228. Freedom Through Systems With Rob Swanson

Welcome to another episode of Professional Builders Secrets. In this episode, I interview Rob Swanson from Swanson Construction in Queensland, Australia. Rob runs a large-scale remodeling company and has been in business for over 15 years. But around 3 years ago, something triggered where he had to make a change. His health was declining, he was constantly stressed and working really late in the business, and felt like something needed to be different. Since implementing a number of different systems and hiring new people in his company. He's now taking long weekends. He's even going on long 4-week holidays with his family where he leaves his laptop at home. And he shares on this episode exactly what he did to get there, including the changes he made in marketing, in financial management, and some of the people that he hired as well. It's a phenomenal story and I highly recommend checking it out. This episode of Professional Builders 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 at ApparatusTeam.com or on the APB Rewards Partner Directory.

3 years ago when we did join the APB, I didn't have a website, no CRM. Now we've got very comprehensive website, marketing team, CRM. I've got a site supervisor, an estimator. 90% of our work coming through is from our advertising. We offer the fixed price contracts in the renos. We know that when we give our clients that quote, if they say, yep, let's sign it and go ahead, we're happy. We're not going, oh no, did we include everything? We get our major trades out to site, we do a full inspection. We're not going to rock up day one and break the news that we found something that we could have easily found a month ago. If you're having that feeling where it's just not adding up or you want to see your family a bit more, then yeah, you're just putting those systems in place and the right staff. You're going to have to put in the hard yards and then you'll get the rewards.

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 Rob Swanson from Swanson Construction. Rob, welcome to the show.

Okay, Will, thank you for having me.

Well, Rob, thanks so much for coming on the show today. You've been around APB for a little while now, but you've also been running a construction business for quite a long time too. Do you want to give everyone a bit of a background on how you got into this industry and what you're up to?

Yeah, certainly. 2006, it all kicked off for us. I finished school, jumped straight into a full-time carpentry apprenticeship, full-time straight doing mostly project homes. So frames, you know, fix-outs, cladding, all that sort of stuff. By the time I was sort of in my third year, I was running my own crew for my boss. So pretty fast-tracked, but I just sort of had that drive to do that. And so he let me go with it, which was fantastic. So 2010, I got signed off. That's when I went and started up the company. Well, sole trader as it was back then, and just jumped straight into subbing for some local builders. 2 years down the track, we then formed what is Swanson Constructions today in 2012. So yeah, registered as the company. From there, just kept subbing, building a team up. Me and an apprentice when we started out, ended up with about 5 carpenters, 3 apprentices, something like that. And just the natural progression with a few smaller private jobs in 2016. So that was pretty much that first sort of 10 years. We were at that point where most guys seem to sort of naturally fall into that direction. Started doing some smaller side projects, you know, standard decks, pergolas, all that sort of stuff, and really enjoyed that side of it as well. Just a bit more creativity to what we were doing. Built up a team. By that point in time, we were sort of up around 8 guys. So pretty heavy labor, especially just keeping the work up to everyone. Then just before COVID in about 2018, we're unfortunately victims of a brief cyber attack. So that's when all that sort of stuff just started, you know, coming to fruition. So had a bit of a rough chop there and then straight into COVID after that. So a bit of a double whammy as a lot of companies did in COVID. Was, um, pretty tough going. But, you know, we got out, got out the other side and just sort of bashed on for a couple of years. 2022, sort of when it all came to a bit of a, you know, aha moment for us, and we, you know, decided something had to change. So April '23, we joined the APB, and yeah, 3 years down the track, here we are. 2026 and 20 years since everything kicked off.

What, 14-odd years since you started Swanson? So you must be doing something right. You've done, you've built a business which is, you know, past the decade mark, which I don't think there's, there's many people out there that could say.

So yeah, yeah, it's certainly good to when you reflect back on that when it all kicked off and 20 years on and here we are.

What kind of work are you primarily doing these days and how has that changed over the years?

Yeah, we've really dialed into our niche, particularly for large-scale renos and extensions. Yes, we do do the odd knockdown rebuild or the odd custom home, but it's exactly that. It's the clients who specifically want to build with us because they've either built with us before, or it's a really unique custom home. Because, you know, we're not sitting here pretending that we're going to get the best pricing for new homes. It's not what we do. There's plenty of other great builders in our area that, that do that. And we're more geared for those large renos and extensions.

What makes you specialized in that space? Like, what kind of skill set do you need to bring as a team to be able to be a good remodeling company compared to a new home company?

Yeah, lots of attention to detail. We offer the fixed price contracts in the renos, which is, you know, pretty far and few between. We go into great detail in our prelims, you know, a lot of preparation before we sign a contract. We're not just rushing to get a job across the line so we can get going and then try and pick up the slack later. We know that when we give our clients that quote, if they say, yep, let's sign it and go ahead, we're happy. We're not going, oh no, did we include everything? Are we sure? Should we double check? So we just, a lot of attention to detail in those prelim stages.

How'd you get to the point of being confident to do fixed price with renos? Because I mean, I'm not a builder, but my understanding is obviously there's typically more changes and stuff that happen in a renovation compared to a custom home because there's so many variables that you can't predict.

Yeah, so in those prelim stages, we get our, you know, our major trades out to site. You know, we do plumbing, electrical, demolition. All those major trades come out. We do a full inspection, get in the roof, have a look at, you know, the power boards, camera the drains, make sure we know what we're walking into and we can quote accordingly at the start. So yes, if sometimes if you're going to put our quote next to some, someone else's, it might look higher at the start, but we're not going to rock up day one and have to ring the client and sort of break the news that we found something that we could have easily found a month ago when we were looking at the job at the start.

Do you still build in clauses so that, you know, if there are things that you find that you just couldn't have predicted? Yeah, look, covered for that.

Yeah, there's always going to be that level in a reno. There is some impossible things. Our demo team is very thorough, so we try to identify any asbestos, but at the end of the day, if it's behind 3 layers of gyprock, we're never going to know. So there are small clauses in there that just— safe for the client, safe for us. Typical digging clauses and that sort of thing. But yeah, as far as everything else goes, it's, it If we've got the details when we're pricing, then it's all locked in.

Do you find in general that's stabilised your ability to charge the prices you need to run a professional company and a profitable company by using fixed price instead of cost plus?

Yeah, 100%. We rarely are having conversations with clients about money. It's always excitement about the build or how other things are tracking. We're not having those sometimes confronting conversations with people about money and, you know, tensions rise and things like that. The only reason we're usually having those conversations is if they're coming to us with requested extras and obviously they're going to be well aware of that attracts a charge.

Have you had pushback at all from clients around, oh no, I want to know the specifics of the costs on everything?

Yeah, definitely. A fair bit, to be fair. And at the start when we started doing it, we started questioning if we're doing the right thing. A lot of the times we sort of refresh our minds and you don't buy a car and ask how much the wheels cost scenario. We're taking the risk and funnily enough, we've had clients by the end of a project who maybe have asked the question about some refunds or this and that. And then we sort of bring up, you know, hey, your rendering actually cost a lot more because of X, Y, Z, but we didn't charge you. We had to wear that cost. So there's going to be some gains and some losses.

And is that how you handle it? Like how do you describe the value to the client for them from their perspective? Because obviously the benefits for you are potentially increased margins, but also just more consistency in the money you can see coming in and all that kind of stuff. But yeah, how do you explain the benefits to the client?

It's just safety. There's really no risk on their behalf. We're taking all the risk, providing that we've got a comprehensive set of plans, selections, engineering, all of that. The risk's all on our part. So they want a stress-free renovation, which generally by the time we get to renovation and construction, the clients are more than happy and ready to go because, yeah, that prelim process is quite detailed, but we get it all out the way early so we're ready to go.

Yeah, I'm sure you could probably tell some horror stories, or I'm sure a lot of your clients might have had horror stories from other builders where the cost just keeps going up and up with it. The it was quite a situation, right? Yeah.

Yeah, 100%.

So you mentioned you joined APB 3 years ago. Now I don't want to talk specifically about APB just yet. You know, I want to focus on your journey, but what triggered you to make such a big change in your company after being in business for over 10 years? And what were you really trying to do differently?

It was late, sort of around that late 2022 period. Like I said, we'd just come out the back of a few rough years. We'd lost a few staff members over that time. And yeah, I was burning the candle at both ends. I was on the tools all day, every day, quoting at night. My wife was helping with the payroll. And yeah, it really just— oh, my health deteriorated. I had— I got pneumonia 3 times in 18 months. Twice I was in hospital. So, and it was all drawn back to stress and just overexertion and body. That's just how my body sort of reacted to that. It, you know, it happens to different people in different ways. So That's just my body shutting down and doing its thing. So yeah, it kind of got to a point where I was thinking, you know, I can't keep this up for, you know, another 10, 15 years and be happy. I know there should be some rewards by this point. You know, you know, we're 10 years in at that rate, you know, 2012 to 2022, 10 years in. It should be, you know, getting a bit easier by now, surely. I'd been approached by a few different training companies over the years and straight away I just never had a good vibe, just real salesy from the start. And when you started asking them questions back, they sort of weren't getting the answers that we felt comfortable with. So APB ended up coming along and yeah, felt everything felt right. So we jumped on board with those guys. Yeah, here we are 3 years later, still in April, it's our 3 years with APB.

So you mentioned obviously you just reached a breaking point where you're like, why isn't my company getting to a point where I actually have more time, like, whereas, and your health was deteriorating, all that kind of stuff. But what specifically were you hoping you could implement that would be, would actually change all that?

Definitely some work-life balance. My family love going traveling, camping, and all the typical Australian sort of stuff. Yeah, just really getting a return for the effort we were putting in. You know, we weren't, didn't feel like we should be making millions, but certainly doing a lot better than what we left.

Actually, just before this call, you told me we're recording on a Thursday and you said, oh, it's my last day of work for the week because you're going away to Stradbroke Island, which is just off Queensland here in Australia. Beautiful place, beautiful part of the world. Taking a long weekend. Is that something you ever could have done before?

Not easily. If I was going to be doing it, I would have been having to work the following weekend to catch up, possibly taking my laptop, doing work while I was away. Now with what we've got set up, you know, I can take a Friday off work, comfortably, go spend time with the family and yeah, come back on a Monday and everything's still running smoothly.

What have you actually put in place that's given you that confidence to say, you know what, I can take a long weekend or I can go on a longer holiday and not feel the need to take my laptop or always be stuck to your phone and worried about what's going on back in the office?

3 years ago when we did join the APB, I didn't have a website, no CRM. I just had a general accounting team. I myself and my wife were the only people working in the admin side, you know. So now we've got very comprehensive website marketing team, CRM. Yeah, I've got a site supervisor, an estimator. So a lot of, a lot more support in what needs to, what you need effectively to run a company like this and do it right and, and provide a good service for the clients. You know, we just set up correctly.

What had stopped you from hiring those people previously or having a website or any of those things?

Probably a bit of lack of knowledge that you actually need it. We'd ride the wave of the word of mouth. We weren't searching, we weren't advertising. It was always word of mouth referrals. And, you know, in that same token, you get the highs and the highs when you're really busy, but then the lows can be quite quiet and you're waiting for someone to pass your name along. So it was just that massive inconsistency of workflow.

And have you noticed a difference in consistency just by having a website up and having a CRM and that kind of stuff?

Yeah, so we're still currently— that's one of our goals at the moment. It's certainly a lot better with the marketing structure and Google Ads and stuff that we've got in place. I can look at our sales pipeline, something that I wouldn't have even known what it meant 3 years ago. I can look at our sales pipeline and 90% of our work coming through is from our advertising.

So, okay, that's, that's cool.

Yeah, we still get word of mouth, which is fantastic, and obviously appreciative to all our ex-clients and other people that, that share our name around. But yeah, a lot of paid advertising work now.

And you said Google's like the main place you're doing that?

Yeah, for us we found Google is more successful. Facebook and Instagram become a bit more of just a a fact checker. People will just jump on there, have a look around. It's not really somewhere where people go on looking for a builder. We found with Google, they're actively looking, then they might end up on our Facebook website just checking out some other bits and pieces on the side.

Yeah, that's that trust, trust element. Like, just as you do, right? You look around, see what they're about.

Yeah, that's right. But you know, our website's— it's great. It's got all our information on there. So once people get in there, they'll find everything they need.

Yeah, I wonder if that's more typical in the renovation space than a new home in terms of— don't expect someone would go to Google directly looking for a builder to build a new home. I guess they could, but certainly with remodeling, maybe it's more suitable. Have you found that at all?

Yeah, I feel like there's a bit more fact-checking going on with renos. People already have that, and part of why we do what we do is the clients already have that emotional attachment to their house. They've lived in there for an X amount of years. So when they do get to see the finished product, it seems a lot more heartfelt than someone walking into a new space that they've never lived in before. So potentially they're doing a little bit more background checking on what you do, recommendations and that sort of thing. Because it's, yeah, pretty big decision on their part.

I had a dive in and you've got like regular blog articles on your website. You've got free resources for your potential customers, like the consumer's guide to builder's jargon and the pre-start checklist for consumers and this kind of stuff. And your Instagram is consistent. You've got a lot of followers on Instagram. So like there's a serious amount of consistency going on here, which from me as a marketer, I mean, I'm very happy that you're doing that. But how did you build the systems to make that work? Because it's hard. It's hard to actually prioritize content and everything.

Yeah, it's been a pretty big journey, the marketing side of it. Challenging, definitely at times coming from a, a chippy that had nothing of a website, no digital presence. I'm personally not very big on Facebook and Instagram on my personal accounts. So once I jumped into the APB program, I went straight into the mentoring program. So my coach, where we just needed to set a start, a starting point. So we started off building you know, your basic buying website and then only just start trickling in some small spend on Google Ads. So I had a, I had just a startup website with still, mind you, the same company who built it originally. So we've stuck with them from the start. And I had a, just like an Upwork VA, so international, stick to a budget. She did the basics right. She was fantastic. Did you know, 20 hours a week, something like that. I could manage it, I could monitor the costing and it was all very controlled. I wasn't lashing out huge amounts of dollars straight away. And then we just sort of, we scaled it from there. We reached a point, I managed to upgrade to the website to the next level that they had and the VA that I had, she sort of reached her, I guess, potential mainly because I felt she was international and I was having trouble getting the message across as to how I wanted it for our area and Australians. So I'm always pretty big on being able to drive down the road to the office and meet someone from, you know, my accounting firm or something like that. You know, just that interaction, personal, gives it a bit more real effect, I suppose, if that makes sense. So anyway, we graduated and brought on the marketing side to the website company that we use. So they offer like a full package. They can do a website,, you know, marketing and a CRM. And then once we got to a point before I invested any more money into the Google Ads and stuff, we decided to get the CRM up and running. I was always pretty good keeping track of clients, calling, follow-ups without it, but it was getting to a point where I was even starting to, you know, turn up to a meeting and, oh, what did this person want again? And I felt just a little bit unprofessional sometimes. So jumped into the CRM. That was probably one of the biggest steps. A lot of setup time went into it. I managed to get stuck into it, and I think it was within 8 weeks from nothing, I had it fully set up. So that's pretty good timing for if anyone's ever tried to do something like that. Yeah, we're still obviously working it as we go, but it was to a point where it was pretty manageable by that point. And yeah, just all sort of scaled from there.

Yeah, I mean, you get to a point where you just can't be remembering everything, right? Like you've got so many things going on. So you need those systems in place to be able to track that kind of stuff.

Yeah, but they produce some great content and all the blogs and stuff. Although I don't personally sit there and type them out, they're all in my language. We have an interview with the copywriter and it's all in my words.

Yeah, cool. Well, I mean, you've come a long way since like implementing all of these different systems over the last, you know, however long, 3 to 5 years. What are you working on at the moment that's trying to take you to that next level again?

At the moment? Yeah. So we're by no means at the end of our journey. Like I said, when I came to those crossroads, I sort of gave myself a 2-year bracket to not make it to where I wanted to be, but to at least get to a point where I can see we're on the right path and we're getting results. So yeah, we're still well and truly on our journey, that's for sure. Currently we're mostly still working on fine-tuning our sales and just our long-term lead flow— workflow, sorry. Just really being able to sort of sign a contract, especially in the fixed price market, and say, all right, we're going to be there in 3 months and we'll start.

And what's the process? Do you feel like you need to get in place to make that happen?

Just having that good team around you, really. So working with, you know, putting the right time and effort to set up all the systems and your staff properly, I guess, from the start. And just, yeah, trusting in the process that it's going to work, really.

Just wanted to touch on a couple of the awards you've won. So you got Master Builders Brisbane Region Renovation Remodeling Project of the Year in 2025, and you also won an APB Award for Financial Management of the Year for Queensland. We spoke a lot about marketing, but you've obviously got your i's dotted and your t's crossed when it comes to financial management as well. What do you think that comes down to? Has that always been something you've been good at or?

No, not at all. I was always a bit of a head in the sand type of person with that sort of stuff. You know, hardly looked at profit and loss sheets, balance sheets, all the rest of it. I knew I should be and I had to, but again, it was just, when you're doing so much work, something's got to give and just sort of let everything go in the background and it'll be right scenario. Yeah, again, when we changed APB with the worksheets and all that sort of stuff, we had just a general accounting firm and just got to a point where I really wanted to make it construction specific, which was a big help. Just connecting everything together. Our estimating software is now linked to our accounting software. So my accounting team is inside our same program that we use, seeing the same numbers that we are.

I mean, feel free to keep the names behind closed doors if you want, but you've mentioned a bunch of stuff and I think builders are probably thinking, oh, I wonder who he's using for these things like estimating, accounting. You mentioned your website and your CRM and all that kind of stuff. I mean, you don't have to mention them if you don't want, but I think like plenty of builders are probably out there looking for these kind of things as well. And they value the recommendations.

Yeah, definitely. I mean, our estimator is in-house. So I was pretty reluctant to go down and employ like a firm that isn't personalized given the work that we do. They needed to be able to come out to site. They really need to be in the project, come work out of our systems. And come to our office. So we've just got a subcontractor that does that purely for us directly. Estimating software, we use Buildxact. We've been with them since almost the start. So have sort of grown as they have as well. So yeah, our marketing websites, CRM, that's all with Smarter Websites. So anyone with the APB affiliation would most likely know Peter and the team there. They're brilliant. So yeah, we've got their full package that we utilize.

Yeah. Cool. Smarter Websites and Smarter CRM are part of APB Rewards for any members out there that would want to engage with Peter and the team there. It sounds like you had some copywriting. Is that Scott as well?

Or?

Yeah. Yeah. Scott Bywater. Yeah. From Copywriting That Sells. So he's involved with Peter and stuff as well. But for any members that are looking into that, that's always nice to get a recommendation, I think, from someone else.

Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Great team to deal with. And yeah, good results. Awesome, Rob.

Well, mate, I must say you've come such a long way. It sounds like you've made accelerated progress since you worked with APB, and I'm not trying to pigeonhole that. It's like just from the way you told your story, that sounded the way. But do you feel like it's been more gradual over the 15 years or so you've been in business, or did a lot of it happen when you started to, I guess, get someone to hold you accountable and start implementing things?

Yeah, certainly it was probably at a point where it was sort of stalling out when I was on my own running the company. It was just, and that's where, how things ended up where they were. So having my coach, I think has certainly helped. And when I signed up, I wasn't just signing up just to do the membership and I really needed someone to get in there and talk it out with me, you know, once a month as we do.

Yeah. So it's not exactly a small investment, the business coaching with APB. What got you across the line from that perspective?

Yeah, at that point in time, it was really daunting for myself to commit to the cost. It was probably one of the hardest things given that I was already in a financially sort of not unstable but not in a great position. So to start outlaying that sort of money was pretty scary. It was just something I knew I had to do. It was, yeah, go all in or go do something else realistically. So I figured we just made it work up until that point. We'll commit and jump in and just see what happens.

I think the thing that stands out for me from your journey is you've just, you've actually taken action. You've executed on everything that you've committed to, which is what we see across the board. That trait is what makes the builders successful, that are going to be successful. A lot of people sign up for things and don't take action, don't execute. And so as much as you've got a coach in your corner there, I mean, it's really on you to actually go and do the work, right?

100%. Yeah, I've always sort of had that motivation, I guess. Same thing going back to when I did my apprenticeship, smashed it out, got signed off early. Yeah. When I did my builder's license, did it the proper way, went in and actually studied in a classroom through Master Builders. Not just, I didn't just get RPLs and get a license and off we go. So yeah, and then applied that same, same method to APB and yeah, grabbed it with both hands and everything that would, yeah, Jacob, my coach has helped me through and he's a testament to helping me get where we are today.

All right. Just to wrap things up, Rob, what's one final piece of advice you'd give to other builders who are looking to improve their company and themselves as well? Yeah.

If you're having that feeling where it's, you know, just not adding up or You want to see your family a bit more, then yeah, you're just putting those systems in place and the right staff will get you to where you need to be. But doing it right as well, not just band-aid fixes. Like, you're gonna have to put in the, put in the hard yards and then you'll get the rewards.

Yeah, that's a great point. Put in the hard yards, but on the right things by the sounds of it.

It's certainly not easy, that's for sure. But once you get things in place and things going, it it's definitely worth it.

Well, it doesn't sound like you never put the hard yards in though.

It's just— well, to be fair, that's probably right.

You're putting too many hard yards in.

Too many hard yards. Put the right hard yards in.

Yeah. And then you get to go on long weekends to Stradbroke Island for anyone listening.

That's right.

That's awesome. Well, yeah, Rob, thanks so much for coming on the show today. I've really enjoyed the chat and hearing your story. So I appreciate you taking some time out and sharing that with other builders.

Fantastic. Well, hopefully in a couple of years' time we can do it again and add more to the story.

Step 2. Yeah, second part of the story. Awesome. Well, yeah, thanks again. And also a thank you 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. If you're feeling generous, leave us a review. But until next time, have a great day.