218. Lessons From A Big Year With Russ Stephens

Welcome to another episode of Professional Builder Secrets. In this episode, I interview APB's co founder, Russ Stevens. Russ and I reflect back on the milestones we achieved in 2025 and the impact that's had on all of the builders in our community. We also look towards 2026 and how builders can maintain that momentum and achieve great things next year. 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.

All of a sudden we hit this blockage where we struggled to get past a certain point. Sometimes you get blindsided. What got you here is not going to get you there. And this is where builders, I guess, have a massive advantage because you can tap into knowledge that has been learned. You can learn from other people's mistakes. The AI was coming back to was linking a lot of generic business advice. They're all generic tools. You're going to get generic advice. It's very, very dangerous. To work on your business, you need to take a step back. Builders love listening to other builders. You realize you're not alone. Literally. One click and they are accessing the power of AI. You will get a year's worth of content produce.

Welcome to Professional Builder's 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 APB's co founder, Russ Stevens. Russ, welcome back to the show.

Thanks so much, Will. Excited to be here again. Yeah.

This is one of my most favorite episodes of the year because it forces me to reflect back on all the great things the team has achieved throughout the year. And we're going to look at some of those milestones today. But more importantly, it also dives below that and looks at the impact we've had on the industry as a whole and the builders that we work with, which is really exciting and kind of just reinforces that mission. So very excited to have you on to talk about this.

Yeah, thanks. It's always amazing when you look back because you need to take that moment, don't you, and just really assess what has happened in a year. And it's always way more than you thought. But when you sit down and look at it. It's way. Wow, that was a big year.

Yeah, yeah. And it has been a massive year. And so we'll touch on some of those really big milestones and there's been some really exciting ones that have happened. But before we do that, I want to take a moment to reflect. We always talk about the wins on this podcast and dive into all of the great work we're doing. But one thing we don't do a lot of is drop our guard and talk about where the challenges have been. So I want to get underneath your facade and hear about what you've found as the biggest challenges of 2025 for APB.

Yeah, I think the biggest challenge that we faced really over the last 12 months was hitting our very own glass ceiling in terms of our barrier to growth. Because we've had extraordinary growth for the last three or four years now. That's why we've been one of Australia's fastest growing companies. I think it was something like four years running and then all of a sudden we hit this blockage where we struggled to get past a certain point and it took some time to figure out what it was. But having figured out what it was, it wasn't a simple fix either. We've, we've had to do a lot of work behind the scenes in order to create this restructure that's going to facilitate the growth to the next level. But I think it was a really important thing that we went through ourselves and it's probably a good thing to share with builders because they, this is what happens to all growing companies. What got you here is not going to get you there. And we plan ahead, we analyze things, we always know what's coming and we try to plan accordingly. But sometimes you get blindsided. And I think we certainly got blindsided with this particular blockage. But yeah, it's how you react. So we did identify it. Eventually we've solved it and now we're, we're ready to, to go again. But I think that's a timely reminder for any builders listening to this as well, that what got you to a certain level is not going to necessarily take you to the next level. So you need to remain open minded and look objectively at your business.

Is there anything you would have done differently if you had your time over differently?

Yeah, I would have fixed the problem before it came a problem, but this is, I guess that was just, just not seeing it really. And this is where builders, I guess, have a massive advantage because you can tap into knowledge that has been learned. You can learn from other people's mistakes. Maybe, you know, we should have tried harder to kind of identify this blockage by tapping into coaching experts that had scaled, you know, significantly beyond where, where we had reached to, and we wouldn't have found that same blockage. But maybe with hindsight that was the. Yeah, yeah, not really anticipating that challenge by not tapping into knowledge that was already learned.

Well, just on that coaching thing, you do take your own advice from that perspective though, right? You and sky have a business coach you work with.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah. Very, very important because running any business, it's can be very lonely and you do need that advice and, and sounding board. But even so, you know, you don't necessarily get all the answers in one place. And as well, it's asking the right questions. So I guess there was a gap. I just wasn't asking the right questions.

Cool. Well, thanks for sharing that, Russ. Let's shift gears and talk about some of the really exciting things that have happened in APB in 2025. And I want to kickstart the conversation with APB Brain. So APB Brain was a brand new product we launched in 2025 which unlocks all of the knowledge we have in our training portal from the last decade plus. And what it enables builders to do is ask any question they have about running a building company and get an immediate answer. Not generic, not from chatgpt, but trained on specific builder advice, which is massively powerful. Over the years, since we launched in, I think, August, I'm going to say we've had 3,739 questions answered from builders by APPB Brain, which is just blows my mind. That's, that's so much data and so many questions being answered without needing to talk to a coach or a person. What have you taken away from this whole experience and what some of the key themes that builders are asking?

Yeah, I think what I've got out of this is initially it was the questions the builders were asking because it, it really did open up our eyes to see the kind of things that were going through their mind as they were working through an action plan, things that might have been holding them back. And they were a lot of things that on the surface sounded quite simple, but really it comes down to explaining things in a different way. So that was interesting. But more recently I've kind of seen this confirmed by doing the deep analysis of the sourcey data and using AI to do that deep analysis. And what I found as I went deeper. The conclusions and the summaries that the AI was coming back to was linking a lot of generic business advice, which you'd expect because ChatGPT, Gemini, etc. They're all generic tools. So it's a bit like jumping onto Google and trying to get business advice. You're going to get generic advice. But the difference with APB is we only work with residential home builders, so our advice is very tailored and specific. And this is what builders say to us all the time. This is what they love about apb. It's so specific to them. And that's the difference with AI as well, because APB Brain will answer a question by accessing resources that are all gated, that are all produced by apb. So it's not using any general principles or generic information, it's using information that is all produced by apb. And that means the answer the builder is getting is very, very specific and very, very construction specific as well. We just see all the time now, and it's becoming more and more obvious, the more you use a generic tool, you're going to get generic advice. So that has been massive.

That can be quite risky. I imagine if you're taking general advice and applying it to a building company.

It is, it's very, very dangerous. Because I know a lot of business coaches will say all the same, and from a very high level, strategically, you could argue that, yes, there's some fundamental principles that stand up in business, regardless of whatever industry you're in. Things like culture and core principles, for instance. However, when you get into specifics like marketing, advertising, sales, process operations, these are all very, very different for a residential building company. They're very different from a new home building company to a commercial building company instance, or someone like a handyman. So it's very, very different advice that we're giving to what would otherwise be very generalized advice. And you're right. If you start applying general principles to the residential construction industry, you're going to end up spending a lot of money on advertising and marketing that isn't going to generate you any results whatsoever.

Well, you touched on saucy then. And for anyone that's listening that doesn't know what sourcey is, we throw around the acronym like it's. It's going out of fashion. But it stands for the State of Residential Construction Industry. And we have a survey and report that we do every year. In 2025, it was the sixth annual survey that we'd completed with thousands of building companies around the year. In fact, we've had over 8,000 participants since we started in 2021, which is an enormous amount of data. Russ, you touched on briefly the process you went through to analyze this data this year. Why was that different and what kind of what did you take out of that?

Yeah, well, it's my favorite time of year. I get to immerse myself in the data for a week and look at trends, how this industry is evolving year on year and really looking for correlations that prove really that best practice does get builders the results in terms of running more efficient building companies, profitability, salary, etc. However, I'm a mere human being. The best I can do is cross reference two data points at a push. I might look at three different data points and you've got to have a hypothesis. You've then got to study the data and then look at the story the data is telling you. However, by using AI, we have been able to use or test multiple hypotheses in seconds and have the AI cross reference multiple data points, sometimes going six or seven data points deep in order to look for correlations. And the insights have been mind blowing. I think this has got to be the most interesting sourci report we have ever produce. Just an example. When we look at how the best builders are operating, it's quite clear that they don't just work hard, they're using structure in order to buy back their time. And in terms of structure, there's obviously we know there's a thousand things that you need to be doing as a builder to improve your building company. But what we want are the small hinges that are going to swing the big doors. And those small hinges are an organizational chart, a business plan, and the commitment to spend 20% of your time working on your building company rather than simply spending 100% working in it. Because those builders that do those three things, they effectively gain an extra month of time off every year, while at the same time adding an additional $50,000 in pure profit. That's based on a $5 million a year building company. So it's about 1% there. So those three things just putting together an organizational chart, that doesn't take long. Creating a business plan. Well, maybe you want to allocate a day to do that, but then ongoing spend 20% of your time working on your business. When you do that, the results that you will see as the owner or director of a residential building company are phenomenal. That the time off and we hear stories from Andy. I hear the coaching all the time about different builders in the coaching program that have been able to leave their business for a month, six weeks, even three months, and it doesn't miss a beat while they're away. So to be able to really prove that this is possible and showing builders exactly the levers that make that possible faster is huge.

Can you take a moment to explain what you mean by working on the business versus working in the business and how there's a difference there?

Yeah, well, we get caught up in the day to day. We're dealing with our team, we're dealing with clients, we're working on tasks, an activity that keeps the wheels turning in business. But to work on your business, you need to take a step back and work strategically. So that could be something like working on a business plan. First of all, in terms of your marketing, working on the business could be actually working on finding a marketing agency that can do the work and deliver results on an ongoing basis. It's very, very leveraged stuff. So that's what we mean by working on the business.

Some very good insights and I'm sure if I let you, Russ, you could speak for the next couple of hours on the saucy analysis. So let's push on. A big milestone we hit this year was in our Rewards area. So APB Rewards, I think launched in 2022, but you can correct me if, if that's different towards the end of the year and since then we've actually just ticked over the million dollar mark that we've paid out to builders in rebates, which did you ever imagine at the time you launched rewards that that would be something that would happen?

Absolutely. Look, I was very, very confident that this structure would work. No doubt that we can 10 exit for builders because there's still not enough builders or members taking full advantage of what we've put in place for them. And just to give the listeners a bit of an overview, what we did is we went out to service provide in the industry and negotiated a percentage rebate on whatever our members spend with those companies. However, we had very stringent contracts drawn up with each partner that stipulate under no way, under no circumstances can our members be penalized in terms of the price they pay. Because this is a big problem that I hear with a lot of buying groups in that they might negotiate special pricing for builders, but then the builder can go and deal direct and get a better price themselves still. And so it's not always beneficial for the builder, so we don't get involved in pricing whatsoever. The only thing we stipulate is that the Pricer will be free to negotiate as they would without this rebate. But if we ever find out that a builder is being penalized, we will terminate the agreement. So we're very, very clear with our, our service providers that we've signed up that these are the rules of the game and there can be no penalty. And then we, we collect those percentages on a quarterly basis for our members and we just pay them straight into account. So there's, there's nothing for the builder to do other than opt in to say they're interested in a service and that way the partner contacts them and if they like what they hear, they'll sign up and go ahead. And we will do everything else in the background. We'll collect the money and we will deposit it straight in their account. Now, the great thing about this for a builder is this cash doesn't just get added to their revenue. It doesn't just get added to their gross profit. It actually gets added to their net profit, that little bit on the end. So a million dollars straight on the bottom line of our members net profit is absolutely fantastic. And when you, you think how hard builders have to work for that small percentage on the bottom line in net, anything you can do to bolster that, there's got to be a big step in the right direction.

Yeah, and I think you touched on it. It's actually alarming how many of our members haven't engaged with partners yet, given how big this rebate amount is. And with 130 plus partners on our network, it's very much worth their time to check it out.

Yeah, it's a missed, a bit of a missed opportunity for a lot of builders. Other builders, they are, they've turned it into a profit center. You know, you look at what they pay for membership, it's nothing compared to the amount of money putting into their account each year. So, yeah, it's an absolute profit center. It's a way of getting your APB membership for free.

Okay, let's move on to events. So we hosted 14 events in 2025 around Australia, New Zealand, the US and Canada. And probably the biggest takeaway for me from all of this was to do with our summit, which we host in Australia once a year. It's our biggest event. We bring together professional speakers from all over the industry and experts in a range of different things. There was one particular statistic which blew me away. This is the third year we've run the Summit, but we sold out a VIP tickets within one month of the summit ending this year. For next year and had a 66% rebook rate. Can you just unpack what that even means to anyone out there that's going, what are all these numbers he's throwing around?

Yeah, so the rebook rate is a number that companies use or companies that do events use in order to measure the success. Because you can, you can take the pulse, can't you? The audience and everyone's on a high and yeah, they can give you a score, but really, people vote with their wallets. So the rebook rate is the percentage of attendees that bought a ticket for the following year, because if they come back, that shows they enjoyed what was served up when they came. And this is how companies across the globe measure the success of events. It's that rebook rate. And really you're looking at 40 to 50% is exceptional for the price point that we charge for Summit, because obviously, the cheaper the event, the higher the percentage is expected to be. The price we charge per ticket, 66%, is beyond exceptional. It's even beyond world class. It's a very rare thing indeed to have three, what, two thirds of the audience already go out and buy their tickets 12 months in advance of the next event happening. So we still got six months till the next event in Sydney in June and already two thirds of purchased tickets and hopefully we'll see a few more. But I think that really underlines just how good this year's event was. It was an exceptional two days crammed full of exceptional content, great speakers and. But also more importantly, great builders. Builders coming together, hanging out, swapping stories and just enjoying spending time with each other. Yeah, it's a great event to attend.

What do you think? If you had to put it down to one thing, what made it such an inspiring experience that made builders want to come back again?

It was the speakers, I believe, without doubt. We've been running this event for three years now, and it's always been our goal to increase the quality of the speakers year on year. Now, there's obviously a chicken and egg situation here because the best speakers cost a lot of money and obviously to do, to fill the room or fill the two days with the best speakers, that takes a lot of money, which means a lot of ticket sales. So it's a process growing the event, which we've been able to do year on year, that enables us to bring in even more and even better speakers each year. And it's the reason why I have absolutely no doubt that next year's event will be even better than this year's.

Very much looking forward to that. Before we move on from events, there was another innovation we implemented in 2025, which was around awards for builders. So we wanted to recognize builders and we started small within Australia and looking at each of the individual states with a range of different categories. Can you tell me more about why we went down that path and how it's played out? Yeah.

We produced these awards because there wasn't anything happening in the industry that recognized builders for their professionalism in terms of running a business. I mean, sure, there's plenty awards for the homes they build in plenty of different categories, but there's nothing that really reflects a well run professional building company. So we brought in awards for marketing, for financial acumen and overall building company of the year. And we did it state by state for the first five of these awards. I think that we did or these events. I was stuck in the other room doing a presentation, so I didn't even get seeing them. I was just getting feedback from Andy each time and he was telling me each time it starts off they're a little bit unsure about how the evening's going to unfold, but that curiosity just transformed into enthusiasm as the night unfolded and they got to understand what these awards were all about. Because we've been putting on these dinners for builders for the last few years now. And like you say, first time we introduced awards to them. But for the last event of the year in Adelaide, we didn't have a presentation. So I got to sit in the dinner and just enjoy Andy's presentation. I could see exactly what he was saying. There was, you know, there's a bit of hesitancy, there's like people there. What's all this about then? And as the night progressed and you get first the past, you get past the first award, then the second, people really understand what this is all about. And the enthusiasm by the end of the night was phenomenal. So really excited for 2026. Really looking forward to more builders submitting their applications. Because, you know, these are very prestigious awards that you can use in your own marketing.

I think that's the big thing for me. It really is a credibility piece. If you can prove to potential clients that you're running a professional building company, you can charge the prices you deserve.

Yeah. And your clients, a lot of them run their own businesses, so they respect business owners and what business owners put in to creating a great business. We've seen this with builders that post on social media about attending business planning workshops and working on their business. They're Some of the most popular posts that builders actually share on social media.

Well, the next cab off the rank is the podcast. We'll touch on this one quickly because I don't like talking too much about the things I'm involved in, but quite amazing. 219,000 total listens of the podcast since we started it. There's been 215 episodes. We grew followers 26% in 2025 and the poor listeners have listened to me for six months of the year. 194 days of listen time in 2025. Yeah, really quite amazing to look back at those numbers. I think the thing that triggered this for me and really set the year on the right track from a podcast is we actually did a live podcast at the International Builders show in Las Vegas. And the people we had on that at our booth at Vegas were really, really high quality leaders in the industry, thought leaders in their own space. And that set the tone for the year. So any reflections on your end, Russ? I kind of took that one myself.

But I think you, you missed out the bit about what drove this 26% growth in followers. And it was obviously the charisma of the presenter, the host, wasn't it? But yeah, that IBS event last year, or sorry, earlier this year, was, was great. And doing those interviews live on the stand, yeah, that was phenomenal experience. Love, love seeing that and, and hearing the interviews for the ones that I couldn't be there and listen to live. But yeah, podcasts are very, very valuable tools. Really great opportunities for builders when they might be in the car, traveling from job to job or even in the gym or, you know, taking some exercise, just tuning into a podcast rather than just simply listening to music. This is something that, that really helps builders to move their, their building company forward. Yeah.

And Honestly, of those 215 episodes, not everyone is going to be for every builder out there. But on top of all the interviews we've done with the APB team, there's hundreds of industry experts, builders that are on there. So you can find something that's going to suit your style. And to your point, it might only be a 10 minute listen to another builder on the podcast or, you know, Russ or Sky or Andy from our team. And it could give you that little tidbit that's going to, you know, really shift your business in the next short period.

Yeah, I think builders love listening to other builders. You realize you're not alone. A lot of the challenges you face, they're being faced by other builders in other parts of the country or other parts of the world.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Okay. Well, we also released 12 new trainings like we do every year. We call them action plans as part of our membership portal from everything from marketing, systemization, time management, sales, construction, financials were some of the areas we covered off. But there was one innovation we implemented towards the back end of this year that you're particularly excited about. Russ, can you talk to me more about that?

Yes. Well, this was introducing AI into our action plans. And the beauty of this is one click and our members are utilizing the power of AI to take their building company to new heights. And that's in terms of marketing, sales or operations. It doesn't require them to download anything. Literally one click and they are accessing the power of AI. So that's been a phenomenal step forward, I think this year in terms of our action plans delivering even more value to builders.

Can you give me an example of what that actually is? Yeah.

Well, if we look in terms of marketing, there's an action plan that was recently released which covers content marketing. Now we know we've proven that the builders that use content marketing and then amplify that content, those guys get the biggest margins and the best quality clients. However, creating content is time consuming. You know, it does take a bit of work. So a GPT has been produced and to access that GPT you literally click on one, click on a link and after answering a few questions, you will get a year's worth of content produced. So it's an incredible tool that makes builders lives a lot easier. It really, really has taken the action plans to the next level.

Yeah. And I think what's important is to understand is the Mechanics of those GPTs are built from thousands of iterations internally here at APB. And all the content we produce in that example, but also with all the other GPTs we produce to understand exactly how to get the best output from from AI. So if you just go to ChatGPT and ask it a question, you could get any range of different responses. But if you train the GPT in the back end so it has very strict rules, you get a much better output.

That's right. There's a lot of work has gone in under the hood, all based on what we've learned over the years. It's all builder specific, which means the results they're getting are going to be tailored towards their building company. It's kind of bordering on a done for you service now, isn't it? There's the education, so they know how to do it. But it's semi automated in that they're, they're getting the results delivered as well.

We also launched a new product in 2025 called the Builder's Profit Accelerator. Why did we go down the path of creating a new product after, you know, relying on membership, business coaching and elite mentoring as our core services for many years?

Well, this replaced an existing product that we had in place and we've been running for a number of years now. And that was the Builders Business Planning Workshop. Now the challenge with the workshop was it required a full day. The builders could attend online, but it did require a full day and that's quite a commitment for builders who are already time poor. They've got a lot of challenges on their plate and we found a lot of builders were actually having to reschedule because something came up and they couldn't attend. So we looked at this at the back end of last year and we did a bit of testing and we came up with an alternative which was the, the Profit Accelerator, which is a four week intensive group coaching program that breaks it down into bite sized chunks but allows builders to consume the most critical information that is provided within APB membership. Because to consume and implement all of it does take a few years. But there are certain courses that we know if builders implement these core courses, they will see results very, very quickly. And that's what this intensive group coaching program covers. It's the core, the core action plans included with membership. And by spreading it out over four weeks, builders can make the time to commit to attending those sessions and most importantly implementing what they've learned. So we've seen a phenomenal response to this product. But most importantly, it's the adoption of APB systems on the other side of this, of this coaching program that's been the most encouraging.

Just wanted to touch on APB's culture. It's not something we talk a lot about, our internal culture, I guess in the public eye we're focused on the builder, which is very good. But I think one of the reasons we can support builders like we do and so well is because of the team we have here. And we actually got Great Place to Work certified again in 2025, which is now four years running. Can you tell me more about what that means and what it means to you and sky as well?

Yeah, well, Great Place to Work is a certification by a third party where they, and it's based on the results of all your employees. So it's not something you can just sign up for or buy. Is an accreditation and to get it four years running is an incredible achievement which we're all very proud of at apb. And really this is all down to my co founder sky and what she's been able to achieve in terms of managing the leadership team and establishing the culture within the company. But equally it's a reflection on each and every one of the leadership team as well. There's yourself, Will, obviously we have Tyson running the sales department, we have Andy running the coaching department and we have Varant running the operations. All key figures really running their own teams. And you can't get great place to work certification without having great leaders. So this is a reflection on the entire leadership team and how they've been able to set and maintain culture within their own teams and across the company.

It's probably another good reflection of how we're living the values and the processes that we recommend to builders. Having the org chart in place and the systems and the leadership systems in place there to create a high performing team is exactly what we recommend builders to do, right?

Yeah, that's right. It's the systems, it's the core values, but it's also walking the walk, I feel as well, because you can set core values, but each and every one of us actually lives by the core values as well, which I think so, so important for culture.

Well, we had a range of professional case studies that we released in 2025 all over the world. A lot in the US and Canada this year actually, which are where we actually have a demonstrated case study from one of our clients and we go and film at their their place of work and show off all the great work they're doing. We increased our Google reviews. But one thing I wanted to touch on here, and it leads on from that third party accreditation you mentioned just earlier, Russia. It's our NPS score. So we had an NPS score of 69, which is the highest in four years. What does that mean?

That means we are excellent. That's the short, succinct answer. So, NPS score, Net Promoter score. This is an internationally recognized way of measuring the customer service, I guess, of a company. It's a rating and, and it's that question that you've probably seen in your inbox plenty of times. On a score of 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend X company to friends or family? And the answer to that question is not a straightforward one to 10. That gets added up. There is a very specific formula that's used to calculate the score and the end result is that you will end up with a detractor, a passive or a promoter. Now, to get a promoter, they need to be rating you 9 or 10. And then it's all to do with the percentage of scores, gives you your overall rating. And like I say, anything over 60 is considered excellent. I think anything over 40 is considered above average and pretty good, I think something like that. So that gives you an idea of just how far you've got to go to get excellent. And if you get 70 or above, you are considered world class. So 69, we're just sitting below that world class. But like you say, we've been running this for four years now, and when we look at the course Of a year, 69 is the highest score that we've been able to achieve. So a great reflection on all the hard work put in by the team in 2025. But excitingly, for the last three months now, we've been in the 70s average of just over 73, which is world class for the last three months. So if we can keep that momentum going into 2026, then we should break into the world class for next year.

Is this something you'd recommend builders implement as well?

Oh, look, it's something we do recommend and I believe we. It's even included in one of our action plans where we explain the whole methodology and how builders can implement this. Because obviously small building companies, they might only have a few handovers a year. Yeah, maybe six or ten handovers a year. You're not going to be able to establish a great NPS score from that small amount of data. So there's different techniques we use in order to make this actually worthwhile. But it's how you react to the responses that's important as well, because this is how we get our Google reviews now, Facebook reviews. It's how we get our case studies as well, because you're responding to the positive feedback you're getting. And if you do happen to get any negative feedback, that's a great opportunity as well. It's like a early warning radar for a builder because once you start going from a promoter into a passive, this is when you want to get on the front foot. Because they're not always going to tell you what's wrong. You've got to extract that information.

I've got some stats here which looks at our reach, our community reach across the globe. And the one that really stands out to me, without going into all the vanity metrics about Instagram followers and YouTube subscribers and all this kind of stuff since 2014, we've coached 11,736 building companies to help them improve their the way they operate, which is an enormous achievement. When you look at the size of that REIT trust, what does it mean to you?

Yeah, looking at the different numbers that we've been able to achieve in terms of reaching more and more building companies, it does give you a warm fuzzy feeling to know that you're having an impact on the industry and you're, that you're helping builders change their lives. But really, for me, the biggest impact is when we do live events and you travel to the other side of the country or the other side of the world and you meet with people so far away that start talking about the systems that APB have built, the pricing for profit formula, the work in progress, accounting, adjustment, and the way they talk about these different systems and how they've implemented it into their building companies and made it part of their processes and what it's done for their building companies. You just think like, this is amazing. Here I am on the other side of the world and there's builders using these tools that we created years ago in some instances, and they're using these tools now to make their companies better. It's just amazing.

Well, let's finish with perhaps the most important milestone of the year for 2025, and that's the one for one project. It's a non for profit organization we've been working with for a couple of years. And this year we actually supported the building of 16 plus new homes for families in need. Can you tell me more about why we established this partnership in the first place for us and how that impact really has an effect on you?

Yeah, the 141 project, this was something we came across a few years back now, I think it was about three years ago. And it was a builder that had set it up and the whole idea was build one and give one away. And in places like Guatemala, where people are living without the basic things that every human being is entitled to, including clothing, shelter and food, but they're living without proper shelter when it rains, they're literally sleeping on the floor and the rain washes through where they're sleeping, and this is all through no fault of their own that they find themselves in these circumstances. So following this builder's lead, we got involved with the 141 project by donating a percentage of the renewal fee that every builder pays to be a part of APB. And that's resulted in over 40,000 US which is what? Over 65,000 in real money being donated.

Real money.

Don't say that to the One4One project. And yeah, that has built 16 plus new homes because it's not just a case of throwing money. These people get involved in the building of their own homes as well. And it's changing lives. The videos, the pictures, the notes of gratitude that we're receiving from these people for changing their lives is wonderful to see. So it's nice to be able to do something for people that are a lot less fortunate than us, actually.

30,000 in real money if you go back to your pound, Russ.

Great.

Well, thanks Russ for reflecting on 2025 and all the great milestones we've achieved as a company, but also the impact we've had on the builder community across the countries. We do work what's new for 2026 and if you to look forward, well.

Looking ahead, there's going to be a lot more change. There's going to be a lot more exciting developments being released in due course. But the one thing we did notice when analyzing the data in this year's Saucy survey was that the number one challenge for builders is systems creating systems. This is the goal for the vast majority of residential build want to create systems, which is great because the data proved that the the most systemized builders were the most profitable ones working the least amount of hours. So it's, it's great that builders are aware of this and obviously that's what APB membership is all about. It's providing those systems that builders can utilize. But for builders that maybe haven't taken the plunge and don't have access to all those resources, we decided to put together a blueprint that would help them to take that first step completely free of charge. So if you are looking to systemize your building company, and if you don't have it fully systemized, it's certainly something you should be looking at. Then this brand new systems blueprint is something we'd like to make available to you. And I think we can probably put a link in the comments for this podcast.

Yeah, absolutely. We'll leave a link to the systems blueprint for any builders that want to get their hands on that. And if you are an APB member, you're probably best to dive straight into the Systemizing and building company action plan and there'll be a GPT in there like Russ mentioned across all the new action plans. But that's a brand spanking new one we released in recent months. So Russ, thanks so much for coming on the show today and reflecting on 2025.

Thanks so much, Will. It's. Yeah, it's always good to look back with you. So, yeah, really enjoyed it.

Looking forward to 2026 and doing bigger and better things.

Absolutely.

Great. Well, thank you as well to our listeners, wherever you are in the world. If you like the show today, please subscribe to Professional Builders Secrets on your platform of choice. And if you're feeling generous, leave a review. But until next time, have a great day and see you in 2026.