundance of materials in advance. Of course, I mean, that's kind of like another challenge. But generally you want to put your focus into the net profit and the cash will generally look after itself. But now I'm terrified because there's so many numbers that you can look after. I know it's probably going to do it so concisely. He's going to reel off 10 and I'm going to look silly. So very quickly, cost per job per day. This is the calculation in the P for P calculator. Know what it's costing you per job, per day, gross profit per job, per month. Month on month. Jobs have a life of their own, as you know, monitor that gross profit. You will see a trend and it will help you understand when there's problems on a particular job. And probably the biggest one that is not very well known is what we call workflow. Again, this is a month on month calculation and that is the total of your contracts less the amount you've already claimed on those contracts. Whatever that number is, it doesn't matter what it is on its own, but log it every month and again, watch the trend. This becomes your early warning system. Your ews, it's like the military, they have early warning radar systems in place when they. So they can detect a threat. This is what builders use to detect a threat. Because you need to know if your workflow is increasing, in which case you need more resources, otherwise you're going to fall over or if it's decreasing, you've got to scale down to protect your profit. So, yeah, look, they're the best ones I can think of, but I know I'm going to be wanting to interrupt it when it starts.

Well, as I was listening to you, I think this is the first one where I feel like you might break AI Russ. And you would have given a much more detailed response. But let's find out.

Hey, did you get a chance to do that time audit we talked about? Curious what tasks you're ready to delegate.

Hey, Ross, I'm going to delegate some tasks soon, but before I do that, I've got another question for you. What financial numbers should I track in my building company?

All right, let's keep this simple. The financial numbers you absolutely need to track are your gross profit and net profit. Gross profit tells you how efficiently you're delivering your projects, while net profit shows what's left after all, expenses. Think of them as the heartbeat of your business. Next, keep a close eye on your cash flow. It's not just about profit. Cash flow is what keeps the lights on. You need to know how much cash is coming in and going out each month. Another critical one is your overhead percentage. This is your fixed costs like rent, salaries, and insurance, expressed as a percentage of your revenue. If this gets too high, it'll eat into your profits. And don't forget your work in progress or wip. This tracks how much of your revenue is tied up in projects that aren't finished yet. It's a big one for avoiding cash flow surprises. Finally, your sales pipeline. You need to know how many leads you're converting into contracts and what your future revenue looks like. These numbers aren't just data. They're the story of your business. If you track them consistently, you'll make better decisions and avoid flying blind. What's your current process for tracking these?

Yeah, very, very concise. Yeah. The one it picked up on. I say it, I feel embarrassed calling it fixed expense ratio. Yeah, that is a very important one that I. That I missed.

Yeah.

You got to watch that as a percentage of revenue. Not. It's not the dollar amount again, it's the percentage of revenue that's really important. So. Yeah, look, I. I would have put work in progress at the top.

Yeah.

And well, as I did. Yeah. I think. I think maybe we can maybe even use this video for a bit more training. Get it?

Yeah, exactly right. I mean, we'll keep training it to get better responses. But one thing that stood out to me, I was worried at one point it wasn't even going to mention working progress because it. It got a couple into that and it certainly didn't emphasize the importance of that as much as you did.

Yeah. But this.

This video will help it understand works priority.

Exactly. We have one more question, and this is a pretty big one in terms of how broad it is. So I'm interested to see how you approach it. How do I scale without burning out?

Yeah. This question always reminds me of something a coach kind of, I say, shared with us, but held us to account on years ago in the early days. And he always emphasized that your time is limited, it's finite, and you can't take on new things without letting go of others. And when you're scaling up, that's exactly what you're doing. You're know, you're, you're getting new ideas that, enabling you building company to scale. And the thing that we tend to forget as business owners is what am I going to stop doing? So he would always emphasize like, okay, that sounds like a great idea, sounds like a great strategy. What's coming off your plate? So what is you to say that what's coming off your plate? And that was probably harder than coming up with the strategy we wanted to do do. But you always made us do that. I mean, a good example was when we started APB in 2014, knew what we wanted to do. Okay, what's going to come off your plate? Kind of forced her. We had a website design company at the time, forced us to sell it, which was a great decision because it, it freed up the time to, to go properly into into business coaching. So, yeah, be aware of the, you know, your capacity is finite. So don't take on new stuff without getting rid of stuff. Another thing that, you know, we've always done, plan and book your holidays in advance when you're, when you're scaling up, it always gets easy to think I'm too busy, you know, to go away. But if you've, if you, you start the year and always like to do it actually two years in advance. So I'll be planning out 2027 now, but get those blocks in your calendar. But then go and book the holiday as well. I mean, I have the blocks for 2027 put in, but I can't actually book the holidays until 2026 because the flights aren't available. But you got to get the hotels and the flights booked in advance. So you actually do it because it's just too easy to, you know, to fight. You know, your, your subconscious brain will tell you you're too busy to go away. But really taking regular breaks, that is what can really help you with recharging and avoiding that burnout. And then probably the third thing I'd say is exercise, because you've got to prioritize your Exercise, because again, this has been scientifically proven. It will help with your mental health. It will give you more energy during the day, which helps with your decision making and probably on that as well. Anyone that was at the APB summit in Sydney this year would have seen Todd Sampson talking about the brain and the, the limitations, but also the opportunities of the brain. And one thing he said that really surprised me was that if we go, I think it was three consecutive days, if you recall, Will, three consecutive days without eight hours sleep, your IQ reduces by 5% and it's irreversible. Now that is pretty, pretty frightening. But it. Yeah. And a lot of time we can think, I'm doing this for the greater good. You're actually doing far more damage to your body and your mental health than you realize. So sleep is just as important as the work you do. So, yeah, exercise, holidays, breaks, I guess. And being aware of your finite capacity as well, so that you don't end up doing 70, 80 hours a week.

As a new parent. I think my brain degradation is pretty.

Significant at the moment. Yeah, like I, I like 5% compounded, I. God knows where.

That's pretty alarming. Anyway, one thing that Todd did say, though, is that you can improve your brain's capacity over time, I believe.

Yes.

Yeah, there was. And. And that's what he showed us, wasn't it? The. The ability, you know, that we have to rewire and reprogram our brain. What this guy has done himself after proving his brain was average was just incredible. It was mind blowing.

Yeah. Okay, so I guess let's ask that one to AI Russ.

Hi, I'm AI Russ. You can ask me anything related to running a residential building company, and I'll give you practical, actionable advice based on over a decade of training. What's on your mind?

Hey, Ross. How do I scale without burning out?

Scaling without burning out comes down to two things. Systems and mindset. Let's start with systems. If you're doing everything yourself, you're not scaling. You're just stretching yourself thinner. You've got to systemize your operations so the business can run without you micromanaging every detail. Think about it. Are you spending your time on $300 an hour decisions, or are you stuck in $30 an hour tasks? If it's the latter, you're setting yourself up for burnout. Now, mindset, burnout often happens when you're working hard but not seeing progress. It's like driving without a map. You're burning fuel but not getting anywhere. That's why you need a clear vision for where you're going and a plan to get there. When you know your destination, every decision becomes easier. You'll know what to say yes to and more importantly, what to say no to. And here's the kicker. You don't have to do it alone. Build a team, delegate effectively and accept that 80% done by someone else is better than 100% done by you. It's not about working harder, it's about working smarter and trusting the systems and people you put in place. What's the biggest bottleneck in your business right now? So let's tackle that first.

Very concise. I like the bit about destination actually. I think that really good advice because I find that myself sometimes we get bogged down and it's inevitable. Yeah, it happens to us all. I always like to refer back to the business plan and just remind myself what we're doing this for, looking at the bigger picture. And I find that re. Energized me. So. Yeah, I think, think. I think the mention of destination was really important there.

Yeah. And it. Actually the 80 bit is something you mentioned in the previous question. So it's picking up different information and its response was quite different to yours then.

Yeah.

Like you say, it's quite, quite a broad question, isn't it? So I guess the most important thing is the, the advice is relevant. You know, it's different but it's all relevant. We'll probably have to do a second video with of like more like nitty gritty. Like there is only one answer.

Yeah, exactly. I mean the financial metrics was pretty, pretty tight but there is a lot of metrics that you could be tracking. So.

And I think it affects. It's probably happens to coach is as well because I mean with the coaches they're basically advising based on the situation of the builder. So it's more specific. But when we don't know people's situation where we're kind of going broad and, and there's like a. Yeah, there's a. A wealth of information and many ways to skin a cat. But without knowing the specifics of where a builder's at, it's hard to. To give them that concise exact bit of advice, you know, that they need to be prioritizing over the other bits.

Yeah. Well, Russ, thanks so much for coming on today and having a chat with AI Russ, any. Any reflections on the experience? I think it was. Did you ever imagine you'd be having a conversation with your AI mentor?

Look, it's been a lot of fun I've got to say. Yeah, look, it's interesting. It's a bit like doing a podcast with sky and Andy because you get asked the question and you think of an answer and then someone else says something else, you think, oh, yeah, that was. That was a great response. So it's a little bit. A lot like that, actually. But, yeah, I mean, it was, it was a lot of fun. A lot of fun. So, yeah, I'd love to. Yeah, look, if the builders like this video, I'd love to do it again with something more concise to see. Yes, definitely go there.

Yeah. Well, if you do like this video, drop a comment below. If you've got any questions and you want to ask AI Rust yourself and you're a member of apb, log into the portal and click that orange chat icon in the bottom right hand corner to get started. If you're not a member, you can, you can trial it for 10 minutes on our webpage, which I'll include, including the link as well. That page that I shared at the very beginning. Just head to this page, click on start, 10 minute demo, click on free trial, and then enter your details, your email and your first name and you'll be able to give it a go straight away. So, really excited to launch this to the public, Russ, and thanks so much for coming on. Really enjoyed it.

Yeah, the future is here.

The future is here. There we go. Thanks.