95. Achieving High Performance With Russ, Sky & Andy

The guys that win make it look so easy. And yet, you know, there's so much going on to actually make that happen. And yet it just, it, it looks like it's, you know, the easiest thing under the sun. And that's, that's the real key to high performance, is being able to do it without appearing to break a sweat.

Welcome to Professional Builder's Secrets, the podcast for building company owners wanting to grow safely and securely. I'm your host, Will Blunt, and today I'm joined by the co founders of the association of Professional Builders, Sky Colday and Russ Stevens. We're also joined by our head coach, Andy Scarter. Welcome to the show, everyone.

Thanks for having to be here.

Great to have everyone, everyone on today we're talking about high performing builders. What a fantastic topic. So, Andy, do you want to kick us off with your definition of what a high performing builder is?

Sure. Short version is a builder who exceeds our APB benchmarks. And if we look at what those are, we regard a certified professional builder as somebody that's reached level 10 of our professional builder levels. And that would mean that they were running a building company that was producing $10 million a year minimum, at no less than 10% net profit and drawing over $500,000 a year out of the business. So anybody that's at that level or above, in terms of pure technical definition, I would certainly regard as a high performance builder. To be totally honest, if we look back over what builders have been through in the last two years, one that is still smiling and breathing might qualify for that in the current scenario. But in terms of a pure, let's call it baseline definition, that's where I'd peg it.

I'd probably also add how they feel about it all, because you can get to the end, you can be a high performance builder, you can be really good on paper and actually achieve everything. But if you're a shell of a person, at the end of the day, if you have nothing left in the tank, if you're completely disheveled and over the whole industry, you're still not really hitting that level either. So there's a huge mindset component.

That's a valid, very valid comment. And to be honest, we have a number of clients in our membership and in our private mentoring and elite mentoring program that may never, ever necessarily want to get to 10 million, but would meet all of the other requirements. So it's, it's less about the number necessarily. But I think that point about the achievement of the level that they have set is within, within their ability. It's not stretching them to the place where they, they want to run screaming from the planet.

I think when I think about high performance, I'm always thinking in terms of people that are pushing themselves like athletes pushing themselves to the limit. And in terms of a building company, for me it's about growing safely and securely. And, and I think we need to be clear that it is pretty easy to grow a building company, you know, exceptionally easy. To be honest, when you understand how to market a business, literally anyone can do it. When you understand how to market, you can grow a building company because, because they're cash flow positive. It, you know, it does make it a relatively easy exercise. However, it is a lot more difficult to do it profitably and not many builders manage to do that even though they, they even might appear to be doing well on the outside. There's a lot of building companies you can look at from the outside. They appear to be, but they're not necessarily profitable. And that's really where the high performance comes in for me. Because you've got to be doing it safely and securely. That means you're doing it profitably. And to be doing that, you've got to be working on all areas of your business. Like Andy says, you've got to be ticking all those different boxes, all those different levels, rather than simply ticking the sales and marketing boxes which are going to give you those superficial results. But yeah, for me, that is a high performance builder. They're doing everything that Andy, they're doing all those different levels and they're really creating a sustainable building company that is growing.

Sky, you mentioned mindset. Can you tell me more about what a high performance mindset is in your words?

Well, it's almost like if we were to compare a very average builder or an average building company to a professional builder and a professional building company, and one of the biggest differences you'll see in the people running those companies is how they think and even react to problems. And really this all boils down to mindset. And I know we've done a whole episode on mindset and we've talked about fixed mindsets versus growth mindsets, but if we boil it down even more, it's everyone, everyone encounters problems, especially running a building company. I don't think there's any shortage of challenges and problems on a daily basis, let alone weekly or monthly. But the people behind exceptional building companies, like the high performers that run those professional building companies that are ticking all those boxes that the guys have just talked about, it's their energy behind everything, their tenacity, their ability to encounter a problem and not let it defeat them and just go, okay, we need to step over this. But also how can we learn and do so much better for next time? Because if you do want to grow, you're going to encounter more issues and more problems like this. So if you can just keep building, building, it's like a big stepping stone, like a big pyramid that you're big building to move forward. I think that's the, the biggest difference between any kind of average building company owner and a real true professional building company owner.

What?

Yeah.

What are some other differences, Russ, with your average building company owner and someone who has a high performance mindset?

It's got to be tenacity and desire. I would say if you give us a builder with those two qualities, we will at the very minimum triple their income. And if they're early in their journey, it could be as much as 10x in their income. But if they're already established, they're doing 6, 7 million. If they've got tenacity and desire, then yeah, we can show them a pathway to triple their income. Not revenue, but actual income. And I think there's a lot of builders out there that feel they've got to that level. They might be doing six, seven, maybe $10 million and they feel like they're doing well and they are doing well. You know, they might be pulling out a $300,000 a year salary and making 4 to 5% net profit. But the truth is, if you're at that level, you are leaving a lot of money on the table. And if you're happy making that level of money and you don't have a desire to push yourself and become a high performer, that is fine. There is nothing wrong with that whatsoever. But if you've got tenacity and desire to grow, then there is a massive opportunity in front of you, starting with your net margin. Because anything under 10% net profit margin for a residential building company is basically leaving money on the table.

I think that comes down to your beliefs though as well, doesn't it? Your beliefs and your self identity. Because I think a lot of people, and not even just builders, but you notice it actually quite a bit in this industry. You can have this, the all these different limiting beliefs and you have a particular image of yourself or a particular image of what you see as successful. So a lot of people can't believe that anything bigger than that is possible or you can achieve any more than that because they've not seen it or they don't believe it. Whatever they have seen, they've not been able to really see under the hood or all the real numbers and know that, well, they're truly happy or they're successful in multiple areas of their life. And then it's all these stories that you can tell yourself and you just don't genuinely believe that next level is possible.

Yeah. And I think just to amplify what Russ was saying earlier, you know, we've got, I can tell you story after story. I'm thinking of one at the moment, in particular of a builder that came to us just over a year ago. And if you looked at purely the turnover that his building company was producing, you would have looked at that and gone, this guy must be smiling from ear to ear. But when we got under the hood, as Russ said, things look great from the outside, but once we, we opened that hood and started to poke around inside there, we found that he was working himself to the bone. And although there was lots of money flowing through that company, very little of it was sticking because he didn't have some of the fundamentals, the basics in place. And I think that highlights the fact that it is possible to build what really appears to be a thriving building business. I mean, we're talking tens of millions of dollars in revenue per annum to this business and still make no money. So, you know, it's, it's critical that we, we understand that when I, when I kind of, and I might have trotted that out a little bit glibly, it's 10 million and it's 10% and it's 500k for that to happen. That's the culmination of a broad range of things all happening simultaneously, all working cohesively to deliver that kind of outcome that's not going to happen kind of on its own or by mistake. There's a, there's a very intricate web of interaction going on there for that to be the outcome.

Yeah, and I think sky touched on a really good point there as well. This belief we have of how much we can earn, which is very important, that we, we normally need outside help to actually push beyond that because if we don't, we, we will have that limiting belief. Brian Tracy, who is a coach from the US talks about this as self concept. And everyone has a limit of self concept as to how much we believe that we are worth at a subconscious level. And you particularly see this with your salespeople. The salesperson might have a phenomenal year and they'll be well ahead of target and they'll get to about September, October, you know, they can't close the door at that point. All of a sudden, you know, it just falls off a cliff and they kind of drop down to the same level that is their level of self concept. And equally the reverse is true as well because they might be struggling and struggling and as that end of year looms closer and closer, they will do whatever it takes to get up to their minimum level of self concept. So it's not actually so much a line in the sand as there's an upper limit and a lower limit and we always subconscious level, manage to put ourselves in that zone somehow. And what Brian Tracy talks about, I mean Brian Tracy's got some great books and I highly recommend reading them. But a lot of this stuff, or all of this stuff is actually built on a book called Psycho Cybernetics that was written in the 50s. And again it is scientific studies on how our self concept, how this level of worth actually holds us back. And, and I think this is something we see a lot, isn't it Andy as well, especially coaching people. I've seen it in responses to questions that the builders will fill out. I want to get to X. It's like why would you stop yourself at X? Why wouldn't you want to get to Y? You know, it's, you know, the, the, the levels that most people in business actually set themselves, you know, are quite low. So I think it's our role as coaches as well to extract them with the maximum high performance out of people is to help raise the bar. Yeah, I think that's a big part of it.

Some people have that in them. Naturally though, like if you think of a few, there are always going to be those clients that really stand out. And I know everyone can think of maybe five immediately, five clients that have come to us and they are just the guns blazing ones that they come straight in. They've consumed everything because like exactly what you said Russ, that's their standard. That's like they cannot see themselves running a building company any less successful, any smaller. Anything below a particular level of a vision that they have set for themselves. But that is a huge fundamental difference between a lot of average builders as well because they don't have a clear vision. They're not like working toward anything. But the ones who have that vision, it's, I don't know, I hate to say I don't think they're born with it, but everyone just has a particular standard that they set themselves and they can blitz through anything. They're not, they're not intimidated by any new concepts or anything that they need to learn. They just go straight through it and they, they come up against challenges, they're overcoming them, but they overcome and work and work and work and they create an entirely different building company, company one year after another because of the amount of growth and progress that they make. Compared to someone who is afraid of change, doesn't embrace it, doesn't really see themselves as running a huge operation because maybe it even scares them. They only have known horrible stories or bad things that happen. When you grow past a certain point and you really can just see these polar opposites kind of builders playing each other.

And I think a lot of that can come down to a couple of things as well, or be triggered by a couple of things. First of all, it's the information that these people expose themselves to which all comes back to a growth mindset and a fixed mindset. The growth mindset is going to be searching for information and be open to new ideas. So I think that's one part of it, but the other part of it is the people that they surround themselves with as well. Because if you're immersing yourself with people with limited belief system, you know, that's going to just reinforce a low level of self concept in terms of what you can earn. But if you're exposed to, especially if you're exposed to other builders that are, you know, maybe they've got a $10 million a year building company and they're pulling out one and a half million dollars a year, or not necessarily pulling out the business, but making, you know, one and a half million a year, half million salary and a million net. When you see that happening, that will have an effect on your mindset as well. And it's like, well, that is obviously possible. So your approach that target and incorporate that kind of level into your own targets with a new belief and a certainty that it can be done. But if you're not exposed to those type of people and maybe you're hanging out with the people that are losing money on price, losing jobs on price, and I'll just get in by then, that's your accepted norm.

You know what is really funny though, because I've seen this so often when a lot of builders are first entering, you know, it's easy to compare at an APB level because we're talking to so many different builders. So when builders first inquire and they're just, you know, working out what it is that we do. How could we potentially help them? And I find it so fascinating. But it's human nature. You can also understand it when you get a lot of builders in choir sussing out whether they want to join. And then I'll just work out, okay, well, you know, they're, they're revenue guys, guys who are just big on their turnover or their revenue. I do, I do 10 million, I do 20 million, I do 50 million. It's like, what could I learn? When some of your reviews or testimonials, the guys doing like 10 million or 6 million or smaller, and all you gotta ask is, well, what's your net profit margin? Or what's your gross profit? And they all, they might not have the same amount as gross profit margin. It's the smaller guys that are making a lot more money than them, but they cannot get their heads around that. They cannot accept that to them, they've built a bigger business. They're more impressive and their revenue is bigger, so they are better. And that is one of the most dangerous, dangerous mindsets to come in contact with. There's a really interesting book. What's it called? I think it's Profit first by Mike Mikowski. Have probably butchered his last name, but in this book he talks about the easiest way to compare businesses is look at their gross profit. Because revenue means nothing. Everyone's got different margins, especially like gross profit margin. So try and compare businesses and what's your gross profit? So forget the revenue figure. What are those figures? Are you in the tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands or millions of. And then you can compare each other and then you can look at your net profit margin, but forget the revenue. That's just such vanity. But it's just one of the biggest mistakes guys make.

Yeah, revenue is vanity. Profit is sanity. And there's a third component to that which I don't normally like repeating, especially in construction, because I think it can give people a full sense of security. But yeah, the third part is cash is reality. But yeah, when you're in an industry that's cash flow positive, yeah, I think you can get a full sense of security or a full sense of reality, I should probably say.

And there's that, that old story about the fleas. And if you put a couple of fleas in a coffee can and you put the lid on it and just leave the lid on for 10 minutes after they've bumped their heads a couple of times, you can take the lid off, they won't jump out anymore because they've been conditioned to that's as far as I can go. They just, they don't even push beyond that. Yeah, but you know, Russ, what you were saying earlier about being in, being in an environment where you're exposed to people that are breaking that ceiling and I mean, I always look at it, take it to the next level. We've been pretty focused on turnover and profit and all of those sort of things, but really when we start to look at those high performers, they're also taking regular holidays, they're playing golf regularly, they're out to dinner three nights a week, they don't work on weekends. You know, there's, there's all of these other lifestyle things that start to come into that picture. You know, I, I think most of, you know, addicted to rugby union might be an understatement of my life. But what always amazes me is I, I, I watch players and Russ, I'm sure you'll see this in the, in the motor racing world as well. The guys that win make it look so easy and yet, you know, there's so much going on to actually make that happen. And yet it just, it looks like it's, you know, the easiest thing under the sun. And that's, that's the real key to high performance, is being able to do it without appearing to break a sweat. For me, that, that would kind of be the cherry on top of the cake.

Yeah, you're doing it on autopilot because your mind is already thinking further down the track, isn't it? You are, you're looking way, way ahead.

So, sky, if a building company owner has these limiting beliefs and they feel like they've got that, that ceiling stopping them from being high performing, what effect can that have on their company?

Well, it's kind of like Einstein's definition of insanity, isn't it? Like, keep doing what you've always done, you can't expect a different result. You're just going to keep getting what you've always got. So if you have these limiting beliefs and you're not either aiming higher or maybe you're aiming higher, but you're kind of kidding yourself because you genuinely don't believe it. If you cannot picture your life and this state of success and prosperity and really the high performance building company that you want to have, you're not going to achieve it if you cannot picture it, if you cannot believe you're going to be there. So, ooh, I hate to say it, but you kind of are just going to like cruise along with the same mediocrity and you're going to encounter stressful situations, problems, and challenges, and they are going to rattle you because you don't have really what you really need to dig deep and overcome them. And in a. In a very graceful way that Andy was just explaining, the way that it doesn't look like you're breaking a sweat. And that's not to say high performers don't get stressed and have stressful situations. Obviously they do, but it's just about how it's handled. And again, the mindset around, there's a challenge, there's a problem, we can move on, we can get past this, and we can do a lot better.

I think there's a danger when you don't have the right attitude or mindset, when you're not focused on being better. The reality is that you're going to get manipulated by clients, by subcontractors, and by suppliers. And that's because the clients are going to say to you, the price is too high. And a low performer, an average performer, is going to drop their price because they think they're going to lose the deal if they don't. With subcontractors, the lower performers end up sticking with the subcontractors that let them down time after time because they don't believe that they can find anyone better. And with suppliers, the average performers will leave money on the table with their suppliers because they believe the salesperson, when the salesperson tells them they're already getting the best deal. But a high performer, they think differently. They're. They're. They're looking at things in a different way because they believe and they know that there can always be improvement in both themselves, but in. In everyone that they're dealing with.

And there's that wonderful quote that says every building business is perfectly engineered to deliver the results that it's delivering. So, you know, bottom line is if. If we don't address the way the building company is put together, if we keep. I mean, Sky's covered the insanity quote, which is absolutely valid, but you could. You could have a building business that is performing adequately, but it's not high performance because it's not engineered to be a high performance. You know, I. I love my car, but I probably wouldn't take it on a track and. And go up against Russ's car, because my car is not high performance where his is. So, you know, it's. It's. It's that difference in terms of if you want something, if you want the outcome to be different, you're going to have to engineer and build this thing in a different way in order to take you to where you want to be.

I love that quote, Andy. That is just such a great quote, isn't it? And it brings home the reality, isn't it? Every company is engineered to get the results that it receives. It's just so, so true. And yeah, if you are not achieving the margins that you want to achieve, if you're not achieving the growth you want to achieve or the results you want to achieve, the economy isn't to blame, the government isn't to blame, no one is to blame except yourself, which is a good thing because you have the ability to make changes. So yeah, don't look outside, look, look inside. And, and this is why, you know, the average builders out there, they don't put their prices up. They, they end up attracting average or below employ average employees to work for them. You know, just further cementing the average company. And, and as a result, I mean when you do those two things, what do you end up with? You end up with a job, not a business. And I think probably a great definition, you know, if you are not generating excess profit at year end, which sits in your building company, you have a job, not a business. And the reason I would say that is because the excess net profit goes to the shareholders. So if you're not generating excess profit, there is no money coming to you as a shareholder. Therefore you simply have a job as a director of the business, working in the business. It's a job, it is not a business.

And I mean we, we run an annual strategic retreat obviously every year. The, the secret or the hint is in the name annual strategic retreat and putting together the content for that. I've been looking at data around, I think the current terminology is profitability stalls is what the, the gurus are calling it when a company's profitability drops significantly just out of the blue. And they've analyzed a bunch of data around what was the thing that caused that. And in something like 78% of the cases it was a lack of strategic understanding and planning. As in the person, the person or people running the business didn't have the smarts to be able to actually recognize what was causing the problem. Because within the company they just kept doing things the way they'd always done them because they worked last year. So why wouldn't we do more of them again this year? So there's a, there's a thing that starts to play into this that says you have to change the way you think if you want to get different results. If you don't, you're a bit like a farmer who doesn't plant any seed but then sits and waits for the crops to grow. It's literally not going to happen until that mindset change happens.

I love it. And you know what I want to add to that? It's all to do with the leadership of the building company. You can talk about the people being high performers, but what's that quote? If you want to go fast, go alone and if you want to go far, go together and you cannot build a world class company without a team.

Exactly.

And that is all completely dependent on your leadership ability. And a lot of people are not going to follow someone who cannot lead properly. If you have terrible leadership qualities and you have no tenacity and all these qualities that we're just talking about, they all absolutely matter. But it is your job as the leader to bring everyone with you because you know what, it's the team that makes you look good. I, you know, I can appreciate shout out to all the successful building company owners. There's a huge credit to you there. But, well, even you and I were talking about this just the other day. You can have some very, very, very successful people who have sold companies and they're amazing successful entrepreneurs. They all go into business together and set up a new business themselves, but they don't have a team behind them and so they're just leveraging their own name. So yeah, they can sell a couple of things, but if you look at the inner workings behind that company, it's all clunky and it doesn't flow as well and it's the team behind them that made them look good. So you need to be that tenacious leader that can bring people with you and if they can see you are always striving for better progress, not perfection, trying to improve every single thing you do. How do you, you handle conflict, how do you handle challenges and overcome them? Well, you can inspire them and then suddenly you're bringing with you a very high performing team and that, that is where you can just blow everyone else out the water.

Yeah, we won't name those people, Sky. So let's talk solutions then. We've framed the problem and framed the opportunity for people with a high performance building company. But Russ, maybe you want to kick us off. What can building company owners do differently to become high performing companies?

I think there's a few things and yeah, the first one I'll go back to is to mix with other people that have a growth mindset and you can probably do that a lot easier than you realize. It's the whole reason we set up APB chapters which are meetings run by builders for builders. So there's an opportunity to go and hang out with like minded people in person. There's the APB members Facebook group. Another great place to, you know, to, to meet, you know, to hang out with people of a similar mindset which will, will help with your own growth. The retreat that, that we do is another great way and, and all of this, the reason it's so important is because you're the average of the people you spend most time with. Another thing is learning as well. Yeah, we can never stop learning and obviously being open minded enough to learn as well because we don't know what we don't know. And Warren Buffett famously said, he said the more you learn, the more you earn. And it's so, so true. You look at people that constantly reading books. Well, I guess there are two categories that fall into that. There are people that basically make a career out of learning and don't do anything with it. So yeah, I would have to add actually action onto that as I'm, as I'm thinking about it. But yeah, learning and action, you know, is the caveat. Yeah, you do those two things, you, you will increase your, your earning. And maybe when you look at things, instead of thinking, yeah, what about if it doesn't work? Yeah, you might look at the cost of something. You know, what if it doesn't work? Just think about what if it did work? What would happen then? Yeah, look at things slightly, slightly different.

There's a really good quote and I don't remember who it was by now, but there's a really, really good quote and they talked about the difference. And I'm sure this is just someone's opinion and variation of it, but I think it's really true. The difference between highly successful people and very average people, it can actually be boiled down to one quality and it's actually their decisiveness and it's the speed at which they can make decisions. Because every single day, especially as the owner of a building company, you are presented with decisions. You've got to make decisions multiple times a day, dozens if not hundreds of times a day, maybe thousands. And if you are a highly indecisive person and you cannot weigh up, you know, what's the benefit, what are the risks? And you just, you procrastinate decisions, even small, because that shows how you make big decisions as well. That really stifles the growth of you as a person and your building company and your whole team. Whereas if you are a decisive person, it doesn't mean saying yes to everything, but the ability to do a risk benefit analysis and then work out, is this something you can do? And exactly like you've said, Russ, like, what is the worst thing that can happen? Am I okay with that? Let's do it. Let's try it. And that will enable you to see results a hell of a lot faster because you're probably also going to see the faster failures and what didn't work a lot faster. And you can make the decision to course correct and move forward. So I don't know how accurate that is. Probably didn't come from a Harvard study, but it's very true when you actually apply it to all these different types of people, you know.

Yeah. And I mean it, it always. When we get into this subject, let's, let's, we'll, we'll tiptoe around it and then I'll bring it home at the end. Olympic athletes, top professional sportsmen, the guys that are at the absolute top of the ability game, all end up with a coach. Now why is that? I mean, what, what the reason is, quite simply because when you can have somebody who is objective and focused solely on your success in your corner, that gives you an immense advantage over somebody that doesn't have that kind of input. And you know, um, Will and I recently attended a. I don't know how. What would we call that, Will? Was it a presentation?

I guess you call it that.

Yeah, the presentation. Well, it was a. It was a seminar, I guess a teaching event. And whilst we left it with mixed feelings, there was a comment made in it that, that really stuck with me. And that was along the lines of, you, in order to be successful, you have to be able to transfer certainty. Like you. You know what, your building company is capable, beloved. But every client you talk to has never worked with your building company. They don't know. You've got to find a way to transfer that certainty. And the reality is coaches in any field, but particularly in the field that we're talking about today, who work with builder after builder after builder after builder in every part of the world on an ongoing basis and are seeing what works and what doesn't work in real time, and they are going to download that into your building business. That is worth an immense amount in terms of moving you from that mediocre average level very quickly up into that, that high performance level. So absolutely do. I do. I think that coaching is Going to make a difference in terms of getting people there 100% at any level.

Yeah. I think another thing that can help as well is setting goals, writing them down. Yeah, very, very important. But then measuring them because what gets measured improves. And I think another thing is when you look back over your history of goal setting and results, that will help with your whole belief system which will help with raising your level of self concept. Because you know, these goals, they can seem a bit airy fairy, you know, especially when you start doing it. And yeah, maybe you, you struggle to, to believe it's even possible but when you look back at what you've achieved when you've been doing this for a few years, it becomes very, very clear that you can pretty much achieve anything that you, you set your mind to. But it really does help if you write these things down and yeah, constantly measure your success against them.

Sky, what's one thing you would recommend to a builder to do right now to become more high performing?

That's a great question. Like right now, in the moment, what is one thing you can do? I'd probably say have a moment to actually reflect of everything that we've just said. Take a minute and reflect of how. Or reflect on how sorry you see yourself and your life. What is your self concept, what are your beliefs? And try and note down if you have any limiting beliefs. And there as well, were you told any particular stories about what it takes to be successful? Because that can have a huge effect. How we were raised or really who we're surrounding ourselves with. Are people telling you those stories of they had to sell their soul to run a company like that or their marriage is in shambles? You don't want to be that successful, they're never at home. And so if you're told all these stories over time, you can subconsciously just have that belief. So really take a minute, sit down and reflect, reflect. Do you have any of that or what sayings can you really instantly repeat? Because they've been told to you enough times. And I think if you get really clear on where you are now, then you can get really clear on where you do want to be and actually give yourself the permission, the opportunity to dream a little bit. Like where do you want to be? Like think about if you were, if you had absolutely no glass ceiling, there were absolutely no limitations. You could have the exact life you could dream about. Not just in business for your building company, but every area of your life. What does that look like? And just note it down in excruciating detail. And then that is your. It's like your mission statement for yourself. That's your life's mission. And then you need to go out and create a plan and action it to actually achieve that. Now, how you action it, there are so many different things you can do. And like Andy said, even having a coach to help you in your highest, daily, highest level of daily performance, that will help tremendously. But it's also how you're doing your business planning, what systems are you putting in place, and of course, the people you surround yourself with. But I want to talk about that in two specific areas because you can surround yourself with other entrepreneurs, building company owners, and, you know, from. From the leadership perspective to, you know, sit down and talk to other leaders, what are they doing in the industry? What is working? Get inspired, get energized. That's amazing. But also think about who you're surrounding yourself with in your company. And by that I mean who are you hiring? Because you want to build a team of high performers as well. You want to make sure you have that leadership ability, and you better work on your soft skills of communication and leadership and all of the above. But be on the lookout for those incredibly insane, inspiring and energizing team members that you can bring on board. And what you'll notice with some of the most successful people, they're not the smartest ones in their company. They're just not. So if you can check your ego at the door, hire some incredibly talented people to come join you on this journey because they can take your building company to new heights. And if you just get good people and then get out of their way, they can do incredible things under your leadership. So that's a huge.

Just like we did with Andy and will get way smarter people involved. I think one of the biggest changes I've seen that has really triggered builders towards high performance, and it comes from just watching on the sidelines and just seeing how Andy has. Has done this with his. His team of executive coaches as well. And the first step has been always to sit the builder down and allow them to get a very clear understanding of their financials, which isn't always as good as they'd like it to be. And, you know, even with the larger companies and the guys that believe they're doing quite well, you know, when you actually pull back the curtain, they're never doing quite as well as they believed they were. And what I've seen, that trigger is a reaction that really puts them on the path to high performance. Because first of all, there's anger. There's anger and frustration that they've been doing projects at a profit that, you know, they should have made a lot more money out of that. And they feel a frustration that they've effectively, you know, done all that work at a discount. But then that kind of anger very switches very, very quickly to more positive thoughts and a determination to do better next time. And it changes the course they're on, it changes their mindset about profitability and what's possible and it actually springboards them towards a, you know, creating a high performing company and pushes them towards high performance themselves. So, yeah, that's something I've seen over and over again. It's incredible to watch. You know, you, you wish it didn't have to be like that. You wish it could be kind of a, you know, a more positive experience right from the start. But yeah, I've just seen that trigger so many times now.

I mean, the, the, the truth with that thing is, and I, I'll probably say this over and over again on podcast because it's the truth, we are struck as coaches by the fact that so few builders went into business to be business owners. And you know what Scar said earlier about surrounding yourself with people. I spoke to a guy in Canada 10 days ago who, when I said to him, so you've built this team, you know, isn't it great that they can do things the way you would do them? And he said, thank God they can do them way better than I would do them. And you know, that, that thing of checking the ego at the door and going, having that, that self analysis, that self truth, if you like that says I'm not great at this, I'm not great at that, I'm not great at that. I am good at this, this and this. So what do I need to do? I need to find me people that are better than me in those three areas that I'm not so good at because if I can get those up to above average and I keep doing the things that I'm good at, I've automatically just moved myself into a whole new realm. But once again that we come back to where we started. If you don't expose yourself to that curtain getting pulled back, if you, if you don't pull the band aid off and actually look at where things are realistically, you, you dreaming, your gps, your sat nav system in your car, it can't get you to the restaurant that you're going to dinner to if it doesn't know where you are. Now, it's completely useless. It's just, it's just a maze of roads. It first needs to be able to identify the starting point and then it can work out the process to get you to where you want to go. So that reality of start with a clear understanding of where I'm at now is going to put you in a really positive place in terms of where you want to go.

Sky coaching's been mentioned a few times throughout the episode around unlocking that high performance in a builder. So what can they build to do if they're looking down the path of coaching as an option?

I think it's really important to on how you choose your coach, like, who are you going? Because it's not any coach that can help you. Like, who you choose as your coach is going to be the most important thing. And there is a huge learning curve. There's a huge difference in business, in just running a normal business and running a building company. So if you're trying to unlock a whole new level of high performance, you're not really going to get that with any kind of life coach or general business coach. Now there's a, a place for them, sure. But if we're talking about running a building company, that's not really going to help you take your building company to the next level because unfortunately there's too many gotchas in this industry. So it's actually interviewing and looking for and doing the research to find someone who is proven and has the runs on the board that has taken builders and building company owners to that next level, to that next level of high performance and can prove it because they've had enough experience and enough runs on the board with people just like you, if not more successful than you and maybe people who were in a worse position than you. So you can see their output in all these different scenarios and it works again and again and again. Every single time.

Yeah, you know, we often see. Well, one of the, one of the funniest comments we get regularly is from people that are in our coaching cohort who will say, well, you know, we don't want you to do any sort of advertising or publicity to people in my city because I don't, I don't want to, I don't other people to know what I know. And you know, the reality is, as sky has said, there's the. When the tide rises, all the boats rise together. The industry becoming more professional as a whole is good for every single builder who embraces that high performance mindset. The truth is there are a lot of builders out there that continue to give the industry a bad name and continue to propagate practices that aren't good for them or their clients at the end of the day. So getting in front of somebody who can help you move to that more professional way of behaving, thinking, acting, and can probably save you an immense amount of time and money because they've done it with other people would, would be a really good thing to be looking for as well.

Yeah, and I'd just take us back to the beginning of the podcast episode just to reemphasize that there's a lot of good coaches out there that can get you some pretty spectacular results in terms of generating leads and even sales. But unless they understand the dynamics of a residential building company, which has an extraordinarily long sales cycle, which requires a lot of cash flow to carry through all that advertising to a point where it becomes self liquidating, unless they understand that, and the vast majority don't, you'll find yourself in trouble really, really quickly. So like sky says, choose your coach with extreme care. It's so, so important.

Then they can also have all the credibility and expertise though. But if you don't like them, you're also never going to meet with them and you're also not going to allow them to keep you accountable to what you said you were going to do, to what you said, to what you did there. You're not going to allow them to do that because you actually don't value or respect their opinion of you. And I think that's the key in a relationship really, that anyone has with a coach. They look up to that coach and they're looking up for that guidance. Now, in a lot of cases, you're running a huge company, a hugely successful operation, and you need that one person in your corner. Think of an athlete, think of the coach that you go to when you're down and out or when you're on top of the world. You have that one person that you get to go to that just truly gets it because they've been with you by your side and you aren't going to want to share in any of your successes or really any of your failures if you don't like the coach either. So their credibility and track record on paper is so important. But you better meet with them in advance. You better make sure you can have that good quality relationship and likability in that relationship as well. Otherwise it's still not going to work out because you're just not going to want to meet up with them and do anything and go much further. But when you have both of those criteria, the credibility and the likability, you'll find that you work with your coach for years. And in this industry, it takes years and years and years to see such huge change. So it's a long term relationship. It's a, it's a big commitment. But that's, I think that's what you pay for as a high performer. You know, you've got long term relationships.

Great advice, great advice. Well, Russ, Sky, Andy, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. You've provided a ton of value for builders out there looking to be high performers. Personally, I took away a number of key points around reflecting on where you are now, defining where you want to go, changing the way you think, getting a support network, a team, a coach, a mentor in your corner, and always be learning. So for me, that was the biggest takeaways. But as always, a huge thank you to our listeners wherever you are in the world. If you like the show, subscribe to the podcast on your platform of choice. Otherwise, we'd also love a review if you're feeling generous, but otherwise, have a great day and thanks a lot for listening.

Thanks, Will.

Thanks, Will.