Million Dollar Days
Welcome to Million Dollar Days with Robby Choucair & George Passas. Your go-to podcast for a deep dive into the world of Life and Business Mastery.
Join hosts Robby Choucair and George Passas, a dynamic marketer and a seasoned Entrepreneur, as they navigate through an array of intriguing topics ranging from the everyday to the extraordinary.
Robby brings his marketing expertise to the table, offering insights into the latest strategies and trends. George, with his extensive experience in business, provides a grounded, practical perspective. Together, they explore everything from the feasibility of alien existence to effective goal setting, and even the nuances of religion.
Million Dollar Days is not just about business acumen; it's an exploration of life's many facets, wrapped up in conversations that are as enlightening as they are entertaining.
Tune in and be part of our journey, where every day is a million-dollar day, filled with learning, laughter, and the pursuit of mastery.
Million Dollar Days
Blueprints to Building a Thriving Company
In this episode, the team from Precise Plastering Group, together with Robby and George, delve into the complexities of scaling a business in the construction industry. Damo, Lockie, and Brad open up about the hurdles they've encountered as their company grew, including managing large-scale projects, maintaining quality, and dealing with the pressures of an increasing payroll.
Facing challenges head-on, from financial pressures to the COVID-19 pandemic, this episode is a masterclass in resilience and smart business strategy. We explore how they managed to protect their company and team during tough times, underscoring the value of financial oversight and strategic delegation. From nurturing young talent to ensuring a robust company culture with toolbox meetings and barbecues, their story is a blueprint for sustainable growth and team cohesion.
Through candid discussions and practical advice, this episode sheds light on what it takes to scale a business successfully. Whether you're in construction or any other industry, the insights shared by the Precise Plastering Group team can help guide you through your own growth journey and inspire you to tackle challenges head-on.
If you could tell yourself something right now, knowing everything you know, now you can tell yourself something from three years ago, from when you were first starting, because I'm sure you've grown a lot in that period what would you tell yourself?
Speaker 2:You can't deal with yourself in these situations. Taking that step, next step is so daunting, but once you take it, you don't look back.
Speaker 1:Someone said it. I can't remember who it was, but it was like no-transcript.
Speaker 3:If I feel bad about working with someone, from the beginning it's like, nah, I'm out, I don't need you, don't need you and you talked you mentioned manifesting before and it's that same thing, like you're looking at it and going this is what I want, this is what I want. This is the type of person I want to work with and guess who? I start to attract All the right people in my life and the business and now I don't have shit clients. I don't have a single client that I would say I would never work for them before again or I don't see this relationship as a good one. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to Million Dollar Days. I hope you're having a million dollar day. I'm here with well, we're here with some special guests today.
Speaker 3:Go for it Go for it Buddy champ and pal no, we said we were going to forget the name, so we're here with Damo Lockie and Brad from Precise Plastering Group. Thanks, guys, for joining us today. Thanks for having us, no worries. So, yeah, we wanted to get on, get you on the show. It's been a few, probably a couple months in the making, actually to get you guys here and have a chat on the on the cast and I've been, I've known you for quite some time. We've done some work together for quite a bit, or quite a few projects actually now, and I've seen your journey and your growth over the years and I thought it would be great to get you on board and have a chat about everything you guys are doing and have done and where you're going in the future.
Speaker 5:I appreciate it. Thanks for having us.
Speaker 3:I'm looking forward to it. Cool, so no one knows who you are Not no one.
Speaker 1:Most, of our audience won't know who you are.
Speaker 3:So tell everyone, maybe one by one, introduce yourself, and then also a little bit about what you guys do as well.
Speaker 2:You got a first demo, I'll do it as well. I'm Damo. I run the construction side of the business. We do a lot of industrial, uh, shop fit outs and base builds for some business parks and homemaker centers. Um, so will you do the whole fit out like from start to finish? Some of the base builds we do, it'll be just the base build. Other times it's a base build and a full fit out yeah, nice.
Speaker 2:With the office fit outside of things, it's pretty much it's a one-trick pony. We come and do everything from carpentry plastering right through the painting, let through the painting. It's a one-stop shop pretty much. Yeah, nice, and glass and everything like that. With the industrial we're doing some big business parks. We're like same thing, taking a lot of the packages away from other trades and just package up with us and we push the job along a lot more efficient that way and the business has taken off Like we've had a few issues getting to where we are, but every business does. But the growth has definitely taken off our last six to 12 months but yeah, it's good Awesome.
Speaker 4:So Lockie look after all the maintenance and insurance side of the business. So we've got that sector that I look after probably 20 guys on that side of the business. Plasters and painters Got a couple of chippies as well.
Speaker 4:So, dealing with anywhere between 10 insurance companies and then your private works on the side. That could be anywhere like patch and paint jobs or small renos jobs like that. So I look after that side of the business. It's chaotic at times, or most of the times, but I think it's a big part of our business. Yeah, nice, we didn't want to put all our eggs in one basket just doing projects, so we've separated it that way and it's grown massively in the last. Well, I reckon even last year we've seen a big growth in that side of the business.
Speaker 4:Yeah, nice and stuff.
Speaker 5:That's it. I'm Brad, I'm in charge of the residential and business and I have a business development role within the company. So I'm, you know, always tinkering with different ideas with the two boys in ways that we can grow the company. We're three and a half years old, probably sitting at around 65 to 70 staff within the three sectors of the business, two full-time estimators now. So we're always tinkering with different ways of doing things. We're all looking after different areas within the business, which I think has been able to elevate the two companies and take it to the next level. And we're starting to see the rewards now and the growth between the three of us.
Speaker 5:Boy, it's been a. The start was a roller coaster. You find yourself taking, you know, unnecessary risks and things like that to try and get a name for yourself, and it didn't really pay off for us at the start. We almost lost everything that we'd made after our first year. So we definitely learned a lot of things in that first year. But I think our credit to the three of us the way that we've been able to bounce back and turn this two businesses into a bit of a juggernaut at the moment.
Speaker 3:We should be really proud of that. So are they two separate entities, or is it? Yeah, they are.
Speaker 4:So we'll get the rundown. So Brad and I have been best friends since four years old, since we were in kinder, Went to high school together kindergarten, high school, done our apprenticeship together, played footy together. We've grown up.
Speaker 1:Who's the better footy player?
Speaker 3:I saw you, I saw, I saw you. You just did 300 games. You just got your 300 games on the week there you go Pretty good.
Speaker 5:He's left out that. He got dropped for the under 16. I've got that premiership ring here.
Speaker 3:He still hasn't got one of those everyone it's easy when you're just hiding in the back pocket, that's right no one can see you, we're hiding in the back pocket on the floor trying to kick ass.
Speaker 4:So, yeah, we started. Yeah. So obviously we worked together for a long time, got each other for a long time sorry, we were working for the same boss. Then we were kind of going our separate ways. I was doing my jobs on the side, he was doing his jobs on the side. It was like one day I had a big job and I came out and I need some guys like I can't do this by myself. We're both still working full time Butterheads together, so joint heads together. And then we decided to join up together start Precise Flashing Group.
Speaker 4:Started with four guys, including ourself, yeah that's what I was going to ask.
Speaker 3:Not every company starts with 60 people and to get to 60 people and that's all on payroll, yeah.
Speaker 5:So it'd be 35 on payroll.
Speaker 3:So 35 regardless.
Speaker 5:That's a significant payroll.
Speaker 3:Each you pay weekly yeah your boys. So you've literally got a payroll that's going to come out of. I'm going to say it's over 100 grand do you know what I mean?
Speaker 3:it is on a weekly basis that you look at and you go holy shit, uh and and like for everyone listening, just think about your payroll and where you're sitting at at the moment wherever it might be big, small, whatever it is you can see the pressures that you've got when you're doing 100K over 100K a week in payroll and then going how important it is for cash flow in your organisation as well. That's the thing.
Speaker 4:And I think as well, like having putting that pressure, we've got that pressure on ourself. You know, like I think I pay the guys before we pay ourselves, because everyone deserves to me, everyone deserves to get paid every week. Yeah, we, no one has ever missed getting paid weekly from us, even if it's put us out. You know, at the start I'd mentioned earlier that you know we've probably nearly lost everything. We have to put money from our own pockets in the company to keep it growing and keep it moving. Yeah, that's one thing I pride ourselves on is that, like our guys, I make sure that you know things happen, obviously, but I make sure that everyone is and that's great, that's it is noble, it's great that you do that and you're investing in your company.
Speaker 3:Like you, you knew the return was there. It wasn't. You weren't flogging a dead horse. No, that's right, that's right. And you love the Robbie loves the science, I love it. But the return was there. So you saw that and I think that's great, and that's one thing that you should definitely be proud of. I was very proud of myself, even during COVID and other times. I've never missed payroll either, not once in all the years I've been.
Speaker 4:People's lives and people's got families.
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 4:People rely on that weekly.
Speaker 3:Absolutely so.
Speaker 4:I think it's.
Speaker 3:I think what's critical for you guys as well is just because you've got such high turnaround on wages, on expenses, on everything going on in your business. You really need someone with a finger on the pulse at all times. So is that one of you in the business, or have you got like a CFO? Have you got C-suite in your business yet, or is that something you're looking at doing?
Speaker 4:It's kind of Brad and I I reckon we're all over that stuff.
Speaker 3:He's a bit more than me, yeah that's really important because it also comes to the and we've spoken about this on the podcast previously. But being able to make decisions at the right time is going to be so critical for long-term success, and, whilst you do want to always look out for everything and everyone, you always need to protect the ship. You know what I mean, because if the ship sinks, everyone's fucked.
Speaker 5:There's no jobs for everyone, exactly.
Speaker 3:You're no good. Your employees, their family, like your suppliers, your builders everyone's fucked if the ship goes down, so you always have to be mindful of exactly what you're doing and how you're stressing yourself and the business to make sure that it's always viable venture that you're going down.
Speaker 5:Just to put it into perspective right, we lost everything that we'd made up after 12 months, had to go to the bank, take a loan from the bank, just to pay our staff, just to keep our heads afloat, for you know three or four months.
Speaker 4:That was because we had a dodgy bill to rip us off. Unfortunately, like no fault of our ever done, they still around. He just went missing. Nah, nah, nah.
Speaker 3:Nah, I haven't heard from him, but is he still trading?
Speaker 1:Do you still try and call him?
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's one thing. He put us in a big hole, man, and he actually nearly sent us bankrupt. We had to take out money and invest our own money, which is fine, it's your business. Yeah, well, we had to take out money and invest our own money, which is fine, it's your business, yeah, but like, yeah, it was, it was scary time, you know like it is we've.
Speaker 3:We've been there too, like we had you were on one of our jobs where a client didn't pay us, yeah, you know. And then it's like, yeah, you got to get that. And then again, something that I look at and I'm proud of at least I've always paid all my trades as well and look on that one. Admittedly, it took me a little bit longer to pay some people. Yeah, because we had to then get that cash flow from other avenues and other jobs and and make that. But that's where you can really get, get stumped in this industry is you get that one bad person that does the wrong thing by you and it can, it can send you broke yeah, even just having the invoices paid two, three weeks late.
Speaker 2:Yeah, material bills for hundreds of thousands of dollars. They call putting accounts on. They call.
Speaker 1:And that's right, and it's just outstanding. I'm going to get paid.
Speaker 2:That's one thing. That's scary when you start growing and having those bigger months when you're invoicing so much. It's all good to have the work and do the work, but sometimes it's chasing your money and getting paid. You don't want to be chasing your money and this is where you know.
Speaker 3:For you guys, it's good that you're doing that. But even having a CFO at that level to just that's just watching money like a hawk, because you're getting to that level now.
Speaker 5:Well, my wife's about to step on board at the end of the month, so that's going to be pretty much a role for her. Yeah, awesome, and don't get me wrong, I like to think that we do have a lot more flexibility now. Being off the tools, yeah, and there is eight or nine of us in the office now, so it's not like there's not one person that can do it.
Speaker 3:I love what you're doing because, honestly, there's not enough people that think like that, especially in the building space, yeah, I mean, and even other other businesses as well. People are too involved in doing the day to day operations and they become a slave to their business.
Speaker 4:You know and it's good that you've got that to work on your business than in your business yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 3:And you, when you remove yourself from there, just gives you that opportunity to look back, like even myself, where we've, and again, openly said it on this podcast, but I'm in the process of getting a general manager at my construction business so I can take a further step back. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and that's not because I want to avoid doing work. I'm probably going to be even busier, busier, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure to be even busier, busier, yeah, for sure. However, at least it does give me the opportunity to go all right. Now we can go from turning over eight figures to high eight figures or nine figures, or going into state, or looking at investment projects, whatever it is, or opening another business.
Speaker 2:And for us when we put on our two supervisors, our construction managers, running each side of the business on the construction side they run the day-to-day on site. So it's more you give them the free reign to run those sites. And these guys have come from experienced background running commercial guys with 40 guys on the site. So for us, having that experience, it's been helpful for us to run the site to run a lot smoother. And they're dealing with the day-to-day suit stuff on site. They deal with the guys where the guys want. They're pretty much reporting back to you so you can just look at finding the work, winning the work, giving it to them and then it's just managing them pretty much.
Speaker 4:The guys that we've put on as well, I think like have more knowledge than us in the industry. That's it, you know, and they the two construction managers that we put on actually me and Brad worked with in the past. They were our supervisors. Our world players have grown up, so if they're someone that we looked up to and trusted because their knowledge in the game, then obviously we built up our business and that side of the company and we're like fuck, let's just you know, coach them from where they're at, Because, like their knowledge is priceless, you know.
Speaker 5:And I think the way that we've gone about it and the decisions that we've made from very early on in starting the businesses have all kind of paid off for us. So I don't know, there's probably a little bit of luck in that as well. But we've always said from the start that, hey, let's not be the guys that think that we can wear all the hats. I'm not a bookkeeper. These two boys aren't bookkeepers either. Let's bring someone in that's going to start watching the numbers closely for us. We can sit down and he can go hey, let's have a look at the numbers. This month You're sitting, fantastic. Or hey, let's have a look at the numbers. Why aren't you making money? Their expertise, let's have the numbers. Why aren't you making money? Their expertise, that's it, their expertise.
Speaker 5:So then you bring in estimators. Okay, so when we first started, I'm not an estimator. I can go and price a house or price a renovation job or whatnot. But if we wanted to take that next step and start pricing you know, multi-million dollar projects, I don't have three days or five days or a whole week to sit in front of a computer pricing a job. Let's bring someone in that can do that.
Speaker 5:So what happens is, yes, you're investing, you know a little like you know more money than what other people like. People look at those figures and go shit, that's a lot of money to be paying someone Like, what are they actually bringing in? But when you're turning over 10 or 15 or $20 million a year and these guys are costing you X amount of dollars, it's all worth it in the end. And I think we've never thought that we're better than anyone in the business. We've thought, you know, let's bring this guy in, let's look after this guy, and he becomes part of the family. And that's what we're like at Precise Plastering and Construction. We're like one big family.
Speaker 4:That's why we try to implement it to the staff. We try to look after everyone as best as we can. Yeah, Whether it's office, the guys on the ground and then us, you know, we look after each other as best as we can.
Speaker 2:Builders. That matters. It's looking after the guys, the guys. If you look after them, especially the young guys who are coming through, you see the potential and you give them the opportunity. They're the guys that will be with you for the rest of their lives, for another 10, 20, 30 years. It's not trying to use it for six months and then get rid of them. It's like look at the growth. Everyone knows how you run your business and how you run your jobs. It's easier for me to have the same buyers doing the jobs that have to train three weeks Training.
Speaker 2:Someone else up it's so easy to the job. You're not paying the efficiency out of the guys because you're teaching someone every time they come through.
Speaker 4:That way as well, you're growing together. We know how they work, they know how we work. And then we're just working well together. Because we've been together for so long, we have very little staff turnover. It's good. We thought we had under five staff that have left in five years. That's really good, man, sorry three years, that's very good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sorry, three years, that's very good yeah, under five of us.
Speaker 1:So when you guys started, you were both on it, started off the tour view yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you got added in later on, yep, and you were both on the tours. Yep, I speak to people who work on the construction space daily. Yep, most people still stay on the tools for a long time. So what was it that you guys had to either believe or adapt to? To answer hey, like I need to get off this because most like I speak to chippies turn builders and they still do their own chippy work, like they're still on site doing the frames, putting up the trust. I think.
Speaker 1:I think that's what stops those guys going to the next yeah, but, but yeah, but why, like, why don't they do it? Why did?
Speaker 5:think, like it goes back to what I was saying before, right? So before we merged forces, lockie was doing a bit of estimating for the company that I was working for and I was you could call it you know site supervising project managing some high-end jobs in the city EBA stuff, some non-EBA stuff as well and so I'd already been off the tools for probably about two years. Okay, so you had a taste for it. So I had a taste for it and I knew what needed and you know what process and what things needed to be implemented to be able to take, you know, our business to the next level, right? So when we first started, obviously we literally started this precise plastering. I think we shipped in $3,000 personally each to start this company.
Speaker 1:So you're going back to like no company cars. You're getting a pretty good return.
Speaker 5:Huh yeah, no company cars. You're working out of your bedroom pricing jobs, that's where it's good, though, isn't it?
Speaker 3:You're starting from scratch, you start from the garage.
Speaker 5:That's how it was. Then You're setting from scratch. Start from the garage. That's how it was then, You're setting up Excel spreadsheets to work out profit margins on jobs.
Speaker 1:I think we were going to do that.
Speaker 5:And then I was trying to convert that into an Excel spreadsheet and try and work out percentages and profits, but that was all done after hours, so we were dead set.
Speaker 3:Work during the day.
Speaker 5:Work during the day and then it would be price jobs at 3, 4 o'clock Go. And then, like it would be price jobs at 3, 4 o'clock go and price them quickly, send it over. But it got to a stage where we just started letting people down. Quite frankly it was like, oh, come look at your house, say Robbie, on Monday, and I'm not able to get you the quote till, you know two months. Yeah, like, look, but say two or three weeks. You know what I mean on something that's so simple. Just because family life, you know, takes over. You know your wife doesn't want you working, like you know, writing out quotes at six, seven o'clock at night. So the start for us was hard, especially, you know, after we thought we'd done so well, we might have made $150,000 or something in our first year. To lose all of that, like after the 12 months, was quite deflating. You're actually looking at each other thinking, well, is this really worth it?
Speaker 3:I think most business owners ask themselves that question at some stage of the journey. I reckon that happens. At least it has to happen at least once, don't you reckon?
Speaker 4:The big thing is that we weren't afraid to take risks.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's a big part in what you asked we weren't afraid to take risks.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and that's a big part in what you asked we weren't afraid to take a risk.
Speaker 3:I think that's built into every person that decides one day that I'm going to go do this on my own. You have to be a risk taker in business. You have to be, Otherwise you're inheriting another job. That's it. Do you know what I mean? Except you're calling yourself director, but you're the one fucking hammering nails.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and just to jump back into that with you, robbie, I reckon those guys that are still standing frames and putting trust roofs in and hanging classes of sheets themselves right, those guys. They are too scared to put the trust into somebody else's hands. Yeah, that's why they wear all the caps. He's the bookkeeper, he's the guy that pays everyone, and what happens with that is they don't have time to focus on growing their business.
Speaker 1:So I can guarantee you there would be a lot of people in that position listening to this now. Yeah yeah, yeah. What do you say to them?
Speaker 5:Just don't be afraid to give somebody the responsibility in a role, whether it's bookkeeping, whether it's you know accounting, whether it's project site managing or project managing. Give somebody the responsibility so then you can go and, you know, be the hunter, be the person that's chasing the work, building relationships with clients. You're the guy that takes it, you're the person that's taking one of your favourite clients out for a nice meal, and you know talking about how we can grow together and do a lot. George, we took you earlier this year into a corporate box North Melbourne car on a good Friday. How would it look? For me, it's great.
Speaker 1:But, it's good to connect outside. Go to the blues, by the way.
Speaker 3:It's good to connect outside of work. And then we even met another one of your mates who was a contractor that ended up pricing some work for us they. We even met another one of your mates who was a contractor that ended up pricing some work for us. Correct, they didn't win the job, but the connection's there, that's right, the connection's there. And who's to say that? One of those guys wanted to build a home and you're like, hey, come speak to George.
Speaker 3:Exactly Whatever it might be, but regardless of that, you're right as far as building that connection with each other, because then it's the next time. Okay, you, you guys are on this podcast today. Correct, okay, this podcast. What episode? We're probably close to 40 episodes down, so we haven't missed a week. This podcast will one day be a top 10 podcast in Australia, hopefully. Yeah, it's not hoping, it's just consistency.
Speaker 5:You know what I?
Speaker 3:mean. It's not a matter of going. I hope one day, if we get there, they will get there. That's right. Like you do the work, you do the reps. People don't get past episode what is it? Episode 20 when they start.
Speaker 1:That's 99% yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3:99% of podcasts they get launched, don't get past episode 20 so it's what this, even this episode there could be one person listening to this that gets in touch with you, that changes your life yeah, in a massive way.
Speaker 5:Is that like the Huck tour girl?
Speaker 1:Yeah, there could be one of those. She's not on that thing, that's it.
Speaker 4:But that's a great example, though, to a degree.
Speaker 3:This girl has quit her job. Has got merch coming out, she'll be a fad.
Speaker 1:It's going to go away, that's right. It's not gonna last, that's right. But in saying that she has. But she has made the most of it, that's right she's got a manager.
Speaker 3:It's incredible. That's what I mean. So you don't know what's going to happen. By all these little risks that you take, eventually one of them, big or small, could pay off big or small, I agree, and I think it's consistency is most important there, and also, as you said, backing yourself you have to back yourself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know guys in the position. Their business is growing and they're constantly on the rollercoaster ride of finding the work where you were having to do it, and then they have a slow period. It's like they're at the point now. It's like they know they need to take a step back. But as soon as they do the the things stuff up, put the people in the position, let the mistakes happen, fix it and then move on from that. You can't keep doing the same cycle because it's going to keep you going nowhere and your business won't grow or stay at the same point, that is one.
Speaker 1:I've heard that story so many times in the sense of what the fuck's the point of getting them to do it? I can do it better.
Speaker 4:That's it getting them to do it.
Speaker 1:I can do it better. That's it. You want something done. Right, you've got to do it yourself.
Speaker 2:It's micromanaging man. You can micromanage your guys. Let them do the work. Mistakes are going to happen, but if you can put things in place to minimise the mistakes and minimise the chance of things going wrong, then that's how it needs to be. You can't be the person that every day at 7 o'clock, when the job is open, to get things to happen, you have to put your guys in the position so you can be working managing the job, finding the job, so letting the guys do it.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, musk said it. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1:He never went to Harvard but the people he employs did yeah yeah, yeah, it's the same concept though.
Speaker 3:You're a boss, you are employing an ex-boss of yours. You know what I mean. You're employing someone I used to have, an old boss or an old business partner. He goes. I'm a C-grade student, but I employ A-grade people. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he goes you don't always need that.
Speaker 4:I'm afraid of that. Maybe it's an ego thing.
Speaker 3:Afraid of which Relinquishing control?
Speaker 4:Just not hiring people smarter than them.
Speaker 1:Oh, potentially. Yeah, it could be like an ego thing 100, an ego thing, man.
Speaker 4:For us we looked at it differently, like it's not an ego thing. They're going to help us grow so and we trust and can rely on them because we know them personally and we know what they're capable of and what they can bring to the table and they look up and business as if it's their own, like it's their own.
Speaker 2:It's like they're like it's not like some builders.
Speaker 5:It's rare. Why do you care?
Speaker 2:like it's not your money, like no, it is. Yeah, all the guys within the company. They see the company as their own, like they're not just going to throw money away or not do something, they're like it's going to cost us money. They're like they look at it.
Speaker 3:Well, that comes down to culture then, doesn't it? That does so. Have you done anything, as far as you know, looking to build your culture? Yeah, so what sort of things do you guys do? As far as Like, at that size, it's a lot easier to control culture in a smaller organization, yeah, whereas when you start to grow big, there's more personalities, different points of view, the message gets filtered. That's right.
Speaker 1:It starts here.
Speaker 3:This is what we want. By the time it gets to the guy that sweeps the floors, it's like oh, I don't give a shit if we have to look nice in the office. Yeah, yeah, yeah so how do you guys control your culture across? You know 35 employees and another 30-odd contractors that work for you.
Speaker 4:Well, the most recent one. We did obviously with that many guys Pizza night every Friday.
Speaker 4:Everyone likes pizza night With that many guys. Sometimes you have to have toolbox meetings and you have to have company barbecues, company barbecues. So just previously we moved into our new office. We actually purchased our own office and factory and we want the staff to come and have a look. So we had a toolbox meeting at the new office, fully catered for a bit of bonding and everyone got around each other. Prior to that we booked a couple of tables at the comedy club in the city, took all the guys out there, so we pretty much.
Speaker 5:Do something every quarter, every quarter.
Speaker 1:We try to do something every quarter, so that's good quarterly catch ups.
Speaker 5:Quarterly, yeah, catch ups.
Speaker 4:It's also to say thank you, to give back and say, well, we're not sitting up here just kicking back. We appreciate the hard work that you guys put in. It's also a feedback and show of appreciation and say thanks.
Speaker 3:Do you guys have, say, like mission and vision statements done for your company? Have you filtered to that level? Not yet. I think it's something you should look at because it's again. If someone says, if I go up to one of your employees, or either 10 of them, they'll all give me a different answer. What's it mean working at? What are you working for? Or what are you working towards at Precise Plastering and like oh, I'm just here to stop and stand, mate, I'm really good at it, that's it.
Speaker 5:That's it.
Speaker 3:That's right. So I think if you can start to go to that next level, then you can really get everyone on board with the direction of the company you're going in. And what it helps do is, every single time, you can ingrain it into all of your employees that every task they do is this, in line with our mission and vision of the company, because if it, is then keep doing that, If it's not then stop and go back to doing what's going to get us in that direction.
Speaker 5:So Keep doing that. If it's not, then stop and go back to doing what's going to get us in that direction. So one thing that we're about to start implementing is like company KPIs and things like that.
Speaker 3:Really important and again, even at your level, and for you guys to take the time to sit with each of your employees to go. Hey, this is how we're going to do, this is what I want from you. Where do you want to go? Because the guy hanging sheets today may want to be a supervisor in the future.
Speaker 3:But, if he doesn't know that, you know that, and vice versa, then how is he ever going to go down that path? He might get resentful, he might leave or he might just be in his little corner because he doesn't want to take a risk himself. He might need you to say you know what man you're, a gun I believe in you Give it a crack.
Speaker 4:I'll give you an example One of our young kids that we've got working for us. His name's Josh. I've got their family for years. I actually was an apprentice and worked with his dad, so now he works for us. How old is he? 23?
Speaker 1:23, 24. Josh, pull your finger out.
Speaker 4:We actually give him a responsibility now as like a junior leading hand, you know, because we see the potential in him and we can see what he can do. We know he comes from a good family background and he's one of those guys that you know he'll have a job for life with us if you know the way he's going and the potential he's got drive he's got drive and he wants to learn how every part of the business runs, not just from the carpentry through the plastering and how things, the process of how things are done.
Speaker 2:He comes to work every single day. If he needed to work 15 hours, he'd work 15 hours. He didn't work a Saturday, he'd work a Saturday. But he's young and he's driven. He's not there to complain about. Oh, I need to go pull these sheets down or lift, Lift sheets up and onto a second. Sorry, he doesn't care.
Speaker 3:What's your team? What's the demographic Like? What's the age of your team average? Are they older or younger? So how do you find because a lot of the consensus is these days that we're an aging industry right, you're getting a lot of really good tradies exiting the industry because they're just old and done and tired and can't be fucked anymore.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, I guess it's, 15.
Speaker 3:And done and tired and can't be fucked anymore. Oh yeah, I guess it's 15. And then you've got your new batch coming through. So you will probably see this You've got the new batch coming through who are not being taught by those old guns that are fantastic at their trade? That may just be lazy, because, again, the internet's a great leveller, do you know?
Speaker 5:what I mean.
Speaker 3:You can sit home in your pyjamas selling paddle pop sticks and making 50 grand. Why the fuck am I going to be an apprentice for 30 and get yelled at yeah?
Speaker 1:yeah, do you know what I mean? It's hard as well.
Speaker 3:It's not. Yeah, exactly, You're talking about an easy slog. They want to do a trade.
Speaker 4:That's right. That's right. I want to be a painter. Ah sorry, I want to be an electrician, a plumber.
Speaker 3:I want Are you finding that as a roadblock at all in the business we?
Speaker 5:haven't yet. Well, we actually sat down earlier this year and I sat down with the boys and I said I think it's time now because we're probably top heavy with age. I said it's probably time now to start bringing some kids in Apprentices.
Speaker 2:Apprentices yeah.
Speaker 5:Because we had maybe two apprentices for the first two or three years, realistically right. So I said to the boys boys, we need to start blooding some more kids. We need to start thinking about the future, not just today and next year and the year after. We're going to start thinking like 20 years from now. Guys, do you know what I mean? Like our construction managers are, you know, in, you know, we've been in their 40s, like early 50s, early 50s, you know, you know.
Speaker 3:So who's the next person? Yeah, who's?
Speaker 5:the next, let's start implementing these things. So we've gone and got probably another four apprentices um signed up with this this year, so now we're up to about six and we're going to continue to, you know, implement these things to try and keep these kids coming through.
Speaker 2:So we're trying to do like. We're trying to do like a school-based um one. So they're going like year 11. You're going a couple days a week. So they pretty much they come to us and say, hey, we can give you these kids and if they're no good you come back to us. If they're driven they do their apprenticeship. So it really adds time to their apprenticeship time, but they do all their schooling straight away. So by the time they finish school they're pretty much done with their schooling. Yeah, they can keep working.
Speaker 5:They can.
Speaker 2:You're getting them ahead of everyone else. And then by the time everyone finishes school they've already got an apprenticeship already signed up, already done two of their years of schooling. So it's getting in every year. If you can get one of them every year, so then by the time you get a second year you get your first year. You're going to keep that young, the young trades coming through.
Speaker 3:They get a bit of pocket money along the way too.
Speaker 4:That's it, yeah, unless they can say get a feel for the company too. If it's a fit, great, If not, they've got other options because they're still in school.
Speaker 5:Yeah that's right. They're not fully committed and they've actually got the mentor as well from the Head Start program or from their school teachers and things like that, that kind of To help implement. Yeah, to keep their minds in check, like if we notice that they seem disorientated or they're disinterested in what they're doing, we can say to somebody from the Head Start program I think this kid's losing a little bit of interest and they can just have a little pep talk to him and they come back good as gold the next week. You're not going to be a cop to them calling the office and saying, hey, you need to pick your game up. So they've support. They've got that support, which I think is good, yeah awesome.
Speaker 3:What do you reckon was the turning point from when you went to sort of you know your three, four, five guys and then said you know, okay, let's, let's go to 15, 20, 30, 40. What was that turning point for you? Was it always the intent when you started to be a 30 to 60 person company? Do you know what I mean? So what was that point? Where you go, you know okay, or was there a specific project you won? Was it something specific? Where you go right here is where we're going to start getting bigger.
Speaker 4:I think it was always our intent, but we never envisioned it to be or grow this quick or even get to that point. You know it's a timeframe, you've done it.
Speaker 5:I personally point. You know it's a time frame. You've done it. Yeah, I personally think the bigger you're starting to get, the easier it's getting, because, like, you start attracting um, you know, better personnel within your company, like people want to come and work for you.
Speaker 5:When in the very first stages of of starting your business, you're trying to get people like, yeah, why am I going to come work for you, man? Like, what are you offering? Like a maintenance plaster, i't even. Or a painter, or a carpenter, I can't even buy my car at that stage. Do you know what I mean? So now we've probably got about 15, you know 15 or 16 cars on the road. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 5:So, being able to, you know, repay the faith in, you know, guys that have been with us for, you know, two or three years and I've always said, you know, one day I'll get you a car, like you're going to get a car, you're going to get a car when the time is right. So being able to hold ourselves accountable and deliver that person, that car when the time is right, like for us, I think it's, yeah, it's been fantastic and you know it's kind of kept those guys, you know, a part of the business and they'll be with us for many years to go. But yeah, I think you know from when we first started, like I'd always envisioned having, you know, a 30 or 40 staff size company, not to the level that we're at now, but I'd always envisioned that, but I never really thought like past that, to be honest with you, we manifested it, that's it yeah, we manifested it.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it was just like, yeah, I'd be happy having 30. I never really thought into it deeply, and then it's when it happens, it's like you start me wasn't.
Speaker 2:Then when, like when, especially when we start taking on bigger projects, right, and it's more like you do one big project, that's fine.
Speaker 2:When you have two, three, four, five projects that size, it's all good to win and be there to have the manpower to run it and still keep control, not say, yeah, we're going to take on all these jobs and all of a sudden you're losing control of the quality. And not just that, you start letting builders down, like that's one thing. Always make sure that when we say there's guys there on a tuesday, like you've got the flexibility because you have the manpower, which which helps, but then you need to keep the jobs to keep the manpower. So it's a constant battle of stressing when you have too much work and stressing bad enough, like you always want to keep someone employed. I don't want to get to the point where I actually work for two weeks, so sometimes it means the job might trade you out for an extra week to keep them going on to the next, or you have to load up a job and you get short quicker to keep them going.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Well, it's important to maintain your quality, especially for you, because you're a finishing trade, you know, because if the plaster's fucked on a job, the whole job's fucked. Yeah, and I've had jobs like that too. No, of course not no other plasterers. That's why you're working with us now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 3:But no, we had and this was a guy, but this happens too right, because we had a plasterer who we had only been using, honestly, the first five years we were in operation. He was my only plasterer. Good plasterer always did good jobs, did some super high-end projects for us too. Yeah, I think he actually took the project off me to give. What a great time to bring it up Now that we're onto that topic, and he's never used it again.
Speaker 5:I can't remember what job. Do you know what address it was at? Oh, I think it was in Middle Park or something like that.
Speaker 3:Middle Park, oh no, no, he was all right. He was all right. It's been two guys. So what I was getting at is we were doing this really high-end job in Malvern and I told him I was there with the boss. I said, oi, your best fucking guys here. Yeah, don't fuck around on this job. I said I don't want anyone that is less than spectacular on this job. Don't worry, george, you know we'll sort it out. We'll get you got. Fuck the job. I ended up spending another thirty thousand dollars on plaster to fix it, to get it to where it needed to be, so we could paint it.
Speaker 5:Level five in everything.
Speaker 3:Yeah we did. We had to level five a whole bunch of ceilings, but not because it was poor workmanship, it's not because it was outside of Australian standards, it's because it was poor workmanship and from the time, looking back, he probably just couldn't. He grew and couldn't control his quality and his company and, as a result, I literally have never used him since yeah you know, and I'll continue not to and I'm not going to from one job from one project.
Speaker 3:I won't use him again because it's not just that, it was I don't. You didn't do it intentionally, but a I told you I want your best crew. Don't like, if you're gonna come here and hang past yourself, if you can't get your crew there, do it. Otherwise, tell me now, I'll get someone else. If you can't deliver what I need, I'll get someone else. If you can't deliver what I need, I'll get someone else. Tell me no harm, no foul, yeah. And as a result of that, like I won't go back now but even if he is good now, yeah.
Speaker 3:Right, well, you've burnt the bridge for me Like. It cost me a relationship. It cost me money, it cost me time.
Speaker 1:So this goes one further. Now People don't think like that's one thing. He lost you, but people don't think about the people he's going to lose, from who you tell yeah as well, I'll never use that guy. I don't even know his name, but I'm not using you. But do you know what I mean? It's what they call the invisible hand.
Speaker 3:If you call me and say, do you have a plaster, I say yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And then I'm like, okay, cool, thanks, exactly right, and I'm not doing that as a malicious thing, no, you're looking out.
Speaker 1:You actually have a positive intent. That's right, that's right, yeah, but that guy loses out and people don't factor that in.
Speaker 3:You're only as good as your last project. You're only as good as 100%. Everyone's done it, but I have a strong belief in that. How you act following is a massive thing, like whether you take the lesson okay, that was a loss. You take the lesson, you make the next job better, or you do what you can to rectify that potential issue or whatever it might be.
Speaker 4:I think that goes back to as well like employing people that are better than you.
Speaker 5:Having the right procedures, policies, that's it Having assistance Personnel Quality control.
Speaker 2:I've had countless arguments with people. When things do go wrong on jobs like we've had, jobs that you turn around and you make no money on, it know what the issues are and you know what caused those issues. Some are out of your control. You know that's never going to happen again. It controlled. You know that's never going to happen again. It's putting things in place to know that. Okay, that's not going to happen. We've all learned from it, and not just in the office, the guys on site, so they can pick up on those issues before it gets to a point that it starts costing me money. Why? Because at the end of the day, we're trying to do this to make money and when guys can pick up the issues and report it back to the site manager, you then go. I'm not going to send guys there because things aren't right. What's the photo saying? If it doesn't make dollars, it doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1:I was waiting for it to say it as well.
Speaker 3:Pretty good, so yeah that's absolutely bang on. You know, having the right crew there and maintaining that. Something that you've also been investing in a lot over the years, or over the last couple years that I've noticed is your social media presence, too. Like you've been investing a fair bit on your branding and your marketing. A lot of people don't even touch that. You know they. It's probably one of the last things they look at or they go fuck. I better post a photo on instagram this week. I haven't done it in six months.
Speaker 5:Yeah, this week, it's usually this quarter, it's funny you say that, Rob, this week alone I've taken about six print screens of like fit-out companies and plastering companies. Just this week alone I've been meaning to send them to you and say, like look at this, yeah, like as in what they're doing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, as an inspiration type thing.
Speaker 5:Yeah, no, not what they're doing just look they're.
Speaker 5:They're coming now like oh yeah, I feel like when, yeah, when we started, no one, of course no one was doing this four years ago and we got into the market and we, you know, with advertising and you know social media and running campaigns, lead campaigns and all these types of things, and now all of a sudden, like I just noticed just this week, yeah, about six companies plastering companies I've never heard of you know, starting to post stuff, and all in melbourne as well, unfortunately. So, yeah, they're coming for us.
Speaker 1:There's two things, two things like that right. One, obviously you got in before him, that'll work. But two is consistency. Man, yeah, that's it like. If you most people post for like two weeks and they're like this didn't work and you're like no, no, you didn't work.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I went in for a site inspection yesterday, actually for an office video in the CBD, and I think they were electrical advisor. I've seen you on.
Speaker 3:Instagram. I've seen your company on Instagram. It's amazing. Your brand is huge. Your branding is huge, like it has such a massive impact and people they understand it, I believe, but they just don't put in the reps.
Speaker 1:I don't reckon now you know what I mean you don't reckon. No, I believe, if you truly understand something, you won't do it. You know if you jump off the building you're gonna die. You don't jump off. Yeah, correct, correct. You know, like, I don't think I'm gonna die. Yeah, you know it's gonna die. You don't touch the fire because it's going to burn you. You know that. But I think as well.
Speaker 5:Going back to where we first started right at the start, about, you know, everyone trying to wear the hats, they look at that cost as like oh you know, that's costing me two grand a week or whatever the figure is, but they're looking at as an expense. They're not forward of the branding and the name.
Speaker 3:It's often indirect. That's why because they don't see the. It's not often that you post a video and then someone calls you up and says, hey, I just saw your video. That looked great. Here's a $300,000 job. And it's the same even with me. We post consistently on the business, on the building company's profile. We've won a $4.5 million project in Glen Waverley now.
Speaker 1:And I'll speak into the-. Are we doing a?
Speaker 3:classroom there. You've priced it. It's a price We'll see. I've got to screw you down a little bit more. There's a couple more trips to the football.
Speaker 1:What's new? Have you got grand final?
Speaker 5:tickets this year? I do, actually that's it. Take me to the. Have you got grand final tickets this year?
Speaker 3:I do, actually that's all right, so we'll see you after that. Yeah, so, but what I was getting? I was speaking to the husband and he's like, oh, he goes. Oh, yeah, I don't really go on social media much, he goes. Oh, but my wife has been watching. Sign the contract for me. Yeah, because all the content and all the branding that we were building. I never saw a dollar figure come in for that, but now I just look at it. Hang on, I just want a four and a half million dollar job because this lady was able to go on my social profiles, have a look at what we're doing, build an emotional connection with me and the company and, as a result of that, going. Yeah, we want to use this person to build our home it's sometimes reassuring to people as well.
Speaker 2:Like we have builders, they sometimes you're not the cheapest price there, but they're reassured because they know you can produce the job and get guys on site, not be the delays. Some of their biggest issues on the produce have they've gone turned over three or four different trades on different contractors because they haven't been able to have the guys on site to do the work. All the quality is not there. Yeah, for us, we're not the people that delay the job. We'll have 10 guys, 20 guys, on site where the guys promises it, but they've only employed 10 guys in their company.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, here's the other thing too. It's like, say, you work on one of my projects and we do a video together and then another builder sees that you've been working with me. They go holy shit, if george uses them or if pascon use them, they must be good. Yeah, so there's that affiliation that you can do, like, uh, with other companies and organizations and go well, look, we build for these guys, they don't fuck around yeah that's why we, that's why we cost this much, that's why we deliver, that's why xyz.
Speaker 3:So the collaboration that you can have and who you're working with is also really powerful too. But if you don't build that brand, if you don't pay that money to get yourself out there… no one knows who you are. That's right.
Speaker 1:That's right. I think it's all thinking. Touching on what you said as well, it's all thinking… employee versus business. Do you know what I mean? Like 5K a month now, that's 60 grand a year that could get me at this or that, or blah, blah, blah. And they're not thinking business-wise, they're not thinking about what's my return, because business is everything. Is money in, money out, right?
Speaker 4:That's it.
Speaker 1:And they're not thinking what's my return. They're thinking this is a cost. It's not a cost. An employee shouldn't cost you money. No, no, it should make you money.
Speaker 3:That's it Same with your branding and marketing, though 100%.
Speaker 2:Even when we started with estimators and we put on an estimator and a second estimate, the first was like a huge stick because it's like I mean it's going to cost all this money. And once you realise that the money that they can bring in in jobs that you're missing and you can't get to Because you can't price it, you can't price it, you can't price every job. So the more you can price, the more jobs you can win. So, as that first one, hey, we're like, well, we need another one, he can't keep up now. Then you get another estimate. Now you go oh, the two of us are under the pump. You're like, well, where do you stop? George knows.
Speaker 3:Now.
Speaker 1:I said you take off, you can't do.
Speaker 4:So one estimator just looks after residential. Yeah, so Saddam looks after residential. Here's our estimator. Mohammed looks after commercial and industrial. So they've got their separate divisions and they don't. They might hear, in there They'd be home each other out. They're flat out doing their own flat out it works, it works well, it works well.
Speaker 2:Hey, look what one was there.
Speaker 4:I was like oh yeah, they do, it works. Hey look what long is the hours. Oh yeah, they do that. I get a notification. Mo's locked the factory at 7pm. What go home?
Speaker 2:man, yeah, but they get rewarded and we look after them, and you know, lots of lunches and a lot of effort like, and they, they definitely appreciate it. They do always look at me how they can make things more streamlined, how they can make things more streamlined, how they can make things more efficient from the office to on-site. So they're communicating with the supervisors on-site, in regards to material at least. If something is ordered, they're like it's all just the communication between them and site is there, do you?
Speaker 3:have any like. Is there any rivalry, competition between site and office, do you find? Because that I remember when I was at Multiplex and the bigger companies there was that it was like I look at Multiplex and the bigger companies there was that it was like I look at all the pencil pushers in the office, us hard slog guys slugging on site. That's what we used to be right, but then exactly it's like that.
Speaker 5:We're building stuff on site and they're asking me to build it and I'm telling them you can't build it. The mechanical unit's too low. I can't give you the height that you want and he goes in at that height.
Speaker 3:I don't know what you want me to do. That's what I say. I say just because you draw a five-legged dog doesn't mean I can build a five-legged dog.
Speaker 5:That's exactly right. You like that one.
Speaker 3:That was a good saying too yeah.
Speaker 2:You see that a lot of times, a lot of the jobs that we're doing, especially some of the fit-out jobs, the architectural plans, everything works on paper but it doesn work on site. Yeah, like as we go, like well, what has to go that high to be like what we can't, which means you're gonna have to alter everything to make it work and you give them multiple options, what to do, like, at the end of the day, it's not you would be dealing you yeah, we get a bit of it, especially on the higher end projects, but this is where if you've got good consultants on board and I'm a logical person- yeah, you kill me with logic, yeah
Speaker 3:and it's like like, show me how it works. Literally, before we got in here, I was sending a detail to an architect saying this is dog's breakfast, fix it. It's not going to work. On site. This is before we've even started. There was a box gutter detail and I'm like remove all of this timber and do this, because I know when I'm on site how we're going to build it and that's going to be a pain in the ass to do, yeah. And it's like for what to achieve what? Yeah, exactly so. So remove all that, change it like this and let's go. And he's like oh yeah, good point, I know, yeah, I know.
Speaker 5:But you get that disconnect sometimes between those areas I think probably the hardest thing for us is you know certain. You know managers like different things, so trying to get it bringing them in, so we try and bring them in. You know soon. You know managers like different things, so trying to get it bringing them in, so we try and bring them in. You know once a month, or you know once every couple of weeks to sit down and just see is there anything that we can do better.
Speaker 3:So communication for us is a big thing how many senior like so, say from you guys, how many? What's the next level down? Have you got more? Your site, your supervisors or managers, how many guys you got there?
Speaker 5:So the construction manager east and west okay, probably respectively both got you know, 20-odd guys in each area and then down from them, we've got a couple of leading hands, okay. Then we've got two supervisors in the residential space okay, and then we've got well, your guys would probably be leading hands, but they've all got their own roles to play. They do Irrespectively.
Speaker 4:I kind of break it down for them. I think some of them will kind of like struggle at the start, like how it all works. I said like it's like a footy team. I use this analogy. It's like a footy team. Everyone's got their own role to play. If my role is to bring in the work and have that network and build the relationships, your role on site might be to get the job going and moving. Everyone's got their own role to play. And if we all play that role then we'll all succeed. That's the way I explain to the boys. And use that analogy because I think it's true and it's important. Everyone's got different roles. If everyone sticks to their roles, everyone will win.
Speaker 3:Do you do much in the way of training with your guys, like getting additional training or anything like that?
Speaker 5:We've just set up that. We've got our apprentice carpenters. They come at our factories and they build walls and then the plasterers will plaster them and do their corners.
Speaker 4:So that's kind of you kind of try to pair them up with a senior person on site as well to get that on site training yeah.
Speaker 3:It may even be something, though, that you look at from another level as well getting people to do, say, a leadership course, or do a management course, or something that can benefit you in the business or even yourselves. No, I like that. That's always good when you look at doing your own, because you only know to the level that you've been taught, taught yeah, you know what I mean. To get to that next level, you have to go and seek someone else that has been there, done it, and then learn from that experience or that knowledge, because to get through that.
Speaker 2:It opens your mind to other opportunities too. You're so narrow-minded.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right how something's done. You don't know what you don't know, you don't know what you're missing out on, until you actually take a step back.
Speaker 2:You said it before Another point and go actually no, I can do things different or this is another way we can grow as a business.
Speaker 3:And that's the thing, you said it before where it mistake like you're you not knowing the things you should. That you know now cost you under 50 grand. Yeah, right now, imagine you spent 50 grand with a mentor. Yeah, could have saved you a hundred thousand dollars just like that. You know what I mean and maybe made you more. So you look at that with your employees too, and there's that saying that's like what if we spend all this money on training and our employees leave?
Speaker 3:yeah it's like, but what if you don't? And they stay?
Speaker 5:Everyone's always looking for the negative. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3:So if you don't like they stay, you don't train them and they stay. It could destroy your business or just keep you at that line, you know. So with where you're at now, do you want to go to 120 employees? Like, where do you see the future going with everything you're doing?
Speaker 2:I reckon on the construction side there's going to be a lot of growth in the next 6 to 12 months. The projects we're starting to target and we're looking to aim towards, you need to have the manpower there.
Speaker 3:So is that more volume type projects? So would you be talking, are you going to start talking that you're going to step into the commercial space like big apartments, high-rises and whatnot?
Speaker 5:Oh, we've got that big one coming up for you. What is it?
Speaker 3:Three apartments. Where's that one? Montclair Three. There's 10 minutes left.
Speaker 1:There's still a couple more footy trips before we go to that one.
Speaker 2:It's more like I want to target some bigger home like homemaker centers and stuff, oh yeah, like an ikea or whatever. But when you go to do these jobs, it's the jobs are done in a short period of time so it's not dragged out for six, nine months. It's a lot of labor in a three-month period, so it's been able to service that labor for that three months whilst you're doing everything else. You can't just throw all your guys at that one job.
Speaker 3:No, that's right, because you'll upset all your other clients.
Speaker 2:That's it. Find out a month, two months, before the job starts, then you can start labouring up to take that job on. The issue is doing that, that you labour up in the job to late four weeks. So you've got all these guys, yeah. So it can be a catch-22. The biggest thing in scaling and growing is that, as I said before, you need to do the jobs, you need the guys to have the guys. You need the jobs.
Speaker 1:I think that's any business.
Speaker 2:Anything.
Speaker 1:but when you get bigger it's good because you can juggle the guys and always move around, but you need to obviously keep that your overhead should outweigh your revenue, what your revenue was previously, because then it's like cool, like at one point, this is what we're turning over in total, and now, just to keep the doors open, it costs us more than that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know what I mean. That means you're growing. It's a good thing, right?
Speaker 5:Someone said it I can't remember who it was, but it was like that's a good feeling that means you're fucking grown, because otherwise you're doing the same shit you was on three years ago. What are you doing? You're just wasting three years, yeah, and I and I think for us as well. Like you know, we're looking to build good relationships with good people. It's more than just doing work for joe blow. That treats us like shit. It's doing jobs for people that I can sit down and have a beer with, have a good time outside work and talk about all the good times and the great relationships that we've built over working with somebody that you just swear, I'm black and blue.
Speaker 1:I 100% agree with you, man, for two weeks.
Speaker 5:Well, I think we're building those relationships now with five or six commercial builders and like yourself, george, we've been working for you for three or four years now. You know we can sit down, we can have a beer together. You know we've taken a few clients in boxes this year and had a beer with them, had great nights and great days and afternoons with these people, and for us that's what it's about. And you know if there's bigger builders out there that you know that we get the opportunity to work with. If they don't really fit into like our business model, I don't really care how big the jobs are.
Speaker 3:I think that's important. So what would you look for in a you know client now, so your client being a builder, what would you be looking for as far as saying, yeah, we want to work with this person?
Speaker 5:Well, I would say it comes down to you know when things you know change on job sites, d&c type projects. So you price a job up, you guys take 5,000 square metres of walls out of the job, we sit down, we work it out together and you know you're issuing credits when credit is due, it's really transparency, Transparency. It's not like you guys trying to mate, that's on you guys. You know you should have included that.
Speaker 3:That it's not like you guys trying to mate, that's on you guys. You know you should have included that.
Speaker 5:That should have been on you and things like you work through things like this.
Speaker 3:It's a collaborative approach. That's the best. That's what I found over the years. It's very often you'll hear that relationship is the builder is trying to screw over the trade to get the best price, the tradie is trying to go in by the skin of his teeth to win the job, so he gets the next one, so he gets the next one, and it's like it's lose-lose where there should be win-win. How about that? Both of us win by getting into this relationship. Not one lose, not you lose, and I win because I'm making heaps of money, or vice versa. That's right.
Speaker 3:And that's how you've got to look at it there. But the stigma is in the industry that builders and trades alike even trades too like everyone's ripping everyone off. It's terrible, yeah, but do you think that that is existent? Do you feel that there are a lot of builders out there doing the wrong thing?
Speaker 4:There's always going to be the bad apple. It's with everything, though.
Speaker 3:Like it's in any industry. I can find a marketing company that does the wrong thing Right.
Speaker 1:Sorry 5.30.
Speaker 3:But you can, yeah, exactly, let me see you there yeah, we're talking before you leave.
Speaker 1:You've got to make an extra room in a box seat somewhere.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but you know fair.
Speaker 1:Just all this collaborative approach.
Speaker 3:Next Carlton game yeah, but you can find that there's dentists that are no good. There'd be florists that are no good, there'd be doctors, there'd be business everywhere. Every business has a bad thing. That's why I get really defensive and shitty because, honestly, I'm yet to meet a dodgy builder. I know you probably have more so, but I'm yet to meet one and I coach and mentor a lot of builders and, yes, probably those ones that are coming to me for coaching and mentoring and coming to events. They're ones that are interested in bettering their company. But I find the vast majority of people genuinely want to go out there, make some money, yeah, deliver a good product and then move on to the next job and do it again. There's not people out there going. I'm gonna go out and rip off my plasterer, my painter. I'm not gonna pay concreter. I'm going to rip off my client every opportunity I get. Those people aren't good dodgy builders, they're just assholes. They're bad business owners.
Speaker 2:They're bad business owners. They won't last long, they won't.
Speaker 1:You get a bad name Every time.
Speaker 2:You wouldn't know if you were ripping people off, not paying your trades.
Speaker 1:How long can you find out? Yeah, there's an expiry date.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely. You've been upfront and being honest and producing the best work you can. That's going to keep you working in the future. So for builders that are doing that, they're only doing that for so long.
Speaker 3:So have you walked away from projects that you see? Have you ever had a job or a builder where you go? No, we're happy not to price that. Yeah, you don't have to name names. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:We could start just before Christmas I think, yeah, I think it might start this year it started two weeks before it started.
Speaker 3:Oh, really, yeah, great, great, because that's something I've learned to follow to do as well.
Speaker 4:And then we backed each other in and we all agreed, yeah Well, probably not for us, but it just wasn't a great fit for us, you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's one thing I've learned over the years is follow your gut. Yeah, we walked away from probably one of our biggest jobs. When was it 2020. I think it was 2020, start of 2020. It was a $7.5 million project, 19 townhouses. We won the job.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, shook hands.
Speaker 3:Yeah, said yeah. And then we got the contract early January and we're reading through it and there was all these clauses in there. I'm like hang on mate, and this was during COVID. Yeah, and there was stuff in there about we will not be paid for delays, for material increases, and I think it was 21 where we had the huge increases in everything, was it?
Speaker 5:It's right after COVID, but that's the thing right.
Speaker 3:I followed my guy. I called him up and said listen, we've just won a big job. It's more in line with what we do. We're doing single homes. This 19-town house is not really my thing. I've decided to take the business in a different direction. Thanks for the opportunity. But we're out and I look back now and, knowing that was before all these massive price increases, that job would have sent me blown. You're still getting built, guaranteed I'd be a property sub-building, but whoever signed that contract? That would have been a world of hurt. No, you're looking at it and you go. Okay, I'm going to make some good money on the job. Like it would have all been eaten up.
Speaker 2:I probably would have just walked away with nothing or lost money. And that was a time.
Speaker 3:I couldn't even get timber, so I would have had to go to like a steel, and even then that was fucked. I look at that job and ever since then I've just always followed my gut. If I feel bad about working with someone, from the beginning it's like, nah, I'm out, I don't need you, don't need you. And you mentioned manifesting before and it's that same thing. Like you're looking at it and going this is what I want, this is the type of person I want to work with and guess who? I start to attract All the right people in my life and the business, and now I don't have shit clients. I don't have a single client that I would say I would never work for them before again or I don't see this relationship as a good one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, because even then, especially some of our commercial builders. They're like you work with the same traits of a job. Our job is easier because I'm working with the same spark. It's the same plumbers, every single project, everyone works in together. I'm going to curl your studs in just to get my plumbing plough thrown through the gate. Hey, how can I make your job easier? And they're doing the same drops. That's critically important. And do this, do this. By the time you finish framing, I can come through and start sheeting or work after, because everyone is working working together.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's what I've realized over the years too, is using the same people, yeah, using the same. We didn't do it heaps, but we would try other trades and I found that when you do that, it's look, it does work sometimes, like I remember the first time, my plumber that I use on most of my jobs. Now I gave him a shot, yeah, yeah, yeah. He turned out to be a great plumber and now I use him a lot. So you do have to get some new people in, but I find that if you always use your core group of people, that comes into play massively, where it's like they all start to work in together. They all know each other, they all know what needs to happen to get the job done. That's it.
Speaker 5:Saves you a lot of time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, time, but it's a harmonious process. And then also, it's a great way to maintain your quality on your builds. Again, they're not going to be the cheapest, but you know you're going to get the job done each and every time.
Speaker 2:That's what some of the builders are doing to their building that and it lies to do their big projects because they know what their homemaker center would be. Not that they finish it three months at a schedule. Yeah, because they know the guys can do the works. And now they're looking at building teams of guys to do it. Cupflow Builders are like a cake. That's right, we're very much like that. They don't want that big job to be delayed because that one trade, because that can just delay everyone.
Speaker 2:It's a snowball effect of one week here there's a flow-on effect One week here can buy it to a month by the end of the job, just from the flow-on effect from every trade.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's huge, it's absolutely huge.
Speaker 5:As a builder, do you have any processes in place for a developer that comes to you or a client that comes to you with background on financially, how they're sitting and things like that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, I mean, first you got to ask for it and be open and transparent as well. So cool, you're a hotshot developer. How are you going to pay for this? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we would often ask, as proof of funds, that they actually have the money in the bank. If it's self-funded or if it's from a bank, they give us an approval loan letter, say, yep, they've been approved for $3 million, $5 million, whatever it is. That's the first step. The second step would be also helping them understand their obligations to the bill. That's what I found is my biggest change in how I approach a good client or engage a good client. Yep, is I make sure they understand their obligations, pay me on time, uh, give me information when I need it. Don't come to site without you know, calling us and saying, hey, we're coming on site or scheduled meetings because it's and you've been on a project where we had a client that was just there all the time, you know it's.
Speaker 5:it's a nightmare, it's an absolute nightmare because then they come in.
Speaker 3:I don't want that there. Hang on like you don't understand why we're doing that. Leave and we'll sort this out. So we've put really strict parameters in place now and, as a result, our clients leave us alone and trust us to build the thing as we need to, and probably gets harder to the clientele that you're dealing with, like the type of money that they're spending.
Speaker 5:Correct, because that's right.
Speaker 3:I'm spending so much money, yeah. But, this is also where you have to set the boundaries Right, and we go as far as even saying don't call me after five. 30. Yeah, like five, I'm not. Do you call when you go home tonight? Are you going to call your accountant at 8.30? Nah, right or okay, but you keep going further.
Speaker 5:I was calling him last night at 7.30.
Speaker 3:Are you going to call your dentist? Nah. Are you going to call your whatever your butcher? Nah, all right, so you're not. There's a line where you need to understand that this is a professional relationship. I'm not your personal assistant, I'm not your employee, I'm not your child, I'm not your spouse, I'm not your beck and call. That's right. That's right. Only call me in an emergency and even then, like we once had one of our jobs catch fire and he was talking to you.
Speaker 3:It and he was talking to you. It was literally I was about to jump on a webinar, yeah, and I called him and said hey, my job's on fire and he thought I was ringing him up to cancel. He goes oh shit, do you want me to reschedule? Like no, no, they'll sort it out, but what am I going to do in that moment? Even at nine o'clock in my pajamas at home, they call me up and say the house is like what do you want?
Speaker 5:exactly call the fire brigade.
Speaker 3:Well, let insurance take care of it. So there's not many scenarios that you could go. Yeah, it's okay to call me after six because I'm home with my family or whatever it might be. And when you set those professional boundaries in place, you get a better quality client because they now go. Okay, I understand what you're talking about. Yeah, I get it. I won't do this, we won't do that. There is a process and when they work to that process, it's just again that harmonious thing. And that's why we have subcontract agreements. A lot of builders and I don't know how many if you work with any, they'll just do a handshake agreement and go yeah, cool, start actually a little bit, but not. But even then and this is where I'm trying to teach a lot of the resi guys you can't do do that Because it's like, okay, you do a job and I give it to you and I've shaken your hand and said let's go. Where are the access panels?
Speaker 5:Oh, they're extra $150 each and you need 10 of them.
Speaker 3:A thousand bucks, like I thought you were allowed for them. But that conversation takes time, it's uncomfortable. It's okay, I'll charge you 500. So you lose 500. I lose 500. Lose lose.
Speaker 4:There's times I've had where we presented a quote to a builder and oh, you're 20 grand higher. Yeah, Next guy. How many times does that happen to?
Speaker 5:you. It happens to me all the time.
Speaker 3:But this is why we try and write and this is from my perspective I try to write a scope of works. So, so, that way, when you price my project, that other plasterer has priced the exact same thing. So I'm not saying exactly. So many builders don't do that and they go you're 20, you're 10. Fuck, I'm going to go with the 10. Yeah, but he hasn't allowed for this. This, this and this Window reveals or shadow mines, whatever that's right. And then they get them on site and they're like yeah, cool, let's go.
Speaker 2:um, oh, oh, that's an extra, that's an extra, and then it becomes a bad relationship. I had a job we priced last year for a friend of mine and they went like his business partner wanted to go, exactly why it's cheaper, and they end up turning around halfway through the job. He's called me, he's like I'll wish you every day. He's like they could they give you like 60 million of variation, which would have been 20 million more than my price. Yeah, they didn't allow any insulation and they didn't allow any of the tonnage.
Speaker 3:But that's poor management by the builder. Do you know what I mean? That's all the builder.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 3:I said to them you, can't compare my two quotes. If it's not my fault, but this is where they don't take that time to go and this is where I don't write the scope of works. My employees do. I might check it if it's a complicated one, but I'm not going to sit there and write them all and then send them to everyone. No, that's your job. If I have to sit there and write Scope, of.
Speaker 3:Works for every single trade, how am I going to ever grow the business? So this is the other thing you might not be on the tools physically, but you can also be on the tools in your business. If you're the one sending out the quote or doing the estimating, that's where you're then on the business tools.
Speaker 4:That's when, again, you can start looking at stepping back, I think the way we present our quotes as well, we get builders that so far, the way you've presented this quote is unbelievable. Everything is broken down and highlighted to how many square metres of the ceilings there are, how many square metres of walls there are, how many access panels, how many doors.
Speaker 2:And it shows through, like on the markups, like so on the show, like it makes them be able to go through so much glitter yeah.
Speaker 4:We pick up on things that some builders haven't even picked up on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah and then we preserve that.
Speaker 4:Oh, that's wait, shit that we presented our quote oh, that's oh wait, no Shit, that is on the page.
Speaker 5:That's right, I totally missed that. Are we giving away all our secrets?
Speaker 3:here. No, no, no, that's good, I mean, I've done that too.
Speaker 1:All the secrets I've had that happen to me. All the secrets, man.
Speaker 3:You know, because it helps though, because then you can go okay, we'd never allow for that sort of stuff.
Speaker 5:And I'll be totally honest with you, man, I lose jobs sometimes to other plastering companies that have sent text message prices, yeah.
Speaker 3:Quotes. This is what I mean.
Speaker 5:And I just think, like here I am, I've got like a full-time esterliner pricing these jobs up, giving you, you know, particular breakdowns of each item. Yeah, highlighted, colour-coded on a marked drawing and you're giving this guy a job.
Speaker 1:He's three grand cheaper than me and it's a text message, man. But in a situation like that did you really lose?
Speaker 5:No, yeah, probably, yeah, yeah, yeah, probably. Sometimes you dodged a bullet.
Speaker 3:Sometimes you just dodged a bullet, that guy made another pager yeah.
Speaker 2:You lose the job out passed the million dollar job in Truggernaut, the same thing. And like the guy wrote the quote and his total numbers on his quote didn't match up to his quote, that he emailed the guy because it was like it was hand done. And he's like but when I worked out his calculations it's different to the food that he's told me. And I'm like but how are you? How are? Yeah, if you think his quote that he sent you is different than the food he's eating, I'm like you're going to get hit with so many various jobs. I haven't learned from that. I haven't learned from that. I'm out with us. We'll show exactly what we're allowed, we'll show where they're accessed, I'll show you the door, we'll show you everything and then if everything that's on there is scoped, then you know what you're getting.
Speaker 3:Well, you should also. You should probably not blacklist, but you'd put them at the bottom of the pile next time they come in and quote. You know what I mean. So you might have a few of those where you price once and they go well, you might price three, four, five times for them and you go listen, you could call up the boss one of you could and say listen, what's going on, mate, like we've priced three jobs for you, we haven't won one, you haven. We're not pricing anymore.
Speaker 5:We do that, yeah, yeah, I think you have to, because it's harder to qualify your leads and your builders.
Speaker 3:I think in that in that perspective. But for me it's a little bit easier because it's a higher ticket value. But for yourself, I think you're going to have that level and go look, we've priced three jobs. For you it's nothing, no, no harm, no foul. But we have a policy. If we don't win jobs either, you need to give us feedback and let us know where we're sitting and if, if we're not in the realm of where you need to be, that's fine, man, like good luck with everything. We're not gonna. We just yeah, because you have to pay your estimator to do that quote.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it's not for free, it costs you money I'll get a bill to send me over six jobs, like straight off the bat. I send you an instagram. You guys look fantastic. They just process six jobs, say to start, let's price two, see how we're going. If they're that was, if they're keen, they'll call you back. Hey bro, how you going with it, how you going with that tender. Hey bro, how you going like they're eager.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it's good though I think it's good that you build that, not like have that phone call conversation with them that connection, because if it, if it's just that, quote, it's flick, ticket flick and set and forget. It's like, oh yeah, price this, let me know, and then you're just a check price.
Speaker 2:It's following up on them as well. I always call them and follow up, see how they went with it, because I want feedback and know like sometimes you've gone for two or three meetings with these sites and they're like, oh it guys, between you and someone else. Then I just want to know how we sat with it.
Speaker 4:If.
Speaker 2:I didn't win the job, that's fine. But you want to know okay, did I not win because it was too expensive, or is there something else to play? You just want that feedback. You can go. Okay, it's not like you've gone in different directions or whatever you want. You want to know what it is.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it allows us to grow and learn as well and better ourselves what it should cost to do the carpentry, plastering the painting.
Speaker 5:You know exactly. They should well, they should have.
Speaker 3:They should have established that from the beginning, but what you do a lot of the time, a lot of these guys, they'll just do a square meter rate yeah, which is so dangerous and then they don't know. They actually don't know their budget because I'll go oh, this house is 30 squares, it'll cost, you know, 900 grand, yeah, yeah, and they're like oh, I built one, like that much.
Speaker 3:And then they start building it and there's, as you said, there's reveals access panels pelmets, like all these 13 mil plaster, not 10, yeah, and it's like my plasterings 120 grand. I thought it was going to cost 50, yeah that's just in one scope.
Speaker 2:That's wrong, you know, and then that's where they find themselves in trouble. Everyone. Why, even some of the staff, tend to the documents we get like from when they're? You're getting them sent across to you and their, their takeoff doesn't match up what the real takeoff is. But then, like we've had some that they go oh yeah, just work off our takeoff before we win the job. You're passing off our takeoff what? No? Because your estimators are going through measuring something they're not laying for reveals and I'll land for for different finishes on the job where my estimators are. So your takeoff is never going to reflect my takeoff because they're not allowed for it.
Speaker 2:But then it's also, it's like you're going to stick to my price?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's not taking. They're trying to take their risk away by putting it onto you, but that doesn't work, because then you'll just say, no, I'm not doing the job. Exactly, exactly. Here's my price.
Speaker 5:Yeah, exactly like here's my, here's my price. Like yeah, yeah, but yeah unfortunately, that's just.
Speaker 3:That's just the building game, isn't it realistically? A little bit like that? So how do you see things at the moment? As far as the industry is concerned? You said you guys are busier than ever. Are you seeing a slowdown? Are you seeing growth? Where are you guys are at the moment?
Speaker 5:I think the first six months have been quite cruisy, to be honest. I think, like when everything's just running smoothly and you haven't got builders yelling at you saying, hey, I need three guys here, I need six guys there, I need 10 guys there. For me that's perfect. That actually gives us more time to be working on our business and potentially grow other things. It's when we're about to come into a very crazy period, with Blackstreet about to kick back off and you know some Huntingdale's kicking off, which is 150 warehouses and we've got a church going, we've got all these big projects. So you can just feel, you know like it's. You can just feel it's coming.
Speaker 5:The residential side of things we've probably got, like you know, 40 houses to plaster in the next two or three months. I can just feel it's coming. So the first six or seven months has been quite good in saying that, yeah, we haven't really been searching for work but we've got the three different divisions where we can float guys to and from. So if the residential side of things is a little bit quiet, I can throw my maintenance plasters over to Lockie and start doing insurance work and things like that. That or vice versa with the maintenance guys, with the construction side of the business. So it works quite well between the three of us and, yeah, it's about to go bananas for us. I reckon we're going to probably have to put on between 15 and 20 staff in the next probably two months.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's amazing, that's excellent.
Speaker 5:And that'll probably be locked up for the next year. I would say who?
Speaker 2:knows Some of the projects to start to aim towards. That could open up so much more work. It might be just that one project. They might see what you do there Another bit, would see it and just go.
Speaker 3:Oh, so the score have you guys got, uh, or you've got families and kids and all that. So how have you found balancing your work or not? I don't hate the word balance, but have you found with the blend between work and life?
Speaker 4:oh, I think we're off the tool, so it kind of in that sense it's good. You know, I'd have to be on site at seven.
Speaker 3:I can be in the office at eight or nine, but then again, especially if you've got your business partners there too, you know, I mean, they can help out.
Speaker 4:But in saying that I'm probably like still working at seven o'clock at night. My kids are trying to play with me. My hardest way I was going to send this email. I'm going to just schedule this in, I don't know. Sometimes I think to myself like just put the phone away for a second, that's right, stop trying to. Just you can go back to that when they're asleep. You know it's like holding you up, but then, yeah, that's what I. You've got young kids as well. I'm out for dinner that night. I'm like looking, forecasting what I'm going to be doing the next three days and who I'm going to allocate there, but I'm out for dinner.
Speaker 5:In saying that, though, his role within the company is a lot different to mine and David's right, so he's probably doing 20 jobs a day. You know what I mean. Like some guys are doing two to three jobs, things go wrong. Joe blows up the job. He can't find the key to get in the house. Like you know, the owner's not opening the door. The scope isn't matching up to what it is Like, it is just constant. It is absolute chaos.
Speaker 5:So his role compared to myself and Damien he's got a lazy is what he's trying to say, yeah, like with the bigger projects, like being day-low, damien can kind of go home and like be done with it. We might have a phone call here or there.
Speaker 2:I was calling you at eight of nine o'clock at night, but that's to get used to it.
Speaker 5:But yeah, just a buddy. His role is a lot different than ours, like with responsiveness.
Speaker 3:Like he'll look at a job. They need to quote that day. Yeah, like, lucky you looked at the job today. I need to quote today. Yeah, I think, um, what you got to be mindful. This is something that helped me, uh, a year ago, a couple years ago, because you've got young kids as well. They're only kids once you know they're going to get to an age where they're going to be 16 years old and you'll be like, hey, you know, peter, come sit on my lap. It it's like dad, fuck off, I'm playing.
Speaker 1:I'm going to my mates. You know what I mean.
Speaker 5:Yeah, Right, so and that it's like they're going to get to it. That's weird. You're asking me to sit on your lap, that's right.
Speaker 3:That's right. But you get to that point where you to your kids. Now I don't give a fuck about the quote that you have to send, and I promise you next year that quote that you sent that night at 7 pm. It's not even going to matter. You're like you know what? Fuck. I should have just stayed and played with them, because I had dad come and play. Dad, let's do this, let's do this, because you're at work all day. What time do you get home?
Speaker 4:Some nights I'm still.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then I'll work out like until 10, 30, 11, 10 o'clock, yeah, but then your kids are there and they're doing whatever they're going to do, so they'll see you. For what?
Speaker 5:an hour, two hours a night, whatever a day, so you've got to make sure he does take them to Bali every three weeks, though. What was that? He does take them to Bali every three weeks. Look, that's fine.
Speaker 3:And I've got a pretty good train. I've got Present during that time that you're either at home or on holiday. It's the presence man. That's right, it is being home 100% said Bang on that's right it's being present, that's right.
Speaker 2:That's the biggest thing for me. I'm telling myself I'm at home. I'm at home sitting there watching a movie while I'm busy, and I'm sitting there on my phone reading emails and rep at the notification. That's right, okay.
Speaker 3:You just said it Because of the notification, so this is what I want you to do. All right, you're going to walk away at it with something. Today your phone's got the different modes that you can put on it, like do not disturb, set it so every night at 6 pm. It used to have one too. It dangers, doesn't it? Do you know what it is? It's a distraction. It's a distraction. You'll be working right. You're there. You're working on your computer.
Speaker 1:Ding.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And it's just that one second that it distracts you. It takes your focus off here, and then it's like, oh, or if I say I'm calling you and busting your balls, fuck, what do you want now? Right, so then it gives you that almost a level of anxiety, yeah, and it's like every, because my phone doesn't stop. So I was always doing this, yeah, always doing this, and it was sometimes clients and subbies and suppliers, and it's like leave me alone. Yeah, and it wasn't until I broke it. It fell off my wrist and it broke. And then I went back to wearing an analog watch, like my phone would ring and I was like, oh, like it felt so good, not that my wrist would have bothered me, yeah, yeah, yeah, and I will never buy another smartwatch ever again.
Speaker 3:And now my phone goes home on the charger and when my kids are in bed, if I want to, I'll pick it up. Yeah, that's why a lot of people, the only people that can contact me, are on my favorites, and that's it. Yeah, that's it Because because when you get to work the next day, everything you'll deal with it's going to be there. When you die, touch wood long time. You're going to get emails the next day? Yeah, all right. The next day you're going to have an inbox full of fucking emails.
Speaker 2:Even for me, like at night, like when you're thinking that I need to do it now I've always been the person that when you think it, you do it. Yeah, to the point. Now. I just write a list of evidence Every time I'm thinking about what I need to do. Rather, do it then and email then or message or whatever. It's just on a list. So the next day when you get to work, you open your list. Then you can start at the top and work your way down, rather than sitting there editing on a club at night, replying to emails or sending emails out.
Speaker 3:Oh, this has been a great chat. I'm looking forward to seeing you know, know, in a year's time where you're going to be. You know, because you've had so much growth in really a short amount of time and you're telling us now you're going to hire another 20 people. You know, I just hired one person the other day and I'm like holy shit. And then I'm about to hire another person and you're talking about 20. A lot of people don't even get out of their way of hiring a single person and you're at, you know, 30 direct employees, 30, and you're going to put on another 25. So, looking forward to seeing the journey as far as where you're going to be in the next six to 12 months.
Speaker 3:I appreciate it man, and then we can even look at getting you back on and saying, yep, we're broke or no, we did it.
Speaker 5:It just depends how quickly you want guys to blackshift. Yeah, that's it, that's it. I appreciate you having us.
Speaker 1:man, it's um, yeah, it's um it's always nice to sit down, and this is our first podcast, so is it? Yeah?
Speaker 5:it's good, something that we've been talking about doing for for quite some time and, yeah, I appreciate you guys having us here today. Not at all, I mean.
Speaker 3:You know the whole the whole thing about our podcast called million dollar. It's not really got that much to do with the monetary value of what we're doing. It's about people doing things that are extraordinary and above the norm.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we've got a big thing about. Don't play so small. Stop fucking around, stop doing the little things, stop following all the rules and live a life that one day you're going to lay down you're going to close your eyes. Yeah, stop fucking around, stop doing the little things, stop following all the rules and live a life that you know one day you're gonna lay down you're gonna close your eyes. You're probably never gonna open them again. Know that when that time comes, you look back and you say you know what, okay, this is a good fucking thing. Yeah, okay, this is a good both you guys got like.
Speaker 5:You know, like I'm sure you've got plenty of people coming up to you asking you. You know how you've done this and how have you done that, you know I mean, and yeah to be proud of, even for you both as well, because, like, like both, your presence on social media, for us we see it daily and and weekly. And I'll say, george's head, probably well, probably probably way too much, but it's only when your missus starts saying that you're gonna worry to worry mate.
Speaker 1:Half our luck.
Speaker 3:But yeah, and that's exactly that mantra that we try to live by and I think it resonates with the story that you guys have said today and it should be a bit of an inspiration to anyone listening to this or watching this now is that you know, you guys only were three years ago. You had the two of you See what I mean? Or the four of you there was four of you in the business and you fast forward two and a half years now and you've got close to 60 people. It's a great achievement and it just shows that you're not playing small like you're really giving it a nudge. So good on you for that. I love saying that.
Speaker 1:Let's let's close with this. If you could tell yourself something right now, knowing everything you know now, you can tell yourself something from three years ago, from when you were first starting, because I'm sure you've grown a lot in that period what would you say to yourself?
Speaker 5:um, what would I say to myself?
Speaker 2:um, you get hurricane. You have to don't doubt yourself. And like you can't do it yourself in these situations, like taking that step, next step is so daunting, but once you take it, I think.
Speaker 1:I think that's a message that's relevant at every day, every week. Do you know what I mean? Like you need to take that next step.
Speaker 4:I think. For me it's like just back yourself as well, like I'm in this position for a reason, and just trust yourself and back yourself and put faith in in yourself and your capabilities, that you'll, you can get a job. It'll work out, yeah, it'll work out. Back yourself, you know.
Speaker 5:Say for me, you know, I remember, you know, every time, like early days, we were about to take the next step and it was like you know, like we're going to buy our first car or we're going to buy our second car, I was always that one like we were talking about before like shit, that's another expense. Like shit, that's another expense. But you know, I didn't really look at it in a way that, hey, you're putting on a guy that's going to be bringing in income that's going to cover the wage of that car and you should charge a little bit more. Do you know what I mean? But we're not taught that, so don't be scared. Like, oh, it was that now. Now, you know, let's put another estimator on.
Speaker 1:Yeah now you're like quick, let's hire more people. Everyone's like slow down.
Speaker 5:So don't be scared. Follow your processes, give everything a crack. Don't say no to anything. I feel like we would knock them back jobs because we're like, oh, we'll make it work. Say yes, say yes, say yes.
Speaker 4:Figure it out, we never knock back anything.
Speaker 3:Yeah, figure it out along the way. Figure it out. Have you ever had people around you friends or family to say, oh, slow down, You're paying too big. Do you ever get people saying, oh, you've changed, or why are you trying to do so much? Do you ever get people say these are limiting beliefs, beliefs that other people put on you because they've given up on their dreams?
Speaker 3:and then they see your success, or you're you're you giving it a fair crack and then turn around and and like, want to try and bring it back down. And often it's people that love you yeah, not because they want to, you know. See you fail, they're just trying to. They're trying to protect you from failing. Hey, don't go. Don't go and employ another 20 people. What's wrong with you? You know what if this happens? What if this happens? Then you're fucked.
Speaker 2:It's a limiting belief, we couldn't do something. That's happened with everyone, that's right.
Speaker 5:I think we've had a lot of people that have had businesses and scaled up and then scaled back and said, hey, man, it's not a nice update. Man, stay around your 10, 15 guys, it's much more comfortable. It's that's much more comfortable, easy to manage and things like that. But they mustn't have had the right processes in place to keep scaling up.
Speaker 1:They're doing it themselves. They did something wrong.
Speaker 5:It doesn't feel like I'm under the pump. It doesn't feel like these guys are pulling their hair out.
Speaker 2:See for yourself.
Speaker 4:I'm on the pump every day.
Speaker 1:I've got pain the last three months.
Speaker 5:You're not at breaking point where you're thinking about throwing in the towel and things like that. Do you know what I mean? Because it's too much, because you've got, we've got the help around us.
Speaker 2:So yeah, it's having the help around you, having the other two guys to help offset stuff too. There's three people to help make decisions. There's three people to help do the work or one person trying to do everything. That's the problem. When you're one person trying to do everything yourself, you've bound to fail.
Speaker 5:The three directors, the construction managers and estimators. There's nothing that we can't figure out. It's like you've got so many people to bounce things off. What do you reckon about this? What do you reckon about that?
Speaker 2:And you listen to them. Just having a man? Oh okay, no worries, listen to them. At the end of the day, they're the guys on the ground doing the work.
Speaker 3:They're the guys that know what works and what doesn't work. Yeah, excellent. So anyone listening to this now? If they want to get in touch with you, boys, and and reach out and get you to price a job that they're never going to call you back on, where where do they, where can they reach you? Um, where can?
Speaker 4:they find you guys. Probably we've got a website and also probably our Instagram is a…. Instagram is a big one. Instagram is a big one. So what's your tag on Instagram? Precisegroupau, yep, because all our work is showcased on there. All our recent work is showcased on there, or your website. And what's your website? Wwwpreciseclassringcomau.
Speaker 5:That would start in like year one. Oh, it might.
Speaker 3:It sounds like an interview chat to Robbie after the show.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's not really monitored, but I think our Instagram has got all our details Excellent.
Speaker 5:We've got capability statements and stuff set up, so all you need is one of the. We just need somebody's email address. We'll send out a capability statement, depending on the project if it's a commercial project or a residential project. Myself and Damien will come out, present our capabilities and things and showcase our projects that we've done before and go from there.
Speaker 3:Fantastic. All right guys. Thanks so much for coming down today. Appreciate having a chat with you, and you know some people need to also find us, and the way you do that is just subscribing to the channel. Just click that button, subscribe. Tell all your friends, tell all your family, follow us on all the socials, and if you don't, you are a massive failure.
Speaker 1:And share it with your mother, that's it.
Speaker 5:Thanks, guys. Speak and share it with your mother. That's it, thanks, guys. Speak to you next time. Thanks, buddy, thank you.
