210. How Coaching Creates Freedom With Rick Moore

Welcome to another episode of Professional Builder Secrets. In this episode, I interview Rick Moore from the association of Professional Builders. Rick is one of APB's executive business coaches who works closely with building company owners to help them grow more profitable systemized businesses. In this episode, we explore what coaching really is and why so many builders hesitate to engage a coach. Rick also shares what makes a great coaching relationship, the kind of mindset that leads to success in a coaching relationship, and how having a coach can completely change the way you plan for the future of your business. 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 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.

All athletes have a coach. Even the most successful athletes in the world have a coach. And so it stands to reason, and you know, the most important are the most successful business. People often talk about coaching that they've had. I would say coaching is an investment of time and money that's going to provide a return on the investment and that return is in increased profits. It's also in increased time to enjoy life outside the business. Everything that we're working on needs to be tracked. If we don't track it, we're losing all the valuable data. So accountability is everything. We can't hide from the numbers. We know our builders are great builders. We don't expect them to be great accountants. All the answers to running a successful business are out there and they've been out there for decades. It's the questions that we don't know. And that's where coaching helps you.

Welcome to Professional Builders Secrets, the podcast for building company owners wanting to grow safely and securely. I'm your host, Will Blunt, and today I'm joined by one of APB's executive business coaches Radio, Rick Moore. Rick, welcome to the show.

Hey, thank you, Will. Pleasure to be here. Thanks.

Yeah, we were just reflecting before we jumped on air. You've been on the podcast a couple of times now, but it's been a little while and I've been missing you. So thank you for coming back.

As I was thinking about that, it has been a while and missed seeing you at IBS this year and we live so far away that, yeah, gotta Take advantage of all those times when.

We get em, that's okay. I mean, it's for good reason. You've been busy coaching builders in our network, so. Yeah, all for good reasons. Today we're gonna talk about coaching, actually, which is what we do as a company, but it's not something we've really addressed directly on the podcast before. And it's something you're extremely passionate about. Why are you so passionate about coaching?

Well, I come by it pretty honestly. I had this epiphany moment. So for 32 years, I worked in a role where I was raising capital and working with people that were starting up businesses or had businesses they wanted to expand. So I was always working with business owners and sitting on boards with them, raising capital and doing all of that. I was very fortunate to be able to retire from that business and cross over to the other side of the business, which was in private equity. And now we were buying businesses. And I was sitting there probably through 15 different processes. And I realized, you know, these were the businesses that had defied the odds. You know, over 90% of businesses don't survive seven years. These businesses had survived that they were successful businesses and now they were looking to, to monetize and, you know, their succession event. And it came to mind to me that, wow, they are still not getting the value out of their business despite the success. And why is that? And it came to me in this moment, this couple had assumed that they're both their children, adult children are going to take the business over, which is a mistake that many owners make. And these, these kids didn't have that as, as something in their plans, even though they were both working in the business, which brought these people to need to sell the business. So as we were speaking to them and they were speaking to other buyers, they shared with us their plans, right? They were going to go and golf and all the things that they wanted to do. And when it came time for us to make our offer for the business, we felt it was extremely, you know, it was a good offer, generous offer, the look of disappointment on their face. And the man turned to his wife and he said, if we can only get that, we might as well just keep working. Now. They had already mentally sold the business and we're thinking about, you know, golfing in Arizona. I had an epiphany in that moment. I said, that's just not acceptable. If there's anything little old Rick can do here to help this going forward, I'm going to do this. And that's what Brought me into the coaching realm is I've got to get back on the side of owners now. The other end of the business at that point, you know, I was helping them start up. Now I'm looking at helping them sell. But how do I do that coaching? I can be involved in every aspect from start to finish and everywhere in between. So that's how I ended up there. I wrote a little book about it, and yeah, it's just. It's a passion of mine, for sure. I want better outcomes for my builders that I work with. And better outcomes come from coaching, come from systemizing and getting profitable, all of those things.

Yeah. It's a sad position that many business owners probably come to at some stage if they. If they're not, well, systemized, that there might not be a sellable value of the business. And we spoke about that in a different episode. So we won't go too deep, deep down a rabbit hole there. But it is certainly a huge reason why builders get into coaching.

Absolutely.

Coaching has a different perception, depending on what your experience is. With coaching, A lot of people are familiar with coaching from a sporting point of view and things like that. But how would you describe coaching to someone that hasn't done it?

Yeah. So interestingly, when we're talking about coaching with people, it is very much like an athlete. You know, all athletes have a coach. Even, you know, the most successful athletes in the world have a coach. And so it stands to reason, and over the years, certainly, you know, the most important or the most successful business people often talk about the coaching that they've had. I would say coaching is an investment of time and money that's going to provide a return on the investment, and that return is in increased profits. It's also in increased time to enjoy life outside the business. Because we know when a business is set up properly, it allows the owner of that business to work less in a more profitable business. So we also know that the investment and our goal is to get that investment to pay for itself within the first 12 months and continue making you money as long as you own the business after that. So spending less time working, more time enjoying family, doing the things you love to do is really what coaching is about. And you got to think about it as being a collaborative relationship between you and the coach. You know, my role, I help set the plan. I define the work that needs to be done and the work that needs to be done and the changes that need to be made in the business in the order that they should happen. Okay. And then I would hold the client accountable for making those changes and provide that guidance and encouragement along the way. It's a pretty close relationship that you have, you know, very valuable. And there are certainly long, long term coaching relationships that go on because people just find that hey, I've fixed those initial things, but there are just, there's a lot more for me to do. There's a lot more that I could really have or I can accomplish that I can lean on my coach for to help me do.

From a more physical point of view, what does it actually look like to be working with a coach? You mentioned the coach will set the plan or collaboratively set the plan with, with the business owner and then you're holding them account at that point. So it's, it's on the owner to therefore take action and implement the things that you've discussed. But what kind of conversations are you having? Like how does that work?

Yeah, so we start every coaching relationship with, you know, we work on a strategy session and then ultimately that ends up in a coaching relationship. And the first thing we do is really build out a plan, a three year plan, one year targets. And then every 90 days we're setting new targets. So the coaching relationship from that we've defined what are the most important things that we're working on. We call them rocks. What are the most important rocks that we're working on every 90 days? What are the weaknesses in the business that matter in the order that they matter that we're going to tackle and, and fix? First things that we do is we set up a series of easy to implement and understand financial, I'd call it a financial dashboard where we can track everything that we're doing that's really important. Everything that we're working on needs to be tracked and we work together and work together monthly on the next steps. What are the next steps between our meetings that need to be, that we need to take accountability for making happen? And we communicate in between lots of email back and forth, jump on a quick call from time to time. But we make sure that we are really set up, that we're not providing so much work for you in between a session or in a quarter that we're setting ourselves up for failure. We're just, we're honing in on what needs to happen and we're tracking it because if we don't track it then we're losing all the valuable data. There's so much valuable data that we can use by tracking and watching numbers. And we work with that builder to Be able to. In his KPI workbook that we work on, he's got the tools in there that on a daily basis are telling the story of the business. We make sure that there's a great understanding of those and how to make decisions in the business before something becomes a problem we can identify, hey, let's course correct here. Let's do something.

I imagine that tracking component is a big part of the accountability piece, because once it's down, the numbers are there. You can't avoid them.

Yep. So accountability is everything. We can't hide in the numbers. Right. Can't hide from the numbers. And there's. There's actually a large number of people that initially come to us. That's one of the reasons I don't know my numbers. Right. I just. I can't make sense of the numbers. And, you know, I just say, hey, calm down. That's common, and let's work through it. And, you know, Russ and Sky done a tremendous job of creating tools that are easy to use. They might look initially.

Look at them.

Think this might be a bit complicated. They're not. They're easy to use. We stay on top of them. The accountability is keeping up to speed with those numbers. But again, they're just the simple numbers that tell the story of the business. So you're not having to climb through your financial statements, just trying to figure out what your next move is. And we know our builders are great builders. We don't expect them to be great accountants or great marketing experts or, you know, we want to make sure that they've got the tools and the understanding to implement these things and still be able to deliver, you know, the beautiful.

Projects that they deliver, how does that conversation go? If I commit to do something in a coaching session, and then I turn up at the next coaching session, and I haven't done that thing, how do you handle that?

Yeah. So we start with. Sorry. Every coaching session, you know, we always want to talk about a win. You know, what was your win? You know, let's. Let's get started on a good path, and then any stocks. And that should be where? Well, yeah, I didn't get that done. Okay, well, tell me why. Tell me. Tell me about that. What. What got in the way? And so it's really just about. There is accountability. If you didn't get it done, why did it not get done? And there could be a very valid reason for it to not get done. And that's fine. We'll figure it out. Right? We'll deal with what needs to be dealt with. However, I think that the difficult conversation comes if that gets repeated, you know, even a second time. We've got to get a recommitment to this reminder why you chose to do this in the first place. And let's get a time set in your calendar for you to get these things done. And when you do that, when you actually say, okay, I'm going to work on my apb, the things that I do with apb, I'm going to work on them at a set time on this day. And it's, you know, it's non negotiable. Just getting into that pattern starts to build on itself and gets the builder way more focused and able to spend more time working on those things. You know, the things that move the needle in the business are the things that the, you know, the leader, the owner of the business needs to have control of those things. And if you're not making the time for those, then business is going to probably operate in the same frustrating way it was operating before you came into coaching. So let's always circle back to why you're here and let's make sure it's a priority and get stuck.

All those great benefits you spoke about, you know, creating an asset that's sellable, getting more time back in your personal life, going on holidays, spending time with family, knowing your numbers and just feeling confident in the company that you're running. I would hazard a guess there's not a single building company owner out there that doesn't want those things or some form of those things. So why do you think some business owners and building company owners are hesitant to get into a coaching relationship?

Great question. So the common excuses that we get no time, no money, and maybe the belief that change is going to happen by just doing the things that they're currently doing. In other words, it's a resistance to change. Right? We have a resistance bias as humans that unless we have a truly compelling reason, we just keep doing the same things. And we also know that doing the same things that you're doing is, and hoping they change is, you know, like hope's not a strategy. And so you need to take the time to, or they need to come to a realization that, hey, this hasn't been working, there's a reason I'm feeling the way I am and understand that change is necessary. So. And as I said, the common excuses that come up are, well, I don't have time for that. Well, we know that coaching actually allows you more time. It'll make you more efficient. So we know that the no money aspect is, you know, it's a big one. Right. But we've got to get them thinking of it as an investment. It is an investment that you will get a return on. It's not a cost. And if it is during coaching and you're not getting a return on it, then I get that you're working with the wrong coach, but it really is an investment. And there are a lot of things that people are probably spending money on in their business currently that are not giving them a return that they could easily do away with and replace that with an investment in coaching. So think of it this way. Nobody wakes up one day saying, I want a business coach. You know, what they really wake up wanting is a better business. And if I could use the analogy about, you know, nobody once wakes up in the morning and says, oh, I really want to go buy a drill. You know, what they really want is the hole that the drill's going to provide for them. And if you think the coach in the way that, you know the coach is the drill, it's going to provide that better business to you. So it's a really, you know, it's a good way to think about it. Right? Because I get it. I'm not on everybody's desired list when they wake up during the day. But if people could use the information that's available out there now and actually implement it, then they wouldn't need a coach. But the reality is you've got a busy business, it's complicated. And a coach is that accountability person, that person that can really put it into. Put things in the right order, give you the right perspective, and it takes discipline and accountability. Running a business isn't easy. So that's, I think, the biggest reason. All the answers to running a successful business are out there. And they've been out there for. For decades, right. Books and all sorts of things. They're out there, right? So the answers are there. But if you think about it this way, it's the questions that we don't know, and what are the questions in the right order. And that's where coaching helps you. It helps you take a look at your business and decide what needs to happen, when it needs to happen, in what order, and you got to ask the right questions to get the answers. So I think that.

That.

I don't know, hopefully that isn't too complicated. That's kind of the way I think about it.

Yeah, 100%. As a former business owner myself, Rick, I think One huge benefit that you haven't touched on of coaching is just having an external party that can think about your business strategically. And because you can really get a narrow channel of thinking when you're running a business. And to your point earlier, I think you mentioned you do the same thing over and over again. It's not like you, you're trying to do that. It's just human nature for that to happen.

Yeah. The idea that we, we are going to change anything by doing the same things, it's just not going to happen again. It's, it's kind of hoping. Well, you know, I think it's the right thing to do. So it's going to eventually work. Well, there's a different way of looking at it, and coaching is that extra set of eyes that could look at things in an entirely different way. You know, a lot of my coaching sessions start off with a lot of frustration from the builder. When I say, you know, how'd your week go? What are your wins? What are you stuck on? And it's often just things that they just need to get out, out of their head. Right. They're so frustrated by it and they're, they're, they're not allowing themselves to free think. And so when they get a chance to articulate that and then have somebody that can kind of point them in the right direction, you know, they're all, they're such talented people that I work with, but they have the same problems that we all have as humans. Right. Self doubt and stress and all of those things that it doesn't allow us to think clearly. Coaching, that relationship with a coach will allow you to not have to take that home to your spouse. And there's probably people at work that you don't want to confide in because you're the owner. Right. Coaches that, it's like Starbucks is the third place for you to go. Coaches that third set of ears.

Yeah, that's a great point. You don't have other people to confide in. When you run a business, even if you've got a business partner, a lot of things need to be almost kept to yourself, or at least there's a feeling that you need to. And having a safe space to talk about those things can be really valuable.

Yeah, it's a great word for it. Right. The safe space where you can talk about, hey, you can talk, you can talk to your coach about all sorts of things. Right. Marital issue, whatever it is. Partner issue. Right. There's all sorts of that kind of stuff because we know Business partnerships are really tough. Yeah. So having that mediator there or regulator that is able to kind of get you thinking about it in the right way.

What would you say is. Are the traits or the type of person that typically performs well in a coaching relationship?

Yeah. You know, I was thinking the other day about clients of mine that make great progress at what is it that they possess? And they often, when you look at their business, they've done some great things in their business, and then they've just kind of reached that point where they've kind of reached the pinnacle of where they can take it. So they're using the talent that got them to this, you know, this point of some success and really grasping that, hey, I'm ready for a change. So the readiness to take on coaching is the mindset that you need. Right. It's. It's not enough to. To say, well, I heard that a coach will help me get a better business, so I better do do that.

Right.

It really is. No, I'm ready to commit, and I'm ready to put in the time. I'm ready to follow the plan and move forward. So the true realization that you want to change and that coaching is a commitment, I think are just really, really key. So when you reach that point or when they've reached that point, I can see it. They show up at their very first session, the work gets done. It's not even a question. They're in constant communication with me. In between emailing me. We have this great function where within our coaching workbook, you can just click on exactly where you're working, the cell you're working in. Click on it and hit comment and, you know, start to type Rick Moore or Rick. And hey, Rick, what about this? I get that right away. I can go and look right in the workbook where they're working. Good collaboration, the ability to ask questions. I, you know, I want to make sure that they're doing that. They're seeking the guidance, they're implementing the changes. Communication is really a key feature. And the builders that are doing the best in coaching are great communicators. They're looking to the future, and they're kind of understanding, hey, I want to create an asset here I can pass on to my kids or I can sell. And they realize probably too, that what the business they currently have is too dependent on them. I call that the owner's trap. That, you know, being in an owner's trap, realizing that is great because there's very little value to anybody that might want to be taking over your business. If you are the key asset in the business, you need to be there for it to operate. So those are just some realizations that I think if people come to those conclusions and really want to change, it.

Sounds like what you're saying is if someone comes into the relationship thinking this is a fix that will solve my problems, it's not the right mindset. The mindset is this is support that will allow me to solve my own problems. And they lean into that and they commit to it and they give it everything they've got. Basically.

Yeah, absolutely. Well said. The idea is that the coaching is the support, the accountability, the push that you need. But we know that nobody can come in and do it for you. You need to commit that, hey, I'm going to do all I can and I'm going to have this great support. I'm going to have all of these assets that are available through the APB to make these changes in my business when they do that. The ultimate goal is level 10 builder in our 10 levels of coaching is to have that business can operate profitably, consistently is systemized as processes without you needing to be there. What does that mean? Well, you got a. You got a business that somebody would buy, number one. It's a saleable business, whether you want to sell it or not. And it's a business the key, you know, could run when you're. You're not there. You can go play golf or surf or whatever you want to do. Spend time with kids, grandkids. It gives you choice. To me, that's just brilliant. I want to create better outcomes for the builders I work with. To me, that's better outcome.

How do you see people that are in coaching relationships with you succeed in the longer term? Because I think that first coaching session, if they've just, you know, just joined coaching, that's going to be the most motivated they'll ever be about making change in their business. I would imagine they're like, okay, let's. I've just invested in this. I'm going to give it everything I've got. Let's communicate as much as possible. That fire could potentially wither at different times. When life gets busy, you know, they've got big projects going on, all that kind of stuff. So how do you maintain that fire ongoing?

Well, accountability is that word we've used a lot. If I do my job really well, eventually they don't need me anymore. However, the fire that keeps it going is the reminders, the reflections that we do in coaching in Sessions. And those quarterly reviews we do is we really want to celebrate the wins. And if you can say they might not see it from within, you say, do you realize that you, you know, when we started working together, since then, on average, you're signing projects at 5% gross profit margin higher than you were. Right. Your net profit is. Is up 2 or 3%, whatever that is. Those types of things. Or you were working 60 hours, you're now working 45. Pointing out those wins, making sure that people celebrate that and understand that, hey, there's something that you're working towards. We'll keep that fire going. And importantly, recognizing when they need a break, recognizing when the stress gets up too high. Right. Those types of things. So I encourage my builders. Just reach out to me with an email if you got a problem. I'd rather spend some time with you between sessions. Keep getting this straightened out than having you losing sleep over it. Or my favorite, when you're feeling really stressed and you don't know what that next move is, go take a walk. There's nothing like being out in nature. Right. Just take a walk around the block, take a couple of deep breaths, and come back. Problem will still be there, but it won't seem like as big a problem when you get back.

That's a great point. Mindset in those situations is very different depending how your day's going to be.

Yeah.

How does having a coach change the way a builder approaches the future of their business?

I think certainty is my. Is the word that comes to mind for me. Right. You. You know your numbers. And that is. It's a huge area that we work on immediately is putting the simple numbers that tell. That are telling the story of the business in front of them. It allows the builder to see the trends that are formed, forming in their business, allows them to make immediate decisions before they become problems. And for the future of their business. That very first kind of fundamental thing that we do of knowing your numbers, it's a pretty large problem for most going in, knowing those numbers, putting that certainty around that, that just gives you so much clarity. And everything we do builds on, you know, you might say, okay, I don't know my numbers, but then I heard you talking to me about marketing. And they all matter. Everyone builds on the next. Right. And you can't have one. Well, you can't have a successful business if there's a hole in any of those areas. So certainty.

Yeah, I like that. I immediately thought about marketing because, I mean, marketing, obviously.

Yeah.

And that confidence to be able to Say, okay, I know that I can confidently spend this much on marketing and my company is not going to, you know, go into negative profit, you know, negative bottom line, all that kind of stuff. Right. Because there's a lot of builders out there that are just spending money on marketing because they want leads and they want to grow the business and all that kind of stuff. But they're spending, they don't know how much they can spend profitably. And that's a real problem. And they offer, I mean, the other side of it is they often get taken for a row by some agencies.

But oh boy, we see so many builders come to us that have spent frighteningly large numbers on marketing and, you know, lead generation, let's say, with nothing to show for it, just no leads have been generated. So, and because of that, it becomes one of these things while marketing doesn't work. I'll just wait for referrals to come in and you know, you're going to get referrals anyway, but you don't have any control over them.

Yeah.

So you need to, you need to spend money on marketing. You don't need to be afraid of the number because the way that we track it through our dashboard will be able to tell us what's working, what isn't. We can, we can make all sorts of pivots to change ad sets, to change wording, all those things. And we will, as we track it and we ask them, we ask them to track leads weekly, but as we track it, we're going to know how much do we need to spend on ads to generate enough leads to sign a, we'll know how many leads we need to sign or to have to sign a contract. And knowing those numbers, again, certainty and clarity and a real number, it allows you to say, okay, I know what my marketing and advertising budget is because I've been tracking it. And tracking is everything. The data will set you free. I heard that said once and it's with marketing. I'm telling you, as you know, you do a brilliant job running the department. We're big on data and it's the truth teller.

Yeah. Well, it allows you to make good decisions, but confident decisions as well. Like you mentioned, if you know your numbers really well, not just in marketing, but I think even more importantly, like across the financial aspects of the business, you can make very confident marketing and hiring decisions once you know your numbers very well. So I think that's a great way to summarize it.

Yeah, you bet. So it's, you know, from a coaching standpoint if somebody was say to me, what's the first win that you look for? You're working with a client is getting those financial tools set up in the workbook. It's, you know, it's our levels one and two in our ten levels of coaching. And they're important for that reason. Everything we do from there, we can be tracked. That just changes everything.

Great. Well, Rick, thanks so much for coming on the podcast today. Any final thoughts or tips you wanted to share with the listeners today?

Just that don't be afraid to have a coaching conversation. Right. As a builder, don't have preconceived notions that it, you know, it's just going to be a cost. It's, you know, I don't have the time, all of those things. Just sit down, talk to one of us as coaches at apb. Let's walk you through a strategy session. We're not a hard sell, but I'll tell you, we're all passionate about it and I know that we make sense when we can look at your business and we can make a lot of sense about what you've got and how it can be better.

Great. Well, Rick, thanks so much for sharing your passion for coaching and all the reasons that coaching is such an important thing for business owners and builders to help themselves grow personally and professionally. So I appreciate you coming on.

My pleasure. Will thank you.

A big thank you to our listeners as well, 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.