91. Elite Mentoring With Russ, Sky & Andy

I, in fact, had a coaching session this morning with an elite mentoring client who in the next six years is going to be handing his business over to a general manager and taking a year off. And in that year off, he will continue to earn exactly the same amount of money as he's earning at the moment, because that's the way we've structured the business. So that's where you want to be, right? Absolutely. That's. That's the kind of deliverable that elite mentoring brings with it.

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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 the co founders of the association of Professional Builders, Russ Stevens and Sky Colday. We're also joined by our head coach, Andy Scarter. Welcome to the show, everyone.

Hey, Will.

How you doing? Hey, Will.

Very well. Great to have everyone on today. So today we're talking about elite Mentoring and APB's Elite Mentoring Program. Ross, do you just want to give an overview of what elite mentoring is?

Yeah, probably be best if I started by giving a bit of an overview of the services that the association of Professional Builders provides to builders. So you can kind of see it in the context of that. So our entry level is membership, and it's perfect for businesses that are starting out right through to companies doing about 2 million a year in. In annual sales. However, once you get past that $2 million a year mark, then your role changes from being an employee in the business to being a manager in the business. And that's when you're going to really benefit from our business coaching, which guides you through the process of setting up the systems that are going to streamline your building company and help you to create a structure where within your organization so that you can then scale it, but without working longer hours. And that's what tends to happen to most business owners. But once you cross that $6 million a year threshold, then you are effectively a business owner, a leader, and that comes with its own challenges, and not just in business either, but really in all aspects of your life, because now you're seeing opportunities everywhere you. So I think it's really important to be mentored at that stage by someone who is highly experienced in business, a real specialist that can guide you along the right path and plan an exit for you, help you to plan an exit or maybe even an acquisition strategy.

Great summary, Ross. Andy, who would you summarize is the best person to enter into elite mentoring?

Well, I think Russ has kind of set the groundwork Very clearly there, it's somebody that has realized that they need to be a business owner rather than a builder. You know, a lot of people get into this industry to build beautiful homes, and that's absolutely the perfect reason to get in. But what they find is pretty quickly they have a business around them in order to get that happening on an ongoing basis.

So.

So really, the elite mentoring program is not for people that are starting out. It's really for people that have got runs on the board, They've probably got the beginnings of a team around them. They off the tools, they're not doing everything themselves. And they've realized that they do have a business that is viable. And not only is it viable, but it has the potential, if properly curated and guided, to set themselves and the people they care about up for a solid financial future. So. So it's kind of the people that are through those teething stages and they know that they've got something of value to build.

And sky, why did APB create an elite mentoring program when we already had business coaching?

It's a really good question. Because when you go through those levels, you think, okay, there's membership, that's plug and play on demand. You can do it in your own time. But we already had business coaching, so why elite mentoring? Why another step up? And without rehashing exactly what Russ and Andy already discussed and recapped for us, it is that next level. It's that level of intensity that you don't get with business coaching. Elite mentoring is a whole different ball game. And rather than focusing on, honestly, a lot of the fundamentals that can get covered in business coaching, if you work with a coach even for a couple of years, you can go through a whole implementation phase, and then you go into a whole optimization phase, but you never want to feel stagnant and you never want to feel comfortable. So when we looked at creating elite mentoring, we wanted to take our professional builders to the next level. Where's this level of intensity? Where can you train with such intensity that you can really accelerate even more results? Because when you're playing a game at this particular level, even if you were to increase your margins by just another 1%, just another 2%, that's a huge difference to the bottom line of a professionally run building company. And that's. That's why we built elite mentoring. It's for the people who want more, who wanted to focus on leadership, building that team, going to the whole new level, new standard of running a professional building company.

And I think just to jump onto a word that sky used there very, very well is accelerate. It's really designed to fast track builders through the process. That optimization process in particular. As I said, by the time they get to this level that they've been through the implementation, they've got the basics in place. Now what we need to do is go back and really optimize those and then speed up the process to move from that kind of basic phase into a phase where really the return on investment is now significant.

So, Russ, maybe this is one for you. What are some of the problems that business owners are seeing that would make them want to join the elite mentoring program?

Well, I think they're generally associated with growing problems which could come under leadership and structure. So what we're really teaching builders at this level is how to become a CEO, how to run good meetings and manage their staff and even train their staff as well. But I think probably one of the most important ones is how to leverage their time by actually focusing on what's important, what they should actually be doing. And in a lot of cases, that means actually doing a lot less than they're currently doing and overseeing more. And it's a really interesting one as well, because when a builder commits to elite mentoring or is even considering elite mentoring, they are committing to more time. And that's counterintuitive because you think, I'm. I'm drowning at the moment. I want to grow this company. And they might mistakenly believe that growing the company means you've got to put even more hours in. It doesn't. It's actually the opposite. But that's the first challenge that comes to mind, is how am I going to make more time to do this training? And, of course, that's one of the first things that we address in elite is by getting them focused on what's important and really get their day and their week straight, structured out so that they are doing the stuff that's going to get them the fastest results.

Is that similar to the conversations you're having with your elite mentoring clients? Andy, is there anything else you'd like to add?

Well, I mean, that's. Russ has really encapsulated the process perfectly. It is that next step that moves you from doing to leading. And that's a big step that's, from a change perspective, to choose to do less and then still expect to get more out of it. You know, it's that old story. Working harder just makes the hamster wheel spin faster. It doesn't change the hamster wheel. And really, by the time you get to this level, we actually want the leaders of these businesses off the hamster wheel as quickly as possible so that they can move away from dealing with the urgent and really focusing in on the important. And I mean, those are exactly the conversations. I, in fact, had a coaching session this morning with an elite mentoring client who in the next six years is going to be handing his business over to a general manager and taking a year off. And in that year off, he will continue to earn exactly the same amount of money as he's earning at the moment, because that's the way we've structured the business. So that's where you want to be, right? Absolutely. That's the. That's the kind of deliverable that elite mentoring brings with it.

What you'll hear is the expression is you want to take yourself off the org chart. You don't want to make yourself dependent in the business or the building company anymore. You want to get your name off the organizational chart for the whole building company. You are that shareholder. You are the owner. You've transitioned from. You're no longer that general manager. You are transitioning yourself out so you can build a proper business that's not dependent on you in any way, shape, or form.

And I think we should also remember as well, because. And this doesn't just apply to builders, it's anyone in business. We get good at doing certain things in the business, and we even enjoy them to a large extent. And if we are going to grow and create a better, more successful company, we have to delegate those jobs and move on into something new. And that can be a little scary. We're pushing ourselves out of our comfort zone. And that's when it. It's really, really useful to have someone by your side, in your corner, actually guiding you and encouraging you to let go of those tasks that are a quick win, really, that we do enjoy doing.

Yeah, it's like getting out of your comfort zone, but then really having a coach that allows you to tilt your head up and just look up a little bit more and you can see that little bit further. You can have a new vision, you can have bigger goals, and you can really just set yourself up to look further ahead into the future and not be as afra of setting such an outlandish goal. And it's okay to change as well. I think that's a huge benefit of what we do in elite mentoring, is that anyone that we can work with, you could have had a particular goal originally, but as you're working toward it, you know, you Think of a different exit strategy that you'd actually want to do. A new opportunity presents itself and you have that sounding board of okay, what, what is going to fit into my long term vision for even my life and my family and how do I want to achieve that? And elite mentoring, it really does bring in a, of the builder's own personal goals and life goals and how the business is a vehicle to getting there. It's, it's a means of achieving those goals in your, your greater life, so to speak. Yeah.

And when you said looking ahead, it reminded me of a, a great coach that we had that always said to us, you got to put the binoculars on and look into the distance. That is your responsibility, your role as owners of the business. You've got to look further and further ahead into the future and what's coming. And yeah, I think that's a really good thing to always remember.

And I think it goes a bit further. If I think about the people that are in the program, they are transitioning from doing what needs to be done to doing what they want to do. You know, it's kind of that movement from being a technician to becoming a leader. It's, you know, obviously most of the people that we work with in terms of, let's call it their core competency, they are builders or carpenters by trade is often how they start out. And as people who've listened to this podcast have heard me say a number of times in this industry, a lot of people end up in that position of business ownership and leadership almost by mistake. It wasn't what they set out to do. And their training and development is all around the technical aspects of building. And now they've got this beast that they need to not only control, but by the time they get to Elite, they've learned to control it. And now they've realized there's huge potential if they can continue to develop it and turn it into again, Sky's word, perfectly the vehicle that's going to get them to the future that they and the people they care about really want. So it's that, it's that moo. It's having choice. It's going from I have to do all this stuff to no, I choose to do X. And I will set this business up in such a way so that I can do what I choose, when I choose.

It's. And it's taking all the money off the table as well when you go into elite, because I think you may feel that you're doing quite well in business and You've achieved a certain level. But if you have got your building company to $6 million a year plus. And yeah, that could be. It could be 6, it could be 60 million. But if you're not hitting 10% net profit after drawing a market salary, the fact is you're leaving money on the table. And if you look at the difference between 10% and your actual net profit and then multiply that by your revenue, that is the dollar figure that you are leaving on the table. And you might be comfortable with that. But yeah, why would you. It doesn't mean you've got to work harder or longer to take that money off the table. It can all be taken in your stride with the right approach.

Just on that. Ross, do you feel as if someone who. It shouldn't necessarily just be the revenue metric that like, we're determining whether or not someone qualifies for elite mentoring and it should be more around the margins?

Well, it's a combination of both to a certain extent, because the revenue will kind of dictate the structure. And you've got to get to a certain point where you're achieving a certain revenue so that you've got the, the cash flow, but you do have to be profitable as well. Elite is not for a building company that has achieved growth at any cost, I. E. They got to 6 million pretty quickly, but they haven't got the net profit. Now you still need to work on the basics, but around about 75% of building companies only achieve net profit of 3% or less, which is shocking. You can't grow safely and securely on those margins. But at 3%, you are in a position to come into Elite and take those margins up to 10 and then scale the revenue beyond that.

So, Andy, what does it look like in practice when you're starting with a new elite mentoring client?

Well, we first of all broaden the scope. So in our private mentoring program, the focus is very much on the business, the systemization of the business and the development of those fundamental kind of profit structures. That's really what we focus on in, in our normal private mentoring program. When we move into elite, we broaden that picture. We now start to look at what does this person want out of their life as a whole. And I mean, we, we go into a fair amount of detail. So, for example, as weird as this is going to sound, I know some of my elite mentoring clients, BMI numbers, I know their vox max numbers, I know their golf handicaps. I know what they want to weigh in six months time. And as as non business related as that might seem, it's in fact the opposite. Because the reality is unless they create a world that they're in control of, those metrics are never going to move. So we keep all of the fundamental business metrics in place, those don't move. But now we go wider and we say, okay, let's have a look at is this business serving the lifestyle that you want for yourself and your and your family? So that's number one. And we do that through a pretty in depth strategic planning exercise with each of them individually, that by knowing what those broader goals are, we can then start to zero in on the pieces of the building business that need the most urgent attention in order to bring those kind of things about. Fundamentally, the other major difference in the two programs is that whereas in the private mentoring program, we have a number of elements that play into the program as a whole. And in that coaching forms one of those. And they spend one session a month, one on one, with a coach. In the elite mentoring program, they meet with their coach every single week. Now what that does is it brings an immense amount of continuity and focus onto specific things. Because instead of there being, if you like, a general overview of the business happening once a month, when you are meeting with a client every single week, you're able to get really into the minutia and the nitty gritty and spend time in terms of strategic thinking and planning to make sure that you are getting each of those things ticked off and dealt with on an ongoing basis. So progress is a lot quicker because we're actually focusing in a lot, a lot more tightly on each of those elements.

Yeah. And as you can hear from what Andy's saying, there's a lot of time, focus and energy that is put into our elite mentoring clients. So we have very high expectations of the, the builders that actually join the program. And it's really not a case of just ticking a box and then simply upgrading to the next level. Your goals as a builder, they become our goals. And because our coaches are like Andy says, they're meeting on a weekly basis as opposed to monthly, they become very emotionally invested in your business. So we do have a very high expectation of the builders that join that are going to do the work and perform.

It's for that reason that you can't just go straight into elite. We don't allow that at apb. We only coach anyone who's a member first and foremost. So you have to come in at that entry level and just check out our systems, see if you like us, but if you work with us one on one in our business coaching level, you have to be working with us one on one to even get a foot in the door to talk about and discuss elite mentoring. Because like the guys have said, it's intense. And not only do you have to spend that much time with us, we have to spend that much time with you. So we want to make sure we can all get along. We can actually hold you to account and have those difficult conversations and push you through in the course of 12 months, 24 months, 36 months and move and grow together. We got to make sure we're on the same page before you just go straight on into elite.

That's a huge part of it. I could be, I could be slightly, slightly naughty and tell you what we call the policy. But we are very, very careful that we don't bring people into elite that don't have the right mindset and attitude to be able to work under that. It is intense. It's every week and obviously it's progress, progress, progress, progress, progress. Every single week of the year there needs to be forward movement in some part of the business or as a coach, I'm going to be asking why. So that part of it that fit is, is critically important in terms of coming into the program.

I think what's huge with the way we do our coaching though is we don't do like time for money. You don't buy a block of coaching sessions you don't pay for. You're going to see your coach X amount of times. We know that we have a weekly slot for our elite mentoring. However, there are absolutely circumstances and I can think of a bunch of elite clients that won't meet every single week, but they're not going to do double ups the week after and you know, two sessions the week before and three sessions like next month and whatever it may be because of the value that you can get and if it means that you cut a particular mentoring session short because you're jumping on a particular meeting or you had this new idea and it all generated and you then stemmed from that coaching session that you had, that's the benefit and that's the value. And then you've got that peace of mind knowing my coach is right there waiting for me, I can contact him anytime. I'm going to get back in touch and get some feedback on what I've been able to implement and work on from my last session or from, you know, skipping or missing out on one particular session in that week. So it's the value that you're getting in the background from it.

And that, I mean, that makes me just highlight as well that we do, we will mold the coaching interaction to fit the person's situation. So we in fact do have some clients that from time to time will, because of what they're working on, they'll do a double session every fortnight for a three month period because of the particular thing that is being dealt with at the time. So there's a, there's a lot more flexibility in it from, from that perspective. And obviously we put a very strong emphasis on strategic planning and then reviewing of not just the business's strategic plan, but of every one of their individual strategic plans in terms of their health, their relationships, their emotional well being, really focused on the basis that they are the driver of the change in the business. And they've got to understand that they have to look after themselves in order to remain in a place where they can be effective doing that. So, you know, although it's semi tongue in cheek, there's a very strong emphasis on them looking after themselves as part of the whole process.

As I say, it's going to, it sounds almost a little bit fluffy, right? And this isn't life coaching. What we do isn't life coaching. It's not super fluffy, but it's a huge component of how you're going to be running and operating a much bigger business and a much bigger, more successful building company. So as much as we do focus on all of that, make no mistake, it is just as involved when it comes to your numbers and your margins so that we can ensure whatever you invest with us, you are getting back a hell of a lot more than whatever you're investing in, any kind of mentoring or coaching. And it's because we track every single number. We're still working on a very, very intense level on your margins, but all of your financials. So we know exactly where you're at. You're doing the basics like the work in progress, accounting adjustment. Every single month. We know your true financial position. We've got a very detailed KPI or set of KPIs that need to be filled out every single week and every single month so that we can monitor the business and still talk about you. We find time to still talk about you as the owners and that's how we can strike that balance in that intensity. So yeah, make no mistake, as, as much as it's about a lot of softer skills and even looking after yourself as the owner, it's Very intense when it comes to the business side of things as well.

I think it's fair to say as well, our elite mentoring clients have a very good grasp of their numbers. They are all across their financials, aren't they? Inside out.

Yeah. Most financially spirit cohort.

Yeah, absolutely. And, and you know, the, that's probably the key in the transition from our normal coaching and private mentoring into elite is there is that fundamental understanding of how important those things are. It's, it's no longer we spend a lot of time in the private mentoring program explaining and in invoking, I guess, those protocols. But by the time somebody comes into elite, that light bulb moment has happened. They've realized these things are absolutely critical to the future of the business. And that again means that you can be, you can go into those things in a lot more depth. There's a far deeper understanding of the implication of that KPI not being hit and then how that repercusses through the entire business over the next six months and therefore why that is so important.

Yeah. And that is an important thing, isn't it? Every KPI is linked, not hitting one number. It has consequences all the way down the funnel. Yeah. And it's being able to see that and predict the consequences as well, months in advance.

I think what's been really cool with some of our elite clients is because we get to work with elite clients on a much more one on one personal basis literally every single week. This is where so many of our tools, tools and our tool creation comes from as well. We're able to test out all these different ideas, roll them out into a building company that we know every inch of financially, every single metric, so that when we can roll out a new tool and see how it's working or a new system or a new process, we get to see firsthand, test it out, change it a little bit and then we can roll it out to more private clients and then eventually it comes down, trickles all the way down to our greater members, which is really cool because we're able to implement so many cutting edge new systems, but a lot of new calculators or templates as well and see very quickly the results. Because we're working with people who just get it done. They just implement quickly and can make fast decisions. We can see if it works and if it doesn't.

And they've got, you know, most of these people have got the beginnings of a team. And very early in their elite journey, the balance of the team, certainly the critical team members get recruited and Hired and trained. So what, what we really working towards. As Russ alluded to at the beginning of this discussion, time is the biggest single problem that every business owner has. And we all get this 168 hours a week, no more, no less. So how do we create more time? Well, the only way we create more time is to take some of the day to day stuff off of their plates to their team members. And the beauty now is we've got a group of people all contributing towards making sure that all of these individual parts of the business are running smoothly and the way they should be. So we create that additional time largely by delegating and automating so that the business owner has the time to focus on the important things.

Yeah, that's a really important point that Andy said. We all have 168 hours a week. So if, if you think that you don't have time to spend doing the activities that will grow your income, then it really means that you're wasting the time available to you working on the wrong things. So it's always the first place we start. We map out the working week so that the business owner can focus on the things that they need to be working on and delegating everything else.

And I mean that's, it's something that comes up quite a lot. People sort of say, oh, I don't know whether I'll have the time to do this. The interesting part is I canvassed the elite clients that I work with on this very subject a couple of weeks ago and I got an absolutely unanimous response from them. That in summary was if you think you don't have the time, you need this more than you ever thought you did. Because they've all got to the point of understanding that their coaching session and everything attached to it gets put into their calendars first. And then the other things that have to be done get built around that. And that's a, that's a huge mindset shift in terms of how people set up their weeks and their months and their quarters, et cetera, et cetera.

Yeah, I think they were quite vocal about it, weren't they? This is the most important meeting I have all week. So I build my week around it. It wasn't even a question mark about how do I find time. It's no, that, that's the first thing that goes into my calendar, you know, full stop.

Yeah, but I think that comes down to what you value as well. And your calendar shows you very clearly, or really what your life looks like. Shows you very clearly where Your values lie. And so if you are valuing yourself, your building company, your business, whatever you're doing, your calendar will reflect that. You can say it's important all day long, but until you can see it clearly demonstrated in your calendar, it's not a priority. It's just the same as your health. If you are not scheduling time to work out and be active or do whatever you need to do, you can say it all you like, it's just not a priority unless you can see it in black and white. And that was what was so clear coming out of the when we were talking to our private clients or our elite clients, I should say it was an unbreakable meeting. Those coaching sessions, they were absolutely unbreakable. And because they knew they had the accountability session with their coach, they also scheduled in time the day prior to finish off everything they had promised to do. Because it was that much of a priority, they made sure they were not walking into that meeting with their tail between their legs.

While we're talking about time as well, think about this. How much money do you need in order to retire comfortably? Now, if you multiply your current salary by 25, then that's a rough indication of how much you need to build up in savings to maintain the current standard of living that you got. It's the 4% rule. But in all honesty, who wants to do that? The reason people retire is to enjoy their free time. So you want more money, not the same amount of money. And that is why you need to be operating your building company at maximum profit, 10% plus net profit a year. And when you do hit that 10%, then you want to be scaling the revenue to actually maximize your wealth creation. And like we said before, don't think bigger means working longer hours because you really can do this while reducing your workload at the same time. It's all about just working smarter rather than harder. But regardless of your age, I think it's a really important thing to always be thinking of is about that retirement fund. Even if you think it's like way into the future and I'm not going to need it, bring that date forward and give yourself options.

It's funny though, as soon as you said regardless of your age, I suddenly just realized, think of our cohort of elite mentoring builders. They're all of a similar age and it's on the younger side. These are people who are very serious about their future and want to set it up properly from the jump.

Yeah. And when we talk about retiring, they all are finding as their Businesses are becoming more and more systemized. They are saying, why would I ever want to retire? I get to be as involved as I want to be when I want to be, but I don't have to.

Be place that word. Shouldn't we, with financial independence?

Absolutely, yeah. And again, we're back to the discussion on time. You know, there's no point in having that 25 times your current salary when you're 72 and you dragging an oxygen bottle along behind you because you killed yourself getting there. That doesn't serve anybody. You know, again, I had an elite coaching session this morning. We're talking about somebody that is planning to be financially independent by the time they turn 50. And they're saying at that age they are still fit enough and interested enough to travel, to do things with their growing children and to give themselves a whole bunch of opportunities that they wouldn't otherwise have had. So it's a, it's a, it's a really, it's, it's a fundamental shift in the way people think.

Andy, what would you say to someone building company owner if they love the sound of this, but they're unsure if they're ready for it, they're unsure if they've got the potential to kind of do all these things we've spoken about.

Talk to us. We will make that assessment for you. And you may well not be ready right now, but we can very quickly work out a pathway for you, if you like, and set the basic parameters of what needs to be in place for you to actually make make the transition. And I mean, sky summarized it beautifully at the beginning of this discussion. We need to be at the end of the implementation phase or very close to it. That that's kind of the point at which this really starts to, to make sense. We can do implementation in the elite program under certain circumstances, but it's going to kind of slow down the growth in the initial stages. You, if we're focusing on those basics at that point in time.

Yeah. And I would say as a maybe a prerequisite self diagnosis, ask yourself two questions. Do I have a growth mindset? Do I have goals? Because if you've got those two things, then you're probably a good candidate. You're certainly someone that we'd like to talk to. And if you're not sure if you've got a growth mindset or not, then yeah, answer the question. Do you believe you can get your building company to 10% net profit? Because if you don't, then there's a good chance that Maybe you've got a fixed mindset, but if you do, then, then you're a growth. And yeah, if you've got goals, then we'd love to help you get to those goals or reach those goals a lot faster than maybe you thought were possible.

Yeah, yeah. And even just to add to that, are you ready to do the work? Because I don't want to sugarcoat it. It's intense what Andy makes our clients go through. But as long as you're ready, if you can answer yes to those two questions, you're ready to do the work. It's not done for you. Andy's not going to sit there doing anything, unfortunately.

But that would be a good product, wouldn't it?

And I mean, that is so important. I have a magic wand that I keep on my desk deliberately because it doesn't work and I can wave it as much as I like. Nothing changes. You know, the reality is you've got to roll up your sleeves and you've got to do the work that is necessary to make these sort of changes. So it's. Yeah, it's. I think the bottom. The short answer is talk to us. We'll. We are not going to expose you to something that's going to damage you if you're not ready for it. We are very, very careful to curate, I guess, that, that entry process and we'll put you on the right path to get you ready for it at a foreseeable point in the future if you're not ready.

Sky, you touched on a few of the eligibility criteria a couple of times in the, in the podcast, but can you just give a summary on who is eligible for elite mentoring?

Well, you gotta be a member of apb. Shocker. But you gotta be working with us in a private capacity already. So that means you're working with us in that middle tier of business coaching. It's called like private mentoring. So you're already working with a coach at APB on an ongoing basis every single, single month. Then if you have that conversation, are you ready? Do you want to take your building company to the next level? You have the capacity, you're ready to actually make moves, your coach actually can nominate you and it actually gets brought internally. Are you ready? We do a review because it's actually quite intense for the amount of investment that you have to make to work with us on such a huge capacity, one on one every single week. We need to make sure. Are we ready to make that commitment with you as well? So your, like, where your progress, where you've gotten up to with that particular coach gets reviewed so you have to get approved so you can be invited to have that conversation and we can work out well, maybe it's not yet, but let's put you on a six month trajectory. Maybe it's, maybe it's a yes immediately, whatever it needs to be. But we really qualify and ensure you have a sound understanding of your financials in the building company. We want to make sure we can understand your financials as well. And unfortunately, if your KPIs aren't up to par, if you're not filling them in, if we don't have clear understanding of where you're at, that's just not possible. So as long as that is all covered, you are up for consideration, which is huge. We do an internal review. Andy is very involved in that and we'll work with you and your coach so that we can talk about elite mentoring and the path forward. But that the biggest criteria is that you are ready to put in the work, make moves and you have the financial understanding and literacy. And we've been working together and it's been a good relationship. Unlike our business coaching level which is month to month. As long as you're getting value, stay and you'll stay for years. Elite mentoring is a huge commitment and if we go in, we go all in. And they're actually 12 month contracts. So we do not do contracts. We don't really love contracts. But we do this with elite mentoring to make sure if you're in, you are signing down, that you are committed and you're going to go all in for 12 months. We do the same thing. So we don't do that lightly. And that's why there is that little hurdle of having that meeting with Andy and your coach to take you to the next level.

Yeah, I think business coaching is, is great, but it's only going to get you so far. And when we look at the high performers in the APB community, they are in elite. And at some point if you want to keep the momentum going in your growth, then you need to learn new and different skills. And that is exactly what we teach our builders in elite mentoring.

Sky, are there any other perks for being in the elite mentoring program besides.

Everything that we've just covered? No. A huge benefit of what we do at APB is we have a APB rewards for all of our members. So we've aligned with preferred partners for a whole bunch of resources, whether it's software or different services that you need to run your building company. But what we actually did is we added our two coaching levels to APB Rewards. So joining our business coaching level or joining Elite mentoring eventually, when you get to that point, is a huge benefit because we offer a 5% cash back on what you spend in those programs. Two members. So if you, if that, if you unsold enough, the fact that you get a cash back already is actually huge. When we finally made the decision to add that, that was big.

Awesome. So what is the very next thing I should do if I'm a builder out there and I want to learn more about elite mentoring?

First and foremost, you got to get involved. You got to come into the inner circle. So we'll put a link to even just a demonstration of what it is that we do at apb. And you can see it just in its core member level. If you're not sold at that, just some of the systems you can get on demand. That's when you just need to talk to us and see what else is there, what's the next level? Actually get involved and see it for yourself. So we'll put a link to that in our show notes. And when you get contacted by our team, make sure you express that Elite Mentoring is where you want to be, that's your goal. And talk to us about where you want to be in 10 years and what you want for your life and your building company, because we'll make sure we can tee up with the right people to get you there.

Great. Well, thanks, Sky, Russ, Andy, for all of the tips you've given today on the benefits of working in elite mentoring. My biggest takeaway, Andy, was something you said earlier. Elite mentoring is about transitioning from what needs to be done to what they want to do in the business. I thought that was a really powerful message as they move towards financial independence in their life. So a big thank you to all three of you for coming on. A huge thank you to our listeners as well, wherever you are in the world. If you like what you heard today, please subscribe to our podcast on your platform of choice. And if you're feeling generous, leave a review as well. But until next time, thanks for coming on.

Thanks.