199. The Builders Sales Blueprint With Sky Kolade

Welcome to another episode of Professional Builder Secrets. This episode was recorded live at the International Builder show in Las Vegas, but the content is still highly relevant to builders. Today I interview APB Co founder Sky K on how to win more contracts at higher margins. We discussed the biggest mistakes that builders make when trying to win work, the key shifts that separate the struggling builders with those that thrive, how to create a steady flow of high quality leads, and the first step builders should take today to improve their sales process. Enjoy the episode. 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 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.

Do you want to buy a job where you are just busy but you made no money at the end of it? There are a lot of cases of builders and building companies where you've gone through the entire end of the job and you do all of the pricing and the numbers at the end. Especially if you look at the net figures and you realize it cost you money to finish that project and you honestly would have been better like sitting on a beach, sitting on your couch, spending no money than actually doing that. There is such thing as a bad sale. It is easy in sales to talk about once you've gotten the lead, right? But how do you get the lead and who's going to be the best lead? But this is paid advertising. This is paying to get your brand, your building company in front of more eyeballs. This is trying to dominate your local area or wherever you're operating. When we talk about marketing, it is paid advertising. It's not just referrals.

Professional Builder Secrets Live with APB co founder Sky Kalladay. Sky, welcome to the show.

Thank you. I'm so excited.

I'm very excited to have you on First Time Live. It's the first Time Live. Usually we're on different sides of Australia when we're doing this and it's prerecorded.

You got to watch what you say now, you know.

That's right. That's right. Although we're always very measured. Anyway, today we're talking about sales.

Yeah.

Why is this such an important topic for builders?

How long is a piece of string? It's a big question. Sales it's the lifeblood of any business, let alone a construction business. Right? You don't have sales, you don't have a business, you don't sell enough in the next 12 months, you're not going to be in business. I mean, unless you've got the reserves, unless you've got the nerve that can hold out sales is running a building company, let alone a professional building company. Because at the end of the day, I said this a lot today actually, it's easy to get sales. It's actually easy to double your sales, triple your sales, it's easy to increase revenue. What really matters in sales? Are you selling the right people and are you selling at the right margins? I think that's what makes it either a good sale or a not so good sale.

So what you're saying is sales in general is more than just getting a contract signed.

So much more. And again, anyone can sign a building contract. You drop your price low enough, someone will be there to take it, I'm sure.

So why do some builders thrive when it comes to this and others struggle?

The one thing that separates the professionals from the non professionals, the boys from the men, the whatever analogy you want to give, honestly, every single time we've gone through this and every time we started calling leads personally as well, the one thing that separates a company from being able to sell in one that can't is to be honest, having a process. And I know it sounds really simple, but having a process that makes the sale non emotional and just more logical and then you don't get desperate to close. That's the difference more often than not.

What do you mean by a process? Without going into all the detail of.

The process, the exact play by play look, it's having a system from the second you get that first inquiry to signing on the dotted line for a contract. The in construction it doesn't go from A to Z. There are so many other letters in between. And if you're a design and build company and you're doing fixed price building contracts, signing them at high margins, you have to deliver a hell of a lot of value. So to deliver a lot of value you need to have quite a few steps involved and provide and demonstrate value throughout the sales process. So that doesn't just happen from. Okay, we have a new lead, you want to sign a building contract. Okay, no, you have a new lead. I now need to qualify you to see if you are valid or worthy to do business with my building company. I want to qualify you, make sure you're logically on paper, who we need to to work with. And then I want to do a much longer discovery conversation with you to see what are your emotional drivers for building. And if I get to know you emotionally, do I want to build your home or remodel your home, for example? Because sales isn't necessarily just one way or the other. It's not about someone wanting to build with you. And you know, you'll take anyone. Like, professional builders have standards, so you want to be able to pick and choose who you want to build for as well. And then there's multiple points or steps in the sales process after that point. Qualifications. So early on, there's design, there's concept, there's everything pre construction, and then there's signing of the contract. And at every point in that sales process, you're trying to convert a percentage. You're not trying to get 100% of people who are qualified signing a building contract. That still doesn't leave you with options. You know what I mean? Like, you still don't get the opportunity to pick and choose who you want.

We actually have a fan here who has read Professional Builders Secret sky and he told me that their sales process is built off what is mentioned in the book.

Do you want to get up here and present this? You'd know it like the back of your hand at this point. Well, there you go. Perfect. Read it three times.

What does the builder need to do, I guess, to start the process of getting that in place?

Oh, gosh. Read Professional Builder Secrets three times. Apparently. Go for it one more time. No, look, I think at the end of the day, implementing any new system comes with its challenges, and you will never know where you can go unless you know where you currently are. So I think you really need to understand what is your current sales process, even if you have none. Everyone follows something. Often they actually are following their buyer's buying process. But you need to sit down and understand what do I do? More often than not, I kind of do a qualification call and I tend to ask them these three questions religiously. Maybe I'll throw in these other ones. Try and really document where you are now and what you're currently doing, because then you have a baseline. And then when you're looking, look for something proven. You can't just make up a new sales process on the spot because you're kind of just going for your best guess. You want to look to something. Don't reinvent the wheel. There are wheels everywhere. So look for something that is proven, like what we have Our sales blueprint. Thousands of building companies, we've walked through and trained on this very system and can prove the results that it spits out. And then you just slowly, one step at a time, implement what is next. What is next? If you put on pause your entire sales process to implement an entire new thing, at the end of the day you will sacrifice your sales, you'll sacrifice your results. It's like in school, right? You read one, one chapter ahead of the class, then you're ahead. So it's kind of like that. When you're implementing a system and a process, the next lead you get stay one step in front of them and refine and optimize and systemize that next step. So by the time you get to the qualification call, you have a far better qualification script. With systems in construction, but any business, you're never done. So this is V1 that you're going to implement and then you got to do it again and again and again. And we often talk about phase one when we work with any of our, certainly our private clients in coaching. Phase one can take 12 to 18 months across all the systems. That's implementation. You're not done after 12 to 18 months. Then you go into an optimization phase and you start again and you just start going back through and back through and then you're never done out of that phase.

You mentioned the buyer's process earlier. What are the implications of letting the buyer control the sales process?

How many people have had nightmare clients? You know, almost everyone has experienced someone that they didn't want to build for, in hindsight, knew they shouldn't have built for. But perhaps they were either desperate for a contract, they were desperate for the revenue. Maybe they bought the job, they followed the, the prospects buying process. Maybe they didn't even sign the contract at the margin they truly wanted, so they were cutting their price to win the job. You know, from a financial standpoint, that's one side. Then you look at your mental capacity. The wrong client can just drain you. It can make you want to leave the entire industry. I know I've spoken to way too many builders about that. So if you follow a prospect's buying process, number one, you're in for a rude surprise. But I also just think you're out of control and you no longer hold the power. And sales often is this power play and dynamic. It's not saying my way or the highway, I'm the best thing ever. That's cockiness. This is confidence in how you do things. And you just need to Be able to demonstrate so that you get the home of your dreams. We go through this process, we do X, Y and Z so that you can get what you want. And it's confidence, team taking control, taking the power. And it allows you to guide the prospect through A to B to C today.

So what it sounds like you're saying is by having the control and the process in place, it provides them confidence in what you're doing as well.

Absolutely. Confidence, as Andy, our head coach, always says, is the transference of confidence. So when you are confident, you can inspire a lot of confidence in your prospects. And at the end of the day, a prospect is only going to pay a premium. So you're in the industry, you should be having the premium margins, charging a premium for what you do and your work. You can only do that if you have the systems, you have the process, and you have the confidence in what you're able to deliver. And I challenge you. Would you have that much confidence if you just say, when do you want to start? Like, I'll do a start date whenever you want. Like, you're just, you're on the back foot, you know, and. And then they pick a start date that you have four other jobs starting. And you know, it's just going to be a chaotic week. And then a particular crew needs is needed on four jobs that week. And then suddenly there's a delay and you're just delivering a poor experience. And then that's how relationships sour. Do you think you're going to get referrals at the end of the project? Probably not, because you haven't delivered an exceptional client experience. You haven't delivered on your promise of delivering their dream home at an experience that they've enjoyed.

It sounds good in theory, but if you need money in the door, you need cash in the door to keep your building company running. How do you make those strong decisions to hold confidence through the process?

At the end of the day, do you want to buy a job where you are just busy, but you made no money at the end of it? There are a lot of cases of builders and building companies where you've gone through the entire end of the job and you do all of the pricing and the numbers at the end, especially if you look at the net figures and you realize it costs you money to finish that project and you honestly would have been better like sitting on a beach, sitting on your couch, spending no money than actually doing that. So I was actually talking about this today with quite a few of the guys, the builders around the show. There is such thing as a bad sale. There really is such thing as a bad sale. There's no question of a sales. A sale like I need revenue, I need to keep my crew busy. Why? At what cost? There is such thing as a bad sale. But say you target million dollar homes, that's your niche, that's what you're going for. And your leads have dried up for whatever reason that was happening in your building company. And you do have a hole. A construction slot became open and you do have a hole you need to fill this year. So you do need a particular project. You're a little bit more desperate than usual. Yes, there is such a thing as a bad sale. You do not want to fill it with any old job. Say the job isn't a perfect representation of what it is your ideal avatar would build. It's not $1 million project. Say it's lower 700,000 or whatever. That's still fine to take as long as the margin is there. The margin is more important than the revenue. Ultimately at the end of the day.

You touched on construction slots and we have a whole session on that. So I don't want to go into much detail.

Yep.

But how does that play into the.

Sales process that I mean? Sales 1 I1 what are the two things you need in sales to make any sale? Urgency and scarcity. And construction slots are just that. They are valid from an efficiency point of view and balancing your workflow. And again, I won't get into it. I'm not going to steal any content from that session. But on an operational perspective, construction slots are so necessary, but they influence sales in a way you wouldn't believe to benefit you. And actually signing someone up on the spot. I talked about at the top, you're not looking to sell and sign a contract with every single person that you qualify. Right. So if someone's qualified over here, you're not looking to take 100% of those people into a contract. There's going to be an attrition again. So you can pick and choose who you want. By the time you get to a building contract, you can have a situation where you've got two or three people who have just finished their preliminary building agreement. They've done all of the pre construction work as part of your your process. You know, you've got engineering drawings, you've got all of their selections done. Like you have finished everything. Of those four clients, some of them have a deadline that they want to be in by Christmas next year. Some of them have a Deadline that they want to be in by Christmas this year. Say, I don't know when this is going to go live.

Not possible.

Yeah. That's when you get to say, here are all of our available start dates. And I'm only going to start two projects in April and the next available start date is September. So you're not pressuring. And this isn't slimy, cheesy, uncomfy sales. This is the. I run a professional building company. I use construction slots to balance my workflow. Keeps all my clients happy. It keeps the workflow balanced. My crews can be there on time. There are no delays. Here are the start times available to you. That's genuine scarcity because you only had three to choose from or whatever actually was your situation. But there's actual urgency because you're able to bring up the fact that you are speaking to another prospect or another client of yours that is considering that slot. No slimy sales tactic here, but it really is first come, first serve. So the fastest person to make a decision, sign and pay their deposit will secure that construction slot. And that's sales.

Yeah.

Very compelling.

Yeah.

All right. You touched on qualification, discovery and a few different elements of the sales process. But can you take me all the way to the top of the sales process in terms of getting a lead in and we can go through from start to finish?

Yeah, let's talk the marketing process. Let's do marketing.

I mean, that's my sweet spot. So we can spend a bit of time there. No, not too long.

Look, I mean all the way at the top. You're right, it is easy in sales to talk about once you've gotten the lead. Right, but how do you get the lead and who's going to be the best lead? Because you can get leads all day long, but who's actually going to be qualified? What we talk about at APB is 100 to 1 ratio. So for every 100 leads, you can sign one highly profitable building contract. And to anyone who's relying on referrals or not doing any kind of paid advertising, that can always come as a bit of a sticker shock. 100 leads to get one contract? You kidding? I sign up like for every 10 leads, I'll get two or whatever. But this is paid advertising. This is paying to get your brand, your building company in front of more eyeballs. This is trying to dominate your local area or wherever you're operating. The best comparison I can make is think about the luxury brands like Ferrari, Aston Martin, Maserati, Rolls Royce. They have Even more eyeballs on their brand. Think how many tire kickers literally walk into those dealerships every single week, every single day, fill in an inquiry form like they're just interested, they want to know. Do you think those dealerships worry about that? Do you think they might? No, because it's creating demand, it's creating desire. And a lot more people want the brand, but only a select few actually can afford it and actually go through that entire sales process. So we talk about 100 to 1. I won't go fully in depth into marketing on, you know, how that can even break down. But when we talk about marketing, it is paid advertising. It's not just referrals, it's not just site signage, it's referral site signage. Yes, a lot of your leads are going to be coming from your website. But build it and they will come is not a thing. Your website being live and it being a beautiful website isn't a thing. You need to pay to get people to come and look at this website. And your website needs to be set up in such a way that it can capture a lead like you have something of value to offer. And it's, it's not a free quote because this then comes back to your marketing, your message, your niche. Okay, offer them something of value. Often, I mean, what we talk about is being a design and build company. So you're trying to be the go to when someone is even thinking about designing their dream home, designing and building a custom home, right. You don't want them to go to designers and architects first. You want them to suss out who is the builder. For me, I love the homes they build. Can they design it for me as well? So you're trying to capture leads so early in the process so that you can take them from the very jump all the way through your sales process. Control the design process, own the relationship. And again, this is how your margins increase. This is also how, by the way, you can actually build the home because you are involved in the design and you're able to keep it on budget, not let the emotions get carried away with the architects.

If you need a drink of water just to soften it up, I'll say something really quickly that give you a break. 100 leads sounds like a lot, especially when you've got to pay for them. They're not referrals and things like that. But I think when you look at the scope of a building contract like you mentioned, 700,000 to a million dollars or even a large remodeling project, it's really small fry compared to all of that.

That's it. And as soon as you know your numbers, you're actually content with that. It's when you don't have KPIs in place, it's when you don't even know your margins on the proper project. You're like, oh my goodness, like a hundred leads. Say that costing me 50 bucks. 100 bucks. Yeah, 200 bucks each. What does that actually mean numerically? That's fine, considering the margin I actually get. And, you know, I'm not sure we've covered it yet, but pricing for profit, the way we talk about pricing jobs, you're building that into the cost of your project anyway. So you're building that margin and you're building in that marketing expense.

The first session today with Andy.

Perfect. Everyone knows that then.

Okay, so you've got the lead in from a marketing perspective.

Yep.

What happens next?

So when you capture the lead, when we talk about lead as well, by the way, we're talking about a name and email address. You don't need a full 21 questions on an entire profile about them, just a name and email. Because you want to capture them and bring them into your sphere. Your sphere is your CRM system. You want to be able to bring them in so you can have a direct line of conversation. And yeah, it's email marketing. But don't downplay or don't underestimate the power of email marketing. It is the most cost effective marketing channel out there because you've paid to capture the lead and now you can keep marketing to them. So it's a name and an email address and from those 120, so 20%, you should be able to capture their phone number. You can either offer after, like depends how they come through as a lead. Right. Potentially they call through and that's a lot easier to get. But if they were just to download something, you can have an offer on the back end. Why don't you schedule a call with our team just to discuss your ideas. Like it's no obligation. Let's discuss your ideas. What are your thoughts? What are you thinking in terms of your custom home? So you want to get about 20% of them that have a phone number then. The point there is you have 20 conversations for every hundred leads you get. And in those conversations your goal is to qualify. It's not actually to hear their thoughts about every little bit of the project. Right. You want to invite their thoughts, but in order for you to hear them and see if it's possible. Can I just ask you a couple of clarifying questions? I mean, where's your land? If they don't have land yet, why are we having this conversation? They're not qualified yet. And just because they're disqualified right now doesn't mean they're forever disqualified. That's why you leave them on the database. Let. Let the information circulate to them, because they could then settle on their land. They could then move into the area that you build in. They could then, I don't know, have their financing. Do you know what I mean? Like, have what they needed in place to be qualified. And then once you've qualified them, that's got to be over the phone. It can't be just in writing. It's got to be a phone call, because it's not. We talk about the seven qualification questions. It's not just seven questions. Tick and flick. When you ask that qualifying question, clarify everything about that question. Right? Where is their land? What is the block? What's the orientation? What's the size? Have they settled, you know, all those details? And already there was, like, seven questions for that one pillar question. And once you know they're properly qualified, that's when you can then go. We call it a discovery. And that's. That's more of an emotional, deeper conversation to truly understand their emotional driver and reasons behind wanting to build. And honestly, all the discovery is, is you are asking them, tell me how I can sell you and tell me if I want to work with you, to be honest. Because in discovery, you can find out a lot and you can tell if they clearly have the markings of a nightmare client or not.

One interesting part of that, and we've done a podcast on it before where I've. I've had you on, is building rapport.

Yeah.

And I think what you haven't gone into detail on is, yes, you might have a script and a set of questions to ask, but it's an opportunity to build rapport and build a relationship with the client as well.

Absolutely. From that first phone call. And you know what? It's not even like as soon as you jump on the phone. It's what happens before you jump on the phone. Like speed matters when someone inquires, I get surprised how many times I have to instill confidence in members that it's not desperate, it's professional to call an inquiry, like, within seconds. The second you see it, call them. Don't feel like you gotta wait the. The obligatory, like, oh, 10 minutes or an hour. I don't Wanna seem too keen, they're there, they're available and on their phone. You dive on that phone, you have a higher likelihood of connecting them. Them answering the phone and then what do you think that says to them? It's like, oh, they care. We all just wanna be sold to by someone who cares. Like you gotta have a willing seller. So if someone can jump on the phone quickly, you're able to talk to them. Go through your seven qualification questions. It's again, it's not an insurance form. You're engaging with them and getting to know them and all the while that is happening, they're getting to know you. I think this was mentioned on that episode that we did. But the most interesting people to us are the ones who are interested in us. Like we are the center of our own universe. So they will find you professional, profoundly fascinating and interesting when you just ask them all about themselves.

And I think what you're saying there is playing hard to get doesn't work when it comes to sales.

No, because they'll just call the next builder and it's who called them back how many times Anyone listening has like you delayed calling or maybe your sales team delayed calling them and by the time you do call the lead, they either don't answer and they'll email you back or they do answer and they say the words like, oh, I didn't hear from you. So I'm chatting to, you know, XYZ builder and they're your competitors and you're like, I spoon fed that for them. Like I did that and you did.

So those qualifying questions in the discovery process, how are you executing that consistently?

You got a script, you gotta have a script. Qualification can be done by anyone in your team. Discovery really should be done by who is going to be selling the contract. Because again, discovery is emotional. Discovery is a lot more in depth. Qualification is very unemotional. I mean you're either qualified or you're not. Like it's quite black and white. There's no way you can miraculously settle on your land. Like you're either you either have land or you don't. You either have a home to renovate or you don't. Yeah, but emotionally in the discovery, gosh, one of the questions you want to find out what, what their fears are around building. There's no right or wrong answer there. You're trying to truly understand what's their pain point, what have they tried before, what didn't work, what are they anxious about when designing and building a new home. And you can Go like, tell me more. How. So how did that make you feel? Oh, what was that experience? You get to go so deep and they're your emotional answers and it's telling you again how you sell them. You know, what you need to overcome. They're terrified of lack of communication because Sally and Bobby, their neighbors, had an awful experience and they heard this, that, and that. Note it all down. So by the time you know you're ready to pitch and make that sale, you can show them your online client portal and how you communicate during the build or whatever it actually ended up being. But you got to have a script. Your questions have to be unbreakable. Like if you are saying someone's qualified, you have to be able to answer the right answer to all seven of those questions. Ditto discovery and scripts. It's probably really important to highlight. Scripts aren't there to make anyone sound robotic. They're not there to make you sound unemotional and to be honest, like an idiot. They're the worst kinds. People who follow a script and just don't know how to like, you get tongue tied. Think of them as like your highway guardrails. They keep you on track because conversations go left, right. Like they're trying to take so many turns. You're trying to keep them in order and prospects do. They always take you over here. But your script gets you right back on track and keeps you moving forward. That's what a highway guardrail does and that's what your scripts do.

Yeah. I think in the recent source you report state of Residential Construction, 2025 report where we surveyed 2,240 builders. But builders that had a documented sales process and sales scripts in place were just more profitable. Like the data didn't.

They had higher margins.

Yeah.

And like that's, that's what I love about Sourc. Right. You, you can just prove every little one of these things. In every instance, whether it was sales, whether it was marketing, a builder who had a sales process, a sales script is able to be more profitable. They had higher margins.

It's good to reinforce it.

Lovely.

Okay, so, Scott, to wrap things up, what's one thing the builders out there today can start doing to improve their sales process?

Gosh. Get one. Everyone has a process at the moment that they're following. So just, just take a step back, reflect. You can't move forward unless you reflect on where you've been at the moment. You need to know where you are now. You need to know where you want to be. And they need to see how Far is that gap? What is my bridge? Often that bridge is going to be honestly, you can just download our proven sales process totally free, but establish where you are now. What are your numbers? Actually look at all of your metrics. How many leads do you get? And for the leads that you got all of last year, how many were qualified, if any? If you track it, how many concept design agreements did you sell, how many preliminary building agreements did you sell and how many building contracts did you sign? Try and work backwards and you can see your baseline of numbers and then you have a real clear picture of where you are now. Then get clear on where you want to be strategically, what are your goals for this year, next year and beyond? Right? And then you need to understand, well, what are the gaps, what are the differences? And to be honest, in most cases, it's going to be implementing a proven step by step, play by play sales process with scripts, with templates and with follow ups. We didn't even get into that, but follow ups are probably another huge Achilles heel in a lot of building companies sales process.

Yeah, we just had a session earlier on AI with someone for BuilderTrend and Morgan Molitzer and she was talking about creating SOPs through ChatGPT and stuff like that. And yeah, the sales process is so much easier to document now than it used to be.

So much any process is so much easier. You don't even have to write anything anymore. Articulate using your own voice. What you're doing right now, it can format it nice and pretty and easy to read. But just establish where you are now before knowing where you want to be.

Perfect. All sky, thanks so much for coming on Professional Builder Secrets live at ibs.

Thank you. Thanks for having me.