2. The Truth Behind Growing A Building Company With Tye Alroe

This is Professional Builder Secrets, the number one podcast to help you grow your building company safely and securely. Brought to you by the association of Professional Builders. Join us every week as we talk to industry experts and your fellow professional builders on everything you need to know to generate more leads, more sales and higher margins while improving the building experience for your clients.

Hello and welcome to the Professional Builder Secrets podcast, a podcast by the association of Professional Builders for building company owners, general managers, VPs and emerging leaders. Here we discuss all things running a professional building company from sales, processes, financials, operations and marketing. Today I'm joined by Ty Albro, Founder and director for Albro Construction. Ty, welcome and thanks for being here today.

Thanks, Bosco. Yeah, it's great to be here, mate, and I'm looking forward to having a chat.

Well, Ty, let's get into it. Tell us a little bit about Elro Construction and what you specialize in today before we get into your journey.

So Elro Constructions is based on the Gold coast in Queensland. We specialise in mainly boutique small development sites. So kind of, you know, four pack villas, duplexes, seven villas, kind of those kind of sites, but very high end kind of building and really difficult as well. So it takes a kind of a different approach. We've come from a custom home background and we've found a nation in the market and we're tapping into that right now because there's not much land around anymore. So we're, our business plan is to redevelop the Gold coast in Southeast Queensland.

Yeah, I was actually at the Gold coast for a company retreat and I noticed how compact everything is and you know, there's pretty much residential space everywhere. Let's get into that a little bit. What compelled you many moons ago to, to get into the building and construction industry? You know, was this something that you inherited by trade or was this an interest? How did you get into it?

It's funny you say that my, my old man or my dad isn't the most handiest person that you've ever met. He's quite the opposite. And he was in. Him and his brother had a family business that his, his dad, my grandfather started back in 1960 out at the Rockley Fruit Markets, wholesaling, strawberries and stone fruit. And it's been handed down generation from generation and I was the next in line. So I was the next Elrod to take over. And I actually went out there through 14, 15, 16, 17 years old, through the school holidays to get some public money. Always had a bit of a drive to work and make money anyway, finished my schooling, didn't. Didn't go any good at school at all. I wasn't really the school type, fair to say. I filed school and I was playing football at the time in Brisbane for the local league and I had some pretty big aspirations in football to go, to go pro. And then I had an accident and I fell off a roof and broke my back when I was 18 so that sort of stopped football and I was kind of at crossroads. I didn't like working at the fruit markets because it was kind of like a 12am start on a Sunday morning or Monday morning and then work through to say lunchtime the next day. And it was just really tiring on the body. So long story short, I had a. One of my best mates, dads was a bricklayer, block layer. And he offered me a brickies laboring job. And I thought, you know what, I was young, I was still fit. So I was about 17, 18. He was going to pay me $600 cash a week and I was like, wow, that's a lot of money. So I jumped on that for two years. I worked as a brickies laborer for two years and really sweated my ring out for those two years. It's a hard job. But what it kind of taught me was I kind of had a passion for building, just being on a job site and how things kind of went together. And I could just see even at a young age that the builders that we were working for at the time as a brickies labourer and a bricklayer, it was very poorly managed and it wasn't organized and I could see the frustrations in my boss's eyes. He wasn't making money because it wasn't organized correctly, wasn't never ready. I thought, you know what? I'd love to be a builder one day. At that time I was only 19 or whatever it was and I just had no qualifications behind me. So the builder that we were working for at the time offered me a apprenticeship as a carpenter. And I've always been pretty good with my hands. My granddad was quite good with his hands on my mum's side of the family and we'd always build stuff. Anyway, long story short, three to four years down the track, I got signed off for my apprenticeship at 23 and started my own carpentry business which went for about four or five years and that grew pretty quickly. And then at the. At the age of 26, I thought, you know what, let's start building. So I did my builder's course and got my builder's license and started my first build back in 2012 when I was 26 years old.

Wow. So looking back in memory lane, I mean, obviously you've gone through the stage of being a carpenter and then starting your building side of things. What were some of the struggles you encountered when you first started off? And I know we're going to get into a little bit about the successes and the transformation because you've got quite an incredible story. But let's start off with the problems that you first encountered, you know, because essentially every builder starts with a roadmap and being a business person isn't particularly on top of their list. So, you know, what was some of those challenges? I'm just curious to know on your end.

Oh, there was a. There was a lot of challenges, you know, like really looking back at it now, what the business has achieved in its whole, it's pretty impressive. But in the early days, the roadblocks was running a business was. Was one of them, you know, just all the tax implications and business requirements outside of just being a builder. Because a lot of builders out there are really good at what they do, but they don't know how to run a business and manage people and, you know, recruit properly and just all the business type of things that are in every business, not just building, but this in, you know, can be any business. That was one of my challenges. Another challenge was I'm dyslexic and that's why I wasn't very good at school. I could just. My concentration wasn't that good and my English and my, you know, all that kind of, you know, typing on emails and all that kind of stuff and typing upscope of works wasn't great. But I've been very good with my. I've been very good with numbers from early, just basic numbers, like times minus divide. I've been, I was really good at that. So that was one thing. But yeah, the biggest, the biggest challenge I had in the early days was finding work was the biggest one. I was 26 years old, had no background in building. I was trying to start a building company. Yeah, I had a carpentry business. But, you know, carpentry is one thing, building is another. So anyone that wanted to come and build with me, it was hard, like 26 years old, young age to be a builder and I just got, you know, lucky in a way that I met this guy and I knew he was going to give me a shot, but I knew I was going to do it for pretty Much free just to get my. Get one under the belt, which I did. And I made budget and broke even, made no money out of it, paid some wages and that was great. But that sort of started my journey right there. Had something under my belt to show other people, which is like my marketing. The next challenges was, you know, trying to juggle everything you got to do in a building company when you've got more than one job on at a time. So quoting, you know, making sure the scope of works is correctly, which I wasn't even using a scope of works at that time. I was just kind of going, guys, quote this and quote the plans and we'll just follow the rest later on. And, you know, managing clients and managing budgets and programs and the list could just go on and on and on. And that was really overwhelming for me at the time, knowing that I was outside my comfort zone. And unfortunately, the next job I did, I lost a lot of money for not quoting it correctly. My contracts weren't sealed tight, which I got. The developer took me for a bit of a run. I actually lost about half a million dollars worth of money, which was really, really hard to do at 27. Had to sell my house that I worked hard for, for the, you know, for the first 10 years of my life to get that deposit, had to sell that. Luckily, I had a little bit of equity in the house to get paid out and. And actually had the strain of financial stress on me with, you know, subcontractors and suppliers ringing me daily saying, where's my money? Where I didn't have it because I was still waiting for the house to settle.

Right.

So that taught me a lot in the early days about whatever you do in building, if you make a mistake or you cut a corner, it's always going to come back and get you, right? It doesn't matter how good you are of making, you know, mistakes or it's always going to come back. So my first thing from the start was, all right, I'm not the best estimator. I'm not the best guy with the details, with the scope of works. So I'm going to put on an estimator that was my first ever employee and he come from Bond Uni, still working for me today. He's been with me for nearly eight years now and he's one of the main employees I've got as a project manager. But that was just the first step in my journey when I had to restart. So I literally had no money in the bank again. So as a builder you got to have equity in your business to be able to trade. So I only could turn over one house a year for the first two years to get my equity back up. And then from there, I kind of met apb and all the other building skills come into play. All the business skills come into play over the first two years of that journey. And, like, we'll probably get into, you know, we've gone from doing, you know, two houses at a time to a lot more in the space of six years. But it's been a journey and, you know, you gotta be fully committed. If, you know, if I give any advice, I've got some kind of drive in me that I don't think many people have, and it's the drive to be better in my building company. So a lot of people say, oh, Ty, you're so successful right now. And I'm just like, no, I'm not. I'm nowhere near where you've got goals.

You've got goals. I get it. Totally get it. You know, let's dig a little deeper because you mentioned some really interesting challenges that you faced, obviously, and, you know, financial awareness, employees not really knowing where to go, and then, you know, all these different hats that you're wearing from not having employees. I mean, there's a lot of challenges here that you don't necessarily get a handbook when you first start. So if you look back now, what was the industry lacking at the time when you started out? Was it the fact that, you know, you go to school to become a tradesman or, you know, you learn your craft, but there really isn't psychology and how to run a business? Would that be the biggest thing that was lacking at the time?

Yeah, I think systems and processes is the biggest thing in the building industry. Everyone does it differently, for sure. The main objective is still there is customer service, bringing jobs in on time, bringing jobs in on budget, and bringing jobs in on a quality that you can be proud about?

And, you know, speaking about proud, I think you're one of the success stories. I mean, I've had the privilege of interviewing you before and working with you. Your story is incredible. And, you know, there's a journey, and the journey has just begun. From everything you've told me, you're very ambitious and your goals are growing every year, but you're one of those success stories that the association of Professional Builders are really proud to display. You know, you listed in a lot of their messaging and their website as well. Let's go back in time. How did you hear about the association of Professional Builders. And what really prompted you to go? Maybe I should consider working with them.

It's funny, when I had that job go bad on me and we lost all that money, I just needed a bit of a break. I've worked every school holiday and ever since I left school I was working. So unfortunately my partner at the time left me over all the stress I was going through and whatever. So I said to my best mate, I said, let's go traveling over in America. And I needed to go. I had to go on a surf trip just to really recharge my brain. And we're in South America for six weeks. And anyway, I was googling one afternoon thinking, how can I make my building company better? I actually typed in processes and systems for building companies, as you should.

You put that in Google in South America. That's.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was literally on a hammock in Bocatel Dore Islands. I can't remember what it's actually called probably, but had no reception, just had Internet. I was googling away, which is so cruisy and my mind was so clear. Anyway, APB didn't pop up. Build a trend popped up, okay. And I'd never heard of builder trim. This is like seven years ago. And we, I jumped on and I had a look at it and I'm like, wow, this looks amazing. You know, this is exactly what I'm after. So I got back to Australia and I, I bought buildertrend straight away, right? And for some reason they said to me I was like the first 20 builders in Australia to buy. And then within about two months later, I had, I started getting this Facebook ad come at me. Apb, apb. And I'm like, who's this apb? Australian. I'm like, you know, typical, you know, someone trying to get a quick dollar out of me, like. So I kept on saying like, didn't click on nothing. I was, I was curious, but I just, I kept on saying no, no, no. And then one afternoon, I must have been in a bit of a shitty mindset with work and I, and I clicked on it anyway. I went through it and I'm like, wow, this looks like it's pretty good as well. So I clicked in for a one on one meeting and at the time, I can't remember who it was. It was one of the business development managers. This is three years ago now. We went through it and I was still a bit cautious. And then you know what they got me. It was just a, it was just, you know, Read all their marketing and sales stuff now. It's exactly what they say they preach like it's, you know, they'll follow me up. They kept on sending me educational emails like it was all this stuff that they preach and, and they eventually got me because I'm not a sucker for a cheap like a deal. I like to do my research and they got me. And to be honest boss, I haven't looked back. You know, even now I feel like I still use them as a support mechanism for my business. And yeah, they're, they've been a massive part of the journey.

And Ty, you've gone through the mentoring process with them as well, right? You've worked. Yeah, mentoring, everything.

I've gone from the members portal, still got the members portal today. So I train all my staff through that members portal. The members portal I still got. So me and Andy still catch up once a, once a month and I do the Facebook and all those meetings. It just keeps on educating the brain and reminds you of what you've already learned. But you might not be doing it and it's just a good, good check in with yourself as a business owner to make sure you're following a proven process.

Now let's talk a little bit about that transformation because there's so much that's happened for your brand in the last three years working with them as well. How did working with association of Professional Builders and the mentorship business really impact the side of your business? What was some of those critical education awareness hubs that you basically got from this that you were able to then apply into your business?

Don't get me wrong, their marketing and sales processes and protocols are probably the, the best in the business for builders. If I had to name one thing that gave me the confidence to grow because growing from a lot of builders, if they listen to this and they hear my journey and how much money we're turning over per year now, that would scare a lot of people and it would have scared me four years ago as well. My five year goal five years ago was to turn over $15 million and break a net margin of 10%. That was my business goal. I had a few other things in the business goal, but five years down the track we're now turning, we're going to turn over about 65 million. Maybe not 10%, but close to getting close to that kind of 6%. And the reason why that's made me get to that spot is the confidence behind my own ability and my own business structure and processes which then goes back into their financial training so they're working in progress. Their price for profit calculator. Knowing your overhead costs, knowing your margins and markups. Like I was marking up my jobs for the first three years, 10% markup and thinking I was making money, but I wasn't, I was working on cash flow. And cash flow is not profit, it's just money in your bank that you gotta do it. Yeah, yeah. So the biggest thing for me was the working in progress that gave me a clear picture of where my cash was at. It all gave me a clear picture also on how much work I had to complete and making sure that I had other work coming in to replace the work that I was finishing. So by the end of the jobs, I still had other work and income coming in. So that for me was the biggest piece of the puzzle was knowing my financials and their financial reporting programs and stuff teach you how to look at reports. And I do monthly reporting now. I do, I do weekly reporting on cash flows, but I do my monthly management meetings every month, no questions asked. And that has to happen because when you're running a bigger business, I have big overhead costs now. So I've got 400 grands worth of wages going out each month, which I need to pay for. So, you know, I've got to be over these numbers. And numbers is the biggest thing for me in my business at the moment because I have my construction side of the business structured in a way that we've learned all our lessons learned over the years. We've documented those lessons learned and we've put things in process and protocols to make sure we're checking things before we go to the next stage so we don't have any more issues. So that's the biggest one. Long story short is the financials.

For me, I think someone very wise once said, more money, more problems, right?

100%. But yeah, you got to go against the grain there and say, yeah, that's probably fair, but let's not make the same mistake twice.

Yeah, absolutely. So let's go, you know, let's dive a little deeper into the key applications. You've talked a lot about, you know, some financial terminology. You've talked a little bit about awareness as well. You earlier you even said that, you know, you were going into jobs and not properly quoting, you know, and not using a calculator or proper quoting tool. What were some of these key applications that made significant financial impact to your business where you went to the, you know, the next level? Like was it using some of the association of Professional Builder Calculators and financial tools. Like, what was the most important, important impact to the business for you?

Well, any builder will tell you it doesn't matter what you mark your jobs up. The cost of the job needs to be quoted. Right. Because you can mark up 30%, but you might have missed it by 40% inside your costs.

Yeah.

So from a costing subbing supplier point of view, the app can't give you that. That's up to you. And have the right, right process in place to double check. So what I had to do, my biggest pain point in the estimating was when we got bigger, we'd have estimators come on board. They would estimate a job differently to what I would estimate a job or differently to another estimator. So I had to work on a template that would be followed like a checklist to a point that my little daughter that's 2 years old could do it. Because estimating is a process and a procedure. There's different things to follow, but a lot of it's the takeoffs and everything like that that have to be done correctly and then also reviewing the takeoffs and having that sort of prototype checklist in place. So there's about three different set of hands it goes through to get approved. So the biggest point for me was the estimating template. We were using rulers and calculators when we first started. Super slow, super like formulas can change in spreadsheets at a click of a hat. There's all different problems there. And I started looking online for an estimating program and there's a lot out there, don't get me wrong. And take, take my word for it, I've tried four of them and I don't like all four. So now I'm onto costx, which is an estimating program on screen takeoffs. It's very, very good. But we've had to set up a template to put into that. So you've got to do the work. You can't get something given to you that works for. I wouldn't be able to give my template to you, Bosco, if you're a builder, because you do things differently to what we do.

And my castings might be very different as well.

For me, our rates per concrete and tiling and all that's different. Right, right. So you've got to do the hard work and it's painful. We're all busy. It's when these things have to be done on the weekend and at night. It's as simple as that. I was coming to work at 3am every morning and I was getting it done. I was working through one part of it each week and go to the next part. You just got to put that hard work in. And once you get that hard work done, it pays off in dividends at the back end.

So for builders that are listening to this and getting into the business or in that first five years where a building business is likely to fail at that point, the numbers are pretty daunting. I think 80% of builders trying to get into it typically fail in the first five years. It's an industry of margin erosions, as we know. And I was reading the newspaper today or on the weekend, on Sunday and they have this comparison of the cost of building a new home and the pricing and how it's all changed as well. Everything is a lot more pricier today because of post Covid. How do builders avoid margin erosion? Does it come down to the estimates and knowing your numbers, would that be the biggest advice that you have? Is there anything else that they should be considering? What are their blind spots?

Well, the biggest, the biggest thing that I can see straight off the bat, which we're trying to bring into our own business, but it's hard, is your contracts. If your contracts state that X, Y and Z are possibly going to increase over the duration of the build, we can't lock in a number for that. So they're going to be allowances. If it's fully open book and you can show the actual quote when it, when it's on site and it's within the allowance, well, there's no charge, but if it's over the allowance, the client should be paying for that in this time of this industry, unfortunately, I personally work for a lot of developers so it's business to business. They're not willing to do that. So they're saying to me, ty, you should know your numbers. So forecast the costs for 12 months time and we'll sign a contract. So to be fair, I've been doing that and I've been communicating with my suppliers, I've been communicating with my trades because it isn't just the supplies, it's the trades as well. They've all got their own suppliers to deal with. So the plumber needs to still buy pipes and the electrical guy needs to still buy the wires and the light fixtures and all that. So we're very open. I think communication is the biggest thing. If I had to put a word on the table, it's communication to your suppliers, to your subbies, to your clients and Just be super open where things are at. Unfortunately, a lot of builders have lost money, including me. I've lost money. You know, that's just part of the parcel, which is really. It's not right. I don't think that's not right. We're not. See, builders have this mental. People think builders are rich, all right? And I'm telling you right now, we're not rich. We can be rich one day and we can be poor the next. It's as simple as that, you know, And I say that in my own business, like, I can make 100 grand one month and then lose it the following month because of something else. So it isn't. It isn't that easy. And we shouldn't. People shouldn't be thinking like that. But my advice is try to keep your contracts nice and tight if you can. And you should be able to if it's just custom homes to mum and dad's. But then you have the other things. The mum and dads have no cash. They're financed to the hilt. The banks won't pay the extra over. So there's another thing there as well that you've got to work through. But I've actually used the COVID period to put more margin on my jobs, to cover that as well. Not just put extras on the. On the timber or steel or concrete, but I've actually put another 10% in to my bill contracts at the moment. And I've got a way of it to a point that we were running at low margins for a long time and we needed it to come up. But to come up 10% on a $3 million builder, 300 grand, when you built something the same six months ago with the same client, that's hard to do. So using this Covid period, I've kind of snuck that in and used the COVID as a thing. But, you know, I'm not ripping my clients off. I'm just trying to get my margins to where I can, you know, grow successfully and make money for the business, really, which is, you know, you gotta.

Well, you've gotta sustain your business, as you said. So, you know, you've had an incredible journey. You know, you're seeing the success. You're now at a financial threshold that's a lot higher. And it's pretty impressive from the outside looking in. If you look at your journey today, what are some of the key reasons for that success? You know, you talked about communication, you talked. Talked about financial awareness and knowing your cost as well. What do you sum that success Is it your personal drive? You know, is it. Where does the success come from?

I'm not going to lie. And this is gam. It's going pretty out there. But I'm very, I believe in karma. Right. So I'm going spiritual here on you. But I've always done the right thing. Right. So if I've, if we've made a mistake, I've pulled out that 50 grand mistake and replaced it out of my own money. If we're going to be delayed on site, I've been very open about that. Any other issues, I'm just open. Right. And then I always wear my heart on my sleeve in the way of if that's not as good, if that's not good for my house. If I was living in that house myself and I wasn't happy with it. And I've got OCD by the way, so that's pretty gnarly. I will either pull it out and redo it or fix it to make it to a standard. And I think that for me, because we haven't been big on the marketing, we're talking at the moment about that, but we've been word of mouth, which I don't advise doing as a general rule to have that's your only part of your way, you bring in leads. But we've made a lot of success through word of mouth, which is a good thing. Cause that's a good pat in the back. But the reasons why I did that, because commercially sometimes I could have easily stayed commercial and said, no, I'm not fixing it. But then that person speaks to 100 people that they know and then they say, oh, don't use Elro because you know, they're rough or they don't do what they say or you know, they're sharks or whatever. So for me, relationships has been the biggest, biggest driver for me across my journey so far. And I've met people along the way that have got me to the next part. APB for one, Russ and Sky and Andy. Then I had a couple other business coaches before them which took me from stage A to B. And I've been very big on self development. I'm not one of those guys will go out there and start making a podcast about it.

Right? Right.

I like to keep it to myself. But the thing is I'm always moving with the times and looking for the next best thing, which is an entrepreneurial thing. Sometimes that can be overwhelming for my business and I can get some change fatigue out of that. So I've got to Be mindful of that. So now I've got my own coach outside of App working on me personally to go into more of a CEO role. Not as a managing director role. Oper. You know what I mean? So I'm always working on myself. So then my business can be as best as it can be. But biggest value in the business is respect and honesty.

Right. So it's really going back to that personal, you know, personal relationship building.

I take everything personal.

Yeah. You know. Yeah, fair enough. It's hard not to. It's hard not to, Right? Yeah.

Okay. When your last name's on. Yeah. When your last name's on the building company, it's hard to not.

Yeah. When you. When your last name's on the building company, everything is personal effort. Well, let's dive a little bit, you know, into the pressures that builders face today. Obviously, you're a mentor to many now, and you've credited a lot of the mentoring from the association of Professional Builders that have really helped your success as well, pre and post Covid. Obviously, the rise for residential homes has increased drastically even through Covid and the COVID era, and we're even questioning if it's going to crack at some point or if we're sitting on a false narrative. But what are some of those pressures and challenges that builders face today in an industry of margin erosion?

The biggest thing I see, and I'm very aware of this for myself, overreaching is one, having a lot of people come. We would get probably two or three phone calls a day to build a development site for a developer. And that's literally the amount of. Before COVID it would have been one or two a week. Now it's one or two a day. So overreaching is one, making sure you know your capacity for your team, not just for yourself, but for your team. But that's a good thing, having so many leads come in like that, because you can kind of pick and choose. So making sure the qualifying process is done right, that's a big one. I can see in the next 18 months, there's going to be a crash. That's how I see it. That's how I'm gearing myself up for it, which is scary in a way that we just had a team meeting on Friday. We've put on 33 people in 12 months. 33 employees in 12 months. So for me, I've got to have. I'm always thinking 12, two years down the track. That's how I think. Right. So I'm working with my management team right now is what does 18 months in the track look like for us and how are we going to start working on that today? So that's the first thing. Erosion control still happening with subbies and suppliers and everything. Some of our jobs we quoted three years ago and we're still working on them today. So you can imagine there's some erosion control there. So making sure that my numbers are up to date monthly is my biggest thing. Sometimes you might even want to do it fortnightly, but I'm just too busy to do it fortnightly myself. So my project managers, their KPIs, make sure they're on top of their budgets fortnightly and prepare it for me at the end of the month. We work through each line item, each budget line item each month with my PM and my casualties. The next thing that I see is coming is people think I'm making money right now, but they're not. And then the work's going to dry up and I think the working in progress figure and the cash flow is going to stop. And I know three builders myself went under last month. I can see it coming. Because if we've got. I think Ross told me that 95% of his builders when they first come to the APB are on 1 or 3% net margin or something like that statistics, so to say. Everyone else in the building industry is running the same, because they are. Because I'm getting built, I'm getting beaten by other builders, which we don't really tender too much anymore. But when we were tendering, I was getting beaten by 150, 200 grand.

Wow.

How does that even happen? I only had 200 grand in the job. So I know there's guys out there, one, are gonna get hurt by this erosion of margins, but two, they don't have the systems in place when it does get quiet to keep on getting the leads coming.

Let me ask you this. What advice would you give your younger version of yourself getting into the industry today? You know, obviously you have a lot to be proud of and a lot to. To be really impressed with, with everything that you've done. And, you know, you talked a little bit about your struggles with dyslexia as well. Obviously on its own is. Is something to be really proud of and it's very inspiring for, for other people that suffer with it as well. But what advice would you give a younger version for yourself?

I think what I've done, I've been very lucky in the way of I've got a natural personality to get sales done. I think if someone didn't have the same ability to get signed contracts and sales and have that kind of personality, kind of aspect to it would have gone under. This is me just being super transparent and honest. We had some really tough times there. We still do occasionally, but there was probably three or four times where I thought I wasn't going to get out of it because I was growing probably a little bit too fast and probably, probably too fast for my processes. My own growth in the early days, probably just when I met apb, I was really, I was on a really high growth journey. So if I had to go and give that advice to someone else, it probably wouldn't be the best advice to give someone else to do what we've just done. Like, like we've 10x the business every year for the last seven years. Like that comes with a lot of stress, a lot of pain. The last two years, like from today, in the last two years I've fully committed on my business, I've cut my social life down. I've done a lot of things in my own life to get to where we have got to. So there's a lot of, lot of sacrifice there. So my advice would be make sure you got your ducks in a row and you got the right support around you and grow at a pace that you're comfortable with. And when you feel like you're not, you're going too fast, you'll start seeing mistakes pop up. Just look at those mistakes and take those mistakes on board and that might be a trigger to say slow down a little bit and stop taking on more contracts because it can get out of control.

So my final question for the day, and this has been a really unfiltered, very insightful interview as well. I really, really appreciate your honesty and transparency here. Any wise words for our listeners out there? Obviously we have an international array of audiences but for people in Australia in the building specific space, what words of advice, final words of advice do you have for this interview today?

Just keep on trucking, keep on tracking. You just gotta keep on just turning up every day. Make sure your main KPIs in your business are performing your sales, your operations and just make sure you're staying ahead of the game and just keep on talking to people out there, keep on talking to the suppliers and all that and make sure you're all over it because it's not going to be like this forever.

Right? Right. Well, really, really appreciate your time, Ty, and thanks for being with us today. We really love the unfiltered perspective and really wish you all the best with where you're going as well.

Awesome Moscow. Good to be here mate.

Thank you for listening. Remember to subscribe to Professional Builders Secret Secrets on your favorite podcast platform and leave a review. To learn more about how the systems at the association of Professional Builders can help you grow your building company, visit associationofprofessionalbuilders.com See you next time.