203. How To Reclaim Your Time With Russ Stephens

Welcome to another episode of Professional Builder Secrets. In this episode I interview the co founder of the association of Professional Builders, Russ Stevens. Russ has worked with thousands of building companies around the world and one thing that always keeps coming up is this concept of time, or more specifically, a lack of time. In this episode, Russ breaks down a very powerful framework to help you stop being the go to problem solver for your team and and start leading more effectively. Keep listening to learn how to shift from being busy to being effective and take control of your day. 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.

The reason leaders actually suffer this problem is because they have trained their team by rewarding them with the free, fast, correct answer. It might be Google, might be ChatGPT, might be your boss. If you're doing $20 an hour tasks, you know, solving $20 an hour problems when you need to be working on $1,000 an hour work, then the business is going to suffer. To grow your business, you've got to be able to develop problem solvers. And if you continue just being the chief problem solver, you're stopping yourself from advancing.

Foreign. Builder's Secrets, the podcast for building company owners who want to grow safely and securely. I'm your host, Will Blunt and today I'm joined by APB co founder Russ Stevens. Russ, welcome to the show.

Thanks so much, Will. Great to be here.

Very good to have you on. It's been, it feels like it's been a while since we've done one of these, so. It does.

I wonder if it was something I said.

No, not at all. Not at all. We, we, we did them in person in, in Vegas actually, which was a lot of fun. So that's kind of give us a back a backlog of content.

Yeah, yeah, that was good.

But today we're talking about an interesting topic. You actually did a, a Facebook Live on. This is something you do regularly. You jump on Facebook Live and share some valuable advice for builders. And you were talking about this concept of how a lot of builders feel as if they're the problem solver. They're the number one point of contact in their building company and feel like they, they need to be the go to for every decision. It's something that can really drain their time and stop them from focusing on what's really important in the business. So based on that, why do you think so many builders feel like they need to be that person?

Yeah, it's that dreaded tap on the shoulder, isn't it? When someone says, you got a minute? And yeah, you're trying to run a business, you want to keep everything running along smoothly. So naturally you, you, you say yes and you, you know, you want to help your team, you want to problem solve and send them on their way. And really the, the reason leaders actually suffer this problem of being chief problem solver and, yeah, constantly being interrupted is because that is how they have trained their team to perform and they've trained them to do this by rewarding them, rewarding them with the fast, correct answer every time. So, you know, you think about it, you know, if you've got a, if you've got a question, you, you go to where you're going to get the fastest answer, don't you? And you know, it's quite, quite natural. It might be Google, might be ChatGPT, might be your boss, you know, wherever you're going to get the, the fastest answer. And you know, if you ask the boss a question, you're going to get the right answer all the time. It doesn't matter what the answer is because they're never going to tell you you did something wrong. So, yeah, yeah. So leaders actually train their staff to do this. Not, not intentionally, of course, but subconsciously, inadvertently, they end up training them to follow this path and the longer that it goes on, the harder it is to break. But here's the thing, it's completely unsustainable because these interruptions, they reduce productivity for the business owner and eventually it's going to lead to burnout because, because you've still got to get stuff done. That means your timeline's getting pushed out, you're working longer and longer hours. This is how we get burnt out because we're not making a lot of progress forward. So, I mean, it can be nice, it can be quite rewarding, have people ask you questions all day and know all the answers. It's a bit like those game shows, isn't it, on tv shouting out all the right answers. It feels good, but it really is a bit of an ego trap as well. So, yeah, we got to be aware of that and be prepared to let go.

Yeah, I'm doing a little Bit of self reflection during this. It certainly makes you feel needed. I think when you've got the answer.

For someone, it's nice, isn't it?

What is it? I mean the other part that ticks through my mind though, and I'm interested to get your perspective on this. If you don't give them the answer, how do you help them feel supported and as if you're there for them?

Yeah, and I've seen a lot of debate about this online as well, with some quite vicious feedback as well. Because I mean the solution, a lot of people don't really like hearing the solution because they think the manager, the business leader, whoever is being arrogant by not helping. And that's not right at all. That's not true at all. Because I mean to grow your business you've got to be able to develop problem solvers rather than creating problem messengers. And to develop them into problem solvers is a lot harder than just giving them the answer. If you've ever found yourself saying, oh, it's just quicker to do it myself, like, well, yeah, it is the first time, maybe not the second time, definitely not the third time. And it just compounds. So you've got to put that extra effort in to actually coaching them how to think more strategically. But you also, you've got to support them to make decisions and you've got to allow them to fail as well. It's not going to be perfect. But when you do encourage and coach and support your team through this process, you're allowing them to grow, but you're also allowing yourself to grow as well. Because as a leader of a growing building company, you've got to evolve and you've got to push yourself into new roles and do new things as well. And if you continue just being the chief problem solver, you're stopping yourself from advancing and, and that means you're going to miss out on opportunity. And the real cost of that is your hourly rate. Because if you're stuck doing low value work, if you're doing, if you're doing $20 an hour tasks, you know, solving $20 an hour problems, when you need to be working on $1,000 an hour work, then the business is going to suffer.

Yeah. Can you tell me a bit more about what that cost looks like? How do you quantify what the cost of being the only decision maker?

Well, you got to look at the kind of stuff that you're spending your time on. And there's a great action plan in the members portal that covers this. It's the stop Doing list. And it actually teaches you how to do a time audit first and foremost and then how to categorize and prioritize what you need to be working on. And a lot of the time there's some nice easy stuff that only takes a few minutes. We can fall into the trap of doing that stuff ourselves. It could be doing the task or it could be helping someone else solving a problem. But if that is a low value $20 an hour task, then that is bringing down the hourly rate of our productivity. Whereas you need to be looking on stuff that's going to take your building company forward another couple of million dollars on the revenue next year. That's thousand dollars an hour work, maybe, maybe even $10,000 an hour work that you're working on there.

I think the action plan is how to manage your time and efficiency. Is that the one you're referring to?

Yes. Yeah. And it probably contains the. The stop doing list within that. Yes.

Yeah. So for members out there that wanted to check that one out, dive in.

Yeah. That's a phenomenally important action plan for the members to go through. Absolutely. And to go through regular because we never master time management, we only practice it. So if you've not gone through that action plan for the last couple of years, now's a good time to go through that again.

Yeah, we gave it a nice refresh in December last year. So it's professionally recorded. And sky did a phenomenal job with that one. Let's talk solutions, Russ. So builders, they're the course decision maker in their business now, based on raising their awareness around what cost that could be having on their company and their livelihood, how do they go about breaking that down and fixing the issue?

Yeah, well, there is a proven methodology out there. It's called the 333 method. And builders can follow this and it will give them a great starting point to implement a structure that's going to help them to break out of this cycle. And step one, the first of the threes is the three minute search rule. So we're what this is, is the first step for an employee when they've got a problem that they can't, they don't know how to solve. Their first step is to spend three minutes Googling or using ChatGPT to try and find a solution to the problem before they bring it to the manager. So I've seen it referred to as the 3 minute Google first rule.

Yeah.

Now it's probably going to be the three minute Chat GPT rule, but you've got to encourage Them to do a bit of research themselves first before bringing you the problem. And a lot of the time staff, they simply skip this step because they're shortcutting the research process by coming straight to you. But you might have the answers, but this is when it can feel good. Can be a bit of an ego trip, but other sources can also provide the answers as well. It doesn't have to be you. So encourage your team to start doing their own research, start thinking on their feet. And in terms of that, that three minutes, they just want to spend 30 seconds just stating the problem, getting really clear. Because again, this is training them how to think, get 30 seconds to articulate the problem. Because it's amazing how many people even struggle with articulating a problem. If you ever had someone come up to you and you kind of know what they're trying to ask you, but they're going all around houses, you know, this, this is a skill as well. They need to be able to think clearly to articulate a problem. So just 30 seconds doing that and then just two minutes doing a bit of research. They might even have to reference the building code, for instance. You know, a challenge might be, and this is what the, the owner of the building company will get a lot. It might be actually code related or plans related. So make sure they can access the plans and they can actually go and find the answer to their question themselves. And then they want to, they just want to make a log of the solution along with the source where they got the answer from. But after that three minutes, if nothing materializes, you don't want them going down a rabbit hole. You don't want staff, you know, spending a morning, you know, googling or rifling through the building code trying to find something. Yeah, they've, you've got to put a time limit on this. So if they can't find a solution within three minutes, then they've got to move on to step two. So that is the second of the threes. And this is the three peer rule. And this is what I've seen quite a bit of controversy about online and a lot of backlash for people that have spoken about this. And this is if the employee still needs help after that initial search that they've done themselves, the next step is they must consult at least three peers before they escalate the issue. So this is the three peer rule. The idea behind this is to get advice from other people that are on the same level as they are before they start engaging their bosses. Now the idea here is there is wisdom in groups. And you know, to be honest, you're reaching out to people in the trenches just like yourself. The fact is they probably got more experience on this problem and can maybe provide an even better solution. So you don't want to start spending more than three minutes on this first step, and that is 30 seconds to state the problem, to articulate the problem, get, get really clear in their mind about what it is they need an answer to, because it's amazing how many people actually struggle with articulating, you know, the, the actual question. So you want them to, to practice and get clear that. So 30 seconds just to, just to get that right. And then two minutes hitting whatever trusted source it is. Google ChatGPT might be the building code, might be the building plans, but wherever they need to go to find the answer to that question, no more than two minutes, and then log the solution along with the source of the information that provided the answer. And if nothing materializes in three minutes, this is when they now need to move onto step two. So this is the second three in the 333 rule, and this is the three peer rule. Now what this is, this is where the employee still needs help after the initial search. And this is where I've seen a lot of backlash online from people that have talked about this particular part of the strategy, because this is where they must consult at least three peers before escalating the issue to management or the boss of the company. So the reason this works is because the idea is to tap into information from other people at the same level. Because these guys have got real life experience, they probably can provide an even better answer that the next level of management can provide in all honesty. And it all comes from the concept that there's wisdom in groups, because these people, they're all dealing with similar issues. Now the other part of this is it's also about tapping on a less expensive shoulder. So when I talk about the hourly rates, when you, you start engaging people, think about how lawyers work. They always try to get the juniors do as much as they can, it then goes up the next level and then the lawyer at the top, the most highly paid guy on the, on the biggest hourly rate, he is going to do as little as possible because otherwise the, the bill just explodes for the client. So you got to think about that concept. And in terms of interruptions, that's exactly what is happening with you at work as well. So the three peer rule could be a work colleague, could be a friend, could be an acquaintance, another employee could Even be a subcontractor or a supplier that works with your company. Encourage them to explore the three peer rule before they move to step three. And then the third three of the three threes is the three sol rule, which you've probably heard before. This sometimes gets used in isolation when people are trying to solve this problem of having people come to them. And basically after they've completed the first two steps, yeah, they've spent three minutes researching, they've gone to three peers and they still feel that they don't have the answer and they need to bring the problem to a manager. Well, they can do that, but they got to come prepared with at least three possible solutions. And the reason this works is because by bringing three potential solutions, and maybe these solutions have come from research, but they weren't convinced, they then went to the peers, maybe got another solution there. So, you know, these solutions can come from anywhere. But it does show that the employee has done some homework. They've not just shortcutted the process and come straight to you for a quick answer. Now, I've seen this used in a few different ways. Some people refer to it as the 131 rule. This is one clearly stated problem. This is where we go back to articulating the problem really clearly. Three possible solutions and what they then look for is one recommendation. So as well as the three solutions, you want to coach them and get them to think about, well, what would they recommend? Here's three different ways we could go. My suggestion is, and why. And this is where you've really got to coach your team. Seen here, because when they come to you with these three solutions and they got a recommendation, but they're still not quite sure, you're going to have a much more productive conversation on the options rather than them just, you know, dumping a problem on you that you're going to give them the solution. So really, I guess it's the, the 3, 3, 3. One rule really is what I've just described here. But, you know, if they come to you and they've got the right answer, still coach them through it. Don't you know, it's not a tick and flick, you know, you got to think about the fact they needed to come to you. So, so what did you feel about this solution? Why did you feel that that might be better than the one that you've recommended? Get them to really think this through.

All right, so that makes, makes a lot of sense. Three, three, three. Three minutes. Three peers and three solutions. I really like the simplicity of that. And I have to admit I feel like I'm going to implement that in my team, which I haven't at the moment. One thing that I wanted to add to that, when you were talking about the three minute rule, our head of operations for ant actually implemented NotebookLM, which is a Google tool in our company. You know this, but just for all the viewers out there, you train it on all of your manuals. So your sales manual, your admin manual, your company manual. And it's like a repository where you can ask questions and find information. I found that really helpful for getting people to look for their own, own answers before coming to, to me.

Yeah, yeah, I've, I've found it really useful as well because as we've, we've grown and expanded, we've obviously got manuals for marketing, operations, sales. There's, you know, having one place you can go to and rather than searching through a Google Doc looking for a particular phrase, you can just ask a free text question. And yeah, been very, very impressed with it.

Yeah. So definitely one to check out. For the builders there. One question that's coming to mind as you're talking about this. It all sounds good in theory, but for the builders out there that are thinking it's hard to hand over control or they've always had that level of decision making control in their business and they're a bit apprehensive, how do they make the step?

Yeah, I think generally what I've seen over the years is that the people that feel this, that is hard to let go, it is hard to hand over. And really it's that feeling of a lack of control generally that indicates a lack of systems in the business. But not just systems either. Policies. Now policies are really important because they're always set by the owner of the business. You know, you can have your team involved in writing procedures, but policies have got to come from the owner of the company. So policies, procedures, but also core values, that is another big thing that can replace thousands of procedures. Just one core value that really just touches on how you want people to act. But I think when you do those three things, when you, when you implement core values into your company, you set the policies yourself and you systemize it by putting in automation where you can and procedures for people to follow where you can't. When you do that, you are not losing control at all. And if you actually support those three things with something we call exception reporting, this means you don't have to micromanage, you don't have to look over the shoulder of everyone to make sure they're doing things quickly, correctly. You just want an exception report to fire off when something out the ordinary happens, when something shouldn't occur. And when that fires off, well, it's a bit like a spider's web. You know, you might have a, like an alarm bell going off somewhere in the business and when something goes wrong, it's going to alert you to another problem. So you can have a higher level of control, I would argue, and still hand over and delegate to other people in your team, if that all makes sense.

Sense, yeah, I think. I mean, the exception reporting is a great example. Another thing I've heard you and sky say many a time is you go on a holiday and then you basically see what's going to break while you're on holiday. Yeah.

And embrace it as well. Because I think a lot of people, they might go away on holiday if they're not fully systemized. And it does take a bit of time, it does take a few years to get to that point. And it kind of almost dreaded, oh, what's going to go wrong? And it's, you know, the phone's going to ring. We actually embraced it.

We.

We got quite excited about, wow, what's going to break? Yeah, we've done everything we can, but the only way to test the system is to go away and we might be on a trip together and. Yeah, we look forward to it. What's going to break when something does break? It's not, oh, no, it's like, oh, yeah, we found, we found a weakness in the system. It was quite exciting. How do we, how do we fix this so it never happens again? And, and then one time we kind of forgot all about it. It was only after we got back we realized, like, nothing broke.

Yeah.

We went away and it just ran like clockwork. And, yeah, so you do get there in the end. But, yeah, a bit of mindset. Yeah. Look at, look at it differently. It's good when things break. It shows you where the gap is in your process.

I've seen that firsthand. Sky's come back from a break and she's so excited to find out what's actually gone wrong. It's funny. What about that hard conversation? If you've always been the problem solver for your team and you want to change the way you're working with them to adopt this 3, 3, 3 method, how would you handle that conversation? Initially, the best thing to do is.

Just roll it out without telling anyone. No, you've got to do the exact Opposite. Yeah, it's no good working on this stuff and then just implementing it and then hoping everyone follows. You got to start by sitting down with your team and really set expectations. Paint the vision that you have for the company. Tell them what the company that you want to build and create is going to look like and show them their role in this new company as well. And they're going to get excited about it and then involve them in creating the core values for the company. If you've not done core values before, involve your team in creating your initial core values. If you've already got core values but they're not being followed, bring the team in, review what you've got and invite their input to create new ones. Get them involved in creating procedures, but make sure they understand the bigger picture because you don't want, you know, people are a little bit reluctant to write procedures that tell someone else exactly how to do every step of their job. It's self preservation. But as long as you're open and honest with them and paint the bigger picture about where the company's going and where they're going, how they're going to evolve, they'll be excited to do it and leave behind low value tasks behind them as well. And then when they do need help, of course they're going to come to you, but they're going to also they're going to understand the process that you are now following and why you're following it. And, and the reason why is because you're trying to help them become better, better leaders. So, you know, bring them on the journey with you and yeah, you'll find it a lot easier.

Yeah, I found it takes the emotion out of it as well. You're not necessarily nitpicking or calling someone out for someone. You're saying, is it in the manual? If it's not in the manual, we need to update the manual or, you know, you need to actually follow this process. Otherwise, you know, we've agreed on this process kind of thing. So it just takes the emotion out of it.

Yeah, that's. That's right.

Yeah.

I mean, that's, that's the first question. Like, do we have a gap in our process? Crikey. Thank you for, like, bringing that up. We've got to get this fixed.

All right, Russ, So for the builders out there that are stuck in that firefighter role, the decision maker role, always being the problem solver, there's lots of great information you've shared today, but what's the very first thing they should do? Next. Where can they get started?

Well, this is good timing because I think if you've ever sat on a podcast like this and you've heard questions being asked, but then maybe there's a question in your head, maybe there's a follow up question, maybe you just wanted to go go deeper and ask a slightly different question or explore a particular topic even more, or maybe you disagree with something, you know, you've got a challenge, you know, a point of view that you feel hasn't been covered. Well, if you've ever had a question like that on your mind, the good news is that you can now ask those questions because we have recently launched APB Brain. So think of ChatGPT for residential home builders. You can ask anything about running a residential building company and the APB Brain will answer that question by referring to 11 years of APB systems and knowledge of the residential construction industry. APB Brain is in the members portal, but you don't need to be a member of APB in order to access it. So I think we're going to provide a link with this podcast, Will, so that anyone, members, non members can chat with the APB Brain and ask a question on any topic, whether it's how they can stop being the person getting tapped on the shoulder with got a minute Questions or maybe increasing their profit margins in the building companies. But yeah, they can now access the APB Brain and ask those questions.

Yeah, a great example of how they could use that in this instance is you mentioned one of our action plans, how to manage your time and efficiency. Efficiency, efficiency. Previously they could specifically ask a question around the not doing list from that action plan to APB Brain and get the answer they need. Or if they're struggling with delegating or encouraging their team to solve problems, they could tap into this podcast because eventually this is going to be trained into APB Brain as well.

So yeah, I mean that's a great point. All the, the podcasts have been used in the APB training. So you could say, yeah, I heard Russ and Will on a podcast, they were talking about stop doing this. What is that? And it will refer exactly to it. So yeah, incredible. It's. Yeah, the, the new world is here.

It's scary. I pitted you against AI Russ, which is the avatar we've got for APB Brain earlier today in a, in a demo. And it was uncanny. The, the similarities.

Yeah, the information that it has access to, it's incredible. It's like having Andy and Sky here on the podcast as well, all chipping in information, you get different points of views. And, yeah, you get, you get stuff that one person might miss, another person picks up on. So. But the AI brain, yeah, it knows everything about residential construction.

Perfect. Well, we'll share a link for that, but otherwise, Russ, thanks so much for coming on the podcast today and sharing all those, all that great information on the 333 method. I think it was really valuable.

No, thanks so much for having me, Will. It's been great to be back.

Great. And a big thank you to our listeners wherever you are in the world. If you like the show today, please subscribe to Professional Builder Secrets on your platform of choice. And if you're feeling generous, leave us a review. But until next time, have a great day.