236. Talk Less, Build More With Clint Best & Hill Dickerson

Welcome to another episode of Professional Builders Secrets. This episode was taken from a webinar series we did to launch the 2026 State of Residential Construction Industry Report, but the content in it is really valuable for how builders can improve their communication. I interview Hill Dickerson from Buildapad and Clint Best, one of the executive business coaches here at APB. Both of them have over 20 years of experience in the industry and provide some really practical ways you can improve your communication. Enjoy the episode. 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.

I learned that all businesses operate by the same principles.

It became evident that communication was a big deal on how to build a business correctly. Communication was the foundation of our company. So communication to me is, it's the foundation of any business.

You can't make good decisions without good information. Communication is that vehicle.

There is so much fear around it. People are scared to say something for some reason. We had to break the fear. We were able to get ahead of problems and were able to just save ridiculous amounts of money just by talking things through. If the builder's going to lash out every time he gets bad news, the sub's not going to tell him the truth.

The silent killer, of course, is your margins just getting eroded. And everybody knows what their role is. I mean, that's how you create leverage, and continuous improvement relies on communication.

Welcome everyone to today's webinar for the Beyond the Data series, where we're going through all of the insights from the 2026 State of Residential Construction Industry Report. Today we're talking about how the best builders communicate less but get more done. Communication is a fundamental in any business, but obviously in this industry it can cause a number of issues if you don't get it right. So Today we've got some phenomenal experts on with us, but before we introduce those experts, I just want to get a feel for who's in the room while people are feeding in and let us know where you're joining from today. I'm in Sydney, Australia, and we've got one of our executive business coaches, Clint, on the call with us today. Clint, where are you joining from?

I am joining from Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada. So quite on the other side of the planet from you.

Long way away from each other. And Hill Dickerson from Buildapad. Hill, where are you joining from?

I'm in Raleigh, North Carolina, on the East Coast of the United States. Very good.

We've got Norm Wales on from Bundaberg in Queensland. Welcome again, Norm. You're on the last one as well. Adam from Bundaberg in Queensland as well. We've got Ted from Eureka in Illinois. So great to see people joining from a number of different locations. David's here from Saskatchewan. Amy from Colorado as well. We've got Wade from Raleigh, North Carolina as well. Okay.

Hey Wade. Hi Wade.

Kathy from Rosebud in Victoria. Christina from Charlotte, North Carolina. Araceli, I'm sorry if I haven't got that right, but joining us from Los Angeles. So awesome to see a diverse group of joining us today and people in the industry. Just as a quick introduction, my name's Will. I'm the head of marketing here at the Association of Professional Builders. Today's webinar is actually going to be a little bit different than what you would expect from a typical webinar. So I'm going to stop sharing my screen in just a moment. There won't be any slides. And what we're going to do is dive into a real deep conversation with Hill and Clint here because they've got tons of experience in this industry. They've been exposed to communication challenges across thousands of building companies. And we want you to be able to ask questions live today, but also dive into some of their expertise and share that live with you today. I encourage you, if you've got a question, drop it in the chat. I'll bring it to the floor at the most appropriate time and we'll keep it flowing as best we can from that. So on that note, I am going to stop sharing my screen and let's get to know our guests a little bit better. So Clint is obviously an executive business coach here at APB, but Clint, you've been working with builders for over 20 years. It dates back to when you were the Canadian Coach of the Year in 2006. But obviously you've had a ton of experience in this industry and a particular focus on self-improvement and continuous improvement in building companies. So Clint, welcome today. Do you want to give a bit more of a background on how you got here?

Yeah, thanks, Will. Yeah, no, I've been with APB for 5 years now. It's been an incredible experience. I, as you mentioned, I was, I had my own coaching company prior to that. And before that, I had a whole nother career in the department store duty-free business. you know, kind of all over the world. So, you know, I learned that all businesses operate by the same principles, you know, getting into coaching, the construction industry as a whole, subcontractors, suppliers, builders, renovators, you know, it's such a huge, you know, piece of our economy. So, you know, it wasn't long before I found my way to specializing with contractors and then talking to Russ and Skye and they acquired my company and I came on as a coach. So, I've been happy Happily doing this for the last 5 years.

Well, we're very happy to have you as well, Clint. I mean, you've won Coach of the Year at APB, I think, what, 4 out of those 5 years or something as well. So obviously doing something right. And Hill Dickerson. Hill, welcome to the webinar today. You're the co-founder of BuilderPad, which is a construction management platform, which is pretty much designed to help builders improve their communication. And I'm sure I'm not going to give it enough justice, but You were telling a cool story just before we jumped online about your background in the building industry and how you used to run a company which worked with over 500 builders, and that led you to start your company now, BuilderPad. So could you give a bit more background on that?

Yeah, so, um, BuilderPad was founded in late 2021. My business partner and next-door neighbor at the time, Mark Thompson, and I founded the company. At the time, I still owned my fireplace distribution company here in Raleigh, and we had worked with over 500 small custom home builders. I kind of built The fireplace, I guess halfway through our 18-year existence, you know, it became evident that communication was a big deal on how to build a business correctly. And, um, so we had like, I mean, communication was the foundation of our company. And what happened was we became known in town as one of the most reputable vendors and subcontractors to hire to handle all your fireplace things. It ended up with a great acquisition for me. But before that journey ended, before that acquisition, before we got that company sold, Mark came to me and said, you know, well, one of the things I noticed in the business was, uh, the clients would come into our showroom to pick out their products. And you knew the clients that were working with like really good builders who were communicating things because they would, they would have their plans and they would have their budget and they would have kind of an idea of what they wanted and they would have it through technology. And then, but that was only a small handful of our clients. I mean, I'm talking maybe 30 or 40 builders would send those kind of clients in. The rest of them came in. To our showroom with no knowledge of what they had to pick or what they could buy. And we would actually sell them the wrong products. We would sell them products that actually wouldn't even work in their house. We just, our sales team didn't know any better. Um, sometimes. And so it dawned on me, I was kind of like, well, why is it that not all the builders are using tech? I mean, you could tell the difference. And, um, it was a lot of it had to do with cost. A lot of it had to do with adoption. How easy was it to use? And so my business partner, Mark, who has been developing software for over 15 years, um, had an idea. It just so happened that he was building a custom home himself with a builder who had no technology. So he kind of came to me and he was like, hey man, is this a problem? I'm like, absolutely. Why are not more builders using it? I know. And so we came together and decided to build an easy-to-use, affordable solution that was still very powerful, that gave you all the ba— all the major tools you needed. And that's what we, we've set out to do on our journey. So communication to me is the most, is one of the most important. It's the foundation of any business to me. I mean, I've always told my staff, like, you're not gonna get in trouble by bringing some, some bad news to me. You know, let's, let's get it to the forefront. Let's get ahead of it. And nobody likes bad news, but it's better to be proactive with it. And that was kind of how I built my business and what led to a, a very, very great acquisition to me and my family.

Amazing. Well, thanks for sharing, Hill. Sounds like there's going to be a ton of, ton of value coming from your experience today that you can share with the builders online. So I hope so. Appreciate you being here. Before we dive into the bulk of the content, I just wanted to give a little bit of a background around the State of Residential Construction Industry Report, which is some of the data we'll be talking about and the insights beyond that data today. So It's the 6th year we've published this report. Over 8,000 builders across the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand have participated in annual surveys, which has given us a really extensive data set. And better than ever, we've been able to correlate a lot of data across years, across multiple data points using AI this year, uh, which has given us some phenomenal insights around how building companies are run and where the most profitable builders are making good decisions in the way they run their companies. So Don't worry, we'll send a copy of that report to everyone that's attended today, so you don't need to scramble around to try and find that. But definitely worth having a look. I've got a physical copy right here. It's, it's a bit of a thick one because there's so much data in there and lots of really good insights from some of our partners. So worthwhile having a flick through and seeing if there's anything that you can apply to your building company that may kind of move the needle. I just wanted to acknowledge as well Builderpad, which is Hill's company, they did help collect the data. So our partners really help get us, get a wider industry perspective with, with all the questions that we ask. So yeah, appreciate that help as well.

Absolutely.

Today's focus is on communication, like I mentioned. And really what I'm going to stop talking in a second so that Hill and Clint can, can fill all the space because they're the ones that we want to hear from. But really what we want you to leave with today is some practical ways that you can simplify and improve communication in your building company. So with that in mind, let's dive in. I want to start with the first question. I'm actually going to throw a statistic out there as well. There was one statistic from the Saucy Report that stood out to me. Companies that hold daily huddles, which is symbolic to regular consistent communication, I guess we could say, had gross margins of 24.8% on average compared to those that only had weekly meetings had gross margins of 20%. So That was just one example of a data point, and that actually fed down to the bottom line as well with the total owner return, which is net profit plus owner salary at 13% of total revenue for those ones that held daily huddles. And that dropped down to 9.1% for companies that didn't have daily communication. So I just wanted to frame that up initially to show that such a small thing that may not seem significant from a communication perspective. The data does show that it can have a significant impact on the profitability of a company. But let's dive in. That's my perspective looking at the data and objectively trying to assess it. But Clint, why do you see communication as such an important part of a building company?

Yeah, that's a big question, Will. And like you say, daily, you know, the more frequent the better. But I mean, I think he'll put his finger on it earlier. Communication is such a foundational element of business. You know, it's also a foundational element of relationships. When you think about a business, any business, but especially a business in our industry where there's so— the timelines of the projects, you know, span long periods of time, lots of moving parts. Once you get started, it's critical that you stay on schedule. So really, communication is foundational in that it's the way that we relay information in the company, right? And so, we need to have a hierarchy, sort of a system, chain of command, if you will, for information to flow. And again, right, in the right measure. You don't want to overcommunicate. You don't want to undercommunicate either. So, you know, if you're running a successful building company, relies on making good decisions. You can't make good decisions without good information. And so communication is that vehicle. It builds trust. It builds authority, as we talked about— I talk about all the time. And when done properly, it builds in consistency. So yeah, absolutely the foundational to, to the success of any company, especially a building company, a kind of a crazy industry like ours where there's a lot of, you know, potential chaos. every day. Really important to stay on top of that.

So, Hill, when you think about communication, uh, what does it even mean to you in a building company? Like, who's it involving and, and how does that flow?

So to me, communication involves everybody. And, um, I read a book a long time ago called, um, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. I don't know if you guys have read that book, but, um, yeah, one of my biggest takeaways, and I think this is part of the reason that communication is such an issue, is there is so much fear around it. People are scared to say something for some reason, and it gets into that brainstem part of your body, and they get tense like they're going to get in trouble, like they're being attacked by a tiger, and they get the weird feeling in their stomach internally in the business. And we learned this when I— we actually took that book, and man, we had that first meeting where we all sat in the room and we had to like, okay, and it was really tense and everybody was scared to say something because the fear turned out in that initial meeting with my group in the fireplace business that employee A, if they said what they wanted to say, was gonna get employee B in trouble. And employee B would then, they were afraid that some employee C was gonna say something about them and make them mad. And there was all this fear and that first meeting was hell. Like we had to end it early because they were gonna kill each other. But then we had another meeting the next day. I said, we're gonna keep doing these till we can sit in a room together and talk like human beings. Cause we had to break the fear. We had to get people not scared to talk to each other. That was like step one. And once they figured out, oh crap, like we're not gonna get in trouble. We're just, I'm just letting him know that he forgot to check something improperly or something got damaged and he didn't report it, or we didn't call a builder and let him know. But once we got over the fear factor, that's when communication started flowing freely. And when, and then daily standups, that was something we, once we got to where we could stay in a room together and not kill each other, then we started doing these daily standups in the, in the lobby with over a cup of coffee. Like what happened yesterday? What's happening today? And what are we going to be doing tomorrow? And you would find that, oh crap, something that didn't happen yesterday is going to trickle into tomorrow. Well, that changes tomorrow's plans. So we can fix that today. And we were able to get ahead of problems. And unfortunately, I was not measuring profitability probably the way I should on what those standups did for the company. But I, I wish I could have gone back and measured it because I guarantee you we got ahead of some things and were able to just save ridiculous amounts of money just by talking things through 5, 10-minute standups every morning before everybody went to work. So it's almost like a surreal— when I think of communication, it's like, why wouldn't you communicate now? It's, to me, it's like, and I talk to people all the time that are still scared. Like, I don't wanna call that homeowner and let 'em know that this is not gonna happen. Why? You're under— I mean, why, why are you scared? Yeah, they're gonna be pissed. Of course. I mean, I've sold fire for a living, man. I'll put, voluntarily put fire in your home. So if anybody should have been scared to call somebody when something was wrong, it was me. We're not in the jungle, man. We're not going to get attacked by tigers. We're just doing business. It's just life. People are going to get pissed. It's just going to happen. But we're all adults. Let's get, get over the fear to communicate with people.

What's most interesting to me there, and I know we're diving forward a little bit into solutions and maybe Clint, you can jump in here. What you've described is an environment where people feel safe to communicate and provide feedback and talk their mind essentially. How do you create that environment so there is that safety factor there?

Yeah, I think, you know, what underpins the communication is your culture, right? You know, the vision you have for where you're going to. Everybody understands why you're doing what you're doing. They're a good fit. You know, you're on a mission together paddling in the same direction. So you have shared goals and, and of course shared values, which, which is incredible, incredibly important part of that. And I think, you know, most of the builders I work with within their core values, there is at least one or 2, maybe out of 5 that are directly related to communication, right? Not making assumptions or asking questions and that sort of thing. I mean, I think Hill makes a great point. You have to build that skill within your organization, right? And so, I think that it starts with laying that foundation with the culture and encouraging people to communicate. And that means making sure that you're not kind of shaming anyone inadvertently, right, which can happen very easily, especially when younger generations are a little more self-conscious, a little, not all of them, but some about speaking up. And so, always assuming positive intent with communication I think is a really important one, right? Like not, it's very easy to look for flaws in somebody's idea, right? And that's the best way to shut down communication if that's your goal.

So, well, the thing that stood out to me is the word inadvertently, because your initial reaction to someone's communication can actually impact how they communicate in the future, like significantly, right? Without you even knowing.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's different personality styles, different personality types. There's, uh, you know, People come from different cultures, so you really have to create that environment. Really, your environment helps to shape the people that come into it. And there are lots of things that you can bring into an environment to improve the communication, not the least of which would just be training. And I think one of the most important things is great leadership. Right? That not only great leadership, but great leadership backed by emotional intelligence, right? Like I say, not being, not getting triggered, not getting emotional, right? Staying objective. There's a place for emotion, of course. It's an important part of our human condition. But to, as leaders in a company, we really need to be intentional, I suppose, about how we direct that.

That concept of emotional intelligence, Clint, I think some people might assume that you're either born with it or you're not kind of thing, but it's something you can learn, right?

Absolutely. It's something we can learn. And I think the sort of the starting point with that is just getting clear on your own values and then making sure that they're coming out in your behavior because it's really that that's going to drive your results. A big part of that is self-awareness and being able to take— There you go.

Right?

Yeah.

So, self-awareness and being able to pause and regulate maybe the time in your response, be thoughtful. We've got a great action plan in our repertoire of action plans called Effective Communication that sort of goes through all of the most important types of communication that go on in a company. But they all require that self-regulation.

All right, well, Clint's been chatting for a while, so I'm going to throw to you, Hill, on the next question. One interesting stat that came out of the Sourcei report when we asked builders what their number one challenge was related to projects, the number one challenge for new home builders was subcontractor delays. Client selections came in second, and that was actually the top for remodeling companies as well. The word clients and subcontractors in there tells me that there's potentially you know, they're potentially related to humans and communication. So maybe I'm drawing a long bow, but the question I want to ask you, Hill, is what are the signs in a building company that maybe communication isn't as effective as it could be?

Well, for me, well, you know, they all, I think there's a saying like, if it weren't for employees and clients, I mean, I'd be perfect, like my business would be perfect or something like that if I didn't have employees and clients or if I didn't have subcontractors and clients. One of the signs, and I think I maybe touched on this a little earlier, like One of the signs I saw was when clients, on the client side, was when they walked into our showroom and weren't prepared for whatever reason there. And I could only imagine what they went through when they went into the bath hardware showroom or the kitchen cabinet showroom and didn't have all the information they needed. That was a sign that there was a, maybe a breakdown in communication. On the, on the subcontractor level, when With subcontractor delays, when they, if now are you speaking of when they just don't show up on time, like constantly?

I think it was more, more of a general challenge that they were facing. There's probably, you know, a number of different reasons as to why that ranked as number one.

Even that. So if I was a builder, I would want to communicate with my subs a lot because when a subcontractor, if you, if you have rain the week before, and you've got an electrician or a plumber or whatever scheduled on like Tuesday of this week, but you knew it rained all last week. Somebody needs to reach out to that guy and say, are you still coming? I mean, don't just assume that his week went perfect in that whole. And what happens is it's like what I'm seeing builders do is they put it on the schedule and it's gonna happen. I, I told you to come, end of story. My job's done. I'm off to the next thing. You gotta do better than that. You gotta take, you gotta check in. We got a bunch of rain last week. Are you delayed? I mean, there's gotta be open channels of communication and the sub, like Clint said, needs to feel comfortable letting him know the truth. If the builder's gonna lash out every time he gets bad news, the sub's not gonna tell him the truth. He's just gonna lie to him and tell him he's coming and he's not gonna come. That's just what happens. We delivered bad news every single day. Every day we were doing. I don't know, 20 to 30 fireplace installs a day and probably 70 to 80 service calls a day. So something didn't happen every single day. Our job was to call the builder and let 'em know. And what my team, what I taught my team was, I don't care if they yell at you, you're still gonna have a job. So we always said to, you ever watch the, you know, Charlie Brown cartoons? And when the teacher talked, he goes, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. I said, when that guy's yelling, just pretend that you're hearing the wah, wah, wah, wah.

And.

We're gonna get it on the schedule, but he's not gonna yell loud enough to, to, to ruin our life. So, but then you had the good builders who, when we called them, we got ahead of it. They were like, thank you. From the builder's perspective, I was, I was always like, I appreciated the builders that could keep an even keel. They didn't get too worked up. They weren't too passive or too lenient, but they, but they, they were tough, but they were gracious with it and they didn't subject us to verbal abuse and all those good things. And we didn't have to lie to them. You know, so, but we saw it every day. We could see the good, you could distinguish the good ones from the bad ones just on how they reacted to bad news. And it is a self-awareness thing. I mean, normally it's, it all starts with that person, with me in my case. I mean, I, I started taking self-awareness classes back in 2013. I went through a, a seminar here in North Carolina that was like 5-day intense, but it was a life-changing event for me. And from that day forward, it was all about how do I work on myself to be a better leader? And it, it's, and it never ends. It's a work. I mean, it's been. What, 13 years since I went through that program. And you have to continuously work on yourself to become a better leader, and it can be taught 100%. I mean, I was a horrible leader before that. That's why I went to the class. I was like, what am I doing wrong? Nobody wants to listen to me. Everybody hates me. And we figured it out, you know.

You must have been somewhat self-aware to make that decision, at least.

Yeah, well, I was getting ready to walk away from the industry. I mean, that's how bad it was. I was like this— I was that miserable. I was like— and, uh, luckily I had a mentor that said, all right, you've decided you're gonna walk away from the industry before you do that. 'Cause he said, I think you're sitting on a golden opportunity here. I'm, he's looking at it from the outside in. He's like, if you're gonna quit, go do this, you know, learn some about yourself and then decide. Go ahead and take a week off. Well, I can't take a week off. He said, well, you're getting ready to quit the whole industry. Of course you can take a week off, you know, so you might need that. That's how it's— forever.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. But it. Smartest thing. I mean, best gift anybody could ever give me was that guy forcing me into that program.

Shout out to Melissa who just dropped a comment in giving you a bit of a pat on the back there, Hill, saying that you're teaching us now. So Clint, what do you see inside building companies when communication's ineffective?

Are there—

what symptoms are playing out?

Oh, well, you know, the obvious ones, right? Like mistakes and delays, right, in, in project timelines. A lot of routine questions being asked over and over again, right? Because you don't have kind of a system or rhythm of communication, which is really an important concept to understand, right? You can't have one big meeting to solve everything. You need a lot of little meetings to keep things on the rails, right? And to keep that beat going. So, of course, talked about information not flowing, not getting the right places in a timely manner. So again, delays. And I think, The silent killer, of course, is your margins just getting eroded, right? The profitability of your job as a schedule goes over its planned timeline. First of all, it affects your capacity, right? And obviously, you know, if you follow our Pricing for Profit methodology, it starts to consume more than its fair share of expenses, of fixed expenses, those kind of costs that we have to pay whether we're working or not just to keep the lights on. Right. So I think those are the big ones, you know, profit, time, relationships.

Yeah, it was something— I don't have the data on hand right now, but there was something that came out from the Sourcey data around understanding your fixed cost per day. And a lot of builders didn't fully understand how much it could cost to have even just a day or two overrun on jobs. And if that compounds across multiple jobs, all of a sudden it's just eating away at your bottom line. And that can come from poor communication, like you said, Clint.

Yeah, I mean, most builders don't build those costs into their jobs to begin with. So they're, you know, a lot are, we know, are operating on thinner margins than they even realize. So yeah, those are, you know, obviously they're important ways that that shows up too. But I think those are the big ones for me. The frustration and disappointment, you know, that creeps in, you know, obviously is on the personal side.

Yeah, well, I think you've just, you've led me down the path I wanted to go down anyway. We've spoken a lot about the business issues, you know, profitability, subcontractor delays, team issues, client issues. But the load that this puts back on the owner of the company, which most of the builders attending today are most likely the owners, given our audience, can be significant. So talk to me about that strain. I mean, one thing that came out of the Sourcer Report was that working excessive hours wasn't actually resulting in better profit, higher earnings for the owner. In fact, builders working 60+ hours a week were earning less than those working 40 to 50 hours a week. And that's kind of what the data told us. So what strain does all of this put on the owner, Clint?

Yeah, I mean, there's, there's some great studies that would tell you that, you know, you can expect a, you know, max 6 really productive hours out of anybody, whether it's the owner or an employee a day. So you really have to protect that productivity that we all have a limited capacity for. So I think, you know, burnout, obviously. Is a big one, just that being in a constant state of overwhelm for long periods of time, it starts to affect your sleep, you know, can affect your, obviously, your important relationships at home. You know, essentially what can happen over time because things take typically longer than they should. And, you know, there's always that looming feeling like something's going to get missed, right? And again, right, that just takes up bandwidth. And soon, you know, I've seen serious incidents where an owner can become very numb to these things and just be kind of operating on autopilot after a while. So, you know, and not being able to take those breaks away from the business, right, that are so important, right?

Where those—

that's where your best ideas come to you. And it's where you kind of see problem solving. And just, you know, whether that be on a morning walk because you've got time to do that. Or just taking a vacation or time away without having to think about the business. And again, right? I mean, communication is so closely tied to systems, right? Because you need to have systems of communication. And I could say that rhythm, that feeling of being trapped in a business. I don't know if— I'm sure some of the listeners today can identify with that. It's not unusual. But it's fixable. And I think communication is really where you, you start.

It sounds counterintuitive. Clint kind of just hit on something. We, we, we call it analysis paralysis where you just, the hamster wheel's turning and you set this worry wheel in motion and you can't stop it. And for us to sit here on this podcast and say, hey man, just go for a walk. It sounds like, well, that's not gonna fix all these problems, me walking down the street. But believe it or not, it does. If you can walk away from it for a minute, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 30 minutes. You'd be amazed at what it does for your brain and, and how it shifts the fear from here and brings it back to the front of your brain. And you can start using, like Clint said, the, the best part of you will come out. And then you can go, okay, now we've got these things to do. How do I communicate these things properly with the right channels, with the right systems? But you have to get there first. You can't do it when you're stuck in analysis paralysis. You're at your worst. Point right there. And the problem I see with a lot of builders is they do get locked in there, the ones that are sitting at 9 o'clock at night still emailing. Like, good gracious, man, don't— you know, you're going to drive yourself crazy and you're going to drive yourself to an early grave, and it's not worth it. We're building houses, you know, we're not saving lives, we're not doctors here. We're, we're building houses, we're selling fireplaces, we're building software, whatever. You can't worry yourself sick about it.

I think as well, like, if you're doing those long hours and you're building up so much stress and everything like that, you're not going to turn up effectively with your team and stuff here, which goes back to the beginning of the conversation around the impact you're having on your team in that, that communication, which creates an environment where they don't want to communicate. It's like a cycle.

It is. Yeah. And my friend, I've got another mentor that says a fish stinks from the head down. So whatever the leadership's feeling, the rest of the team feels it. They see it. They can sense it. So if you, if you're stressed and you're doing that and you come in, even if you're the smiley happy guy, they know. They know you didn't sleep last night. They know that you're freaking out and that then they're stressed and they're not operating at their full capacity. If you can be open, drop the ego, be self-aware, and let your team know that, hey, we're all humans here. We're all gonna make mistakes. Not shame people. Like Clint said, challenge from the heart was one of our values. It's like, you know, let them know that that's what you're doing. I'm gonna challenge you, but it's because I want— know that I trust you enough to challenge you. You know, I want you to, Don't be offended. Don't take it personal. Give me a good re— you know, that's the kind of open communication we like to have in our business. And we still do now with BuilderPad. I mean, we, I mean, we have daily standups with our team at weekly check-in meetings, but we banter. I mean, we, we go back and forth on why something will or will not work, but we do it with respect. And we all have a clear vision for where the company's going. So building software, believe it or not, is a lot like building a house. I had no idea. 'Cause I've never, I mean, I'm a fireplace guy that turned into a software guy, but there's decisions, there's selections, there's things that need to be done. There's a chain of events and I'm like, man, this is just like, oh, and people don't show up for work. Oh, and things don't be, aren't delivered on time and we can't find data that we need to make a decision. And I'm like, man, this is just like home building. It's the same thing. So just a little tidbit of information there in case anybody was wondering.

Yeah, so important to build that trust within the organization. And, you know, when you do that properly and you have a good communication structure and rhythm and everybody knows what their role is, right, and their responsibilities, and so they build up a sense of responsibility. I mean, that's probably one of the most important things you can do in a team is get everybody feeling that personal responsibility, right? So, you know, instead of one— hold the results all too often kind of coming pigeonholing one person, the owner, right? You start to spread that responsibility around. And I mean, that's how you create leverage. And leverage is one of the most important elements in any kind of enterprise.

I like the rhythm to the communication rhythm you speak of, because that's when you get into a rhythm, you avoid fire drills, like constant fire drills, because you know, if you know that there's going to be something happen today, whether it's a standup or a meeting or a scheduled something, or if there's, if you're using some technology where your job is to, you know, take some job site photos and post them and let the clients see it and they're expecting it, you get into that rhythm and that workflow and then all of a sudden it's a flow state, you know, and you're not— the emergencies don't show up anymore because you've kind of got ahead of it, but didn't really even really mean to. If somebody says something to a picture, it just kind of happened like, oh, well, yeah, we can fix it. You know, now's the time, you know?

Yeah, I know. I think that's a great point, you know, not trying to control it, but just letting it happen, you know, getting out of the way. You know, part of that rhythm is, of course, to share and, you know, what type of information you share. Well, one of the things that you're sharing in that, in those meeting rhythms are KPIs, right, and financial information and feedback loops, right, setting up intentional feedback loops. So, you know, for instance, in the field with, you know, we estimated this to cost this much. How much did it actually cost? How much time did it actually take? And sort of that cycle of continuous improvement relies on communication. You know, I think, you know, modeling that as a leader, what is good communication. So for instance, you don't want to have long meetings, right? Like, I think that was a Patrick Lencioni book you mentioned earlier, The Five Dysfunctions. And the other one he wrote was Death by Meeting. And right, that's a real thing, right? So short, like your stand-up meetings that you talked about. Short meetings, well-placed, bookend the weeks with effective communication. What are we doing this week? How did we do this week? And then, bookending the days, as it were, with a good start, start of the morning routine and end routine, you know, and that includes, you know, the effective communication includes your email and all the other types of, you know, customer communication and whatnot that we're doing. It's not just verbal.

Which is why having a good technology platform of some sort that is a central hub of truth can keep you from communicating, overcommunicating, like through, because I think the name of this podcast being How Do We Communicate Less, I don't think we are saying don't do it. We're saying, all right, we've got WhatsApp, text, email, voicemail, phone call. You've got all these different forms and this person can hit you from all these different angles. I've got a builder that with one of our clients here in Durham, she's been using construction technology since 2002 and she has it in her contracts. With her clients that you will learn to use this, this software. You'll communicate with me through this software. You don't have my cell phone number. You can't, if you wanna call and talk about the weather, sure. Gimme a shout. What's up? Well, how's the ball game? But if it has to do with your house, if it's not in this software, it never happened. You know? And that way it holds the builder accountable. It holds the client accountable. And she's a very successful, very successful builder. And her clients are— she's like a 5-star, the dog wagging the tail and not the other way around. You know, she's setting the rules. I want to, you know, and she doesn't— of course, she must be very good at it, but her clients love it because they know if I need to communicate with you, I'm going to go to this technology, this software, and that's where we're going to do it. And it keeps it— and there's the rhythm right there, you know?

Yeah. And what you just said is so important, right? Not just conveying information but having information in central locations and people know where to find it and where to go for it and how to access it and that sort of thing, right? So, and that's where technology is so, so important. And I think one of the things Andy often reminds me of, our Head of Coaching, he reinforces that first, you have to have a system and then you deploy that system. You leverage it with technology. Right. But that leverage with technology, I mean, it's almost a must-have these days rather than a nice-to-have, isn't it? Just to be competitive.

It is. The internet has changed everything. And now with AI, it's really changed everything. And so we're faced with a battle like one of our biggest. And we're a startup, you know, we've only been around a couple of years, so we surely have not perfected everything yet. But getting the clients to onboard a piece of software for the short time that you're going to be in this relationship with them is really difficult because It's, it's like, hey, we're gonna need to use this for 6 to 12 months and then you'll never use it again, but we need you to learn how to use it. So onboarding clients into the technology should be just as important as signing the contract. And that's the perfect time to do it. You're sitting at the table, they're writing you a big fat deposit check or however that works, and then you're signing a contract. Okay, now let's get you into your software and let's do a couple tests. Messages to each other, or let's show you how this works. Let's spend an hour on it because that little, that hour spent is gonna make this next 12 months of our relationship so much better. We, the tech guys, we want to help. We want to help facilitate those meetings, of course, but really the builder's gonna have to take some ownership. And, and, and once he learns how to use it, just that's part of his cadence now. Um, because what that client, they're gonna say, well, we don't want to use any more technology. No, they do, because they're going to go on the internet tonight. They're going to find a different cabinet that they want to buy or a different light fixture. They're going to go to Houzz and they're going to find something they want to do. So they're using technology like crazy throughout this house so they can learn a little bit of technology to, to help the process go through better too.

Yeah, especially if you help them to understand the, you know, not just the features but the benefits, right? How it's going to make their project go, go better, how it's going to make their life easier. And that would include You know, any kind of relationship where the communication is important, you know, especially, you know, your team understand, you know, that they understand why it's important, how it contributes to the mission, but more so how it makes their, their job easier and how it can make it even more easy if they got better and better at it. Right.

And a picture tells a thousand words, and that is like, even if you don't like posting. If you just take photos every day of the work that was completed on the job and share it with somebody, and share it with your client, share it with your team, it really opens the door and, and avoids all kinds of things. I mean, it avoids any kind of disputes, litigation. It gives people props for good work. It improves morale. That is kind of like where we started with BuilderPad, was it was the photos, the mobile app, and being able to take photos. That's where 'Cause we, I just said, man, we just need to have an easy way to communicate what's going on on the job every day. And pictures are the best way to do it.

Yeah, because things are happening at different timelines, right? You know, you have a sub show up at a site and, you know, talking to the project manager or talking to the site supervisor and they're, they're solving problems, right? They make some decisions. Like, how do you get that to everybody quickly and efficiently? I mean, you, you do it with the type of software that you guys make.

So, all right, before we run out of time, we've got 13 minutes left on the clock, counting it down. We did promise some practical ways you can improve communication in your building company, which I think there's been a ton of practical ways that you can do so. But if we want to just talk to that question specifically, Clint, you've mentioned systems and processes a number of times. What are some of those systems and processes you can implement to improve communication in your company?

Oh gosh, there's just a business is just an end-to-end series of systems, right? And so, I think the obvious ones that come to mind, of course, we talked about the meeting rhythm, right? We talked about tracking key performance indicators and making sure that people not only know what their roles and responsibilities are. So, that's a system, right? It's a template or a checklist of responsibilities that you might have. And then how your performance is being measured in a non-punitive way, as we said. So I think that's a super foundational one. Like when people understand what their role is and they're trained well, right? So your training systems, your onboarding systems are incredibly important. I mean, we have systems. Obviously, your sales process is just different systems that create, move logically, somebody logically through your sales process. You know, our Sales Blueprint is an example of that. And you have scripts in there and you have templates and you have intentions when you're— as you're moving people through. And that's all well communicated. Well, you know, there's certain things that you communicate, as Hill mentioned, to educate the employee or the customer as they're going through your sales process just on what this step is, what the outcome is, and then maybe what the next step is, right? So that they feel empowered, right? They feel confident, empowered. Systems, just, you know, by the way, I think to clarify, typically are like some kind of a standard operating procedure, right? Or some kind of a checklist or some kind of a template. You know, there needs to be a trigger for that tool and then an outcome. And everybody needs to know what those outcomes are. And, you know, when something is finished, what would that look like?

My interpretation of what you said was essentially businesses a series of processes all tied together in some sort of sequence. And if you've got all of those documented, it's going to improve communication across the organization, and that enables you to then automate that with software and, and technology and things like that once you have those in place. But if you try and jump the gun on that, um, it can create more chaos than, than it did before. Is that a fair summary?

Yeah, no, absolutely. Because, you know, essentially you need to prioritize consistency, right? If you want it like you It takes that mindset, right? Because you will bump up again. There will be resistance, right? There's that nobody can do it as well as I can sort of mentality that can creep in and destroy you. So delegation is super important. And that's a process. It's a skill that you have to build, right? So, you know, you have to allow people to make mistakes, right? And as we talked about earlier, you don't, you know, they need to feel safe in order to do that, in order to learn. They also need to know where the boundaries are, right? So how far they can go with their authority. And so all of those things need to be well communicated.

I had a banker that was in the leadership group in 2013. He's the CEO of one of the largest, I think it's the largest, one of the largest privately held banks in the United States. They were telling the story of how he had to change out the computer system at the bank. Like the whole bank, like all the banks. And he made it clear to the staff on day one that there will be mistakes. This is not gonna be smooth. I'm just asking for 80%, guys. 80% is good enough. That's the level of delegation. I've always remembered that story because when you say delegate, yeah, I can do it myself and I'm gonna get it 100% right. But if I delegate it, it's something's gonna go wrong. Okay, well just expect that and just know that 80% sometimes is good enough. Especially when you're running a business, no one's 100%. No one, even the owner. Yeah, you can try to do it yourself, but then you got burnout to deal with. So then it's a vicious circle. So, and I think communicating part of your system is that to communicate to people that you have a system, like we invested in this system, Mr. Client, or we invested in this system, Mr. Employee, for you so that we can work together better. And if you communicate that right off the bat, it's like a, it starts the culture right off on the right foot from day one. But communicate that, like, here is a system, this is what we do, and this is why we do it. And, you know, you build the system, but let people know you did it, you know? So it's, everything needs to be communicated in my book.

Well, and that reminds me of a client I have right now that's going through issue with an employee that does not seem to want to follow the system, right? And of course, that, that's going to be a problem, you know, because—

We like to give those people a promotion to another company.

Yeah, but you know, and then from a practical perspective, that can be quite emotionally draining for an employer, right? Because you know, there's a whole buildup that happens, right? And you know, resentment builds and emotions come into it. And you know, there's two kinds of control, right? There's passive control and aggressive control. Most people know what aggressive control looks like. And that's what the boss usually is. Right? But then, there's that passive control sometimes that an employee will use. Well, they'll just resist doing it for typically because you mentioned it early. They're afraid of it or they're not good at it yet. So, they'd rather just wing it, right? You can't have that, right? So, a very practical skill to develop is having those difficult conversations, right? And that just requires coming up with some language oftentimes, just some language, right? Like, Hey, can I count on you to, uh, to follow the system? It's important that everybody's paddling in the right direction if we're going to, uh, be the best builder in our market and provide you with all the things that come with that.

So what if you do have someone that's slipping back into that passive control space, Clint, uh, even after you've had those conversations? Maybe it improves temporarily and then falls back. Is that a situation where it becomes more serious?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's an expectation, right? You have to set with everybody in the company. Starts with the leader. But, and then again, right, you have a performance review system and you have a training system. And essentially, you know, a good team member, that's their job is to come in and run the system that you've created, right? You know, some people say there's this argument, you know, what comes first, the people or the systems? Well, I would argue the systems come first. Because that's how you communicate how to get something done in a kind of a best practice, consistent manner. And if people aren't following that, then you don't know if it's working or not. If you don't know how it's working or not, then you don't know how to improve it, right? So again, this comes back to communicating to people the why, you know, why it's so important. And then also in that exchange, being mindful and I suppose reasonably patient in letting somebody push through their resistance, especially in areas where you've got, like sales, for instance, where it can be a bit of an emotional game sometimes. So that makes sense.

Yeah. My mentor actually called— so there's sales like the sale of the house, but there's also sales in the sense that we as leaders are I was labeled the CSO, the chief sales officer, not because I was outselling the product, but we as leaders have to sell the team on this system, on this idea of what we're doing and how we sell them. And that's, that's a sales tactic in itself. And that's what we have to do as leaders is learn how to sell them on the idea, on the values, on the end game. Um, celebrating wins is a huge way to communicate and when somebody runs the system and it works out perfectly, to have a meeting about that and go, guys, we, we actually had this with a house fire. Um, we had a system of taking pictures, and the way we, we actually used CompanyCam back in those days, and, um, the fireplace company. And I'll never forget a house— big house fire, big mess. We were completely off the hook because it happened around the fireplace, but it wasn't us. But the sales rep took his pictures correctly, the installer took his pictures correctly, the the service technician who started the fireplace up at Trimout, and we all gathered in the warehouse and I had this iPad and I pulled through all these pictures and I was like, look at all these great pictures. And they were like, why are you showing us this? I said, well, that house burnt down last night. And because we had all these pictures, we're off the hook. I said, guys, thank you. You guys ran the system exactly the way it was, and this is why we do it right here. And, um, everybody's like, wow. And it was a really cool moment to see everybody like, oh, that's why we take all these damn pictures. You know? Like, yeah. So yeah, just celebrate wins once in a while when they actually do it right.

That's a great example of demonstrating the why to someone for sure. Yes.

I mean, like literally you can do it all day. You could find ways to demonstrate the why daily or weekly. And, and you know, when a, when a shipment goes right or when a customer's happy or you get a good review, celebrate those wins and give that person that recognition. Hey, you did it right. You did it the way we said. And again, if they don't like it, Tell them to come up with a better way. Okay, bring— how would you do it? And let's— we'll, we'll talk about that. Well, I used to do that once in a while too. We would let them have a— I don't know if you can hear that hammer drill back there, but sorry, somebody's drilling a hole in a wall. But yeah, we would give them the opportunity. We'd give them the opportunity to, you know, how do you want to do it? And we'd try it, and it, you know, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

So anyway, yeah, and accountability— back to your question there, Will— there needs to be a line in the sand at some, at some point. Everybody needs to know, you know, where that is. And that, and that happens through consistent, regular rhythm of communication. And it also happens with good leadership because, you know, I mean, what's, you know, as all parents know, right? What do kids do? They don't do what you say, they do what you do, right? They're following your example. So you have to be, I think I'm always putting a stress on that quality of leadership, that vulnerability, you know, and honesty. And that's where that core— those core values come in, right? If you're leading from a position of honesty and vulnerability, then your people will follow, you know, if they're the right people. Sometimes they're not the right fit. So you got to bring people on that, that want to follow your system, that play well in your system.

Yeah, that's a great reminder. I'm a relatively new parent, Clint, as you know, and, uh, sometimes you got to look at yourself in the mirror when they do something you want them to do.

They're little sponges when they're young, right? They're just soaking up everything and then you see it show up like 10 years later.

Okay, well, I know there's probably, we could probably talk about this for a lot longer, but we are on the hour and you're both got stuff to get back to and all the builders that joined us today have got a busy schedule. So let's wrap it up. I just want to share my screen really quickly. If anyone wants to learn more about Buildapad Hills business, scan the QR code on the screen there. They are an APB rewards partner. So if you're a member of APB, you can get a cash rebate engaging with them there. And obviously, if you want to find out more about APB, if you're not familiar with our coaching, uh, go and check out our website. It's probably a great reflection of what it would be like to work with Clint, having a chat with him today. So, uh, go and check that out if you're interested. But thank you to everyone for joining us today. It's been a really interesting conversation, tons of value in there, and everyone stuck around right until the end. So we appreciate your time. I will send you the replay in the next 24 hours along with the Saucy Report and some links to BuilderPad and APB. But also thank you to Hill and Clint for giving up their time today. We really appreciate it.

Thank you guys for having me. I really appreciate it. It was great to be here and nice to meet you both. Or nice to meet you, Clint. I already knew you, Will, but Clint, I'd love to connect with you outside of this sometime, man. It'd be fun.

Let's do it. Let's do it. Thanks, Will, for having me as well. It was a fun conversation. It went really quickly.

Yeah. Awesome. And a couple of the attendees are just saying thank you as well. They've stuck around right to the end. Charlotte, Adam, Wade, thank you very much for being here right until or one after the hour. But thank you very much. Have a good afternoon, evening, morning, wherever you are in the world, uh, and, uh, catch everyone soon.

All right, see you later, guys.