From Tradesman to Entrepreneur: Andrew Houston’s Business Journey Part 2

If somebody said to me, Andrew, what would be the two things that you would see from somebody who put the pride aside? Here's a big hiring people that are better at it than you, okay? That is a result. Putting pride aside. You do not people that. If I go into a business and I see people being hired, finding good people in today's world is becoming harder and harder, especially for the traits. And the reason for that is because the demand's going up.

I want to dive into this actually a little bit, Andrew, because I think again, I thank you for all of these insights. And you're bang on. And I can feel the passion coming through this at how important you feel this is to help people. And you know, that's one of the things I think has connected you and I from day one, right. Is the passion to help people. I feel like. And I go through this. So you're giving this advice to your 20 year old self and I'm listening to it going, well, shit, right? And that is not an easy thing to identify, admit to. But I have a solution. Okay. Because I think it's really important. I know for me, and I'm sure many of you, when you start to be a manager, when you start to be a leader, an owner, and people are starting to follow you, they're looking to you for direction, you feel like you need to be strong and you need to give direction and certainty and stability for your team. And I still agree with that 100%. Okay. Your team is maybe not the, the group to have these conversations with. Okay. So, you know, Andrew talking about having the coffee with other tradies. He's also maybe not wanting to tell his competition, hey, you know, I'm extremely vulnerable right now and I get that. So, you know, being a leader, being a CEO, being an entrepreneur, having people who are looking to you for direction and want to be excited about the path that you're on together, that's still I feel. And Andrew, I want your take on this, but I still feel that is part of being the leader in creating the path. But, and there's a big but, Andrew is. And I got chills even when you were saying this, thinking of how important it is that you have that outlet and you have that person, that community that you can have those conversations with. And I know Andrew and, and this is maybe a little bit of a push towards pfc, but we, we've done it as well. Other people are going through the exact same thing that you are. And you know, to Andrew telling the story about having the coffee. And no, he's not doing okay. I'm sure the contractor he was talking to said, yeah, everything's good. He's struggling too. 100% right.

And 1000 with the same thing probably.

Yeah, same thing, same problems. But you know that pride is coming in where it's like, oh no, look at me, I'm a CEO, I'm a, I'm building this business. I'm invincible. You know what? That's where burnout happens. That's where, you know, breakdowns, emotional stress, health issues are happening. Here's my solution to this, okay? And I know profit for contractors very well. We've been a partner with them and work with their clients and support their mission. We have for the last 10 years. Whether we were working directly with them or not, we were still sending people to PFC because of what they've built. Find yourself a community of like minded people where you're able to share your struggles and your wins and support each other. Right? Coaching. So let's break down prop for contractors. But you know, back to my biggest. Being a business owner is important. That brings a different perspective than not. If, if a coach has not been a business owner, they're not relating to you in the pain that you're going through. Second is the experience in your industry and in your space, understanding the pain points that have actually happened, how they can help you solve them. Super powerful. Okay, that's a coach. You add community into this, right? Which is a coaching community where people are all out to continue to pursue excellence, become the champion CEO and they want to become the best version of themselves. Get together with these people and then the next level is, holy shit. You can share that you're going through difficult times and you can have that exposure, you can have that release. And you know what? 95% of everybody is going to say either I'm going through the same thing or I've been through that too. I know exactly how you feel. This is how we got out of it. And so, you know, you combine the coaching with community. Guys, this is, you know, I know Andrew put it as pride, but it's like this is, that's the secret weapon, right? Find that whatever it is, whether it's, it's working with our team, whether it's working with proper contractors, whoever it is, find that community. Find that coaching group that can guide you, get you there faster, but also give you the community to share your wins, share your failures. You know, like as business owners. Sorry, Andrew. And I'm, I'm on my rant here. It's like, as business owners and we've got T shirts that are made up that say, it must be nice, right? Everyone who doesn't own a business looks at you and you say, yeah, everything's great. Everything's perfect. Everyone looks and goes, oh, it must be nice that you can go to your kids soccer game or you can go to the Blue Jays game in the World Series or whatever that is. But they don't understand what's happening behind the scenes. The struggles, the stress, you know, the self improvement, the guidance, the investment that it takes to get there. And. And that's totally cool. That's why we don't talk to those people about what we're going through. Find that community, guys. It is. You know, Andrew, I'm so glad you brought that up because it's so powerful.

Yeah. And you know what? I would say so, Bob, you're bang on. Okay? That. So if somebody said to me, Andrew would be the two things that you would see from somebody who put the pride aside, okay? It's called put the pride aside. Okay. And let the leader thrive. Okay? Is what Bob just said, guys. Right? And whether that's a local BNI business networking group or chamber of commerce or, or whether it's reaching out to, you know, Bob's business or mine or whatever, it's there, all right? It's there. You know, you can even begin to share it with some of your family members. Guys like, you got to get it off your head and have it actually being discussed, because having it stick in your head is, Is holding you back. So that's, that's, that would be one key way of me seeing that somebody's living, you know, putting the pride aside. I'm going to give you number two. Has to do with your team. Look at all these freaking balloons. Okay?

For those of you watching video, I don't know why balloons just went up. It was like a celebration moment. They're like, hey, one more. Give us one more, Andrew.

Exactly. Yeah. Okay, is ready for this, guys? A big one. Hiring people that are better at it than you, okay? That is a result. Putting pride aside, you do not people that. If I go into a business and I see people being hired that are constantly less than the owner in that specific position, I know the owner's not put his pride aside. I go into a business where there's somebody that's hired, whether it's an accountant or Bob's firm that's better. Okay, at it than them, or whether it's managing jobs or quoting jobs or whatever that is. I know the owners put the pride aside. And when an owner builds a business with people that are better than them, then the business is not them. Now it's a real business. Okay? That applies on the personal side. If people surround themselves with people that are less than them, instead of surrounding themselves with people that are friends, that are like them, but have attributes that are better than them, those people in business and personally are going to thrive. The people on the other side, they're just going to survive. Why? Because everything is going to, in some form or fashion is going to go back to them because of this mindset of not letting go. Like, oh, I got to control this. Oh, I can't. Oh, you know, I can't let my pride go here. I've got to protect myself and control everything. So that's just something to think about, guys. That's some deep thinking there.

I love it. I love it. I wanted to just quickly talk about your book because I don't want to miss that. And I left my copy upstairs. So there's my Amazon, but we've got Andrews. So how to steal your competitors, Tradespeople, ethically. And then there's a warning sign says either you get the top talent or they get yours. Tell me about this book.

Well, here's the thing, is that finding good people in today's world is becoming harder and harder, especially for the trades, okay? And the reason for that is because the demand's going up. And no offense, look, when I went through high school, I was going back a long time. All my buddies were all going to university, and I was actually looked down upon by a lot of people. Not my close friends, okay? Actually, a lot of those buddies of mine, we still, still hang out together. It's pretty cool. But a lot of other people would look down at me as, you know, blue collar workers, not gonna make much money. You know, I had plans, man. I had. I had. I didn't have the coaching thing laid out, but I had laying out of business. You know, I actually went back to school, got my electronics engineering technologist on top of my electrical. Like, I had that all laid out. But one of the problems is in the trades. It was never supported and it's still not supported at the level that it needs to be. So now we have a massive shortage of trades people. Like a massive shortage of skilled tradespeople. Not. I'm not talking even just the laborers. It's hard to get because people don't want to get their hands dirty. People don't want to. Oh, plumber. Oh, my God. You got to deal with this and that. It's like, yeah, dude, but somebody's got to do it. Like, what the hell? So now we have this massive shortage. So what's that got to do with the book? So even with this massive shortage, I still believe that there's plenty of trades people that contractors have access to. You're like, andrew, that's a contradiction. It is a bit of a contradiction, but depends on how you look at it. So the reality is this, Bob back into the 90s, Andrew keeps using the 90s. Yeah. Because it's true. 90% of contracting business owners have never been taught how to run a business. And how does that relate to the book? Well, the reality is that there's a ton of A players that are working right now for your competitors. And the also reality is that there's a very high chance. And if you're listening to this, I bet in some form or fashion you're a contractor and you haven't been getting coached by us or somebody else that has a proven track record or help with Bob's, you know, company that your business is in chaos. So again, Andrew, get back to the book. I'm getting there. A players do not want to work in chaos. D players, dead beats. They love chaos. Why? They get the waste time, they get the dog. It just, you know, the guy showed up here at my place. I told you earlier in the podcast, he drove all the way out here. They're about an hour and a half away now. He's gonna drive all the way back and he's getting paid, right? He's an A player. I know that guy. I could see by the look in his face he was pissed. Now, if it's a D player, he's going to be happy. He's going to pull Tim Hortons welcome to Canada. He's going to grab his coffee and he's going to go, fuck, man. I just getting paid for three, four hours doing nothing but the A player. That guy's pissed. He's an A player. I seen him work here as a fellow tradie, okay? His workmanship is unbelievable. I even called the company and said, this guy's amazing. I'm not joking, guys. So if I have the skill set to put out ads to attract him and his wife or partner looks up that ad and all these pain points that he's having to deal with going to jobs, not being organized, not getting. Being able to do his trade, and he's pissed right now. Guess what? There's a ton of them. Why? Because 90% of contractors are in chaos. And A players do not like chaos. All you owners of trades businesses, you were the A player. Did you like dogging it? No. Did you like it when you didn't get the right material?

No.

Did you like it when you showed up the jobs that you shouldn't have been at? No. And the list goes on. So when you have a company that's getting coached and has control, not chaos, A players will swarm to it if you give them the right message. And Is that ethical? 1,000% that's ethical. I'm not talking about get. Calling up, you know, your competitors and sneakily getting their names. You don't need to do that. Just need to put Facebook ad or Instagram or whatever, however, in front of them at the suppliers of how good this environment is that you have. And they, the A players will come to it. And guess what? It naturally filters the Ds. Ds don't like control, they don't like order, they don't like performance reviews. Isn't that interesting? And A players, they're like, bring it. If I can make you more money, which makes me more money, I'm game. So, guys, there are tons of A players out there, even though the industry has not. The governments have not supported us tradies. And guess what, that principle is the same if you have an accounting firm. Is it true, Bob?

Absolutely. 100%. Yeah.

Do you get most of your. Let's ask this, Bob. I'm going to switch it. Do you get most of the people that work for you because they're unemployed looking for work, or are they currently working at a bookkeeping company or accounting firm? Which one?

So I. So it's a more complicated answer than that. It depends on what's happening in the industry.

Sure.

Right now, what I will say and, and this is tougher to relate from the trading side, but a lot of the large big four companies are eliminating the flexibility of remote work. And for us, a lot of those really skilled people who have moved into remote work are, have moved out of the major cities and now they're going, hey, we're a really skilled pool of people who have been having this flexibility. We can't go back. So they're on the market. Yes. So that's one.

Okay, but just. I can just hold it. Let me just hold it.

Yeah.

Is that related to what I said regarding environment?

100%.

Yep. Because they're not being given the environment that they want to work In. Is that true?

100%.

Right. Tradies don't want to work in an environment where it's freaking chaos. True.

Absolutely.

Environment. So, and next part.

So the second part is that we have an ongoing recruitment campaign where we're soliciting top level managers and senior managers across the country and we're waiting for them to put their hand up and all we're doing is sharing who we are, what we do, and why they would want to be part of it. So they're identifying that they can relate to who we are, what we do more so than the chaos of what they're in currently. And it just aligns more with their purpose. So that is completely in alignment with what you're talking about.

So let's just rewind. Both parties are working.

Yes.

Yep. Right. Okay. The good people are not at work. Number two. Two for two. Both are looking for a better environment that suit their needs. One, the environment is I want to work remote and I'm an a player. The other environment is like I'm a manager and I want to work in an environment that has a place for me to grow and evolve. Guys, it's this exact same thing. It's just specific to Bob's environment of his target audience.

The same thing to add into just the second layer of what you just said. Growth and opportunity is the other big piece. Right. And so I, I know you haven't necessarily gone deep on that part, but people, a players want to come work for a tradie organization or a CPA firm where they can see an evolution of them becoming the best version of themselves. And they want to know and believe that the organization that they're going to be part of is going to support that and help them get there 100%.

And so the book, guys, the book, it talks in layman. Whether you're a trades company or not, it talks. When I say layman's terms, it doesn't mean I'm not talking intelligence. I'm talking about talking in a language that people understand. Okay. Bob and I could talk frickin spreadsheets, PNLs, balance sheets. Oh, here's how smart we are. Nobody's going to benefit from that. Okay? Like, what's the point of that? Okay, so the book really breaks it down into, into terms that you guys are going to get. And I'll just give you an example. I'm going to give major credit to my mom, trying not to get emotional here because I love her so much. Okay? There's like my mom and then There's God, then there's okay. Like, okay. Because she helped us get through some really tough times, man. And, like. And the grit and didn't flinch, didn't show it. Now she tells the stories and we just go, holy shit. Okay, but never forget when I own my contracting company. Guys, quick start. Yep.

Sorry. I think there's a key connection there. So your mom, when we were talking about, you know, the challenges and hardship of being a CEO and. And having to have that outlet but also show strength as a leader, right? So I think just a quick connection there, it was like your mom was doing that exact same thing. She was leading you, guiding you along the way, but was also struggling and just showing up and giving you the confidence that you guys would be good, you know? Anyway, sorry. Quick, Quick connection there. And I was like, damn, your mom's a leader. That's why you respect her so much.

It's so true. So my mom. My mom. This story is in this book in more detail. But let me tell you what happened. I come home running my contracting business. They got a whack of guys working for me. Guys are quitting. I can't find anybody, okay? And I'm complaining. I'm bitching. I'm. I'm complaining to my mom sitting down on the couch, and she's listening to me. I said, mom, I don't understand. You know, what's the problem? She goes, this is probably where I got my coaching from to begin with. My mom, instead of solving. Here's the answer. My mom asks pretty smart questions. She says, well, Andrew, why did you quit the jobs that you quit and start your own contracting company? Mom, you're not listening to me. I'm not able to keep guys, and I can't find anybody. Oh, I'm listening to you. Just answer the question. Well, you know, Mom, I mean, when I worked for Richard, the guy was a gong show. And, you know, he was, you know, terrible communication. It didn't have regular reviews. I had no future. I. Okay, what about the previous one? Oh, then there was Jimmy and Bup, bup, bup, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh. Yeah. And then there was. And then there was Craig and the guys. These are all real owners of these contracting companies. I'm on pauses. She was. So what I heard was this.

Oh, damn. You know, when it starts that way, you're like, oh, damn, here it comes.

And I literally was leaning into him. I literally went back like this in the couch. She was. So let me just ask you One more question from you and I talking over the last while since you opened up this business, last couple years. Yeah. Are those the same things that are going on at your company?

What a dagger to the heart.

Aren't you, Aren't you working like 80, 90 hours? Yeah. Aren't you like dropping the ball all over the place? Yeah, but. No, I'm just asking. Just ask it. Yes, Mom. So the problems that the reasons that you left is what's going on in your business and you're wondering why are people leaving your place when it's the reason that you left the other places? And I just, I didn't say, as you can tell, guys, I talk a lot. I couldn't even speak. I was speechless.

Well, what are you going to say? What are you going to say about that? Right? You've just been hit right in the face with what you already knew but couldn't pinpoint. You know, and that's coaching.

And that's coaching. That is exactly what she did. It didn't even exist back then. In my. To my knowledge, that's what she did. And that's in this book. Okay? And that conversation, it was only two weeks after that convo, guys, that when I came home late and I went into that cold shower, there was something planted, a seed in my brain and I went, boom. On top of the fact. Let's not get into this. I gave one other person credit here, my brother Bob, Okay, Love him to death. My oldest brother. I was 21 years old. I was licensed electrician at 1993. It's my electrical ring. So 23, 21. My brother gave me this book, Seven Habits of Highly Effective. Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. I still have that book. I still refer to that book. So the combination member of the people you surround yourself with. And I read that book and that book made me go, man, I'd like to do what that guy does. And I had no idea what that meant to my mom sitting down on the couch with me, to me coming home late. Had that whatever moment blossomed when I was in that cold shower to go, I got to systemize my business. And that's the moment of like, boom. Okay, so hopefully some of you guys are getting some of these moments today. But that's what that book is about. So it lays out step by step, how to ethically steal your competitors top A players, okay? So you can up your roster. They are right around the corner from you. If you take a 50 kilometer radius, you're an electrical contractor, plumbing contractor. How Many plumbing contractors are within 50 or 100 kilometers. A shit ton. How many employees are working there right now? A ton of them. How many do you actually need? Well, I need three guys. Guys? You're telling me there's not three unhappy class A frickin rated team players that want to go from chaos to working in a place that's a great environment? Yeah. Well, either create it and you're going to keep your A players or if you don't, you're going to lose your current A players. And any A player you hire, they will leave within weeks, if not even sooner. That's it. Or fix it.

Throw in right now a down economy, you know, where people are getting a little bit more concerned. People aren't spending as much money. Maybe, you know, you and your competitors are seeing some tightening on some contracts, opportunities that are coming in perfect time. This is the perfect time to show your leadership, your direction of where things are going and get those A players.

Over the last three months of the year and the first three months of the year. In the trades world, not saying this for everybody, but in trades world, remember this, everybody, the last three months and the first three months of a year are the best time to ethically steal A players. Why? Well, these three months right now, between now and the end of December are the busiest time for any contractor that's even close to even being okay. Not even great, not even good, just okay. Why? Because everybody wants their frickin projects done before the end of the year. That's personal. People want things done before Christmas. And on the business side, guess what? They need to spend what their budget was for the year before the next year. Otherwise they don't get the next budget. Everybody's going, yeah, you're right. So guess what? That's the maximum amount of chaos. When guys are going, I'm fucking done working on weekends. I'm done like working on fires all day long. So that's the last three months of the year. Let's go to the first three months there. Guess what happens first three months a year. It tends to be the slowest. So the guy, class eight guys that didn't quit because of chaos, now they're freaking about to quit because the wife's going, what do you mean you don't, you don't have work this week? What do you, what do you, what do you mean? He's struggling with cash flow. Because contractors struggle with cash flow the first three months of the year. Why? Because of all the money they had to pay out in the last Three months. So guys, right now, if you're listening, is the best time to hire guys because it's the max amount of chaos. First three months of the year, best time to hire because guys are not feeling that there's stability. Oh my God, Andrew. Yeah, so there you go.

A hundred percent. Guys, I'm going to put the link to Andrew's book in the show notes here in the comments below so you guys can grab that. I see that it's on Amazon as well, so we'll put that link in there. Andrew, just sort of to take this to the next level, right. And we talked about profit for contractors as being, hey, this should be the number one focus. I actually wrote this in my book, the Wealthy Entrepreneur, that the number one priority for every business owner should be to be maximizing their profits. Because if they don't have profits, they don't have a sustainable business. If you don't have a sustainable business, you can't maximize your impact. If you can't maximize your impact, you can't. You know, it goes on and on and on. It all starts with the foundation of profits. Right. And you also mentioned, sort of alluded to in Profit for Contractors. Are there other things that you guys coach and give systems to? Sales, marketing, operations. I want to just tie in this one. I'm guessing you have tools related to recruitment and building a team that are inside profit for contractors as well. Correct.

Next level. Ask yourself how many books are out there specific to contractors on how to ethically steal your competition? Okay, so guys, these are the principles. This is as much as I can give you with being ethical to our champion CEO clients that we work with. Okay. Ethics is very important. Okay. To me and our values here at pfc. Yeah. Complete game changer. Tools from, you know, what applications to use, you know, the onboarding process, you know, how do you find them? Well, there's really four key areas, guys, that you got to master. Whether it's through me or somebody else, I don't know, you need to know how to master how to find them.