245. Systems That Actually Stick With Leah Ward

Welcome to another episode of Professional Builders Secrets. In this episode, I interviewed Leah Ward, one of the executive business coaches here at APB. If you're feeling overwhelmed or stuck in the day-to-day running of your building company, this episode is a must-listen. Leah shares some practical tips, systems, processes that you can implement right now to help take your time back. 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 Group 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. Welcome to Professional Builders Secrets, the podcast for building company owners wanting to grow safely and securely. I'm your host, Will Blunt, as always, and today I'm joined by Leah Ward, one of our executive business coaches here at APB. Leah, welcome.

Hello, hello, how are you today?

Very good. Excited to have you on. We've, we've had you hard at work producing a lot of content for our socials, which I'm sure people have seen. They come out absolutely beautifully. So what a better opportunity to get you on the podcast again and start unlocking some of that experience you've had with builders. So thanks for coming on.

Yeah, absolutely.

Today we actually did some analysis. Well, you and I were talking about what, what a good topic might be to talk about. And we did some analysis on some of the challenges that we're seeing right now with our coaching clients and the broader builder community that we talk to. And this concept of overwhelm and getting stuck in the day-to-day kept coming up time and time again. Can you talk to me more about that? What, how does that actually come out when you're talking to builders and what is it costing them day-to-day?

Yeah, well, you know, it's, it's kind of interesting. It, it's a first conversation, a middle conversation, sometimes an end conversation. Um, it's hard to break habits that the builders have, have started. You know, most building company owners, they built their business on their own personal competence. Um, you know, what they were best at for everything. So the business grows around that around them rather than independent of them. Every decision, every exception, the client question, everything comes back to them. And that's not poor leadership at all. It's because the business was never designed to run another way. And so, they come in and we are challenging them to essentially switch how they've even thought their business is running. For so long for everything. Um, and so as they come in at any stage, and sometimes we'll go forward, we'll go backwards, you know, you have to think about the idea of they are not the owner, they've become the answer. Every time someone calls, whether it's a client, an employee, you've answered it. And when you think about that, That's a system failure that is sometimes dressed like a staffing problem. And so that's what we have to think about when we're looking at this. And when you have the idea of the cost around it, everybody that's been to our events, they know that we do the hourly rate. And sometimes if you've been to multiple of our events, you'll say, I've already done that. But the ones that use that tool to actually remind themselves why they're there and what sometimes that bottleneck can be, you know, it, it presents such an obvious, beautiful, painful space to start to see. Um, and you can kind of break it down into the very obvious money that it's costing them, you know, the hours of week that they're doing something that their team could be doing something, um, for probably a fraction of the value of it. Um, and so we, we always do that exercise to remind them of that money cost. But, but what about the other costs that sometimes like aren't as obvious but they become habits? The home life. Um, what have they missed? And not even just thinking about work-life balance, but what actual moments are they missing at their home? Um, what version of their life is paying the biggest price for this? Um, opportunities that they're missing. You know, we, we talk about building and, you know, our, our brain capacity of everything, but if you are consumed all day long by those small things, then what happens when that unicorn build comes along? Do you even have the capacity to do it? We talk about that in our AI. AI takes the noise out so that way you can focus very heavily on the things that really matter. But yeah, so just those ideas, you know, take the money part out, but the life, the home, the opportunities, people around them.

Yeah, that's a great point. I think the Unicorn Project that you mentioned there, it's not just about the fact that they may not be able to execute on that, but also if you're exhausted and buried in the day-to-day and tired and working long hours and doing so many small tasks that potentially you don't need to be doing, are you going to turn up to a sales conversation in the best mindset, in the best— with the best energy to be able to deliver what that client's looking for?

Yeah, yeah. And, and even another way sometimes to look at it, you know, not asking builders, you know, what they want their business to look like, but asking them what is it costing them right now. Because if you think about it, wanting more isn't urgent necessarily, but if you can tell somebody exactly what you're losing, that's something that can help them move. You know, don't talk about a future that's an ideal situation. Talk about the present moment and what is happening. That also helps from the idea of builders will come in and they say 'Let's fix systems.' That is the same as me going to them and saying, 'Build me a house.' Yeah, they, you know, they don't know what type of house I want. They don't know if I need a renovation, a custom, anything. So when builders come in and say, 'I need systems,' it's that same kind of big ideology and idea that, that they want. And you can't it's hard to conceptualize that and bring it down. So if you can take it out of the, the non-urgent of the future part and focus on what they're losing now, instead of trying to fix 8 systems, 10 systems, 50 systems, they pick the one that hurts the most, and then you can actually start to have some forward movement from it.

Well, that— the one that hurts the most is probably related to their day-to-day. So I guess initially that's probably where you start. But what, why do you think it's so hard for builders to actually step back and give up a bit of control of the things that they've been doing for so long?

Yeah, the— I, I mean, identity, you know, that's a part of it. Being needed feels like proof that they're good. Um, stepping back can sometimes threaten that, you know. Nobody, nobody tells builders that stepping back is actually harder than doing things the way that they're doing and staying there. You know, staying in the chaos probably feels better than stepping back sometimes just because what's the norm? Chaos. That's their, well, quotation mark, comfort level there. So staying in it feels like being a good leader. And so letting go of that, it makes it a little bit scarier. And so until that identity shift can start to happen, there is no system in the world that is going to actually stick. Um, the other idea too, um, time. Think about— and I feel like we've all been there, we've wanted help, but then have we— you know, it's easier just to do it myself. I'll just— I'll answer the call, I'll do this part. But, but that cycle consumes you, um, and then time feels impossible. You'll, you'll never get that back. And when you think about the cyclical cycle that they live, like, I'd ask, how long have you been in that cycle? How long have you stayed in that space to step away? And the other part is delegation. Like, think about how many times maybe they've tried. Now, we don't know if they've tried and it was maybe a leadership space, maybe it was an SOP space, maybe it was a hiring space that didn't work. You know, there's a lot of different reasons why it couldn't work, but if you just solely look at that kind of bigger picture of it just didn't work, you're not identifying the issue to fix it. And so maybe they've tried to delegate before, it didn't work, um, it was a self-fulfilling prophecy almost that they manifested in a way. So, you know, if you think about it, the delegation that went wrong. It didn't fail because the team wasn't capable. It failed because you handed them a job without a standard, without a safety net, without an idea of what they were supposed to do. And that's not a people problem. That goes back to a system problem once again. And so they, they'll stop there and they won't be able to move forward, but they're not fixing the actual issue that's, that's there. And if you think about it, you know, your standard, their standard, it might not be the same, but you can't, you can't cross a bridge you don't build. You have to start to try. You have to figure out why didn't this work and then start to address the problem. I— when back in the day when I ran my company, I failed at hiring two assistants. I was so excited to hire them, and they failed because of me. I was so excited to give them everything that I held on to so tight, and then I was like, well, why didn't they get this? Well, yeah, because there was no system in place. There was no space for me to even try to pull it out of my head to do that. Third time there was a charm. I got it on the third try. But I had to identify—

I think that's a really great point. Oh, sorry, go on. No, keep going.

I just said I had to identify what the issue was.

Yeah, no, it's a great point because you do hear a lot of chatter about I can't find good staff or, you know, they don't have the same standards that I do, all that kind of stuff, which sometimes may be true, but also it's not helpful. Like your point around holding yourself accountable to the processes and systems. So that they can be upheld to a certain standard is a different mindset than just delegating and think it should be done at the same standard as yourself.

Yeah.

Okay, so where should I start then if I'm a builder listening to this today feeling overwhelmed? And to your point, there's so many different systems and processes in a company that you could start to try and earn your time back through, uh, what's the best place to start?

You know, this is, this is always an interesting one. You know, we have, even at APB, we have our different levels that we're going through, but no builder comes in the same. No builder has the same problems. I mean, exactly what I said in the beginning, you know, building company owners built their businesses around their personal competencies. So every single person is going to come in with a different strength, with a different area that they're really good at. Um, so I always ask, what breaks when you're not there? Um, not what could go wrong, but what is going wrong? That's going to be your first document. That's going to be your first space that you have to look at. Um, what I'm seeing right now a lot of is is quoting. That's a big one. And when we're talking about quoting, I'm not talking about the numbers of it. I'm talking about the logic, you know, the thinking behind quoting. And even take this, you know, I'm using quoting as the example, but you can take this conceptually to a lot of different areas, not just the job, but the thought process behind it. And, you know, when somebody comes in for quoting as the owner, if it all relies on them, you know, what are they looking at? What questions are they asking the client? What gets included as a standard? What gets flagged as a risk? All of those pieces. If only the owner can quote accurately, then the business cannot grow beyond their bandwidth.. But even if you just take like that thought process and those questions, what other areas in the business besides just quoting are you expecting someone to know a job without the logic behind it? And so it's starting to break that down. And a mistake that a lot of builders make is they hand off a task, but they're keeping the decisions. And so, you know, we talk about delegation. Real delegation is ownership. Here's what you're responsible for. Here's what good looks like. Here's when to check in. And if you remove even one of those, it all starts to fall apart. But if you are able to create an SOP document based on logic, even if it got you so that you're only answering 20% versus 100%, think about the time that you could save. I mean, the questions that you ask clients, um, the things that you look at, that doesn't necessarily need your brain to ask those questions or to, you know, to have the spaces to look at. Now, you'll need your expertise as we wrap it all in a beautiful bow, but that first part Is that really necessary? Um, another part is communication, and especially the client communication rhythm, because they come in and, you know, but the clients want to work with me, I'm the owner, you know, that I'm who they've worked with this whole time. Yes, but also like they're a treasure, you know, they shouldn't be at disposal for the clients. They should absolutely have access, but what if you could have structured access, and then any of those little one-offs, that could be handled by somebody else, because I'm sure if you look at your notes over your past couple builds, you're gonna start to see a trend of questions that you get from clients, and starting to document that, but what if you could already set up something as a process in place to start of when does the client hear from you, um, what did they hear from you, who's sending this information, um. And so a lot of times clients aren't complaining about the work that they're getting from builders, it's about the silence. And so starting to implement something like that takes away the fires out of nowhere.

You're answering the question before they even come to you. Yeah, then it solves that in advance, right?

Yeah, yeah, eliminate that friction that's coming through there. Um, and then the other— I'd say the other big spaces that builders lean into in the, in the beginning of like what's their, we'll call, problem child, um, site handovers and in variations and change orders. Those are two huge areas that if you can start to systemize those pieces step by step, piece by piece, then you can actually start to see some relief for everything. Um, and I mentioned 3 or 4 here. Start with one. Pick your biggest pain point, pick your biggest struggle, and then stay with that. Don't just say, I picked it, I wrote it, okay, what's my next problem? Because I mean, as, as a coach, as a consultant, we can see things and say things all day long, but the magic is when it's implemented. Otherwise it's just a beautiful aspiration that doesn't go very far. And so Create the document and then sit with it. Use it. What worked with it? What didn't? Did it help? Did it not? Was it missing things? Do you need to add things? But trial and error it. Have it so that it is a well-oiled machine, then move to the next problem. And a lot of times builders will say, I've got these 7 things. Okay, I wrote the SOP. What's the next one? What's the next one? But none of that is really solving a problem. It's just creating some paper.

In theory, documenting an SOP about your quoting process sounds good, but if you're drowned in phone calls, emails, you know, all of the other clutter that goes on in the business day to day, how do you create the space to work on that stuff?

So you just said it. Sometimes what we think is the biggest pain point in reality isn't our biggest problem. So if the builder came and said those exact words, it's not a quoting issue, it's a communication issue.

Hmm.

So we pivot and we take that communication rhythm as the first SOP to build. And with that, we start to see what are we hearing more of. And I'm— and also too, the idea of format matters a lot less than existence. You've got to get— I don't care if it's a Post-it, something has to be created first, you know. Don't worry about the format, don't worry about the perfection of it, um, but what questions are you seeing consistently from the clients. What, what can you already start to create, whether it's, you know, a Loom video or a laminated card for site, a Google Doc, um, something so that somebody else can start to help. If you've got a client that is, you know, reaching out every other week and frustrated, implement an SOP of here's our, here's our client template. And every Thursday, every Friday, whatever day you want it to be, it has a status update, what's working, what's not, you know, what you need from them, what their next steps are. Beat them to the punch of it. And so if you can get in front of that piece, then that starts to alleviate the, the emergencies.

Yeah.

But I think the biggest thing is being willing to pivot. I came in, you know, quoting is my worst nightmare. That's the thing that takes up all the time. Okay, well, what's keeping you from writing the SOP? Well, I get 17 client emails an hour. Okay, well, is quoting really your biggest issue? Yeah. And are you willing to pivot to get step one, you know, and instead of you're trying to comfortably live in, you know, step 4, 5, and 6 when step 1, 2, and 3 is a broken foundation.

I'm sure there's a lot of people listening that are thinking AI can help with a lot of this stuff that we're talking about. And I know you've been running some workshops with our builders, helping them implement AI and Claude and other things in their companies. Without going into too much detail, because it's not the purpose isn't to talk about AI today, but how does that process work? How do you, how do you consult builders on actually implementing AI to help with this kind of thing?

So I remember I've always said this: does it need your brain or a brain? And there are things in the business that, that need your brain, but if it needs a brain, if you look at that list, maybe there's 15 or 20 things Is that something that is a repetitive task that could have AI help implement it? Um, you know, having a scheduled task to draft email responses that runs every morning at 4 AM, so that way if your day starts at 5 AM, you already have those drafts in the inbox to look at. You don't have the stress and the pressure or you're not taking away from your mental real estate. I mean, we only have so much space and capacity, you know. If you're able to put your energy into the things that really matter— that final review, um, the true, you know, experience that the client gets, um— because you have the energy now, because The noise part was taken care of. The quoting was done through AI. The estimating was done through AI. The email response was written. Is it going to be 100%? Probably not. But is it going to get you 90% there that then you're just putting your razzle-dazzle on it with the pretty bow? You know, those are the pieces that make the difference. You know, I talked about the, the formatting aspect of it. Think about and notice what you keep answering. Those are the things that if you write it down, that can start to create your SOP backlog. And whether you are writing it down and then dropping that into AI to start to build out something, whether you're writing that down to create a Loom video so that way every time your project manager asks you the same question, send that video. And then maybe have an internal—

We don't have to send it too many times to the same person.

Yeah, I'd say, and then have your limit of if I've sent this 6 times, then I'm the problem. Just like Taylor Swift says, it's me, I'm the problem. Yeah, stop answering and start recording. Answer it once. Put it in a one-pager. Um, you know, even just with the idea of AI, I bet that if you took your idea and thought and put it on there and said, what am I missing? You would be pretty mesmerized by some additional steps. And, and I say that not because we as humans don't know the steps, but we are so ingrained in it. That, you know, to take what is a simple process that we would describe in one line, somebody that's new or somebody that doesn't know, having AI come and help and say, I want you to break this into 3 steps that'll make sense for anybody. Because if you ask that for me for something simple, I say, I did, I said it, I said that one line. Um, and so it's just, it's a, it's a different area that's able to, to come back, but The other aspect too, when you're doing all of these things and thinking of it is, and this is what I would say from all of this, train judgment, not just tasks. And I think that if builders can switch how they are starting to delegate, starting to look at things, um, starting to communicate them, and you're training from a space of the logic of it, the judgment of it, then you are putting people in situations where they can decide, they have to decide. Um, you can debrief it, you can discuss it. It's not just a task that's a check to do. Um, and I, I think that's, that's a huge shift that, that I've seen a lot of my builders start to make. Um, you know, you're all of their jobs evolve. Unfortunately, they might be in year 5, 10, 15, 20, and they could be still running it like they did in year 1. And everything has evolved. And the builders that don't make the transition, whether it's implementing AI, which is just pure gold when it comes to these things, um, or, or anything, it's not because they can't. It's, it's that they feel stuck in a way that they don't know how to, to get out of the cycle. Yeah. And stop the cycle.

Great. Well, Leah, if you wanted to give one final piece of advice to the builders listening today about how they could get started in trying to get out of the cycle like you just described it, what would you say?

I would say when they are handing off the task, how can they hand off the decision in, in a space of help Help your team understand the why behind it. Don't just give them a why or don't just give them a job. Give them a why. And then, also be willing to pivot what you think might be your biggest struggle. There might be a different roadmap to get there. You know, I always say when I don't like to talk about the word goals, I like to talk about the roadmap, because you can have this beautiful shiny goal, but to get there you have to go 17 different directions. And so just be open that that roadmap might take you in a few different places that you weren't expecting, um, but you know, reverse engineer it.

I love that. I think that's a good place to leave it. So hand off the decision, not the— not just the task. And I think the other thing you mentioned which ties into the same point is around building judgment into the way you delegate. Um, because I, I think it's a fair point. A lot of, a lot of delegation probably happens, uh, without passing across any of that responsibility.

Yeah. And the, the quoting idea is— I like that. I like— I mean, that is one of the biggest things that I'm hearing from everybody, but when we're talking about it, like the logic behind it. It's not just the numbers and quoting, it's that thinking behind it. And I think that's, that's where the real magic can happen. Yeah.

Well, Leah, thanks so much for coming on the podcast today. I appreciate your time. There was lots of good nuggets in there for the builders listening. So yeah, I appreciate you coming on.

All right. Thank you guys so much.

And thanks to you. Thank you to our listeners as well, wherever you are listening from today. If you like the show, subscribe, follow, do whatever you need to do to keep up with what we're releasing. If you're interested to hear more from us or engage with Leah, we do have a range of options from group coaching to one-on-one coaching as well, and a number of free masterclasses and webinars that you can access to learn more about what Leah spoke about today. But thank you to everyone out there and have a good day.