The Three Wealth Levers Every Contractor Already Has ft. Paul Atherton

Most business owners put money first, customers second, staff third. Flip it. Staff, customers, money. And there's a whole nother talk that we could do on leadership and how to cultivate and support a very, very high-functioning, high-performing team. But that is extremely important. Good entrepreneurs that can continually scale their organizations absolutely must put their staff first.

Good day and welcome to the Wealthy Entrepreneur Podcast. I'm your host, Bob Gauvreau. It is fantastic that you have joined us here today. I've got a special guest that I'm excited to introduce, but before we do that, I just wanna remind you that this is a place where we dissect the elements that contribute to entrepreneurial success, from mindset and leadership to profits and revenue. Today, I'm joined by a friend. Uh, his name is Paul Atherton. He's the CEO and co-founder of Highspire Coaching Program. Where he helps construction companies, specifically general contractors, build self-managed businesses and ultimately create lasting wealth through real estate development. Today, we're diving into Paul's entrepreneurial journey, how he got to where he is today, the hard lessons behind scaling, some insights that he's going to share with you, and what it takes to turn a construction company into a business that builds wealth beyond the owner. So excited today to welcome my friend Paul to the show. So, so excited, Paul, to have you. How are you doing? How was your summer? What's happening in your world these days?

Yeah, Bob, super excited to also be here and I'm doing great. Summer is awesome, but I think I share the same sentiments as many entrepreneurs. We're happy to kind of get back at it. September.

I love September.

Love September.

Yeah, it's always a good time. And to finish the last 4 months of the year strong, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Love that. And to get the team back and aligned. Listen, I really appreciate, you know, one, our relationship with your organization. You've built such an incredible company. But before we jump into that and how you impact people in the construction space, I'd love for you to maybe just walk me through your story. How did you get started and what brought you to where you are today?

Oh, wow. Okay. Big question. Short answer, though. Give you a short answer. I, yeah, grew up on the coast, you know, very normal upbringing in a small town, Campbell River. Went off and decided to get an engineering degree, got that, and then just kind of Forrest Gumped my way into working all over the US. And I spent a bunch of time in China and I worked in most of the major industries, cogeneration and And oil and gas, onshore, offshore. I worked in mining, I worked in pulp and paper, worked in logging. I worked in food production, did some kind of cool projects for Starbucks. I traveled all over the place. I just love the US. I'm a Canadian, of course, but I've lived in so many amazing places in the US. I love America. I love Americans and just had a great time. And then met a wonderful girl and Victoria, BC, and she said, hey, you got to stop working so much managing all these projects and construction. We should just live in Victoria. And by the way, this is just not going to work if you're traveling. So let's figure this out. So I got into business coaching. A friend of mine had just started a very— what at the time was a very small business coaching company. His name is James Dale. I'd known him for a number of years. Great guy. I mean, I was kind of telling him at my wedding, I said, I'm just trying to figure out what to do in life. And he said, maybe you could work for me as a business coach. And I thought, well, that sounds kind of lame, but okay. And I get to live in Victoria. He says, yeah, you work from home and you get to meet entrepreneurs and talk to them about running business operations. And I said, well, I don't really, I've just been my own boss and I've hired consultants and stuff to work for my little company, but I've never actually run a business. And he said, well, if you understand numbers and you understand systems and you hold accountability with people and you understand leadership, I think you'd make a great business coach. And I said, okay, well, let's try it out. So I started working for his company and it's called Breakthrough Academy. And so I worked for them and had a— I think I was employee number 1 or coach number 1 with them. Oh, wow. And I think when I started, they had maybe 35 clients, what they called members. And I was with them for a little over 7 years and they grew over that time to having over 600 or 700 companies that they worked with. And they worked with all the trades. They worked with plumbing, electrical, HVAC, GCs too. And that was my specialty when I was there. And yeah, it was a great 7 and a half years. I realized I absolutely loved business coaching. I loved people who work in the trades. I think for anyone who's built up a company in the trades industry, like over $1 million, they're usually really cool. Why is that? Because customers like them, staff like them. They're able to scale these organizations and they're hungry for knowledge, and it's just such a cool environment to be in. So I decided to stay in that industry, and over time, I just saw a bit of a gap in the construction space specifically, and I thought it was time to go off and start my own thing, and that's where Highspire came from. And so yeah, we got that, we got this company going in November of 2023.

Okay, awesome. And so what does, what does Highspire look like right now? Obviously you're focusing on the GC community. What is it that exactly you do to support those individuals in that space?

Right. So Highspire now, we have over 160 organizations that we're working with and still growing. It's nice to see. I'm noticing a lot of acceptance in the marketplace, which makes us a very fun company to be in, to work with. And we have a great team, amazing team actually. I just can't say enough good things about them. So what we do is we focus primarily on general contractors. We do have some bigger trades companies that work with us, like 50 to 150 staff, they see what we do and they see how we do it. And typically at that level, there aren't too many differences and different problems that both types of organizations are working with. So for example, the same problems that a general contractor is going to have parallels what someone with a plumbing company with 100 to 200 staff is going to work with. So we do work with some of those companies, although we don't specifically market to them. But anyways, what we do Primarily with 95% of our membership, which is general contractors, is we help them build self-managed companies. And then when it makes sense for them, and it's different for everyone, we help them become their own customers and develop real estate using their construction companies to do so.

Which makes so much sense. Yeah. Right. It's like, hey, you guys have the skills, the resources, you do it for everybody else. Why not do it for yourself? If you have the right approach, the right systems, the right guidance in order to get there. You know, it's interesting, one thing that you talked about, and people talk about this all the time, but niching down and getting very specific into an industry. And what that does is it does attract all the people in the industry, but there's people who are like, let me at this. You know, I might not be a general contractor, but you're offering all of the things that I want. And even though you niche down, it doesn't necessarily mean that you defer everybody else away. Sometimes you invite them in because it's, you know, you can still help them and support them in such a great way. So I loved how you, how you talked about that and identified that there are people that are outside of your niche space that you can still support to attain their goals. Because I think sometimes people forget that, right? They just think, oh no, if it's not this, then it's completely, it doesn't fit. And I think that's important too.

Yeah. And I think people are looking, if I'm being totally blunt and honest, people are always looking for their tribe. And that's why we're like, it's GCs who, and frankly a lot, I mean, we work with some GCs that are doing $1 million and $2 million and we have a great product to help with them, with those companies. But most of our membership are like $5 to $30 million. But what I'm saying is when like a big electrical or roofing contractor sees us, they go like, oh, I want to be in that room. Yeah. I know GCs, I know like $20 million GCs have the same issues I do. I'm going to go in that room.

Absolutely.

And so they call us and we always welcome them in.

And those million-dollar ones are going, I want in that room too. So like, how do I get there? I can maybe start learning from you now until I have the support I need, or I can learn from those that have already been through to go, how, what do I need to do? To get me there faster?

Being blunt and honest again too.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I love it when a $1 million or $2 million company calls us because it is like, there are so many moves they can make to get to hit, hitting like the next big benchmark typically in general contracting is $4 or $5 million. There's so many moves they can make to get there sooner with less friction if they have the right guidance. And, but here's the thing that I've noticed. It's a bit of a paradox. This might not be true, but one of the things I've noticed is people are typically more open to receiving feedback and learning after they've been kicked in the stomach for 10 years straight.

Fair.

You can catch them sooner. It's easier to help them up the mountain.

Well, they can definitely get there faster, but there's, you know, to your point, there's an element of perspective where it's like, you know what, I'm sick of getting beaten up here. I would love to know how you stopped getting beaten up and got past that major milestone. So, and this is why I love the coaching business in general. I think there's so much value in working with people who've got the insights and the perspectives to help you grow and get to your destination faster than you would otherwise. And I think you guys do that in such an incredible way. When you're thinking about your business and even some of those that you've worked with, what is it that you've discovered that is harder about building and scaling than you thought it would be in your business? Or what is it that you see people struggle with that they didn't maybe think they would struggle with, but it just continues to happen all the time?

You mean for my business specifically or with our clients?

Your business, like even both, you know, I think, You know, you and I have the privilege, I would say, to be able to address both perspectives, right? We're building a business here and we're growing and scaling and getting kicked in the stomach. And then we've got the ability to help advise and guide people that we hope don't get kicked in the stomach because we're working with them, or certainly get kicked less. What do you see? both from your side that was harder building and scaling your company? And what is it that you see with some of your clients?

For us specifically, I think this is common with everyone is, and even though I understand this, I'm still guilty of it still. I always underestimate how long something's actually going to take to do it properly and how much it's going to cost to do it properly.

Yeah.

Because entrepreneurs, good ones, I found there's a bit of a juxtaposition with their approach to life.

They—

you have to be such an optimist. Like, you just have to wake up in the morning, clap your hands and go, hey, the world's rigged in my favor, let's get at it. But you also have to have— be able to temper that optimism. So I've just been What's been hard for me personally is just learning how to hold those 2 things in tension because the team needs to see that you have that vision and you're like very clear and confident about where we're going, but also that like you're not just going to run the ship at, you know, 30 knots towards a reef and just hope and just trust that you can turn in the fog at the last minute. Right.

Absolutely. And this is where I say like resilience is key. in growing a business? Because from my perspective, right, like as much as I'm a very, I'm an optimistic person, but also a bit of a realist where you're like, okay, well, this isn't going well, but sometimes you have to put the confident hat on and tell everybody you got this while you figure out how to have this, right? Yeah, it's a challenge.

It really is. And there's also all these, and there's this A medical term out there called the zone of proximal development, where you always have to kind of be in that zone when you're in growth.

Anyone—

we have time to get into it, but it's a medical term. It's really fun to Google this and learn about it. Zone of proximal development. And if you're not growing, you're not in that zone. So every business owner that we know is always in that zone, which means you're going to deal with imposter syndrome. Your brain is going to be coming up with reasons why you should get back to comfort and it's going to be doing all these weird things to sabotage your current advancement. Okay. So every entrepreneur who's growing has to deal with this. Welcome to leadership. So to get back to your question—

Sorry, not sorry. Yeah.

You wanted this, buddy. But yeah, the things that I think to answer your question, going back to your question you asked, what are some of the, I guess, barriers that people have to overcome? So first and foremost, the business exists. The strongest business owners I know have figured out very well that I've learned from and have the pleasure of personally working with. The business exists to support your life and the balance in your life and the balance in the life, lives of the people who are working with you, your staff, and your industry collaborators. The business has to work as one ecosystem. It's not separate. There has to be balance.

Okay.

That sets the baseline for, and I always try and overcommunicate this, setting anti-goals in your life. And what an anti-goal is, it's a negative outcome that you absolutely must avoid in pursuit of your business objectives. Most of the time, many entrepreneurs obliterate things in life like time with their family, like taking vacations, taking time to get their workouts in, taking time to just go hang out with some friends and go fishing or have wing night or whatever it is. Taking personal time just to go for a walk for an hour and not listen to anything, you know, and you're listening to me talk, for example.

Eliminate the noise. Eliminate the noise for sure. Yeah.

And the strongest people that I've had the pleasure of working with are very clear on what their anti-goals are. They're like, I will not hit my business objectives if it means I can't have a date night with my spouse. I can't get my workouts in. I can't take 4 or 5 weeks holidays or whatever it is every year with my family. I can't be a coach for my kids' Little League team, whatever it is. They're very clear, like these are the non-negotiables. And I get it. Business does for a time sometimes invade that, but generally there's balance there. So that's one. Two, there's other— people are either systemizing too much or there's no systems. There's in every area of business, we have to follow Pareto's principle, the 80/20 rule. 80% of what you— 20% of what you do is going to produce 80% of the results. That means systems in the company need to be developed, but they need to be very short and concise. And generally what we say is build your systems to the point where it's obvious something else needs to be added and you're right where you need to be. Too often when we see entrepreneurs sit down and build out like a process for say managing budget or managing a schedule or quality control or something, they'll bring all their expert project managers into a room or their office manager and everyone will just start spitting stuff out. And then they'll take all that information and plug it into an LLM, and then that'll take that and like multiply it by a factor of 10. And now you have a big piece of documentation no one's going to read.

Ever.

Follow the 80/20 rule. That's the second one. So anti-goals, 80/20 rule. And then, you know, Bob, I have to say, I have been listening to you for a very, very long— I love how simple and succinctly you explain the practice of financial stewardship and fiduciary responsibility. Okay. And one of the—

Well, thank you.

The third, the third. Oh yeah, you're very, very good at it. Okay. It's very succinct. You break down what could what I think people view as complex topics and make it easy. But one of the things that we see strong business owners continually manage their companies around are balance sheet ratios. They're very aware, what's my debt-to-equity ratio? What's their working capital ratio? And they're very aware of risk. They're always managing their business and they're building strategy based on the reality of their financial position. 3 things. 4th, actually, last one that just came to mind.

I love that. If it's a list of 10 and it keeps going like these other ones, keep going.

Most business owners put money first, customers second, staff third. Flip it. Staff, customers, money. And there's a whole nother like talk that we could do on like leadership and how to cultivate and support a very, very high-functioning, high-performing team. But that is extremely important. Good entrepreneurs that can continually scale their organizations absolutely must put their staff first. People are always thinking to themselves, this person care about me or they care about what I'm doing for them?

Yeah.

They're always thinking that.

It's so funny too, and I just had this conversation this morning as well. The importance of understanding what your individual role is as the leader, as the CEO, it evolves over time, right? You know, as a smaller organization, you tend to have your hands in the actual delivery of goods and services. But as you evolve into becoming the leader, you know, and at least along my journey, I've looked at it as saying I have really 2 3, I'll be like you, 2 responsibilities that might turn into 5. You know, one is creating growth and opportunity for everybody involved, right? Like, I have to keep the organization evolving and growing. 2, I have to create a work environment that people want to be part of, right? And then the third, which I'll mix in a few things, is setting the vision, setting the direction, creating the confidence, building that that trust, managing the culture and the direction of where we're going as an organization. And truly, like, those are my zones of genius, right? And part of these, you know, I'm imparting wisdom, you know, with your wisdom here, Paul, as well. I think that's important to continue to get our message out about what we do. This is part of creating more opportunity. But, you know, we look at these things and we go, how do we measure this? Well, You know, let's, let's see where we fit in within the industry and let's try and be leaders, right? Let's lead this space. You know, one thing that we're very proud of is where we were the top 30 great place to work in Canada because I take it so seriously. To your point about the flipping around, you know, take care of your team first. That's my major focus is making sure that we create the culture and the environment of success for our team. so that they can create that environment of success for our clients. So I love, I love how you flip that around.

It's everything because it's your culture that's going to produce the engine for growth for your, for the organization as a whole.

Absolutely. And so let's talk about Highspire for a minute. So you talked about the working with organizations that are growing and scaling, but you talk about this wealth creation through building their own properties or being their own customer. Can you expand upon that? Like, why is that so important for your successful businesses that you work with to help them elevate their game to the next level?

One of the things that I witnessed over the years, construction companies that don't focus on building wealth with their retained earnings, So you have 2 companies, Company A, Company B. Company A owner's doing $10 million a year. They're running at say 8% net. It's healthy. Okay? They're doing well. We see that a lot. Like they're just, and then when they retire, and maybe it took them like 20 years of being in business before they were actually able to build up that business. But you see in kind of the twilight years of their career, they're able to get a few rental properties and put some money into RRSPs, and they maybe have a net worth of $3 to $5 million by the time they're just like exhausted and they're like, I'm just going to go on my fishing trips and maybe I'll sell my company to leadership team if I have one, or it'll just, you know, get sold for pennies on the dollar of what I think it's worth. And that's it. And they ride off into the sunset. Company B, $10 million, 8%. They also, it also took them a long time to build up that That organization. But during that time, they were taking retained earnings and going and buying land and then using their construction company to add value to that land. I'll tell you, both people, when they hit 60, there is a huge, huge, huge, huge differential between what their portfolio looks like. And here's why. If you talk to anybody who's built wealth, they've done one of 3 things. I'm going to get to my point here. They've operated a company.

You're good.

Okay. They've operated a company.

I like it.

They've bought and sold assets more efficiently than the rest of the marketplace in a specific asset class, or they've added value to assets while they've owned them more efficiently than the rest of the marketplace. That's it. Okay. 3 things. The beauty of construction companies that are vertically integrated, that are using those organizations to develop their own real estate is, think about it, they're doing all 3 of those activities at the exact same time. So not only do they have an operating company that is increasing if they're operating it right, so it's increasing in revenue, it's increasing in net profit, They also have land that's accumulating in value. Rents are increasing in value. They have rezoning plays, which is also increasing the land value. Okay. And then they have tax strategies. And this is where you and your team just go in and have so much fun with these companies. So if you think about it, 100%. Company A was just running an operating business. Company B was taking advantage of all those wealth-building strategies in the same period of time. That's what we focus on. We just take these companies and we say, hey, we're going to help you follow the 80/20 rule, improve, increase revenue, improve net profit, reduce friction with your team, get through those levels to becoming a self-managed company. And as soon as it makes sense, We're going to start using this asset, the operating company, to go and buy assets so you can build that extremely healthy ecosystem and frankly create a life for yourself that you never envisioned. But it, and here's the thing, it doesn't take long. After a few years, people see it and they go, wow, I never knew this was possible.

Absolutely.

And what I described is the only low barrier to entry business model that I can think of that does all 3 of those things at the same time.

It's beautiful too, because, and we see this, right? Especially with people who live in the numbers, you know, you see the GC company that makes their, and I don't mean net, because you mentioned 8% net, but I'm thinking, you know, the profit margins that are above, you know, 15 to 25% for sure in the GC space, you know, that's adding cost onto whoever is hiring them to build the property. Right? And so what I see is the GCs coming in and getting a property to market at 15 to 25% less cost than it would be for all of their competitors who would hire them to get to market. Plus, you look at all the strategies that you're talking about of changing the value, whether it's increasing rents or the common space increases, the You know, looking at washing machine rental or washing machines in their rental units, inside garage space, parking spot, like all of the different ways that they can continue to enhance the value. And it's, you know, you become a real estate investor as well, but you're already the expert in building real estate. You know, it's like, why wouldn't we do this?

This is the thing that I always tell construction companies. The hard part's done, you guys. You built a construction company. Being a real estate developer is mean. You see that homeless guy over there? Real estate developer. Okay. It'll take you out.

Right.

I've seen this so many— unfortunately, here's the problem. What I don't want, by the way, I'm going to be blunt and honest. What we don't want is for people to go, I'm getting into real estate because there's 3 things that impact the value of land or whether or not you're going to make money. What you bought the land for, what your cost basis was to add value to the land, and then what the market is doing. Many inexperienced wannabe real estate developers wind up paying too much for the land. We see it all the time. And then when the dominoes start to fall later on because they had rose-colored glasses on how much it was actually going to cost them to realize the land's highest and best use, everything else in their life that they've worked so hard over like a decade starts to get hit. So it's extremely important that people understand how to secure land properly. Now, Back to what you're saying, construction companies make amazing real estate developers. Why? Because typically if they're staying in an asset class that is in their wheelhouse, meaning they've already been building multifamily for real estate developers and now they're just doing it for themselves or something like that, they're not going to have rose-colored glasses on when they're building their pro formas.

Yeah.

Hopefully they have good coaching and counseling around how they should secure the land. There's a whole science behind it and we get into that a lot. in our program, of course, and that you can't really control what the marketplace is doing, but you can program in risk and understand fully, hey, if we enter this deal, we're comfortable that the market isn't going to like go up by 3% and take us all out. Because if it did that, we have a lot more problems on our hand.

Absolutely.

And they make great real estate developers, not only because they cut out the middleman, because they're running everything through their company. But they also have access. And this is one thing people really, I hope they appreciate, they're fast with deals. Because when a good deal comes on the market or all the right commercial brokers start chatting about something that's about to come on the market, a construction company can move very quickly.

It's so true. And I think part of that is having all your ducks in a row and being able to be efficient, right? Being prepared and being efficient. But, you know, I can't help myself here, Paul. You talked about tax efficiency as well. And I like, I'm just, I love this topic. I'm just sitting here thinking about all of the things that can be done because the, the, one of the greatest powers of, of every entrepreneur, not even just someone who's in a GC space, but is to use after-tax, after-business-tax money before personal-tax money to reinvest in wealth accumulation. Right. Whether it's, you know, whether it's an entrepreneur who doesn't want to invest in real estate, but putting investments inside a corporate portfolio is a huge advantage to taking it out and doing it personally. But what you're focusing on is such a beautiful thing regardless of where you are in North America. You know, we focus on tax planning that's supporting businesses. So in the US, if you are a GC that's starting to make good money, we want to be looking at your corporate structure or your structure and likely converting from an LLC to a C corporation, which has a fixed percent, 23% corporate tax rate, so that you're capping your taxes at 23%. You can reinvest all the rest of it into a corporate real estate development portfolio, building these properties. You know, at a certain point, the flow-through entity of an LLC doesn't make sense for you from a tax perspective any longer. And a C corporation is going to be extraordinarily preferential as we continue to build out that portfolio. In Canada, you know, we don't necessarily have LLCs or C corporations, but we have corporations and non-corporations. And looking at corporate tax rates, you know, depending on how much income you're making, it's either 12% or 26%. Using that after-tax money, leaving it inside a corporate structure to reinvest in building this portfolio, Guys, like this is where it's at. And this is why I love collaborating with people like you, Paul, as well. It's like, I don't know how to work with the land and getting its best use. I don't know the strategies for making sure that we're acquiring property at the appropriate values and putting risk in there. But damn, do I know how to structure these acquisitions and these developments to give you more money to optimize these projects with individuals. And like, what a team, you know? And this is why it's super cool, guys, working with people who are experienced in specific industries, making sure that they do have the knowledge to support you. Because like Paul's working with clients that are $1 million, but maybe $5 million, he's probably building wealth accumulation of hundreds of millions of dollars For these people who it's not always about the money. It's about what can you do with that, the impact you can make in your life and the lives of others with this. So like it is, it's powerful. And Paul, I love, I love that you do that.

Yeah. Here's the thing. Everything that you're talking about isn't complex when you learn it, when you, when you describe it and people go, oh, and then they think about it for a sec. And I mean, you break things down so nicely. Okay, that's it. Okay. And you guys can do this? Yep. And then it's done. And what you did is you just changed some legal fees and some accounting fees. You just changed the wealth trajectory of potentially many families. It's just that one. And it's not just one change, but it's many changes. And here's the thing that we like to tell people.

Well, it's the compound effect. The compound effect of those changes over years is Unbelievable.

It is unbelievable. There are, man, like we put on events and there's people there that are even, you know, in their late 40s and they're going, oh, I just, I wish I knew this a decade ago. And we're like, it's okay, there's still time. But it's harder when people are 65 or 70 and they're like, I wish I knew this 20 years ago.

There is still time, just less. There's still time, just less.

We're, we're kind of planning for your, for the kids when they take over the company.

But that's, but how cool is that though? Even, even that, right? Um, to be able to help somebody understand how they can support the next generation.

Oh, we work with a bunch of companies that are handing off, handing things off to their children. And that's all because they, when they, when the children come in, they're buckled in and set up.

Tell me about the Highspire event, because I think you have one coming up at the start of 2027. Do you have to be a member to be in attendance at that event? What— how do those— how do those work?

Okay. Yeah. So the event is called HX. It's an amazing event. We always run it in a 5-star resort. This year it's in Los Cabos, just south of Cabo San Lucas at the Viceroy. We're very excited to host everybody there. We bring experts down like yourself. We bring in— we bring experts in marketing, sales, personal Wellbeing and leadership. And they put on masterclasses as their expertise relates to the construction industry. But here's the thing, the reason we make the event 5 days, because one of the things that I've always been very frustrated with is when I attend an event and we're in a beautiful location, but I'm under fluorescent lights from 8 in the morning until 5 in the afternoon. And then You go out in the pool for 60 minutes and then it's dinnertime. I've never liked that. So, we only run our event from 8:00 to 9:00. We have breakfast. 9:00 to 12:00, we have our masterclasses. And then, from 12:00 onwards, everyone is networking, they're talking with the experts, they're hanging out with each other, and we're all having dinner together. And, we do that over 5 days. So, everyone gets a lot of networking time, a lot of time to reflect, a lot of time— a lot of them bring their spouse and it's just a very relaxing time to meet with experts and build their strategic plans for the upcoming fiscal year. Now, it is clients only that are allowed to attend. However, every year we have prospects who have called us and they've expressed interest in joining. And if it looks like they're going to fit in and they seem like they get along with everybody and they run very similar organizations, they always get an invite. So usually every year we'll have maybe 5, 6, 7 businesses that come down that aren't a part of our client base, but they come down anyways and just have a great time.

Yeah. I'm guessing they probably end up being clients by the end. Oh yeah.

They're typically signing a subscription agreement before the end of the assessment.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's a great time.

What does the next iteration of Highspire look like? You know, you've explained sort of where you are now, who you're working with, what does the future look like for your business?

Yeah, that's a good question. I think right now we're, because we're still a very young company, if I'm being quite frank, like we've, it's, we've only been in, we're coming up on 3 years in November and growth has been very quick. So I'm just working on just providing the same quality of service and the same value just over the next 3 years, and then we'll reevaluate. So in a nutshell, we're just going to continue building a great community. We're going to continue building a great team. Our culture's amazing. I'm so thankful for everyone that we work with. They're super smart and amazing people, and we're just going to keep doing what we're doing and hold an extremely high standard. And yeah, just take life very seriously. Like, these are the advice that we're giving people and the coaching, the consulting that we're doing is very serious and it impacts a lot of people's lives. So we just want to continue holding a very high standard.

Now, you talked about— I can't remember who it was— 4 or 5 elements that was challenging in growing and scaling a company. But if you had one piece of advice that would you, that you would give to a general contractor who's getting started or they're at that million-dollar level and they want to get to that next level? What would the one piece of advice that you would share with them be to help support them on that next level of growth?

Get yourself out of the field. Yeah. Go as soon as your working capital is at a point where you can pay a project manager's salary for 6 months. With no revenue. Like, that's, I think, a good shock absorber. As soon as you get to that point, go find an amazing project manager that shares your core values, your personal core values, and someone that sees your vision and wants to grow with your organization. You hire that person and their job is to keep you out of the field so that you can continue focusing on marketing and sales and then, and then grow the company. But that's it. You got to get up, get off the tools. Get somebody out there to meet with the customers when the job's in production, meet with the subcontractors and keep things moving so you can focus on marketing and sales. That's the number one most critical move.

Love that. Yeah. And that goes for every business, you know, finding that person who can unlock you to be the best version of yourself and to lead the organization to the next level is, it's so, so very important.

And give them, give them outcome goals and trust that they're going to get there. They're not going to get there the way you want. But trust that they're going to get there, but hold accountability too.

Outcomes is so important. And yeah, accountability is so important. You know, like those are, those are a few key components that, you know, over the last 20 years that we've been doing ours, I think we're 19 years, you know, that outcomes-based models and holding people accountable to those goals is so powerful, especially When you're not actively involved in having your hand in everything or being part of every conversation, you know, once you get to a spot in business where, you know, you're, you're really absent from a lot of the day-to-day interactions with customers and you're putting people in a position of trust to deliver accountability and outcomes is so, so very important.

Trust, verify with a Good solid weekly cadence of short, concise meetings. We have YouTube videos on this on our channel on exactly how to run all those meetings. I recommend anyone watches them. But, and yeah, get out of people's way. High performers, they just, they want to, they want outcome goals and they just typically want to be left alone and prove to you on a consistent, regular weekly basis that they're doing their jobs well. And then they want to be a part of something that's growing and, and producing wonderful outcomes for all those involved.

Absolutely. Paul, if someone wanted to learn more about Highspire or get involved with your community, where do they find you?

Oh yeah, all the usual places. Obvious is www.highspire.com, H-I-G-H-S-P-I-R-E.com. We're on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook. And then there's also a YouTube channel where you can go and watch some videos and download a whole bunch of free resources. And I think then there's also links to talk to us as well. And everybody winds up talking to me eventually before they join. So happy to— looking forward to the pleasure of meeting anyone listening.

Absolutely. And so we'll make sure all of those connections and links are in the show notes. Paul, thank you. You know, not only just for the podcast, but it's always a pleasure connecting and, and chatting and riffing with you. You know, you bring so much value to the industry, but you're even more importantly, you're just an incredible person and it's always awesome to be, to be hanging out with you. So thanks for your time and, and for all of your contributions today.

Yeah, you too, Bob. A lot of friends of mine personally work with you guys and, and you're doing great work for the industry. So I want to thank you and thank you for having me.

Absolutely. Guys, this has been the Wealthy Entrepreneur Podcast. It has been a pleasure today. As I mentioned, Paul Atherton, CEO and co-founder of Highspire. We'll make sure that every contact piece is available so that you can reach out to them to hopefully work with them so they can help build your wealth in the GC construction and real estate space as well. For anyone who watched today, thanks for joining. It's always a pleasure to have you with us. Make sure you give us a like, drop in a comment, but even more importantly, if you feel like there's been a piece of advice or guidance that you feel someone would benefit from, grab this, copy it, share it out. You know, we're honestly here to make sure that we impact the entrepreneurial community because we truly believe entrepreneurs make the greatest positive impact of good in the world. And we're here to empower them with financial confidence to do just that. Make sure that you give us a like so that next week when the next episode comes out, that you will get a notification of that. And once again, thank you for joining. Look forward to seeing you next time.