Million Dollar Days

Handshakes vs. Contracts

• Robby Choucair and George Passas • Season 1 • Episode 54

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Luke Wolke, founder of Wolke Construction, shares his entrepreneurial journey, revealing the strategies and principles that have led him to success in both residential and commercial construction. From starting his business as a young carpenter to expanding it into a well-respected operation across Victoria and New South Wales, Luke’s story is filled with lessons on leadership, growth, and staying grounded in your values.

Luke's story is one of grit and determination, tracing his path from a young carpenter to the founder of his own business, Welkie Construction. Through challenges and triumphs, he reveals the rewarding unpredictability of the carpentry profession. This episode sheds light on the transition from traditional handshake agreements to formal contracts in construction, emphasizing the critical importance of clear communication and accountability. From skate parks to pavilions, Luke's diverse project portfolio underscores the need for versatility and resilience in the construction industry.

This episode offers a deep dive into the evolving nature of trust in business today. Luke’s experiences illustrate the value of clear contracts and how a handshake, while powerful, may not always protect you in the way you hope. Tune in to gain insights into navigating relationships and ensuring accountability in both small-town and big-city business environments.

George:

Ladies and gentlemen, we're joined by a special guest. You might've heard a different voice, wasn't me and it wasn't me. We are joined by Luke Wolke from Wolke Construction G'day. Thanks, mate, appreciate you being here today and joining us on Million Dollar Days and everyone. I hope you're having Million Dollar Day.

Luke:

Same, same here.

George:

That's it. That's what we're about, mate. Yeah, thanks for joining us. Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you're doing. Yep.

Luke:

No sure thing. So my name's Luke Wohlke. I'm from the border of Albury-Wodonga. Which side? Which side, Albury?

Robby:

Side. Oh, he's Albury, new South Wales. Yeah, albury's New South Wales. That's Victoria, that's your land. So you're on the other side, on the other side, dark side.

George:

So have you come down? Did you get your passport? Did you just? Stamp it on the way in have you come down all the way today to jump on this podcast to see you boys fuck.

Robby:

How good is that how good is that good bloke had to be done, that's it, we're going to make it worth your while now.

George:

Are you originally from that side of town? I am from Warbury. Yeah, yeah, so your brother's moved down here. Yeah, he moved down here four or five years ago.

Luke:

Then, yeah, got into his construction company and that down here. Good yeah, I'm up there with mine.

George:

Yeah good.

Robby:

What's it like, man growing up in a? I guess you don't have anything to compare it to, but I just always wonder Because how many people?

Luke:

I think we're about 106,000 in the population now. One zero six, yeah, yeah, and it's growing. It's growing quite rapidly. Most of my jobs you know from people from the Melbourne Sydney area moving into Albury-Wodonga, you know buying properties wanting to do major extensions, renovations, shop openings, all that. So, yeah, it's growing quite quickly with new people, which is good. I'm pretty positive we actually won 2022 australia's what if best country, town, yeah that's a little bit best country town.

Robby:

Yeah, there you go. Yeah, that was it. Um, I guess it's hard to compare, but what would you say are the key differences? Like you've got a lot of mates in the city and you said your brother's in the city now as well. Yeah, melbourne, yeah. So what would you think the biggest difference is between growing up in a small country town like Aubrey-Wodonga compared to, like, say, growing up in Melbourne or Sydney? What would be the key things that people would take away?

Luke:

What are the big differences? You know, in Aubrey-Wodonga everybody just knows everybody the communities. You've got to be a good person, you can't shaft people, have to be good to your neighbors and you know to people uh in the town. Because if you do the bad, wrong thing by somebody, you know that word spreads, got it. Yeah, it spreads real quickly, whereas in melbourne, sydney, you know the larger uh cities, you can sort of do whatever you want and meet new people and get away with it. That's probably some of the keys and in my area, or ruadonga, the, the community is quite small. So you know, if you do well by people you get a pretty good name pretty quickly.

George:

So you can't just fuck up on one side at Aubrey and then go to Wodonga and just go.

Luke:

That's something else After that. I was actually a little bit of a rival between Aubrey and Wodonga, you know, in the party scenes and that I always knew the Aubrey boys and the Wod donga boys that you know would get in punch-ons and that at parties and stuff, and oh really, yeah, that stuff used to happen when we were young, but I don't hear about it anymore. I don't even hear about it with younger generations, with young apprentices and that I have. I haven't heard any stories like that for a while. So I sort of think it's a bit of a mixed culture, you know.

Luke:

You know there's not many say I was one out on the scenes anymore. Everybody's sort of sitting at home on TikTok and social media. Do you think that's the case or do you think you've just grown out of it? I think that's the case a lot as well. You know there's not as many people roaming the streets in the younger generations. There's definitely not like it. When I was my age, you know, every weekend when I was 14, 15, 16, we were out on the streets, you know, socialising, going to parties, going down the street, going to this, going to that. You know, I definitely don't see it as much with the younger generations these days to what it was yeah, it's a bit of a occurrence.

Luke:

Well, and everybody sort of you know interacts through social media, through you know different platforms, so they're sort of all on the same level. You know whether you're from aubrey or wodonga and it's all big stuff. It's like one, one place now. Yeah, yeah, it is, and a lot, of, a lot of families are sort of separated. So mum's living in albury, dad's living in wodonga, so the kids jump from week to week, from different, you know state to state to say yeah, you could say they should just, shouldn't, they just move the border?

Robby:

yeah, like wouldn't that make sense? Yeah, but then we have one big town on one side. Yeah, just one town on one side. Do you know what I mean?

George:

So your, business is carpentry, predominantly Construction. Yeah, so you're a registered builder. Registered builder, so do you have issues then with the cross-border? So do you have to be registered in both states?

Luke:

now I got my license originally in New South Wales and then I got to cross over to Victoria. There's different rules and regulations. So have you done it? Yeah, I'm licensed in both. In both, yeah, yeah, new South Wales and Victoria.

George:

Well, Victoria is harder to get registered in, so it's actually easier if you get registered in Victoria. From what I've heard, it's easier to get registered in the other states because, oh, you're from Victoria, yeah, no worries, here's your license, whereas when it's the other way around, because it was so much easier, or brisbane, and then come back to melbourne and go, oh, I'm a melbourne, I'm a brisbane builder, yeah, give me my license, they're like no, no, no, do the test again.

Luke:

I just felt that I had that problem when I got my builder's license in new south wales a bit over 12 months ago, and then, yeah, I only got just got my victorian one three and a half four months ago, isn't that?

Robby:

stupid though, because like, like Everything's Australian standard, yeah, yeah, like we have the Even do Like driver's license and stuff, red tape. I'm pretty sure, adelaide, you can do 17.

George:

Yeah, it used to be 16. I had a cousin In Adelaide where he he licensed at 16. He's at 16. I remember going over to Adelaide.

Robby:

What's Sydney or New South Wales?

Luke:

No, it'd be 18. South Wales 17, 17. 17? Yeah, 17. Victoria's 18. Yeah, victoria's 18.

Robby:

Yes, you can't drive until you're 18 because you're an adult, which seems like the most normal thing for someone growing up here. Yeah, for us yeah but then when you look at the other places, you're like wait, so you can you have to wait that you can do one year of driving, but you can't do the other stuff. Yeah, when you turned 18 in Victoria, it was like you're loose.

Luke:

What about your motorbike license over here bud, Is that 18 as well?

George:

Well, no, it used to be less. I don't know if it is now Motorbike license.

Luke:

Yeah, you used to be able to get that. New South Wales is 16 and one months, so I was. Yeah, you used to be able to get it sooner. Here too, anybody my age had their.

Robby:

No no.

George:

Motor 18 used to be no, used to be less, used to be used to be able to get it at, um, yeah, 16 to 9 months or something like that. Yeah, because I was going to go. I remember I was going to go to adelaide, get my license and then come back, because I had family in adelaide, yeah, and say, oh, yeah, I live here. Yeah, and then come back and be the only 16 year old driving around that would have been.

Luke:

It's about leaving first place. Right is, what you can do is you can always seem to find a friend or a family mom that lives over. Of course you're good to. Yeah, get your license a lot earlier. Yeah, what you can, of course you're good. I see a lot of kids doing that because that's getting their license at 17 yeah, instead of having to wait till they're 18.

Luke:

I knew if I was definitely living in victoria, there's no way I'd be waiting till I was 18. I'd be bang over there getting at 17. So have you still got a carpentry crew? Yeah, I still got a carpentry crew. Yeah, I still got a carpentry crew. I sort of try and call them builders because we manage the jobs from start to finish. Yeah, but I got to. Yeah. So how many people are you employing now? I've got 11 on the books Yep, including office and a draftsman Good, and then a couple of subbies that come in and chop us out. You know pretty well full time Wherever you need yeah, whenever we need yeah, that's good. And just use the other companies, like the electricians.

George:

Yeah, 11 mouths to feed every single week, that's definitely something that's That'll drive you, yeah, 100%. You can't take a rest day. I can't muck around.

Luke:

You've got to keep moving. You've got to make sure that pay's in there, yeah. To pay wages, yeah, yeah 100%.

George:

What's been your biggest challenge to date in business?

Robby:

Wait. Firstly, how long have you been in business?

Luke:

Yeah, I've been in business for six years.

Robby:

Okay.

Luke:

Heading on seven, since I was 19, now 26.

George:

Okay, so you started your business quite early. Yeah, that's very early. So pretty much did you-. How are you Were?

Luke:

you qualified. Yeah, qualified when I was 19.

Robby:

Really qualified when I was 19, really, so you started the apprenticeship when you were like 15 I started when I was, would have been 16.

George:

Yeah, yeah, okay, so you got off in three years. You got the. Yeah, I got a little bit younger than three years.

Luke:

Actually, I worked very hard for my boss and got up in the roles and I punched my tape work out in my own time a fair bit, so yeah well, that's the thing right, it was about two years and nine months. Yeah, well, you got qualified in qualified in two years and nine months. That's good's a qualified in, qualified in.

George:

Jesus, that's good, and if any youngsters listening to this podcast which is sure there's heaps, yes, well, wouldn't they? It's a place to fucking be if you want to get something get somewhere in your life.

George:

Age doesn't determine ability, and that's a perfect example of it. You know, I often get apprentices or people saying, oh, I want to do more and do more, look cool, I will promote you absolutely. Age doesn't determine ability. I'm not waiting, I want to do more. I want to do more, look cool, I will promote you Absolutely. Age doesn't determine ability. I'm not waiting for you to do your four years. If you can show me that you're a superstar after three, absolutely I'll take you off.

George:

I had an apprentice a few years back crack the shits at me because I wasn't signing him off after three years and then I just I said, okay, cool. In front of him I said show me the mistakes, yeah, and he just looked at me with a blank face. I go that's why you're not qualified. Yeah, all right, exactly that's why you're not qualified. You can't even interpret plans and how to build it. If I need to be able to leave you alone on a site and you go out and build that thing, don't call me, don't leave me.

George:

And then everyone says, oh, he got his apprenticeship apprenticeship under george and he's got no fucking idea what he's doing. That also looks bad on me too. Yeah, it's a reflection back to you. That's right. So I look at it from the perspective of no. No, if you are qualified, yes, you will be qualified and you will do what you need to do. So anyone listening, listening out there, age doesn't determine ability in all aspects. And if that was the case, if age did determine ability, there'd be thousands of builders out there that are better than me and they're simply not. So that's good that you worked really hard, and then most people would have probably stayed in the role, especially at your age at 19. They probably would have stayed and been a carpenter for a few years. Did you like working with your boss?

Luke:

Yeah, I did. The reason why I finished up working with my boss is because I had an opportunity to be on the Gold Coast. My best mate that I was living with said folks I'm leaving to go to Gold Coast and growing up in Albury-Wodonga, my whole mindset up until I was 19 was I hated Albury-Wodonga. Get the fuck out. Yeah, I wanted to get the fuck out. To be honest with you pretty quickly. Is that everyone?

Robby:

there, though it is a lot of people, kind of like this is a small town, I need to get the fuck out of here. I need to hit up a big city.

Luke:

If they're young, I accept them saying it, but if they're older, if they're, like you know, 21, 22 years old and I'm hearing it I'm like shut the, experienced the world, experienced other places of Australia. So yeah, so you did that?

Luke:

I did that, yeah, when I was 19. My best mate moved up to Gold Coast. We had a house in Coomera and, yeah, I packed up my stuff and, pretty well, gave me boss six, seven weeks notice. I was able to work out with him that if I gave him that time I'd get signed off and then moved up to Gold Coast and started as a carpenter up there In your own business, in my own business. Well, I didn't have intentions of running my own business.

Luke:

I went up there and I started working for a guy and, yeah, I was pretty well running his site straight away. And he said to me mate, I want to put you on an ABN so I can give you some purchase orders and that's when you're getting paid per job. So, yeah, I was getting pretty well got pushed into straight being on ABN. So working as a subbie, working as a subbie, yeah, whether it was hourly or cost per job either, or either that's what I was getting straight from an ABN. And then when the tax came around and my accountant sprung me the like oh, you need to make a company name. And there you know, I am thinking I was working for somebody and company name, so I just called it my last name, welkie Construction, and it's good, pretty well went from there and then, you know, ventured around Gold Coast, was up there for a bit under a year working for a heap of different people, just, you know, experiencing different things out on the beach, and did a lot of work in carumban palm beach area, traveled down to tweed heads, built some skate parks, built, you know, pretty cool um pavilions and that coming off the mountain cliffs, and that you know was involved in a lot of different things, just as a carpenter. And then, and then, yeah, did that about, you know, close to 11 months.

Luke:

And then my mate that I moved up there with moved back to Albury-Wodonga and, yeah, I was up there for a little bit. You know, I got a couple of my own little jobs which I was just doing for people that you know I met just from day-to-day living. The problem, the thing I had up there is up in Gold Coast, at a young age I was 19 years old, trying to run a bit of a I'd say a carpentry company more than a construction company, because we're just doing minor projects, but the moment I needed to get other trades in, I was a nobody, I'd get shafted pretty easily. I had a bad relationship with plumbers and sparkies up there. I couldn't meet good people to do business with. My biggest thing in business is I work a lot on trust. I meet people hard handshakes, look people in the eye, do the right thing, and I just wasn't getting that appreciation back up in Gold Coast. So it was pretty quick.

Luke:

But after one or two things went wrong up there I was like I need to work out something else. So I came down, done a job in Melbourne, in Geelong, traveled over there, did a job over there with my old boss actually, and then that veered into doing a couple of jobs around Northern Victoria, southern New South Wales. And I had a good experience with trades when I used people that I actually knew from my area, ulbricht or Donga, in the community it was. You know you had to do the right thing because you couldn't get another job if you did. You know it was a small community, people knew each other and you know there was no shafting or you had to do the right thing to. You know, get somewhere. So it was a pretty quick decision.

Luke:

After that, after doing a couple of jobs here, I was still living up there. I um ended up, yeah, packing me stuff and coming back home and then got into the building the shed straight away and then needed a hand, so got a couple younger guys to help me apprentices and stuff and pretty well, ventured from that, started building sheds, doing concreting slabs. Uh, you know, we're doing large projects too all over victoria and new south wales, heading up to up to Sydney, doing a lot up in Griffith, newcastle, melbourne, down here, a lot fair bit in Geelong, pretty well anywhere that we're getting jobs. A lot of travelling, a lot of travelling, yeah, yeah that's a pretty young age.

Robby:

Melbourne to Newcastle.

Luke:

Yeah, it was. I'd dead set, just drive from Queensland down to melbourne for a job, straight up to newcastle, straight over to stay in melbourne. This is in the early days. This is when I was like, you know, 1920. Yeah, I was only renting a room back then. I didn't have any responsibilities or liabilities, I could just, you know, pack up and do whatever I want, just get up and take off.

George:

Yeah, pack a bag, yeah, jump in the car yeah, that when you don't't have that tie down for yourself, then you're able to make decisions real quick. Yeah, you know what I mean.

Luke:

Back to when you have a you could get a room for rent for like 150 bucks.

George:

Yeah, yeah, well, they're exactly right. Yeah, even if you stayed at accommodating and pretty cheap. Yeah, yeah, that's excellent. Well, it's good that you had that experience to travel around and now you've settled back down in Albury-Wodonga and that's your home base now.

Luke:

That's where your general operation's out of. Yeah, it is. I have settled down. We do do a fair bit of other work away. You know up in Griffith and you know down here in Melbourne. Not as much as what I'd like to, but you know wherever I sort of get the jobs do a little bit. How far is it? What's the?

George:

drive Three hours, three, three. Yeah, three hours and 15 minutes. So your boys don't mind travelling down. If you want a job down here, nah, they'd go with a heartbeat.

Luke:

Would they also, especially the biggest cities, you know, try and get them away to Griffith or one of the smaller towns out of your way for the weekend? Well, do you pay for their accommodation while you're down? Yes, they're down here too, so you'll factor that into your project too. Yeah, yeah, that's it. Accommodation, food allowances, meal allowances yeah, yeah, those are pretty good. Plus, when they're away, I let them, you know, do 12, 14 hour days so they get the overtime.

George:

Yeah, you know, 60, 70 hour weeks in yeah, and when they can smash the job out too, yeah, you know so, for we love that as a builder because we'd come in and be like, yeah, like, finish the job for us, move on, get on to the next thing. It's all time. That's exactly right.

Robby:

You're holding up the next person yeah, yeah, exactly. What was the biggest thing? I guess. So old country town values right, like you walk in, handshake, stare him in the eye and you can tell, okay, cool, this person is not going to go and do the wrong thing by me. I guess people in big cities can be a little bit more shady, right, or they can probably get away with it a little bit easier.

George:

But you'll also get people like that, I think, in the country towns too. I think you're still going to get that wherever you go, and I think, unfortunately, gone are the days where you can do that anymore. I go and I think, unfortunately, gone are the days where you can do that anymore. I've got a client now. Right, we're signed a really big job up with him a few weeks back and we're building his home dream home. He's the guy's a gentleman, and he said look to me. He said same thing. You know, george, I shake someone's hand, that's my well, my word is my bond, and I genuinely feel that we could have built this job off of her handshake. All right, I genuinely believe it.

George:

This is a four and a half million dollar home, so I go yeah, cool, no worries, the fact of the matter remains. You still need a contract in place, and I don't. I. I think you don't need a contract until you need a contract. That's what it comes down to. Yeah, that's what I mean, and it is good to have those rules in place for everyone to go. Hey, guys, this is what it's about. By the way, you know, let's not fuck around. This is what we're doing, this is what it's about. So, yeah, I find that, as much as you would want to do a handshake agreement and just do it, you've got to really put it in black and white. These days. It also sets the expectation versus reality. You know, you always want to remove that, because even on a handshake agreement, it can still be like well, oh, I thought I was getting this. Oh no, we never discussed that.

Robby:

Yeah, but I thought we were.

Luke:

Yeah, I was always working off handshakes until about 12 months ago and then get shafted a few times, especially when you're doing bigger jobs, yes, could be sharp, but saying that I still do smaller jobs, anything from 10, 15 grand up to 50 grand, that would be very minor of what we do. And there's still jobs that we do over handshakes. In fact, I had one job the other week it's worth about you know, 20, 25k and uh and quoted up for him, went through the scope of works, gave him a contract. I said, hey, mate, like this is, you know your payment terms throughout the jobs and that this guy just looked me straight in the eyes and just said mate, I'm too busy, I can't be fucked with that shake. I can't be fucked with that shake, I can't be fucked with that. Here's a handshake. You're genuine, I can tell you are Bang. What's the total Bang Money in the account. So now it's up to me. He paid you up front. Paid me up front. Yeah, had a couple of people do that actually.

Robby:

Yeah, like isn't the contract to protect you against the? Oh, but I thought I was getting this and this and this.

Luke:

Give him a scope of works. So then I emailed a scope of works with the receipt of the payment that he sent me. I said, hey, mate, just confirming this is a you know receipt of the scope of works you gave me. Let's go ahead with it. I feel like that you didn't have more to say about that, george.

George:

I would never, yeah, you didn't have more to say about that, george, I would never. Yeah, I don't care what the value of that work is, it just removes anything. Because, as much as he's like, yeah, I'm too busy, and I'm busy too, I would love to do everything on it. If I could do everything on a handshake, you wouldn't see anyone employed in this office.

George:

Yeah, Do you know what I mean. Correct, no one would be working for me. Just shake everyone's hand and get the job done. Yeah, I don't need to do contracts, I don't need to do and worry about anything, whereas I've seen it happen too many times where and even between a subcontractor and a builder or a client and builder. For sure, but even with subbies, we will put together a scope of work and then they'll go.

George:

Oh, I whatever, didn't presume this was meant yeah, yeah, this wasn't supposed to be this, this wasn't supposed to be this, this wasn't supposed to be that. No, no, it's there. I've written it in the contract, we've written it in the scope of work. But also, what it does is it helps get accurate pricing too. Because when I send a scope of works to the contract, let's say it's to a carpenter, I'll tell him you need to allow for the timber paneling, the ceiling, whereas he might look at it and just do frame lock up, fix and not worry about that. He thinks oh, I thought that was specialized, I thought someone else was doing it. So then, that way you get proper apples for apples comparison when you're, when you're tendering it out and getting multiple prices coming through.

George:

But also I just hate that conversation when someone comes up and says I didn't do this, yeah, or I didn't allow for this, and I'm like well, it's not because I hate the uncomfortableness of it, it's wasting time. Now I have to go okay. Well, fuck, let's open up the drawings, let's open up the scope of works, let's get it priced up, let's negotiate, and then it has that flow and effect Like I've got a subbie that we did some work, he did some work for us and he just kept putting variation, variation after variation after variation, like what the fuck are you doing? Okay, I under. He goes oh, I've been never allowed for that, we're never allowed for that. We never left. I said, hang on, like this whole process isn't about you going, oh, this is what I haven't allowed for. No, I need to know what shortfalls there are, because that is a risk.

Luke:

Somebody really plans that they're going off and they're just yeah, absolutely it's not necessarily that it look.

George:

Some of the stuff were genuine to come up, but there was also a lot of things that they didn't have to put their hand out for. Like they were just very he was very quick, he was just adding in extras Well, it wasn't extras, like I'll pull people up on it, I know what things cost, and he's just very quick to send me a variation for something. And I was like, mate, he goes oh, my supervisor had to do this for two hours. Here's, you know, 250. I'm like, mate, it's not worth me the time it's going to take me to write you a variation to send this through. Stop sending through stupid shit. Your contract's worth 800 grand and you're sending me a 200 000, uh, 250 variation.

George:

Yeah, like this is stupid. It is. It is stupid, but the guys do that, yeah, and that puts me off. Even though it's only 250, it doesn't break the bank either way. You feel it? Little things like that.

George:

It's just time consuming, like I'm. As I said, I've said it in previous episodes I'm massive on my time now, and when that happens, you're wasting my time, even if it's not directly me. You're wasting the time of the guys I'm paying to do that. So this is where that process, I think, needs to be in place, where it's a really clear line in the sand. This is what I'm doing, this is what it's for, yeah, and you know, still deliver on your product and your promise and everything you're saying. But I believe, in this day and age, you're crazy not to. Yeah, crazy, not to. And this guy that's so busy, even if you got everything ready for him and all you had to do was sign, that's how you do it. So, look, that's my understand. You're a busy man, let me take care of it. You get all the documentation. Just sign here, yeah, and then we get started.

Luke:

Yeah, this is pretty easy scope of works, but you know this could only be like a little change room?

George:

Yeah, a little, and he paid you up front. Did you say yeah?

Luke:

So look, that's been been shafted very quickly myself.

George:

Exactly this is what I mean. So you're going the other way. This is what I'm saying. Overall, this process of you let's call it a process of shaking hands that's cost you more money. Yeah, it does. It's cost you money that you should never have lost, whereas if you had On the other side, though not for me.

Luke:

I don't let anybody down. If I'm very, I don't mind my word.

George:

If I handshake I'm doing this for you, you'll do it. But let's just say we do that right, and then you can. But you're still leaving it open for interpretation, because I might come in we shake hands and say, hey, I need you to build me a deck. And you build the deck and it looks amazing. And I'm like, when are you sanding, when are you painting it? And you're like, oh, I don't do that. So are you serious, man, for 25 grand? You're not painting it. I had this other guy that was going to paint it for 25 grand. That's why I thought you were doing that. It's like, no, no, I sent you the scope of works. Yeah, I'm fucking too busy to read that. You know what I mean. That's what happens. Yeah, but that's what happened, and as much as we both had good intentions, one party then leaves, going up feeling a little bit shitty yeah, even if you get away even if you get away with it.

George:

Yeah, that's right all right, how much is going to paint, to how much it could cost me paint. You got two and a half grand. Fuck, all right here, you know, and you still might be happy at the end of the day, but that that process there's. You'll remember that and maybe next time he doesn't call you, he calls the other guy. Yeah, and not out of spite or anything. You would have done a great deck, you would have looked amazing and you probably painted it really well. But then it's like, all right, well, I might go to the other guy now because he'll include that.

George:

So, as I said, I'm always a big believer these days that you just got to have everything in writing, everything above board, no verbal conversations, like even when we're building as well for our clients. I've literally got it in my contracts. We don't accept verbal conversations. If you tell my site manager hey, I want a new light in this room, or can you put three extra downlights in this room, but you don't put it in writing to the office, to the relevant person, that's a good point If it gets missed.

Luke:

I just had a bit of a problem with that with a project we've just done, you know. Oh, I told Luke this. I told Luke that Luke's too bloody busy. That's what's happened. That's exactly what happened with me and one of my guys, steve. I literally just yeah, within the last few days took that problem out.

George:

Yeah, and again you're probably in the right. You just say, well, I don't have any record of this, I'm not going to pay for it, and then they'll be shitty, and then they'll have to pay you $750 to get that light put in or whatever it might be. And then there's that disconnect and then that's where the rapport starts to be chipped away, because every client is always amazing at the beginning of the job. Everyone's happy, they're excited, let's go, can't wait. You're amazing, can't wait to to build with you. And then you go through that process, especially if they've never been through it before, because building isn't a stress-free project.

George:

Yeah, too many moving parts. Yeah, there's so many and we can deal with it right. Like the guys always come into my office. They're like oh, I've got this, this and whatever. What is it? Oh, it's this, just do it like that. Oh, it's going to cost $500. I'm like you, walking into my office and talking to me for more than three minutes is costing me $500. All right, just fucking get it done. We can handle that because we do it day in, day out, whereas a client, when they have to come up with this problem, oh, the door's in the wrong spot. Oh, my God, you've ruined my room. The feng shui is not going to work anymore, yeah my whole life.

George:

Yeah, my family. This is embarrassing. I have to go left instead of right. Oh my god, just just knock a couple studs out, put the door in the right spot, problem solved easy. Yeah, but for them it's a, it's a stressful process. So that's the thing with construction, and when you can help, nurture and guide them and show them that, no, no, this is the process that we've got to go through. This is how we do everything you'll find. You get a much better quality client and they tend to be a little bit happier at the end of the job it is.

Luke:

I believe construction is a very difficult game to be in, but it's very, very rewarding game, isn't it? It's always a lot of things going wrong, but there's always a lot of things going smooth. In fact, I just recently had an occurrence with a mate of mine who is a builder and, you know, runs a bit of construction company himself, and he's got one project on the go right. He had one project on the go right and he had a couple of guys working for him and he had a bad experience with this one client. And that's, you know, 100% of his work with one bad client.

Robby:

Yeah.

Luke:

Yeah, that's.

Luke:

You know, when you think about it or the more I said of that, you're like fuck, everything that I'm doing is wrong, whereas the way I look at it is, with me and my guys, you know we got 11 on the books plus subbies.

Luke:

You know we generally have 13 14 jobs on the go, for there's a couple bathroom renos and a few smaller jobs. It can be anywhere from up to 16 or 17. But say, if I got 15 jobs on the go, if there's a couple bathroom renos and a few smaller jobs, it can be anywhere from up to 16 or 17 but say, if I got 15 jobs on the go, I generally have, I generally have, you know, sort of I don't really get many bad clients, but I get a couple you know that are complaining about things or you know need to adjust things, or you know this and that and it can't affect me because I've always got, you know minimum 10 that are super stoked with their projects, the way they're running. So I look at it like the more you can do and the more people you can keep happy will outweigh a couple bad people that you know come through and try and give you a bit of a hard time for it.

George:

Yeah, they'll always exist. Bad clients are. That's what I learned in business. Not all clients are good.

Robby:

Like when we've had this conversation before. I think it's in every industry. Yeah, yeah, 100% of it, every single one.

Luke:

I'm talking about clients complaining in a bad way, like if they're going to oh shit, going wrong, if she's going wrong, 100%. I'm meaning that. But if somebody's being unfair or they really bad attitude, attitude is the worst thing. There's clients that I say hey mate, I don't want to speak to you anymore. You make my day terrible every time I speak to you. Let's go through email. You'd have to do that a few times, would you?

George:

yeah, yeah, it's, yeah, I've been through the worst of it oh, I've done that.

Luke:

I'm doing that now I never used to say that to someone. I've had to. I've had to say it to people. Yeah, I've had to say, mate, like we're here to do the job, let's do things for email. You're a very draining person to speak to and let's you know, work this out for emails, because whatever you say doesn't get through their head and you got to do you know things the thorough way.

Robby:

But yeah, that's just everything in life, man, like, there's always that person. You know what I mean. There's always that one person who wants either wants more. I was talking to a guy the other day and I got him. He wanted, he wanted a different, he wasn't happy with the price we put forward. And I said do you want more or do you want to pay less? And he's like, I want both. I said say, it works like, do you know? I mean, we can't do that and there's always, whatever you work, there's always going to be someone who either wants you to do more or they want to pay less. Do you know what I mean? And I think it comes down to your ability to handle those clients or choose not to work with them.

George:

Yeah, we have a pretty regimented screening process. I turn down people when I'm doing jobs now If I feel that you're going to be a difficult client.

Robby:

It's never, almost never, worth the outcome.

Luke:

Yeah, like the headache you go through, you're like the money you're gonna make, yeah, the money you made is not worth it.

Robby:

You've done my fucking face in, yeah, and it's like this has not been worth at all. If I could go back in time, I would not do it. And then I always tell people I said the reason why you take on those jobs is because you don't have enough leads and that's the thing that's right turning down jobs. I'm giving people jobs that you know. We just don't have to flex.

Luke:

Because if you've got options Turning down jobs, I'm giving people jobs that we just can't get to and talking about that with clients. I just recently had this experience, about six or seven months ago I was doing this big deck extension. The scope of works was $110,000. That's quite big for a deck. Absolutely that's quite an expensive deck. It was a big deck with a nice big handrail off the ground. You know, had plans and everything sorted.

Luke:

She paid a deposit, uh, and, and you know, from the, from the time she paid the deposit to the starting of her job, she was phone, phone calls that were, you know, harassing or you know, annoying some of the guys that are sent around there to sort of, you know, check a couple measurements and that they were like, well, this lady's hard to deal with. You know, especially if it's coming from your staff, that's the worst thing that you can do. You know I don't couple of measurements and that they were like, well, this lady's hard to deal with. You know, and especially if it's coming from your staff, that's the worst thing that you can do. You know, I don't mind if they're a little bit hard to deal with me or they want to get me in the office and they want to speak. You know directly about a scope of works, but if it's coming from the team at the very start of the job, I'm like all right, team, we're not dealing with this.

Luke:

I called up the lady. I said, hey, you know, thank you for the first process with your job. But you know, look, we're not a good match to each other. What I need you to do is I need you to send me your bank details and I'm going to transfer the money back to you. Yeah, and that happened.

George:

Yeah, good, you're completely right with that in our contracts as well, where I've written it in there now that clients that they need to respect the working hours of all employees. You can only make contact for all our employees between the hours of 7 and 5.30 pm Every single Monday to Friday. That's it. Any contact outside of that hours, outside of those hours, emergencies only. And even then, what's an emergency? Okay, oh, my house is on fire. Why are you calling me? Call the fire brigade. I'm not coming there with a bucket. Yeah, all right, get your shit together. Yeah, so it's about what?

George:

Coming back to what you said a little bit earlier, with the bad clients, there's also a process of pre-framing them so they understand the process as well. Like a lot of people would say oh wow, like I didn't know, no one's ever told me not to call them outside of hours. They see their builder like, like, oh well, I can call you any single time I want. Hang on, no. Do you call your accountant at 10 PM? Do you call your barber at 10 PM? Do you call your kid's teacher you know what I mean At 10 PM or 9 PM, or send them abusive messages? Of course not. Then there's a barrier here, don't cross it.

George:

And I find that whenever that happens, when you have that conversation really early on in the piece and set the boundaries with payments, with communication, with all of these things and they sign it well, then it's a rule, like subconsciously, they go. Well, I have to obey the rules. If I don't, there's consequences. And I applaud you for doing that and giving her the money back, because I'm sure in a $110,000, $120,000 deck there was some decent margin in that. And what is it? Probably a three, four-week job. Yeah, you could make some good coin in that time. Yeah, but I promise you you would have gone through that process. You wouldn't have been happy with the board.

Luke:

You wouldn't have been happy with this. She wouldn't have been happy with that.

George:

You'd probably still be fighting for the last payment. Yeah, you know what I mean. There was already going to be a problem, that's right.

George:

That's right, and if you're talking like that, disrespectfully to your employees, pulling the pin's a massive thing. My dad's done that in the past as well. He had a $3 or $4 million build that he was doing before working with me, with me and same thing. He got the guy up to the base stage so he did his footings and then he just said, listen, I'm out. Because the guy kept coming in and wanting to build, like do shit. And my old man said listen, I'm not here to hold your hand whilst you build the house, because I'm the builder, I'm running the show. You're not coming in, don't bring people in. Like I don't want that. And the guy kept doing it and he goes look, no worries, thanks for your help, I'm out and he goes, I'll get you to base stage and you can take it on after that he goes.

George:

No, no, steve. I'm sorry, sorry, no, but please come back. He goes. No, fuck off, not worth it, like it's not exactly he goes. It wasn't worth it and he was gonna make good money on that job, but he goes. No, I'm not interested. I need to move on, because I can see the issues that are going to happen from this point on. All right, and then he just left.

Luke:

There's a million other people who do jobs out there for him.

Robby:

Yeah, exactly, don't you think? Everyone knows that, everyone knows what. When the client is not right and they're like this is going to be difficult, yeah, but like credit to you for being in a position, no, because they will convince themselves otherwise.

Luke:

Yeah, sometimes you can't work and you don't work it out until the job's sort of thing, so again. I feel like I get better at working these clients out. Yeah, I agree, Especially if I'm doing a major job. In fact, I just had a phone call from. This was an hour and a half ago. On the way here I had a phone call from a guy who wants major renovations and extension done. You know this is a $300,000 to $400,000 job out in Yakondanda when Yakondanda, About 15, 20 minutes from where I live.

Robby:

Yak and Dando. Do you remember that I've been there multiple times?

Luke:

Go there every weekend Before I even get this guy involved, you know, because we're only just getting into doing extensions and renovations Before I actually get this guy involved with my draftsman and my admin and my team. Yeah, I feel as if you know I'm going to from the experiences that I've just had. I feel as if you know I'm going to from the experiences that I've just had. I feel as if what I've said to him is hey, mate, like you're all right, awesome, let's catch up, let's see if we're right fit to do the job together and then let's go from there, you know.

Luke:

So then I can sort of feel that yeah, you can pre-frame With a lot of the smaller jobs, that you can go there with your team and take them on, as long as they sign a new contract, and that it's not going to be too much of a lengthy experience but anything anyone's kind of in your with, especially because it's going to be all Luke.

Luke:

Everybody wants all Luke. When they're big jobs, you know, come there from the start, you know, and generally coming in daily, every couple of days, to check how things are rolling. If there's going to be a job like that, I'm definitely going to make sure it's the right fit. I'm going to meet the guy before he meets anyone in the team and, yeah, like you know, the first things are if he looks in your eyes, he's honest and he shakes your hand hard. Let's go to the next step.

Robby:

That's your qualifying process. Huh, it's part of it.

Luke:

It's a big thing. Part of it, you know, I feel like honesty and I feel like, you know, genuine people are what I want to be involved in, so it's part of my, you know, first couple steps of doing it yeah, yeah, without a doubt, it's, it's something, and it's good that you've got a process in.

George:

I think for you, it's just a matter of elaborating on that a little bit more, because there's going to be a lot of people, there's going to be a lot of people that'll shake your hand, look at you straight in the eye and light your face. Yeah, there'll be a lot of people like that that you'll come across and it won't. It's okay. Now you're doing the 100 000 jobs, the 50 000 jobs, but when you do the 2.2 million dollar job and they look at you and they smile at you, they say thank you, I appreciate you, and then they rob you blind. There's a lot more things that can go wrong with them. Hey, well, it's not that, those bigger problems, it's not more money, more problems aspect, it's just it's a bigger liability. That's right. That's right. And then, if you have just gone on the basis, well, I shake people's hands, I do the right thing.

George:

I love this saying it's so true. Like I'm angry at the lion, why? Because it ate me. Like why?

Luke:

well, I didn't eat it yeah I like hearing what you have to say. You're very protected, yeah, of of yourself and of your time to be of the company and that's I only say that thing, I'm working

George:

out as I'm going. Yeah, I only say that from experience. Yeah, and I've been doing this for a little bit longer than you now and I look at that and I go I was of the same mindset. No, I'm gonna do the right thing by a client. Customer's always right.

George:

You've heard the saying customer's always right. Yeah, you know that's part of the saying. That's what they say. Yeah, it's part of you know what the second part of that is? Customer's always right. No, what is it?

George:

The customer's always right in matters of taste. Matters all, right of taste. So, if you want, that's how the saying goes. So if your client wants pink floors and orange ceilings, absolutely I can do that for you. But if your client tells you no, no, you need to paint the floor with a demo saw, you know what I mean? Like, it's like what? No, you're not right. So the customer's always right is just that part of the saying is just an excuse for people to treat an owner badly, a business owner badly or an employee badly. That's bullshit. The customer isn't always right. It matters a taste. If you want something a certain way, yeah, absolutely we can do that. But if you're coming in telling me how to run my business. Acting disrespectfully, not fulfilling your obligations, then no, you're not right. Acting disrespectfully, not fulfilling your obligations, then no, you're not right. That's what I look at it as these days, because I've been burnt on projects in the past because I do the right thing but they don't.

George:

It happens more often than not, unfortunately. Then as the builder you get the bad rap Dodgy builder as they say in this country. But when you start to protect yourself more so you end up attracting the the right people. And that's what I found too, because I was going through that process where we had we had like five shit clients in a row. It's like where did you all come from? And they're all covid clients too are all the ones during covid. So whether they went crazy over covid themselves which probably contributing factor, I think some people lost their mind during that time and construction was really difficult during that time and they ended up going crazy. But now I look at all of my clients, they're fantastic human beings. But that's been a result of the screening process that I've taken to ensure I'm working with the right people.

Luke:

Structured you've been able to set up to sort of guide them 100% From the first consultation until the, you know, signing the contract, that's right that whole process is massive.

George:

Yeah, that's right that whole customer experience too right it's customer experience absolutely from the very beginning, from the time they call up, pick up the phone and say, hey, I have a job here. That's when it begins. Yeah, not halfway through the project. Oh, we've got a client relationship now I reckon it begins even before that.

Robby:

It begins when they look at your website, yeah, look at your socials, look at kareen. That's what it all begins to, because they're like what are these guys? Yeah, that's right, what's this guy all about?

George:

yeah, we've got so much work over the years purely because of the brand that we built. Yeah, it was funny. My wife was telling me the other day we're talking this morning. Morning we were having a conversation. She's like, oh, the conversation came up about selling the company and I'm like, yeah, I would sell. I go it'd need to be an eight-figure offer. She's like what? She goes that's crazy, why would you do it? I go, no, no, no, like that's at you sell it for $500,000?.

Robby:

It's a brand that you've built behind. That's right.

George:

I go no, you forget what it takes to have a company set up like this. And I go also, I've got a lot of intellectual property. Yeah, there is a lot of systems, procedures, things in this business that tick that others don't have. Yeah, and has got a really good name in the industry now that it has a level of trust that people just look at the socials which Robbie manages for us and Robbie's team does and it's like, well, yeah, why wouldn't I build with these people? And it's directly resulted in millions of dollars of revenue in the business because we invest in brand. And then that's why, like, we always talk about it. Like I find it crazy how people struggle to be creating content. They, they go on because it's not crazy. They don't see the immediate result. That's the problem with it. They don't see. They want to post a video, it go viral, and then 43 people call them up and sign contracts that night.

Robby:

Yeah, that's like wanting to do sit-ups and then get up and you've got a six-pack. Exactly that's not how this game works. You're right, brand equity man. I so how this game works. You're right, brand equity man, I think you can't put a dollar sign on that man.

Luke:

Yeah, with the social media stuff. I was very fortunate with that when I feel like I was in that generation that 26 years old, back when I was 19, 20, social media was the Instagram and then the Snapchat. It was sort of just coming out then it hadn't been around forever, there wasn't many young, young people on it. It was sort of just coming out. Then it hadn't been around forever, you know, there wasn't many young, young people on it. You know, everybody was sort of getting introduced to it and that. And it was that at that timing when I started using Instagram and stuff and doing work, having pride in what it did.

Luke:

I used a lot of it. I posted a lot of stories all the time, posted this, posted that. And when I came up in Gold Coast I I've seen other construction companies in the area, you know, on social media, same as Geelong and Melbourne. But back in Albury I don't remember seeing one construction company on Instagram back, you know, six, seven years ago, and that's a big thing about what I've built my business off, coming back to a country town, going on social media, posting stories, posting posts, doing all that stuff, and it built a lot. Now I don't think there is a construction company in Albury without social media. It's grown that quickly.

George:

Yeah, you're finding a lot more people are doing it now. They are, yeah, absolutely, and this has been a current, a trend going for quite some time, I think, and you're even seeing it too. You're getting a lot more people inquiring about the content and the creation and everything you're doing, because they they're starting to realize that it's a decent thing, yeah, and something that they need to be continuously doing. I was doing it all myself.

Luke:

For a long time I was taking the videos, making all the real.

George:

That's fine, like you should. But look, I still do it today. I'll do a post if I need to do something, for sure, yeah, I get a little bit slack on them.

Luke:

I've got to post a fair bit more than what I do. But yeah, with the construction company stuff I don't really, because when I'm involved in the construction I've got a lot of things to do, so I sort of try and delegate that part of it out.

George:

But yeah, personal branding wise and that, yeah, well, when the time comes, you can definitely do that. You know, and that's the thing, my business I better go hire a media company to manage all my socials and, well, you don't need to spend money on that today. Yeah, just do that yourself until you're at a level where you go okay, I've got 10 jobs, I'm going to spend a thousand bucks a month on someone managing my social yeah I was never in a position to pay somebody to do my social media that and that's so totally fine.

Luke:

Yeah, 12 months ago I'd say that's it. Doing it all myself, getting him it's good, well, it's push-ups.

George:

at the end of the day, as you said, You've got to do the work to get the results there. Definitely yeah.

Robby:

Yeah, question Aubrey Wodonga border. You mentioned COVID before Victoria was in lockdown. Yes, otherwise it wasn't. It was a fun time.

Luke:

It was a fun time. It was a lot of waiting in the cars.

George:

Oh, is it at the border? Yeah.

Luke:

They're serious oh really. Because, like in Albury-Wodong, you know, I try and do most of my stuff in Albury but I still get a lot of stuff in Victoria as well, you know. Just because.

Robby:

Albury is just there, well. So they were checking crossing the border. They were there, yeah.

Luke:

He's serious. Through COVID. You had to. You had to go through and explain why you had to log in on the COVID. You know there was an whatever it was. Yeah, there was an app or whatever it was for and you had to log in and give them your details, give them your red joes. You drive through, they check your car roughly. Just, you know, look in the back seat, make sure crossing the border, that they couldn't, you know, accept and yeah, sometimes the lines in peak traffic. You were waiting there for a couple of hours Like it was a time waste.

Robby:

Well, and so they would just check you.

Luke:

Make sure that you're going across for the right reason yeah, make sure you're, you know, from local to the area. Is there one road that cuts over? No, there's three or four different ways to get from Ururoa to Ongar.

Robby:

Three or four different roads where you can cross over the border? Yeah, there is, and there's back ways in that too. Yeah, so did they have them?

Luke:

all they had, them all had everything blocked off. I didn't know any. There could have been some, but I didn't know the other way.

Robby:

So every way you were trying to go through. You weren't going to get across without, you know, getting checked out. Yeah, that was a bit of a lengthy process and then so people on that side, because there's streets where you're on there that's aubrey, this is odonga, and it's like same street house not really. It's a river, so it's a river that separates everything, yeah okay, okay.

George:

I was gonna say because, yeah, that's fucked. Imagine you're sitting up in the street suburbs.

Robby:

It's the road that divides the sub. Imagine you're sitting up in the street.

George:

You have the suburbs, yeah, the suburbs. It's the road that divides the suburb.

Robby:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, the road divides the suburb.

Luke:

In Queensland and New South Wales border. I don't think it is at all during the Victoria and New South border. That's a full river that runs through.

Robby:

Yeah, I think maybe Tweed Heads there's people whose backyards in Queensland, yeah, yeah, and they're like their front doors in New South Wales, backyards in Queensland. But yeah, that's insane. Like so, one side, free for all, do what you want, and then the other side Get your masks out. Yeah, masks out, shut up, sit down, be inside, be inside. That's what it was, dude. Sit inside, be inside. That's what I'm all stood Sit inside, I don't believe it.

George:

That sounds ridiculous, doesn't it, when you say it out loud it sounds dumb.

Robby:

It's a true thing. It's a true story, do you?

Luke:

remember that.

Robby:

Four reasons to leave the house. You had four reasons Exercise, yeah, exercise.

George:

Food. Food, yeah. Medical, no, no. If you were an essential service, like if you worked for an essential service yeah, and medical, medical.

Robby:

That's it. You couldn't leave for any other reason.

George:

Yeah. I wish I broke a lot more rules back then. Yeah, I would have done. Anyway, let's hope it never happens in our lifetime again. It'd be cool. Yeah, probably. If it did, I think this time they'll burn the streets down. It was very hard. There's no chance. They'll keep everyone in. Okay, you're telling me, would you follow the rules now? Knowing what you know now, would you follow the rules more so?

Robby:

no, but I think I'm part of me is grateful for the wake up yeah, yeah, I hear what you're saying yeah, do you mean? Because then it was like, oh wow, look how many people actually don't pay attention to what's happening.

George:

Do you think they've fallen back into that habit?

Robby:

100%. Yeah. How many people stopped watching the news during COVID? A lot of people stopped. They're like this is fucking garbage, we're not watching anymore. People stop buying now. I know lots of people that do. Again, they're like yeah we're watching it again. You're like what I never used to news for probably a decade. Yes, I am. I don't pay any attention to the news at all.

George:

It's rubbish. Yeah, it's rubbish. It's garbage. Dude, it's garbage. If you're listening Channel 7, 9 and 10, you're rubbish. Yeah, All of you CNN.

Robby:

Face it. But yeah, I know people that now they're like, oh, did you see what happened? I'm like, no, how would you see?

George:

People forget Some people. It was great. Some people had a great time.

Robby:

I had a sick time yeah you were telling me my brother-in-law said the same thing.

Luke:

Hey, I just don't get the time to watch the news or TV.

Robby:

Yeah, I think there's no downside to that. To be honest, I don't miss anything. Yeah, you're not missing anything. It's worthy anyway. Just the way everything's going on, yeah, and if something really bad is going to happen, someone will tell you.

Luke:

Yeah, you know what.

Robby:

I mean You'll find out from some good source. Yeah, so I don't think you're missing out on anything. But yeah, I had a great time during COVID. I was living with two mates and we'd just play Call of Duty. That was the fucking greatest thing ever. Getting paid to do so yeah, getting paid.

Luke:

What was your lock-up? It was a few weeks, wasn't it weeks? Jesus dude, I'm pretty sure the longest time it was like three months there was a full lock up where it was insane for a couple weeks.

Robby:

At one time it was mate this thing was 10 weeks, it was fucked. Yeah, it was 10 weeks of like full strict, whatever they called it level four or whatever it was.

Luke:

I was too busy doing my own thing though.

Robby:

Yeah, I couldn't go anywhere Curfews at night, couldn't leave after 9 pm.

George:

Yeah.

Robby:

You know what I mean. You weren't allowed to go anywhere. Yeah, and I was working in real estate at the time and they completely shut off real estate, so no work couldn't go anywhere. We weren't allowed to do any property inspections Nothing. So no work couldn't go anywhere, we're not allowed to do any property inspections. But I said nothing. So getting paid, staying at home doing nothing, I was playing Call of Duty, yeah, you're right. Yeah, and they'd be like call your clients and you'd be like dude, have you spoken to everyone? Everyone was in, fucking like, everyone was hysterical, everyone was so down, every person you talked to because they didn't. Yeah, do you know what I mean? This fucking virus, and blah, blah, blah. I think there was real fear about it At the beginning, in Melbourne anyway. At the beginning, yeah, in the first, because it went for a long time, yeah, but in the first sort of six to 12 months, there was huge fear around it.

Luke:

I found out of COVID first before I think very before anyone in my area found out about it, because I was over in Thailand actually on holidays and you know I was walking to the airport about to get on the plane to come back to Australia and it was just, it was viral over there before it actually came over here. So you know there was people stressing, there was masks going around. You know I was looking around like what the fuck are these people wearing masks?

George:

not thinking about it, and then came over to Australia and it wasn't until three or four weeks later it just went viral. It's pretty extraordinary how it actually happened. Yeah, just how it started from one. It's like that movie, contagion, which you've seen 16 times at least. Probably by now Everyone's seen that. Everyone's seen Contagion, but how? It starts from that one single person and then it's just gone bang, yeah, do you know what I mean? And it just takes off.

Luke:

Yeah.

George:

Yeah, like they should make a movie of it next one day. But it's pretty fascinating when you look at that and how rapidly it's spread across the world.

Luke:

You know, and then it's still going around, isn't it?

Robby:

Is there any habits? Anything that you, I haven't been tested in a while? Oh fuck they still do testing.

Luke:

They still test. Yeah, they still do testing. Now I went to the Deliquin hospital to visit my uncle three, four weeks ago and yeah, I got tested, no shit.

Robby:

COVID test.

Luke:

COVID test Like a fucking thing up your nose, yeah, up in your nose. Twirl it around, are you serious?

Robby:

Hey, I found out that thing they did that touched my brain.

Luke:

It touched a part of me.

Robby:

It touched a part of me. I've never been touched in before. I was like what the fuck was that? Yeah, I was like what the fuck was that.

Luke:

My eyes are busting.

Robby:

Yeah, question Is there anything? Because it was obviously at that time. I don't know what it was like for you. That's why I asked that question. But for us in Melbourne especially, there was a whole bunch of stuff you started doing that you never did previously. You picked up a bunch of habits and I was saying that even till today I still wipe down shopping trolleys. Till now, like if I go to Woolies or Coles I will wipe down the handlebars of the trolley. Till now, yeah, is the trolley. Till now, yeah, is there anything? I still see people with masks on.

Robby:

I saw someone the other day in a mark in a car by themselves with the mask on. I was like where you going? Um, did you say that to him? No, he had the windows closed. He had the windows closed. Yeah, I would have sneezed. What are you doing? I would have sneezed just to just to battle him. Um, is there anything that you picked up during that time that you still do? It's a funny question. You probably never thought about wiping you know things down that you picked up during that time that you still do. It's a funny question.

Luke:

You probably never thought about wiping you know things down that you're touching that when you're out in public, or you making sure you don't touch certain things so I used to.

Robby:

I used to not press the lift with my fingers. I do now I don't really. I just used to be knuckle I used to do that a lot. Yeah, I used to always deal with my knuckle. Yeah, now it's like not as much, I don't get as much, whereas like, or I wouldn't touch the uh, if you're crossing the road, now I just it's just like whatever man yeah, just touch it.

Luke:

Yeah, I sort of, you know, try to touch it with me, knuckle me elbow or something, just to try and keep clean yourself, or yeah, well, the doors, and that you know, I always kick them over, kick them over, kick them open. That's the one. But but yeah, there's not so much that I'd do differently. I'd say I guess I didn't really take COVID as serious as what a lot of people did During the process of it. There was two weeks where I was locked down, where we were locked down in Orirwudonga, but I was still finding ways to leave.

Robby:

When you guys locked down-.

Luke:

I couldn't stay home. I had very high ADHD, so there wasn't me staying home. You know, I was out doing something, whether it was work or driving or, you know, going to go visit somebody. I was out there. I wasn't locked in my home for two or three weeks, yeah.

Robby:

Well, I think construction was one industry that only got yeah, only got closed down for two weeks, I think yeah other than that it was open the whole time.

Luke:

Is that in melbourne? Is that in melbourne, here as well?

Robby:

it closed down for two weeks, at a two-week period where there was no construction yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what I'm, that's what I said.

Luke:

I thought melbourne was only closed down for a couple weeks. No, that's just that in this year, when I was coming down in melbourne, all I was doing was working. Yeah, me and my brother, while my brother was living down here, we were just working. You know, there wasn't, especially in the early days of the business, it was just work, right, there wasn't really much socializing, and that on weekends for a while. There, that's what it's all about. You know, the lockdown, uh being you know, a couple of weeks. I guess if you were out, if you're one of those social butterflies that you're out every single weekend doing things, you would have definitely felt it There'd be not much to do, so you've been in business for seven years Heading on seven years, heading on seven years, six years yeah.

Luke:

What's the one thing you wish you knew when you started that you know now one thing I wish I knew. Yeah, right interesting.

Robby:

There's a lot of things actually. One don't fuck around. The one thing you know like there was like, hey, man, like this one thing I feel like would have changed the complete direction or the the way we headed or the way we kicked off, or anything like that. So for anyone listening to this there might be people listening that maybe want to start their own business. What's one thing that you'd like, a message that you'd like to share and say hey, you know, I wish I fucking got on top of my numbers. Or I wish I knew how to do budgeting, or I wish I knew how to forecast, or I wish I knew that I needed to get off the tools as quick as possible, or building a brand, or whatever it is right. What's the one thing that you wish you knew? Or if you could send a message to yourself at that time, what's that message that you'd pass back?

Luke:

I wish I knew about my budgets for what I could spend or what I was making. When you first start a business, you're taking all the money in. You're taking all your tax, all the incomes coming in, all the guys in. You're taking all your tax, all the incomes coming in. You know all the guys, super everything's coming to the one account. You're not sure you know what you have to put away, what you have to do.

Luke:

I'm a first-generation builder so I didn't have my dad or my uncle or my grandfather to help me and teach me what to do. I had to make every single mistake by myself and I don't regret doing that. But I've definitely had a lot of hard times where, you know I've had to, I've had to call up mates. I've had to call, you know, certain people to try and get money in the account to pay wages. I you know that wasn't that much of a bad thing for me at the start because I had I had guys working on me that understood the position that I was in. So you know I could. I could stretch out payments for, you know, a couple days here and there.

Luke:

But looking back at it, I played it pretty risky. I definitely played it pretty risky little times where you know, fuck, I thought I was gonna go, gonna go under, and then I managed to bring it through. So if I look back at it now, I probably would have played it a little bit smarter because I would have had to go into bankruptcy and be locked out of business for five or six years. That's probably the biggest thing. The rest of everything that I knew, I sort of just learned everything from mistakes. Like I said, I've made every single mistake you can think of in my business Don't say that yet and that's how I've learned, like, what other way is it to do it? And going out and got some mentoring, some training. That has held a lot with the business and growing things. You know, try and you know. When you pay for advice, you try and pay to not make mistakes that other people have made and have you found that?

George:

so, as far as going out there and getting and seeking someone to help you out in business, do you think that was going through that experience? Do you think that that has helped you in your journey of being a business owner?

Luke:

It has because you only know what you know. There's a lot that business people don't know and the thing about being a business person is like usually you know, you see a lot of people that get into business and then they got a high ego and they think you know because they're preparing themselves in their community. People that you know work for somebody and then they've gone out and created a business. Their ego is high. They don't want to get help, they just think they know everything because they've been able to create the business. It's complete opposite. I wouldn't, uh, if I could go back, I would have got, you know, a little bit of mentoring, a little bit of advice, definitely a lot earlier than what I did. Just uh would have made so many mistakes, because when I talk about mistakes I'm talking about, you know, 10, 15, 20, 100 grand losses just from the strikes it up.

George:

You can. You can save yourself a lot of time, effort and heartache. You can money by getting some advice early on in your business. Really, at any stage of your business. The right advice will always pay for itself. It does, yeah. Where to? For the future, what are your aspirations now? So you're seven years in, coming into seven years? Yeah, what are the next three years going to look like for you, coming into 10 years of operation?

Luke:

I'm still working a lot of that out. There's still a lot of things that I'll want to do. You know there's a lot of commercial projects and residential, but I believe I want to be a commercial and residential building specialist. I just want to purely work for good people. I want to try and create that platform, you know, whereas going commercial and residential, I can, you know, choose my client base, have people come and say, yep, we're a good fit, we're not a good fit, and then just do good by the community. By that, you know, I believe a big thing in the leadership for everybody that you know is involved. I want to create the best possible, you know, careers for everybody who's involved in my company and that's what I'm going to work on. And you know I'm still.

Luke:

A few people say to me Luke, you need to niche down in what you do, you need to find commercial or residential, I don't know. You know most of our jobs go pretty smooth. I've got pretty good guys on. I've got very experienced guys on. I've got guys that know more about construction than I do. Yeah, working for me, it's good. So, you know, it gives us that leverage to do both commercial and residential. The thing I like about commercial, is the pressure behind you. You know you get the timeframe and then you're like, fuck, I've got to do this. I've got to. You know, work this Saturday, sunday, I've got. You know I don't have time to muck around. You know you're looking at a, you're looking at your contract. You know if you blow out you could cost yourself five, six grand a day, you know.

George:

So you've got to be yeah, but if you make it early you could make yourself five.

Luke:

There's also the pressure that's on there. There's a lot of things that can go wrong with commercial. I sort of like that. The thing I like about doing residential is I get to help a lot of people out. I get to do a lot of bathroom renovations, decks, pergolas For a lot of people, home extensions. We haven't done a home extension yet underneath our license but we're about to start to double stories. So I'm super, super excited for that. And yeah, we stories. So I'm super, super excited for that and yeah, I'll. You know we'll do them and it's going to be a lot of work and amount as you go, but I know they're going to be good because I'll put every single bit of energy I have and I've got the right guys beside me so we'll get them done and work them out as we go. But it's going to be a very good process.

Luke:

And with the commercial side of things, you know still got a lot of commercial jobs happening. Just won a job, um, on the way here as well, actually a big uh bp refurb, so very excited for that. So that's going to be commencing. You know, while one of these double sluruk jobs are commencing, I'll have two different guys on two different jobs that run them and then the team just jump in between and then me just you know, making sure everything's just running smooth between it and me just you know making sure everything's just running smooth. In the next, in the next couple years of that you know, I believe we'll be doing very large extensions and renovations and just keep the commercial jobs rolling over as well. That's excellent. It's hard, it's hard to sort of say exactly where I'm going to be, but it's all right, you're going to have that.

Luke:

That um vision of where you want to go and what you want to do Some direction. Yeah, yeah, because you can work towards that. I've got a goal. I do know I want to be in the tens to hundreds of millions of dollars in a revenue construction company doing major bridges construction-wise. Yeah, a bit more civil stuff yeah, a lot down the future. But for now I'm just having fun, just enjoying the process, just taking jobs as they come, take it seriously and getting them done. That's excellent.

George:

Well, look, we've enjoyed watching your journey over the um over the years as well, so it's good to see you going from win to win, and part of the reason why we wanted to get you on the podcast as well. So, um, yeah, thanks for making the travel all the way down from uh I appreciate it from the border to come spend some time with us today. If, if people wanted to reach out with you to you, have a chat, get in touch. What's the best way for them to do so? Yeah, so I've got an Instagram.

Luke:

It's just bloopwolky. They'll drop a link here, so give that a follow.

George:

I can drop links as well.

Robby:

Are you going to do the video soon? We'll sort it out.

Luke:

Hey construction company, walkie Construction. So jump on there, give it a follow and watch the journey. I'd love to hear from you. Send us a message if you like.

George:

And if you want to follow Million Dollar Days on social media, you can just look at the link. It's actually over here. It's going to be there, just up here. We're going to get the team to put it up there. Do you know what else people could do?

Robby:

What could they do?

George:

Are you sure you don't know?

Robby:

I'm not sure. I think I know. I don't know.

George:

I feel like I know it feels like we haven't done a podcast in a while, so you probably don't. You've probably forgotten.

Robby:

I might be rusty.

George:

Let me help remind you so you can remind others. And that is to subscribe. That is to subscribe to this podcast, telling all your friends, especially your mother, your mother, tell your mother, get her on board, get her to listen to the podcast, share it with everyone. Luke, thank you very much for coming down today. Mate Appreciate it and mate look forward to watching the journey. And, yeah, let's get you back in a couple of years time when you're building some sick bridges. Then we have a fair, then we have a real story to go on. Thank you a lot.

Robby:

Cheers awesome, thanks guys.

People on this episode

Contributor

George Passas

Host
Contributor

Robby Choucair

Host