Paid Quotes Win Better Clients

Free quotes feel normal in construction until you do the math and realize you’re donating weeks of your life to people who might never call you back. We’re joined by Bowden Yarrington from Yarrington Construction in Bendigo, a builder known for heritage work, renovations, extensions, and custom homes, and we get honest about what it takes to grow without burning out. Along the way we talk about why builders rarely share what works, and how getting in the right room can flip your mindset from competing in isolation to improving the industry together.

A big thread is profitability and pricing. We unpack why undercutting destroys outcomes for everyone, how proper margins actually protect homeowners, and why the “cheapest quote” can become the most expensive build once delays, missed scope, and quality shortcuts show up. Bowden walks through his turning point and the exact reasoning behind charging for quotes, putting it on his website, and refunding the fee when the client proceeds. It’s a practical filter for time wasters, a better way to deliver a detailed tender, and a step toward being treated like the specialist you already are.

Then we go deep on AI for builders and where construction software is heading. Bowden shares what he’s building and why most systems fail builders: too many tabs, too many emails, and too many decisions lost in messy comms. We explore “AI native” workflow tools that connect estimating, tasks, emails, cost codes, and accounting integrations to cut the mental load and give time back. If you want better systems, stronger clients, and a clearer path to scaling, hit subscribe, share this with a builder mate, and leave a review with the biggest change you want to make this year.

Transcript

Warm Water Guest Intro And Birthday

George 0:01

I don't normally start a podcast like that, but here we go. Now, for those of you listening at home and watching on YouTube, this is not a beer, it's not a scotch, it's a can of water that Bowden, our special guest for today's podcast on Million Dollar Days, has brought us. Wallaby, still spring water.

Robby 0:21

Sponsor of the show.

George 0:22

Thanks. It's warm.

Robby 0:24

Couldn't even put it in the cooler on the way here. How else would you drink your water?

SPEAKER_00 0:28

It's better warm. It's better for you, right? Look at all the things it's got. Magnesium, sodium, potassium.

Robby 0:34

Canned water is a um an interesting take. We're living in 2030. Naturally alkaline. Living in the future. Uh no, Bowden, thank you for joining us. Thanks for coming down. Really appreciate uh you making the trip down.

George 0:51

Did you get your passport stamped on the way?

Robby 0:53

Why would you have to do that, George? Because it came from all all the way from Bendigo. All the way from Bendigo. Uh, did they have electricity there?

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Uh yeah, yeah. A couple of years ago they they finally got it switched on. Good. Yeah. In Bendigo. Yeah.

Robby 1:07

Nice. Hopefully, uh you'll get uh broadband soon. Dialogue. Dialogue. As you can tell, we uh we know Bowden quite well. But Bowden, for those who don't know you. Do you want to give us a little bit of a a little bit of a snapshot?

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Yeah, well, you got the wrap sheet there.

Robby 1:24

Yeah, I know, but I'm not you.

unknown 1:26

Yeah.

Robby 1:26

I'm happy to do it if you want.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Uh no, that's all good. It's all good. Yeah, my name is Bowden Yarrington. I uh have a construction company in Bendigo. I have been uh working in the industry for 23 years, so since 2003. Plug plug the company. What's the company? Yarrington Construction.

Robby 1:47

Yarrington Construction. Nice.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

What's very what do you specialize in? Yeah, I do a lot of so yeah, new homes, um, extensions, renovations. Uh a lot of heritage. There's a lot of heritage buildings down there, and that's kind of what it's famous for. So a lot of people, most people come to us for heritage. That was rude, the good extension, extension renovations and stuff like that. So um, but yeah, we like we'll do new custom homes and good um modern stuff, commercial as well. Yeah, half the career's commercial, so most of the big buildings around there that were yeah, I've worked on. So good.

George 2:25

Yeah, fantastic. Side note, yeah.

Robby 2:26

How do they make the can pop like that when it's got flat water in it?

George 2:29

Yeah, I don't know. That's what I said. We're living in 2030. That's phenomenal. Um uh Bowdoin, can I can I call you Bowden?

Robby 2:36

Hold on. Uh hold on. Before you do, come on, before you do. I had intended this. I planned this from yesterday. Did you know it's Bowden's birthday? When? Now, oh my god, tell me you got a cake or something. I haven't got anything. Oh, happy birthday, mate. Cheers, man. Yeah, cheers to many more years.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

To your 30th, thank you. Yes, 30th and stuff. I'm 30 years old.

George 2:59

Well done, mate. So much. Thank you so much for not telling anyone. You are the first Bowden. You are the first Bowdoin I've ever met. Yeah. Just so you know that. Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 3:08

And the last and probably the last. There's not many. There's not many.

unknown 3:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

Um, there's actually there's a few. I've met a few. They're always spelt differently, though.

George 3:16

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

Yeah. And when I order takeaway food, I have to say my name's John because it's so hard. Really? Yeah. Because they have to, you know, rep ask me to repeat it all the time. Yeah. So I just say John, John Rambo. That's it.

George 3:30

Next time I'm going to order something, I'm going to say my name's Bowden and see what that sounds like. Never met a Bowden before. You you sound you make it sound like you've k15 of them.

Robby 3:38

It doesn't seem that uncommon a name.

George 3:40

It is.

Robby 3:41

It's it isn't Bo short for Bowdoin. No, it's short for Beaumaris. No, but when you meet someone and their name is Bo, what's their name?

George 3:52

Beaumont. Generally it's Bo. Beaumont. I don't know. I don't know. B-E-A-U Bo. That's their full name. So we met you. I met you. No, we met you a couple years ago. A couple of years ago. We met at the same time.

Robby 4:06

Who?

George 4:07

All of us. We would have met. Oh, yes, we did. A couple years ago. Connected a couple years ago. You would have come to a builder's summit. You've gone through all the way through. Well, let's let's let's let's walk through the journey.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

I think that's what he was doing. I'm pretty sure.

Robby 4:21

No, no, no, no. Like, because you were gonna you were gonna say the whole journey in a sentence. Uh and I want to paint a picture here. Okay. Okay. All right. Yeah, you're right. I was gonna paint it. He was. He was gonna say, like, you did this, this, this, and this. And then I know how George feels fucking odd. He's like maximum efficiency, minimum words. I like it. Just direct. But it's not the correct content form for a podcast. This is a long format. Robbie does most of the talking. Um I don't. Uh,

Why A Builder Seeks Community

Robby 4:48

but you came to an event. The event was called the Builder Summit. Tell us about your experience at the event, man. That's where obviously we first had the opportunity to meet you. Yeah, yeah. Um well actually, you know what? You know what? Like you're you're you're an experienced builder, and I would like to think that most of the people that listen to this tend to be in that sort of space. Yeah. What what was it that made you come to that event?

SPEAKER_00 5:12

Well, I think I just uh I wanted to grow and sort of scale a little bit, and I just had a lot of questions that just couldn't get answers to. Because a lot of builders don't talk to each other. Yeah, I agree with that statement.

George 5:26

I think you might talk to someone if you meet them at like a dinner party, or something like, what do you do? I'm a builder. Oh, I'm a builder too. Oh, how fucked is it out there? Yeah, that's like the first thing everyone says. But it's never like, oh, so what do you use for this? Oh, use this, use that, here, here, let me give you this, let me give you that. Yeah, there's definitely that standoffish aspect of it, I think, which is detrimental at the end of the day to the industry, I think, in the long term.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

A lot of people don't share their secrets.

George 5:53

That's what exactly because it's like if I share mine, you share yours, uh, it's lose. We'll go. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

We're gonna lose. Yeah. It's not the right way to think of it. And that's how I did think of it until you know six months later, I guess. Yeah. So yeah. Just uh just went to see what it's all about and see if I can improve.

Robby 6:15

Yep. And this this water's horrible, just for the record. Wallaby. So do it.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

Maybe it'd be better cold. Maybe. Dude, it just tastes like nothing. It's pH balance 7.5 to 8 pH.

George 6:29

I just wanted to make everyone. Alkaline. So you you went to a builder summit, and then what? What was the next step for you there? Yeah, then uh went on to Built Master, I guess. Yeah, so you invested again, you're like, cool, I like what these guys are about after day one, and then said, I'm gonna go to the three-day event. Yeah. LFG. Yeah. Good. That was the best one, I think. It's one of my favorites. I think it's one of the best trainings that we do, but also I think it's one of the best out there in the industry because we've done, I've done quite a lot of training and development type courses. So I've used all my knowledge over the years, not just in construction, but from my mentoring that I've had and coaches and all that sort of stuff, and now really implemented and refined it. And I think it's one of the best things out there at the moment. But I I specifically remember you, I even remember where you were sitting on the stage. I remember everything that you did. And there was before you signed up to the 12-month program with Builder Elite. I remember there was an element of you going, Oh, just I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if I should do it. Yeah, I don't know. And then it was like that moment where you're like, fuck it.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

Let's go. Pretty much. What do you got to lose? You know, you only really have one life.

George 7:40

Like you gotta go for it, man. Yeah, it's people just get in their own way, and it's like the I I'd like to think, well, not I'd like to think, from what I've seen over the years, it's just the money. They're like, they can't go, oh my god, how do I spend that money on myself? But they'll go and drop 80 grand on a you. Yeah, they'll go and spend $20,000 on you know a new jackhammer, but they'd be like, no, no, I could never spend that money on me as a person.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

Yeah, it's a big investment. Uh, but you know, I'll no regrets.

George 8:09

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly right. And, you know, so much though, and what I love about yourself is it didn't stop there. Like you did everything, all the training that we had to offer and and everything that we were doing. And now you're at a position where your business is doing great. You're you're one of the known builders in um the Bendigo area, but also there's um you're giving back now too. So you've taken your that scarcity mindset you probably would have had early days.

SPEAKER_00 8:36

Yeah, completely flipped out.

George 8:38

And it's you you are like 180. You you you come on all the tours. Like we literally just had the build the summit yesterday in Melbourne. You're with us in Sydney last week, you came with us to Perth last year, and we're going again next quarter. We'll do probably three cities next quarter for the tour. And you're coming to these events not just from the perspective of I'm going to just hang out with the guys for three days, but you're actually coming to go, no, no, I'm gonna give back and show everyone else in the room that no, no, this is what we do, this is what we're about, this is how you get better.

From Scarcity To Industry Wins

SPEAKER_00 9:08

It's together, not on your own. Yeah, I think I've realized that a lot of builders, you know, we're all in the same boat, really. We all need help.

George 9:16

And there's nothing wrong with that. Like imagine we all win. Imagine every builder was doing really good and killing it. You know, we need to build more homes than what we're building to sustain population growth. Yeah, so there's plenty of work for everyone out there. It's just there is. And I said this yesterday, and it's probably one of the first times I've said it actually on stage. It's people um where was it going with that? The people are they're they're very much scarcity mindset, but it's like I can't, they can't win because then I lose. All right, that's how they think about it. If you win the job, then I lose the job. So how is that good me helping you? The chance they're really starting. Even if you did, let's just say me and you were quoting again, let's actually say that right now. Let's just say, hey, there's a commercial project in Bendigo, and I start pricing it, and you can price it too. I know now that you've been taught and you've been you you implement all these processes and systems that you're gonna price it the way it should be priced. Yeah, you're not gonna go and undercut it because I don't know what I'm doing, because you don't know what you're doing, or you're going, no, no, I desperately need this job, I've got to put it in at 3%. Yeah, and which is just a disaster to begin with. Because the moment you go on that sort of margins, like then you're behind the eight ball. Then so you're gonna price it properly in accordance with the market requirements, how you should. Yeah. Now imagine every single builder on the planet did that, yeah. Right. And all of a sudden you wouldn't be competing on price anymore. No, no, this is the price, that's where it has to be. It can't be lower. There is a cost of goods and services that it has to be maintained, and it's there. And at the moment, too many people are going under that because of the nature of the beast and the tough times at the moment, and we're hearing it. Like well, you hear the stories from people you're talking to, I hear it. And it's about changing that perception and everyone sticking together because you know, the industry doesn't necessarily support us from a perspective of or support builders from a perspective of authorities or governing bodies or anything like that. Yeah. You know, associations. They don't give the actual support. They they smoke and mirrors it. Oh, yeah, use this form, or no, no, we checked that you knew how to build before we gave you your license. Oh, always. Always. You know, it's a very easy target to hang on for sure.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

Um builders need to make money too. They need to be profitable. You know, look what happened over COVID.

George 11:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:39

And they're all just going bankrupt, and yeah, and then the houses don't get finished and it causes these problems.

George 11:43

So every owner should want their builder to make good money on a job. They shouldn't be, and this is the scarcity mindset of people as a whole. It's like, no, no, no, we know they why should they make so much money? They make heaps of money. Yeah, but they have to warrant the thing for 10 years. You want them to make good money so they go and buy the best material. You want them to make good money so they go and employ the best people and use the best tools and use all the current procedures and and sh and systems and everything to make their life easier in turn to build a quality product for you. And I had today my foreman called me up and he was ordering timber for a job we're doing down the peninsula. And he goes, Hey, the drawings call for MGP 10. He goes, Do you want me to buy MGP 10 or do you want me to buy use LVLs? And I said, No, no, just go get LVLs. Right? And now, if I was making two percent now, LVLs for people that don't know much about construction are more expensive.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

And they're dead straight though.

George 12:34

Yeah. And I'm like, no, no, just go get the LVLs. What's it gonna cost me? An extra thousand bucks on the job. It's worth it. Like, big deal. I'm not gonna sit there and go, no, no, let's save that thousand bucks because I'm not making any money on this project. Like, no, go and use the proper materials, go and use everything and go above and beyond what you need to. Don't just deliver the bare minimum. And we can do that because we're making good money on the job.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

Whereas if you're making a product, yeah, everyone wins. Everyone wins. Yeah, there's been a couple of jobs I've been to recently and they were built ten years ago, and they've just starting to fall apart like really bad. Yeah. And you know, they they generally just go for the cheapest price, and then that doesn't last.

Robby 13:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:14

Yep, there you go.

Robby 13:15

Do you think builders should be forced to warrant for more than 10 years?

SPEAKER_00 13:19

No, I think 10 years is heaps.

George 13:23

No, but we are now. That was the question is should we be liable for 10 years? Oh, for 10. Yeah, no, we are. I said more than. Oh, more than. More than. I don't think the buildings are designed in such a way for us to be able to do that. Yeah. You know, if you go overseas to Europe, okay, Greece, for example, I remember going there and seeing the way that they construct things. The way they construct them over there is so that they stand up for the next 50 years. We don't build like that in Australia. No, no, homes are designed in such a way that you know the 20 years.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

That's exactly how I build.

unknown 13:55

No.

SPEAKER_00 13:55

That's exactly how I think of it. With what? To get it to last for 50 or 100 years, you know. Yeah, but the problem is best practices wherever you can.

George 14:01

Then build it all out of concrete. Do you know what I mean? What I'm saying, when you're using lightweight, timber moves, timber changes, like the the building itself, they want it to be built like that because in 25 years' time, the next person's gonna buy that property and go, let's bowl it over and start again. Whereas if you build something like I know when I went to Greece, this is many, many years ago, but I remember looking at the structures, a lot of the stuff was built out of concrete, like suspended slabs, concrete columns, infill everything else around it, and they stay up for a really, really long time. Yeah. Whereas here, the structures don't tend to be built in that way. Uh, because look, this is just an opinion of mine. I think they're designed in a way so that they're bowled over in 25 years. This is new homes now that I'm talking about, not the homes that were built that you're renovating. Like even around Albert Park, there's a lot of homes that are more than 20, 30 years old down here that people are renovating. But you look at when you gut them and you look at the guts, they're all on bluestone pavers that haven't moved for 50 years. Yeah, you know, but the older construction methodology, it was good because they did build them more solid. Now I don't think they build them as solid when you're talking your standard brick veneer home.

SPEAKER_00 15:05

No, most of them aren't built that way. Yeah. But just depends on the design and you know the builder and all that sort of thing.

Robby 15:13

You reckon they build them to knock them over.

George 15:15

I think there's there no one would ever say the volume built. No one ever no one would ever say like they're just not gonna last, like they're just not built well. It's not even just the volume stuff. I think if you go and build a townhouse development anywhere, then you're just using it lightweight construction like a brick veneer style home. It should last a while. It'll last no, it not that it won't, not that it won't. But I feel that they're designed in no exactly, it's not gonna be a 50-year thing, you know. But if you did that all out of a solid structure, yeah, it would last for a lot longer. But then they want the because styles change too. Styles of homes will come in and out and all that sort of stuff as well. So that will that will play a factor in too.

SPEAKER_00 15:54

So yeah, built mastery, yeah. It was really good. What was your biggest? If I could get anyone um to if I could, you know, make someone take the the pill to get them to go to built mastery. I think the value is excellent. Well what for three days just sitting there, you know, focusing on your business, getting that sort of guidance.

Robby 16:14

What did you take from it though? Like what was your you were a chippy turn builder, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:20

Yeah.

Robby 16:20

Which is what most people tend to be.

SPEAKER_00 16:23

Yeah.

Robby 16:23

And they seem to be this is in my experience with the people we work with, great craftsmen tend to be not so good at business.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

Correct.

Robby 16:34

What was you going through that journey? What was like a big takeaway for you that you learned? And I'll I'll share an example that might make it easy for you to explain. Like, I spoke to someone about and they're like, oh, we just never really had the concept of like, oh, we need to market. You know what I mean? And like we just never really, it wasn't really something that we we always just got referral work and we never really learned that element, you know, you got you got jobs by being a good bloke. And uh the concept of actually having to pay someone or s some platform every single month was new to them. And they got introduced to it through you know, trainings like that. So what would be something that you oh maybe maybe like a real key element? Like what was like something where you're like, holy fuck, like since then since attending one of these trainings, it's like now I and for some people it's systems, for some people it's employees, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 17:33

Uh what was what was a big one for you? I mean, I think it touches on everything, it's not just marketing or branding or systems or vitality. It's like it's it's everything. And uh yeah, a construction company like being a builder is so difficult. There is so much involved, so many people, thousands of emails, you know, clients to look after, making sure trades do the right thing and employees, employees, buyers. That's what I was yelling at. Like walking in this room, I sent us the wrong sink.

Robby 18:01

Sent you the wrong sink, send me the wrong sink.

George 18:03

Yeah, now I've got and it came from Western Australia, and it's like, oh god, and we needed that sink to get the stone cut, you know, and it's like you've just put us back a week just for a simple thing like that. Yeah, fun.

SPEAKER_00 18:14

It's just yeah, fun. There's everything, and I think that's probably why you know I want to come and help you guys out and help Builder Elite and run some of the tools with you guys because like we need guidance.

George 18:28

Yeah.

unknown 18:28

Yeah.

George 18:29

You can't get a sync for a week from WA. Well, by the time I send that one back and they send me the new one.

Robby 18:35

They can't just air freight the new one over tomorrow?

George 18:37

I don't know. They took the one that that we ordered took about yeah, it took about four or five days at least.

Robby 18:42

Oh, yeah, because if it comes by uh like cargo or however they bring it up.

George 18:46

Oh, I wouldn't, yeah. I express I express I express posted it, but yeah. Four or five days still. Like and by the time it gets to the the office, it gets it gets to the site and it gets to the stone mason, you lose a week, man. Easy. That's shit.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

Yeah, but then like you lose that week and that puts everyone else behind as well on the schedule. So it's like a ricochet effect. Yeah.

George 19:05

Anyway, we'll get that way.

Robby 19:09

So no key thing, huh? It's everything. Yeah, but everything combined.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

Um is there anything you can do? Okay, here's a here's a better question.

Robby 19:19

Is there anything you don't

Stepping Off Tools And Resourcing

Robby 19:20

do now that you used to do? Where you're like, you know what, since that training, I don't do this anymore. I don't pick up the tools. I don't, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 19:26

Yeah, well, yeah, I'm not on the tools, that's for sure. Yeah. I've got yeah, Alex um project management there, so I have an office. So there's a lot that I don't do anymore.

George 19:36

Yeah, well, even more so from that, you also aren't in your business 24-7. Yeah. You know, so you spend is a couple days a week that you're not in the office.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

Yeah, probably. I'm probably in, you know, building systems and playing with our mate Claude or whatever. And uh but I'm kind of building that so that I can get more time back, I guess.

George 19:58

So yeah, exactly right. Um we will get into that as well and have a chat about that. Um, but what's so you've got uh in your team, what's your team consist of at the moment?

SPEAKER_00 20:11

Yeah, so we had uh a much bigger team um uh like a year or two ago. But I decided that I want to get like subcontract carpenters in. Yep. And I just don't want that many employees.

George 20:23

Yeah, that's not a bad move. We we did the same for many years. Yeah, and funny enough, I've just employed a carpenter and an apprentice. Sucker. So yeah, I know, I know. It always comes back full circle, and then I'm gonna get shitty and get rid of them again. But no, I we made that same decision. We made that same decision a few years back, and we're like, no, let's get rid of them. But you know what, in saying that, ever since we've had that person in the business, it's been great. Just to be go, hey, go there, fix this, hey, do that, do that, do that. Yeah, and it's it definitely makes a huge, but also the way we operate too is the intent is to train them up to be supervisors or leading hands, then supervisors, site managers, and so on and so forth.

SPEAKER_00 21:00

So different type of project.

George 21:03

I'm not really but even the carpenter, like he's he switched on for us for me when I was employing, it wasn't just I'm employing a carpenter, I'm employing someone that will do what they need to do and also help deliver the job, not just from a carpentry perspective.

Robby 21:16

Yeah. Uh this is put together by your friend Claude, who you just mentioned.

George 21:23

Hey, I'm friends with him too now. Um just recently.

Charging For Quotes Without Fear

George 21:26

I don't know. You recently introduced me. I don't know. He's been telling you stuff. He's been telling you stuff.

Robby 21:32

Um it says here that you uh you charge for quotes.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

Yeah. A lot of people listening to this. It's yeah, actually, it's it's funny. That's probably the one biggest thing that I've implemented, which has made a massive impact.

Robby 21:46

That's what I was asking you for before. Well, thanks for reminding me. It says here you charge for quotes and you you've got it listed on your website that you do it. Now, I reckon if I told people to do that, that would terrify them.

SPEAKER_01 21:58

Yeah. Yeah, it'll it'll that that exactly right. They'd be like, oh, that'll get that'll scare away prospects.

Robby 22:04

That'll scare away prospects. I can't do that, people won't pay me for a quote. Um have you always charged for quotes? No. Okay, so well, what walk us through the journey, man. How did you go from, you know, I would never charge for a quote to I'm gonna paint it on my website to tell people that I do because I'm not fucking doing this.

SPEAKER_00 22:25

Yeah. Uh yeah, I just spent all my day. I used to spend all my day just driving around and quoting jobs like so much of my time. So much. And then, you know, you put it in, you spend like weeks on it, and then you don't get a call back. It's the worst feeling. Don't even get a call back.

George 22:41

It just angers me just talking about that. I find it so disrespectful, but it's completely my fault. Not everyone's like that. No, no, but it was so like I would get so annoyed. For me, it was like the straw that broke a camel's back. Like I remember pricing a job, they're a young family, and it was three town, two or three townhouses in Oakley or something like that. And they were like, they were just in love with us. They wanted us to build the house. We were referred to them. They're like, no, no, please build it. You're you're the person. We want you to do it. You know, let's get it happening. Gave my tender. It was this was early days, too. This was my first year of operation. It was around the corner from like my site manager's house. Literally, he could walk there. So I was like, okay, I'll go a bit tighter on prelims, everything. And I went in on man, I can't remember. I think it was 10% or something on the build. Yeah. Like I was like, no, no, look, we'll smash this, be in the in and out job. It wasn't a difficult project. Anyway, I went in lower than I should have gone in. And then they come back to me and they're like, Oh, and I hadn't charged for a quote either, mind you. Gave him the best presentation, the best tender, spent weeks on it. And they're like, oh, you know, we've got another guy who's $300,000 cheaper than you. And I'm like, man, I'm not making that money. Okay, we're making half that on this build. Okay, we're making half of that in just margin. And he's saying he can do it for less than that, and he's still making money. Okay, he hasn't priced the same thing. I said, Here, take my quote to him and show him. Like, show, no, don't show show him whatever you want, but he hasn't allowed the same thing. Has he allowed this? Has he allowed that? Has he allowed that? Anyway, they went back to him and his price went up by 150k. And I'm like, they got his price went up by $150,000 in a day. Like you showed him my quote and then it went up $150K. Like, what else has he left out? You know? How do you trust that? Exactly. And then it's like, anyway, long story short, we didn't win the job, and I was so filthy on that, on that. And it wasn't their fault. You know, they don't, they're not educated, and most of the market isn't. They don't understand it. They just see 150k, even if it costs me $50,000 more, I'm still ahead if I than going with George or with going with a more expensive quote. Oh, that pays for all my appliances. Oh, that pays for our holiday next year that we were going to spend that money. It never does. Never does. During the time that we did price that, I drove past the site every now and then. They went, they went from building in a hot market, like as in to sell, like the property market was pumping. And because this builder took significantly longer, I think it was like a one and a half, two-year build, they went into a cold market. So not only did they miss that opportunity to sell their property or to sell those townhouses in a hot market, they went and sold it in a cold one or a downturn. And any money that they thought they were making, they pissed it up against the wall. They lost it all because their properties weren't worth what they were worth, what they should have been worth. And it took them so much longer. And people don't see that. Yeah, no, they don't. You can't compare the two. But that was actually the the uh at the time, that's when I started to go, no, need to go and invest in I I need to start charging for quotes. And I flipped everything around, and it was one of the biggest turning points in my business as well.

SPEAKER_00 25:52

Yeah, yeah, it's been really good. Because I mean, really, if they can't spend $2,000 with you, they're not gonna spend half a million dollars.

George 26:01

Yeah, exactly right. They can't spend money on the quote, they're never gonna spend money on. Yeah, and they get it back. No, that's right. You know, that's right.

SPEAKER_00 26:08

We refund it if they do go through us.

Robby 26:10

So what what was the turning point though? At what point did you turn around and say, you know what? Because I'm sure you felt like you were getting taken for a ride for a significant amount of time. So what was the thing that allowed you? Because I I reckon everyone would like people probably when you you talk about the concept of charging for a quote, I think people have the impression of like sounds too good to be true. Do you know what I mean?

George 26:35

Like kind of like the builders say that or like the consumer builders.

Robby 26:39

Builders, builders.

George 26:40

Because it could, yeah, because the the hurdle with the consumer is well, I have five other builders giving me free quotes. Why would I pay for you? That's it.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

That's that's what they say. Well, what would you say to that? I would say that uh, you know, we want to spend a lot of time getting this right for you, and we'll get a detailed, you know, tender. And then from there, like you can actually save money once we go through it and look through it properly. We'll find places where you'll actually save money on your build because we're gonna sit down and actually spend the time on it. You know, like we don't make money from charging for a quote, but it doesn't even cover the costs.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 27:17

So it allows us to put the time away and do it properly. Where a lot of builders, they're like, oh, another free quote, you know, and they got to pump out so many free quotes that just don't spend the time getting it right. And that's exactly what I say all the time.

George 27:29

And that's what you bang on with that. You said this doesn't cover our cost to put the tender together. So I want you to know that when you pay us for a quote, we are invested in winning this job because we're still losing right now, in the sense of it's costing us more money to put the tender together. So we're invested. So we ask for an investment from you as well. And the great thing about this is we want to work with you. We make money from construction, we don't make money from tendering. So if we do or are successful on your build and award to the project, we refund that money back to you. And I think that's what gets a lot of people over the line. I think the biggest thing about when it comes to charging for quotes, it's they're getting financially invested with you from the beginning and they're emotionally connected with you as a result of that transaction. But you're also establishing yourself as the expert, a go-to specialist builder, as opposed to every other builder. And it does elevate you and increases the percentage of you winning the project. Yeah. And it's true though, because every builder is a specialist. Like you have invested, most builders have invested over 10 years in their craft. So they're experts and masters of what they do. It's the same when you like all I always use the example of a cardiologist and a heart. Like, you're not going to go to a brain surgeon for a heart problem. You want to go to the right person for the right job. And it's the same with builders too. You know, you might be specializing in the heritage homes in Bendigo. Imagine if I stepped into that market now, doing what I'm doing. We do architectural homes in Bayside and Eastern suburbs, and then I go, you know what, I might go try a heritage home in Bendigo. And then you're just going to be like, why on earth would you use PASCON? All right, why that's a silly choice. They don't even do those types of projects, and they're based in Melbourne. Like, why are they that's why would you go with a builder outside of local area?

SPEAKER_00 29:14

Yeah.

George 29:15

Um, so very powerful stuff.

SPEAKER_00 29:18

Yeah, it's great. You know, I guess I definitely learnt that, you know, from you and go into the builder summit and build mastery and stuff like that. And it was really hard at first because you have to like try and uh um ki convince yourself that it's the right move and then let them know that hey, you're actually gonna charge them to do a quote when no one else in Ben you go is definitely doing it, like no one was doing it. And once you do it a few times, you get better, yeah, and then you start to see the benefit out of it.

George 29:49

And the people that don't pay, you don't actually get upset over that because they were never gonna pay for you anyway. You're probably never gonna win the job anyway. And you just saved yourself four to six weeks worth of tendering and you can use that time to concentrate on other things.

SPEAKER_00 30:03

Well, also like the one last thing is why should if you're gonna do it for free, why should someone else's job be paying for someone else's quote? You know? Because you're like making money off, you know, XYZ job over here, yeah, and you've got to do this quote for free. Someone has to pay for the wage to do that. Yeah. So why why is someone else paying for it? Like they should pay for it. That's right.

Robby 30:28

That's an interesting way to look at it. I'd never look at it like that. Um Bendigo.

Building In Bendigo And Staying Put

Robby 30:34

Born and raised? Yeah, yeah. Uh what's it like? You've obviously stuck around. It's cute. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

You go home, you like this isn't it? Nice, it's nice. I mean, the difference is between here and Melbourne. Um have you been?

George 30:50

Probably. You don't remember. I mean, I don't leave I don't leave Alba Park often. Yeah, you don't. Let's be honest.

SPEAKER_05 30:57

It's a small town. It's a small town. I'm sure I've been there.

George 30:59

Everyone kind of knows everyone. Have I been there in the last 10 years? I can safely say no. Unless I've driven through it. Do you need to drive through it to go anywhere? Like, say if we were going to Adelaide, do I need to go through Bendigo? I no, I don't think so. It's kind of out of the way, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. So no. I haven't gone. I definitely haven't been there for definitely since I've been married, so over 13 years. Yeah. I haven't been there for that long, at the very least. I think the last time I would have gone there would have been like primary school. If I had to have been there. I mean, probably not much has changed since then.

Robby 31:32

Have you been there? Are you having a crack of me? No. Um me, have I been there? No, I need uh high speed internet. We'll come, we'll we'll go we'll go for a we'll come for a drive.

George 31:43

We'll come for you.

Robby 31:44

Uh no, actually, I've never been, but I I I would like to go. Is there a is there a good steakhouse down there?

SPEAKER_00 31:49

Yeah, the woodhouse is great. Yeah? Yeah. Is it? Yeah. How long does it take to get there? Like from here. It's about an hour and a half. Uh hour forty-five or something.

George 31:58

Hour forty-five now. I thought you said it was an hour and a half. Two hours. About two hours. Two hours. It's a two hour hour.

Robby 32:03

Two and a half hours. One and a half hours, aren't you? Like four days. Um yeah, no, I've never I've never been, but I'm I'm curious because you're you're quite an ambitious individual, and people who tend to have a level of ambition tend to move towards big city levels. Bigger cities, yeah. Yeah. Where there's more people.

unknown 32:24

Yeah.

Robby 32:25

So there's obviously something that's kept you in Bendigo.

SPEAKER_00 32:28

Yeah, so all my training's been down Melbourne. Um, did a lot of training with the master builders, you know, from 2010 to 2012. And my brother and sister live in Melbourne. So I'll go and stay with my brother and you know, experience all that Melbourne has to offer. I love it. And I nearly did move down. I was very close.

George 32:49

It's almost like a holiday when you come down here now.

SPEAKER_00 32:52

Yeah, but yeah, it's nice. I did there's just too many cars, man.

George 32:56

The traffic's hectic. It is. It is hectic, but I don't know because I don't leave Melbourne Park. But is it yeah, you don't.

Robby 33:02

Um you know what? It's not that bad. Melbourne traffic is not that bad. The city. 40%. Yeah, I don't think it's too bad. I mean, you can go through the city at 5 p.m. and you'll get caught in traffic, but it's not like you're not stuck for four hours. You know what I mean? It's not that bad. We've actually got a quite a good flowing city. Yeah, you're probably apart if you don't get if you don't get caught on the monash when there's a freeway uh an accident. Apart from that, seriously, Melbourne's a pretty well thought at it's probably the only good thing they've done in this whole fucking city. And they did that when they first built it. By accident. Um, right? It's like the only good like things things kind of flow well in that regard. For a big city, you know, if you look at Sydney traffic, I wouldn't know, but I hear it's horrible. Uh and yeah, so that's that's my take on Melbourne traffic.

SPEAKER_00 33:59

Um Melbourne's a great man.

Robby 34:02

Melbourne's okay. It does it's no bendigo.

SPEAKER_00 34:06

It's completely different. So well, it's actually you know what? Some of the buildings are very similar, like the same era, like this building room right now. There's so many aroundigo like this.

Robby 34:17

Like this old Victorian style.

SPEAKER_00 34:19

Yeah, it's all old Victorian heritage. Like the buildings are beautiful.

Robby 34:23

So should people come and visit Bendigo?

George 34:26

Thank you. That was a no. Yeah, don't go, don't go so Bowden can have all of Bendigo to himself.

SPEAKER_00 34:36

Do whatever you want.

Robby 34:37

Um, if you weren't a builder, what would you do?

Gaming Focus And Escapism

SPEAKER_00 34:41

Uh probably gaming gaming full time. Gaming.

Robby 34:46

What do you play?

SPEAKER_00 34:47

What do I play? I retired three years ago. What right that has recent?

Robby 34:52

What did you play? What was your what was your um game of choice?

SPEAKER_00 34:55

I played a lot of uh Ghost Recon uh back in the day, like Call of Junior. Is that like a first person shooter? First person shooter.

George 35:01

Yeah. What didn't you would have you I imagine you being into that? Me, Call of Junior, of course.

SPEAKER_02 35:05

Counter Strike and I was level 47 uh Vettel.

Robby 35:11

I can't remember. I mean a thing goes a high. What's it called when you um when you clock it and then you do it again? Uh yeah, I know the word, but you're a sergeant. It's not legacy, it's phantom. It's you know what I'm trying to say. Anyway, okay. Someone comment what it is because I can't remember what it is. Um, but you don't play first-person shooters?

SPEAKER_00 35:32

Um, a lot of like online role-playing games. I love those. That's my stuff like that. Like fantasy type adventure.

George 35:39

Do you feel like uh do you that's your favorite? Yeah, like the role. I I would just I like the ones that tell a story. Yeah, you know what I mean? So the worst games. Nah, they're the best games. So like Assassin's Creed. I love Assassin's Creed. Assassin's Creed is a little bit. Are you serious? Yeah. Uh no, I've played the last two. The last two are unreal. Like uh Odyssey and Valhalla. Yeah. Or Ragnarok. I don't know what it is, whatever. But just the Viking one and the Greek one, like such a good storyline. You can go do your side missions and your side quests, and it's hundreds of hours of gameplay. So you can come and pick it, you can drop it off, not play for a week or a month, and then come back and get straight back into it. It's cool. I enjoy that type of game.

SPEAKER_00 36:19

GTA 6 is coming out soon.

George 36:21

Well, they're so very interesting. I know, I know. But they're saying that's just gonna break everything, every record. It's going to they're they're predicting it's gonna be billions that that game's gonna make.

SPEAKER_00 36:33

They reckon it's gonna have its own ecosystem, despite it. Its own currency. It's that big. Like you can go to work. It's that hyped up, it's gonna be full on. Pay someone to go get your groceries for you.

George 36:43

Oh, no shit. Yeah, like yeah. It's gonna be, I think it's gonna be. I never played the previous one. Um, I mean, I played it last time I played GTA was on PlayStation One, you know, when it was just the bird's eye view and you're running around in your jacket. You haven't played GTA, yeah. Haven't played the new one. No, the latest one, which is San Andreas or something like that. Okay. Five. Yeah, five.

Robby 37:03

GDF, yeah. San Andreas before that. Um that's interesting, dude.

George 37:09

Pretty cool. So do you still pick it up from time to time?

SPEAKER_00 37:14

Well, I swear it was like an addiction, you know. Yeah. It's like super hyper focused on um one thing in gaming. I just loved it. And then I was like, so why'd you stop? Well, I wanted to reason why I don't do it. Yeah, it's probably the same. I wanted to change like that drive for the business. So I just wanted to drop that and then just focus 100% on this. Good.

George 37:37

And get it. Yeah, I was very much so the same. And I said the same to you before as well. It's I find that when I play, it's just oh, I feel I feel guilty. I feel like I should be doing so much more right now than gaming. I've got like a thousand things I should do. And for me to sit here and game for an hour or two hours, it's like this is the worst. Yeah, even though in the moment I enjoy it. And it's like I've had days where I might be on a even if I have like a free Sunday and I turn the PlayStation on and like start playing, I'm like, oh, what a waste of a day. Isn't it aren't you, aren't you sad about that? Kind of.

Robby 38:08

Because like it's like I know you can't even enjoy the things you it's like are you are you is that really you then?

George 38:15

Yeah, I don't know. Do you get what I'm saying? Yeah, because I wouldn't feel it was a waste if I went jet skiing for the day. Do you know what I mean? Then if I wasn't doing Okay, then maybe you don't like gaming as much. Maybe anymore. Maybe and maybe not anymore. But I I stopped it because it's the same thing. I mean, I think the thing with jet skiing, it's I would do it once every two weeks, depending on weather, once, maybe twice a month, something like that, depending on weather. Whereas the gaming can be like, okay, I'll just play a couple of hours tonight, and then you play a couple of hours the next night, and then like every night. I remember back in the city. It's an addiction. Yeah, I remember when I was playing like Assassin's Creed Odyssey, which was probably during COVID, actually, which was all everything was fucked back then. But I reckon almost every night when the kids went to bed, I'd be up and I'd just I'd just play for hours, and I'd probably go to bed at like 11, 12 o'clock, and I'd be tired. And the next morning you wake up and it's like fucking, it's just that it was that whole vicious cycle. And you know what it was for me, I reckon, at the time is escape, escapism. Because it's like, let me plug into the matrix here and just forget all the shit in my life right now. Yeah, and I think that's what it was. And then it's like you go to bed at 12 and you're tired, and you wake up and like fuck, here we go again. Let's go, another day. And it's like, all right, back, back, back. And then you get back to home and you're a zombie and you're playing games again. And that's why I stopped playing altogether. But in saying that, you know, my son plays video games, and we're playing this game the other day. It's like a kid's game, it's called It Takes Two, and you need it's a two-player game. Like he has to do an element of solving a task, and then I have to do the second part of the task with my character. That was actually quite fun. Like, I I've just started playing that with him, you know, two, three weeks ago. So I play that every now and then with him, and that's that's cool. And it's a bit of problem solving too, so it's not just sitting there mindlessly doing stuff. Yeah. Co-op co-op stuff. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, co-op games are fun. Well, that's interesting that you said gaming though. I didn't know that about yourself.

SPEAKER_05 40:06

Yeah.

George 40:07

Yeah. Robbie was actually real the probably the worst player of FIFA back in the day, I think you were saying. No good, no good. You know what I feel like to that? FIFA's and stuff like that? No. No.

Robby 40:17

You know what I feel like I uh I missed. I feel like I missed the esports or e-gaming era. Like that, people make a living out of playing FIFA online now. Yeah, yeah. Now and still today? Yeah, it's a whole thing.

George 40:31

Esports is massive.

Robby 40:32

Esports is huge.

George 40:33

Yeah, so I would actually go if you know what if there was a comp on, I would go to it. I just to go see and watch. Yeah, I think it's cool. There's comp on all the time, dude. No, as in like they fill stadiums, man. Like I'm talking big. There's this place in the city. Have you heard of it? Cidus. No, do you know Ciders?

Robby 40:49

Of course. I used to go there and play council.

George 40:51

Are you serious? I used to go there too. I bet you we were there at the same time. You reckon? That is so funny. Victoria Street. Uh opposite to the. Yeah, they've moved now. Oh, did they? Yeah, they've moved.

Robby 41:01

I walked past it the other day. It was there. Nah, nah, no. The sign's still there. Nah, it no 100%, dude. Across the road from Vic Market.

George 41:08

Yeah, yeah.

Robby 41:09

It used to be a sign.

George 41:10

It used to be the pizza place on the corner. Oh, I don't know what that one, dude.

SPEAKER_00 41:14

I was a kid. There you go. So you go in there and play computer games.

George 41:18

It was an internet campaign.

SPEAKER_00 41:19

Yeah, yeah. I'm gonna find this place in the city. How cool?

George 41:21

I'm gonna tell you, it'll blow your mind. Um, but keep talking.

SPEAKER_00 41:24

Um yeah, before eSports kind of really took off, that's where I was yeah, really, really good at like Ghost Recon. And I started playing League of Legends.

Robby 41:34

That's pretty cool. I'll tell you, I I know some people who could really game. Like I was okay at first person shooter. I would play, hey, during COVID, you want to talk about COVID? During COVID, I lived with two mates. Everyone had a PlayStation in their room, and we all used to play Call of Duty all night and talk on the headphones and then come meet in the kitchen and have a break. It was fucking great. Like it was one of the most you know Warzone?

SPEAKER_00 41:59

Yeah, right, yeah, kind of.

Robby 42:00

Do you know what a war zone is? No, uh like when you land on an island, there's 150 people, and it's the last man standing. Oh, right. Oh, yeah. You can do it in teams, isn't that? You can do like trials on Fortnite, similar thing, yeah, yeah. Similar thing to Fortnite, yeah. Um, you know, and you all land on an island, it's like there'd be three of us and we'd be on the same team and we'd all be running around walking. It's like if you die, you're out. Yeah, so you don't want to die. Do you know what I mean? And you got no weapons, you gotta pick up weapons and collect money. It was fucking great, dude. It was so much fun. But I also knew people who, and I would say I was okay, but I knew people who were like insane. Oh, dude. So good, man. Yeah. Ridiculous, like, hey, like sniper, they would hit the, you know, how you scope and then shoot, they would hit the scope and shoot, and it didn't even have time to like load load, go down, and it's like boom, headshot. And you're like, dude, how the like how? Yeah. And they like set all their uh controller sensitivity to the highest level. So they're literally moving. Yeah, they're just like and you're like, dude, like I can't play this. I I my thing was like, hey, you know, if I if I played like a team deathmatch and I got 10 kills and 10 deaths, I was like, I did all right. Yeah, he's like, You got 10 kills, 10 deaths, you might as well not have played.

George 43:10

Yeah, on those games, I was the guy that was jumping up and down doing these ones, trying not to shoot something, and then you see him, and the person's just standing there, just like in the game, just stabs me and I die. Um, Fortress. Have you ever been there in the city? Dude, I'm gonna take her. You'll lose your mind. It is a cool, it's it's like Sidus, but just um I don't want to say good.

SPEAKER_02 43:36

I was like, it's like all new, it's like CITUS is a bit skeptical from what I remember.

George 43:42

But it's like full on. They've got they've they've got booths where you can hire a PS or you can hire the the um Nintendo Switch, and you can go with friends and like you can just hang out there. They've got a pub, they've got drinks, they've got a computer area where you can jump on the TV, they've got a whole arcade area where you can go play. You know, games, pinballs, video games. Man, it's full on and it's massive. And then they've got its own arena where they have the sports, like you were saying, and they'll have their own arena where they have proper competitions and they have a huge screen. And man, it's just I never knew anything. Yeah, that's what it was. I went there and I only went there like a couple of years ago. I never even knew the place existed. Funny, me and my son, so one of my son's friends, his dad was like, Oh, let's go check out this place in the city because we're gonna take the boys to go, you know, play some video games. I'm like, Oh, okay, I'll come, we'll go. And when I went in there, I was like, man, I never knew this place existed. He's like, Yeah, it's unreal, it's this, it's this. I'm like, oh, cool, there you go. So cool place. Like, we should have probably thinking back, we should have done our team uh catch-up there. That's how cool this place is. Yeah, I'll I'll show you. You'll freak out. I'm keen. There you go. You won't leave for three days because you'll be just stuck on playing Ghost Protocol. Ghost, whatever it was called. Um Ghost Whisperer. Yeah. That's fine. That's fine, yeah.

Robby 45:01

So so you don't feel like you uh you missed an opportunity with gaming given your age? Like I feel like I did. I feel like I just missed out. I mean, you could always pick it up. It's just so d dude, are you like the hours, the amount of time? It's really hard. It's I used to I used to do nothing. I used to come home from school and I used to play PlayStation until I'd go to sleep. From morning. Oh, yeah, yeah. From from after morning.

George 45:23

I've done that when I was a kid when I was like on the original PlayStations or PS2, I think, even on a weekend. Just wake up in the morning and play all day. All day. Like play this game, I could play. It's the best time.

Robby 45:37

I was addicted.

SPEAKER_05 45:37

That's yeah.

Robby 45:38

I was so I would just do the same thing like reps. You want to talk about reps? Yeah, dude. I would I would go to FIFA comps, like in the like with friends, people I'd know, I wasn't allowed to play. Oh, because you're that good? Yeah, like I was like that if I play, no one's gonna win. Yeah, like I'm gonna win. And like it was say I wasn't allowed to play, I'd have to sit there, like I'd just go and watch because I'd spend so much fucking time on it. I've only ever met one person who could beat me. Yeah, yeah, my whole life. When I was playing, now fucking got a full-time job and shit. Um, but like, and I feel like I missed that era, man. I feel like, and maybe I don't know, maybe it's a victim mindset, but I feel like had I been born five years or ten years later, yeah, I that would just probably what the way my life would have gone.

SPEAKER_00 46:28

Yeah. It teaches you a lot, like when you're gaming at a high level, you still have to be the best version of you to get the results.

George 46:37

Well, there's an element of it, yeah. You you're practicing a craft. It's a sport of some sort. Well, yeah, it is now. And it's seen like people in the older generation be like, oh, that's you know, you're addicted to your device or this or that. But no, well, that that's their passion, that's what they're doing. And you're getting people now, if you're at the top of your game, you can make a lot of money playing video games. Like, I think there's Fortnite competitions as well, where you win a fuckload of money.

SPEAKER_00 46:58

Oh, yeah.

George 46:59

Um, it's almost like in every every game, every genre of game, or most of them, have competitions if there's enough people playing that game, yeah. Um, where they can go and actually make some really good money if if you're in the best. And it's the same with any sport. Yeah, it's not like anyone can play AFL football.

SPEAKER_00 47:14

Yeah, right.

George 47:15

It doesn't mean you're gonna get paid millions of dollars, but the elite people in that space that dedicate their life from 12 years old or five years old all the way to 25 years old of playing nothing but that game. That's all they know. That's all they know, and they're so good at it, and it's like doing the these ones. Like I've played in games where I'm versing people like that, and you're like, Hey, I still I'm trying to I I'm looking at my keyboard trying to find the key, and then you've killed me 43 times already, and it's full on.

SPEAKER_00 47:45

Yeah, and you still like you still have to look after yourself too, because a lot of it's like brain, and yeah, so you know, like you do have to exercise and you gotta eat right because I noticed that when I did those things, I played better and my scores were better. So at an early age, yeah, it's actually

VR Futures And Time Illusions

SPEAKER_00 48:03

taught me a lot.

George 48:03

Have you seen the movie Ready Player One? Yeah, have you seen that? Of course, probably's seen it. Of course, such a good movie, like it's such a cool movie. I think they're doing another one called Ready Player 2. It's gonna be our life segment. Yeah, well, it's interesting, a bit of a segue into that, isn't it? But for those of you watching at home or listening, uh Ready Player One, it's about pretty much, and for Robbie, because he doesn't watch movies, so it's pretty much it's pretty much a digital world where people go to escape their life and you put on a headset and then you're transported to a digital world where you can be any character that's VR you level up, yeah. It's VR, but it's the whole idea behind the VR is you are fully immersed in the game in the game world. So like if someone touches you, you feel it on your hand and stuff like that. Yeah, so you're like in a there, you're in the real world plugged into the matrix or whatever it might be.

Robby 48:51

But it's a really cool movie because that's that's can it shows all that's gonna happen, dude.

George 48:55

It very well could. I mean, they started to try and do it.

Robby 48:57

But hold on, you don't you don't believe that's gonna happen?

George 49:00

I don't know. I don't know. I think it's I don't need I don't know if it'll happen in our lifetime.

Robby 49:06

100% that's gonna happen.

George 49:10

Yeah, yeah. Where people are plugged in and just dude, plugged in.

Robby 49:13

It'll be like a thing of like, cool, like it'll start off like this. Hey, you can plug in for a week. Do you know what I mean? And like you can I can plug in for a whole week and go do stuff in this thing and for a whole week, but you go do a whole week in that thing, and it feels like a year. Does that make sense? So then it's gonna the concept of it just blew my mind. The concept of buying more time is going to change how you buy time, but you're not actually buying more time, you're just buying the feeling of having more time. I don't know. I don't know. That's just when I'm not gonna do it. Does that not make sense? That just blew my mind. Does that not make sense?

SPEAKER_00 49:41

Yeah.

Robby 49:42

Do you understand what I'm saying? Yeah, so you spend a week to get what feels like a year.

SPEAKER_00 49:47

Well, it's a virtual reality. Yeah, it is. It's VR, but they started to bring it to getting so good now. Oh, they're great. You're gonna be put into like a VR War, of course. Dude, it is so real. I'm sure games will get like between rooms.

George 50:02

I'm sure games are like that. And even now, if you go to an arcade, they do have the headsets where you can run around, and there's like actual purpose-built rooms where you can have the VR headsets and going and shooting stuff and running on the zombie thing. I no, I haven't. No, I've done one where you put the headset on and you're like looking around and you're trying to do shit and you're holding controls. But I'm sure it's the games will get like that. I just don't know if the world is gonna plug in like that, as in I'm gonna go home tonight and my missus is already on the VR set sitting there. You know what I mean? Hey, Hawaii, it's just like, hey, just Uber. I've ordered I've ordered Uber, just get the food and eat before you and then come join me. You think she's digging the torque? Well, that's exactly right. Yeah, I'll just see them there and I'm like, oh, I see food Uber's there, and I grab that. Or you've probably ordered Uber on the fucking watch you plugged into the game.

Robby 50:48

That's gonna give you the nutrients. I don't know.

George 50:50

It's gonna give you the nutrients. I don't think that's I don't think that'll happen in our lifetime. Oh, you are underestimating it, yeah, dude. I am hoping. Oh, I'm not, I'm just I hope it doesn't, yeah. Yeah, why? I don't know. I don't think that's I don't I don't think it's healthy. Yeah. What am I gonna know? No one will know better. I wouldn't want my own.

Robby 51:07

Define healthy. Define healthy.

SPEAKER_00 51:10

Oxygen outside. Yeah.

George 51:12

Hey? Oxygen outside.

Robby 51:14

So if if I go if I go eat Macca's outdoors, is that healthy?

unknown 51:18

No.

Robby 51:19

Do you think that's the fine healthy dude? I would say is it living long?

SPEAKER_00 51:23

Healthy would be it's everything. It's like spiritual.

Robby 51:26

So what if what if you're physical, spiritual? Yeah, so what if you sat what if you sat in this machine and it had red light therapy while you were sitting there for three weeks and you come out and your skin's all refreshed and rejuvenated, and you're full of vitamin D and you know what I mean? And you're hydrated and you're re-energized and your mind's clear because your mind has actually had time to rest because it hasn't taken your mind to a different place but your consciousness.

George 51:53

I don't know, man. Maybe I don't know, who knows? But it's very interesting. Get ready. Get ready. He's coming. Get ready. I believe you. Well, I wouldn't believe me. Well, you're um you're on the precipice of that because on your days off at the moment, you're heavily involved in the AI space at the moment, aren't you?

Building AI Native Tools For Builders

George 52:12

Cool. Do you want to run us through that a little bit and what that's looking like for you?

SPEAKER_00 52:16

Yeah, ever since I think uh maybe December, January, the uh the models have just gotten good enough to be able to actually build your own software well. Yeah. You know.

George 52:32

So what have you been investing? What have you been building? Like what have you been on at the moment, and what's your current trajec trajectory with everything?

SPEAKER_00 52:40

The big problem for most well, pretty much all builders is that you have to flick through five different tabs to run your business. You got like OHS on one, you have estimating scheduling on another, you have zero counting, you got all of these things which don't talk to each other. You know, like your counting doesn't talk to um your your emails. Like when an invoice comes in, you need to know, okay, does that go to this project and then the projects to zero, for example? Like none of them really talk to each other. So you always got this split view of your business. And so yeah, just trying to solve that problem. And how are you looking to solve that problem then? Bring it all in together and connect them all up.

George 53:30

So automating it. Yeah. As much as you can. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 53:35

Um, and then you're using heavily AI to do so as well. Yeah, everything's like AI natively built, where all of the software that's out now, it's you know, built like five years ago or whatever. And um for them to be able to build it AI native, they'll have to rebuild it from scratch. So right now is the perfect opportunity to um actually like start building AI native from scratch because these bigger SaaS companies, like they've spent $10 million to get what they've got now, and it's kind of not really gonna be useful anymore.

Robby 54:13

Can you explain that for someone who m that may not make sense too? So like why why does a actually I'm gonna ask for my own understanding? Why can't say for example, who who's the biggest software company in the building space?

SPEAKER_00 54:29

I don't really want to name names.

Robby 54:31

I want to name and shame. You don't want to neither or you want to name names?

George 54:36

I wouldn't even tell you who the biggest software company is. No, I wouldn't even know who it is. All right. From what perspective? Like a finance?

Robby 54:42

Project.

George 54:43

Probably probably one of the is it like build a trend? Okay, let's talk about the American company.

SPEAKER_00 54:48

They've always got build in the name.

Robby 54:50

Yeah. Uh let's talk about build a trend. Yeah.

George 54:54

Okay. I think that's the American one, isn't it? Yeah, build exact.

SPEAKER_00 54:57

No, build a trend's US.

George 54:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:00

They took over Co-Construct, they merged them. That's probably one of the bigger ones. What was it? Co-construct. Co-construct, yeah. Build Trend brought them out.

Robby 55:08

Um, so what why can't they just go and use AI to do more of what they're doing?

SPEAKER_00 55:17

It's because it'll be a bolt-on service, you know. So they just bolted on, like, oh, here's a little chat bot, talk over your data. But at the end of the day, like they aren't hooking up everything together, they aren't hooking the emails into the estimating or the um decisions that were made or the tasks that you need to do from your day to day. Like they weren't really built by a builder for a builder, they're always built by software engineers. So it doesn't, you know.

George 55:48

So are you trying to build the thing that's gonna get all those other programs to talk to us to talk to one thing? Yeah. Or is it are you building something completely new that does everything in itself?

SPEAKER_00 55:58

Both at once. Because why rebuild zero when you can just have an API connection to it? Like it's great. Let's keep that. So, but what do we need to build? Well, we need to build the like the estimating and the tasks and decisions so that if something from like a meeting, a transcription from a meeting or an email, you need an agent or a container to pull that out and either put it into a task or a decision. Because we're always lost in our emails nowadays. Yeah, like how many emails do you get per project? Heaps, don't I? Yeah.

George 56:37

And you're always yesterday I often had over a hundred emails waiting for me today.

SPEAKER_00 56:41

Yeah.

Robby 56:43

It's a mindfield out there. So it's gonna it it sort through all comms.

SPEAKER_00 56:51

Yeah. But it puts it in the right spot, and then it's keeping its own working memory. So for each project, it'll have its own context, its own like brain, I guess, like own memory. And then from there you can get these tasks done. Because there's no point having a hundred tasks on your list, but no way to sort of do them. So it'll be using that to kind of you know draft an email or book a meeting or send a request for quote or whatever it is. And then the decisions coming from meetings or emails, um, they need to go on a specific cost code. You know, they need to go for under cladding. So if they make a decision on the the cladding type, it needs to go there. And it that and you can't lose that information because if you do and you go to do the job and they're like, hey, we emailed you that cladding, it should have been the weatherboard, but you gave us this cement thing, and then you have to pay because they sent that one email telling you to change it, you know, sort of thing. So yeah.

Robby 57:54

What would um what would it solve apart from comms? What other problems would it solve for builders?

SPEAKER_00 58:02

Just the the load, the mental load.

George 58:06

So are you building it so so it does it all for you?

SPEAKER_00 58:09

Or does the user still have to be going, hey, to do that? There will always be a human loop no matter what. Like that's always gonna happen. You're never gonna not need humans.

George 58:23

Not from what you were telling me. What? You reckon one day we're not gonna need humans at all. I th for the for all these digital things now. Probably. There'll be just one robot talking to another robot.

Robby 58:34

I I'll believe that. You don't believe that?

George 58:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:38

Agents talking to agents, yeah.

Robby 58:39

Yeah. That's gonna be a thing. Gonna be a thing for sure. Yeah, for sure. Um I I think the part that people tend to um they want end-to-end stuff done. Kind of like, oh, like I I can't explain to you the amount of times a client has said, oh, like so, so can AI do everything you're doing now? It can do each step, most steps. It can't put it all together and make it work and make sure everything's okay, and make sure it can check everything and so forth. Do you know what I mean? So it's like it's not end-to-end uh duties yet. But I do also believe that we'll get to the point where this is just my opinion, we'll get to the point where houses will be built with no humans.

George 59:28

You know, I hope I see that in my lifetime. That'd be cool.

Robby 59:32

You will while you're plugged into the matrix. Watch it from the car from my own house. Do you not think that?

SPEAKER_00 59:39

Yeah. Um, you probably uh will just have robots building houses and you'll have a lot of pre pre-done things that just get craned in. Yeah. Yeah, but people always want that human touch, you know. Like who wants to live in some concrete jungle that was built by a machine where you can have this beautiful timber which is handcrafted by Robbie. Robots. You know, handcrafted by Robbie. And it's imperfect. People are gonna want that imperfection in hand.

Robby 1:00:08

Yeah, but that'll be a thing you hang on the wall. That's what it'll be. That'll be a thing you hang on the wall. You're not gonna want the whole house.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:14

Yeah, trust me. It'll be a mixture.

Robby 1:00:16

You're gonna want, you're gonna get okay, okay. Let me let me give you a different context, okay? Uh do you want the the vehicle that is all machine engineered? Or do you want the thing that was like kind of built by someone's hand and it's a bit sketchy? You're like, no, no, no, no. I want the fucking perfect one every single time. Okay. Do you want the wood that was chopped by the machinery and it's straight as fuck? Or do you want the one that some bloke with a fucking Zeto circsaw cut it and it's like bent to the left?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:50

But yeah, I kind of want that. Human touch. You don't. I do that.

Robby 1:00:54

Yeah, you want that to put on the wall that was built perfectly by the AI.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:57

No, I think it'll change. I think our perception on what we value right now will change, and we're gonna want more of that human interaction, that human touch.

George 1:01:05

And nothing, yeah. People have said there might there might be an element of that in the custom home space or whatever it might be. There might be an element of that. There might be a small market, but I think there's there's merit in what Rob's saying in Rob, what Robbie's saying. Oh, Rob, Robbie. Is there Robert? Robert. Um the you're gonna get it should bring cost of construction down significantly. Significantly. Okay, and now people are gonna be like, hey, I'm gonna say why is construction so expensive? Labor, labor is a huge component.

Robby 1:01:31

Yeah, okay. So labor's a huge component. What else?

George 1:01:33

Yeah, in material. The supplied material. Yeah, supply material. What do you mean?

Robby 1:01:36

Yeah, what else? Inefficiencies.

George 1:01:37

Inefficiency, yeah.

Robby 1:01:38

The fact that it takes fucking 12 months to put home together. What happens when they work in seven? What?

George 1:01:43

Yeah, they're working 24-7.

Robby 1:01:44

But even that, you're thinking about it's not gonna be a robots thing, it's gonna be like a thing of like print the home. Like, cool, the home's that you you put the order in now, it'll be ready in 48 hours. Yeah. It's like, all right, cool. And then what what happens when that happens? All of a sudden, you can. I'm not like I don't like this house. I've lived here for two and a half weeks, I'm not a fan, I'm gonna get a new one because houses are three dollars and I don't give a fuck.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:08

No, it's not gonna be that easy, man. It's gonna take

Will AI Replace Skilled Work

SPEAKER_00 1:02:11

ages.

Robby 1:02:11

Yeah, I didn't say it's tomorrow. Yeah, but I also people are people think uh sorry, I truly think people are underestimating the exponential curve of what we're gonna see over the coming years and how quick that's gonna take off.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:22

Yeah.

Robby 1:02:23

You know what I mean? And then you gotta think how much of the world changed from 10 years ago. The next 10 years is gonna trump that 10 years so much like we're gonna achieve the level of growth you we achieved in the last 10 years in like uh you know uh uh days. It's gonna take off at a rate that you can't maintain, like we won't be able to comprehend. You will humans will become pets. Like you'll be like, cool, and the world is fucking this is ridiculous. Cost of energy is nothing now because we found a way to source it so well from solar, and we are to AI what plants are to us. Do you ever look at a fucking plant in your room and say, hey, then that thing's fucking doing sick shit? No, you look at it, you think you haven't moved for three weeks. That's what they're gonna say about us because they're gonna get done in three minutes, what would take us three weeks. Does that make sense? Yeah, like I think we're truly underestimating how much it's gonna go. Like it's just gonna absolutely change life as we know it.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:22

And I don't say that.

Robby 1:03:27

Yeah, you're right. Coders haven't been replaced at all. You you truly believe that?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:33

Well, yeah.

Robby 1:03:34

Yeah. Really?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:35

Yeah.

Robby 1:03:36

Do you so do you think coders haven't been replaced now?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:39

Well, no, they haven't been replaced.

Robby 1:03:41

What's the number one job that's been impacted by AI?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:43

So here's the thing, they're not actually like typing or writing the code now, they're not.

Robby 1:03:46

No, so what's the number one job that's been impacted by AI?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:49

Not that. It's coding. No, they're no no. So they're actual people want software developers more than ever. Because now they're using all these tools, they can do five times the amount of work. They already understand how it works, because all agents are doing is really writing code. So who they just don't write it, that's all. Yeah, yeah. Their jobs, like you know, you can if you know what you're doing, you can uh get like 400k a year. Yes, like they are in demand right now, but like to be able to write code, no one does that.

Robby 1:04:21

Yes and no. I think you're right and wrong. Yeah. In the same sentence. But my opinion. Um, I think coders, lots of coders have lost their jobs. I think it's it's look it up. I could be wrong, but I think it would if if not number one, it would be like top three most impacted by what's happening.

George 1:04:41

You're saying they've lost their jobs because one person can now do the work of 10?

Robby 1:04:44

Yeah, dude. It used to be so you for context, for those of you who may not have because I don't even know what coding is. Okay, so if coding is writing code, like writing lines, they're not numbers, it's like writing words and uh symbols that mean something in code language, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:00

To like HTML, like you build at the back end of a website in HTML, this kind of code.

Robby 1:05:05

Yeah. So that used to have to all be written by humans. So if you had to create something, if you had to create a form using code, a human would have to write 20 lines of code. Now you say, hey, create a form, and it creates the form, and the and the code is done like that. And that element doesn't have to be done anymore.

George 1:05:23

Yeah. Um you need to understand it.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:27

Not really.

George 1:05:28

Not really. Not in uh not really so I can become a coder. Kind of.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:32

Yeah, you need a little bit, and you need to take a look at it. If you're doing it, I could learn it. I'm sure in a certain way.

George 1:05:36

Yeah, so it'd say, hey, teach me coding. You will. Yeah, that's what I mean. So I don't need to be a coder because I'm sure I could pick it up. I'm not tech illiterate, like I could figure stuff out. I just don't want to. That's the thing. I don't want to invest the time and I'd have no interest in it.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:50

Yeah.

George 1:05:51

However, yeah, I agree with what you're saying. Like, I think it would definitely do that. It's like copywriters, non existent anymore. Non existent. Yeah, I hear that buzzing too.

Robby 1:06:00

Yeah, stoping on the thing.

George 1:06:01

Is it? I'm trying to step away. I'm gonna step away for a bit. Um yeah, like they don't exist anymore. Um When was the last time anyone got anything copyrighted? Do you know what I mean? Yeah.

Robby 1:06:13

Yeah, it's not you used to have to hire a copywriter if you want to.

George 1:06:17

So someone to say, hey, write this or write this or do that. It doesn't exist anymore. It's um yeah, I I think I was I was speaking to an accountant yesterday, and they were saying that he goes, Yeah, we're starting to try and implement a whole bunch of AI things in the business now. He goes, I think he's gonna have to, because it'll get to the point. See, this is where I think some industries will be heavily affected. It's gonna get to the point where it's like, oh, here are all the numbers. Can you do the batch reporting and send it to the ATO? And it's like, yep, no worries. And it does it in two minutes, as opposed to your your accountant going, oh fuck, I need three weeks. So I think that that's a huge thing. Um I think solicitors will be in trouble too. I think that's a they're already in trouble. I was speaking to a I was speaking to a solicitor not long ago. I actually asked him a question. Um, not one that I've used before, just a guy bumped into it at some meeting and we're talking, and he goes, The problem is we're gonna need we're not hiring juniors at the moment. He goes, we're not hiring the what are they called? The paralegals. We're not hiring those guys, the ones that do the groundwork and go through files and all this shit. I don't need that. He goes because we use AI. He goes, but the problem will be not now, it'll be in 10 years when we need solicitors again. People to actually be talking in front of a judge and going, here's this piece of paper, here's this evidence, here's this evidence, because we're not training any of those guys up anymore. And he goes, that's where we're gonna have some troubles with it. Um who knows where it's gonna be. But yeah, it might even be a robot in 10 years where it's like, here, sir, here you go. And it's like, here's that, here's that, here's that, and they give him all the all the documents, and it's the judge is a robot himself, who knows?

Robby 1:07:55

But I think that we think about AI as robots. Yeah, I know. Because we think we think that for oh for but we've when we do this thing, like when we build a house, we walk onto site and we do it like that, so the robot has to walk onto site and do it like a human. Yeah, and it's like that's not how it's gonna go, and we can't fathom the way it's gonna go because we're not. We're just the reality is it's going to be. I would I would dare say, AI right now is smarter than most people. It has to be, and it's going to get to the point where we can't even fathom the way it thinks. Like now we can kind of understand and reason with it and so forth, and sometimes call it dumb. But not me. Be nice, not me.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:35

No, not Robin. You've got to be nice to the AI.

Robby 1:08:38

I always say please. It'll come get you one day.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:42

Probably knows where you live.

Robby 1:08:43

I think um it probably does.

George 1:08:46

Did you see Claude does maps now? No, I haven't seen that. Really? I only just became friends with him, so I don't hasn't shown me that yet. Anyway, just like come on, man. I might be tripping.

Robby 1:08:56

Disregard that. That might have been a dream. I saw something on my computer briefly and I was like, I need to look into this later. Anyway, I I think it's going to get to the point where we just can't fathom the stuff that we thought was important. You know what I mean? The stuff that we thought we were doing to advance life, I think it's gonna advance it in a way that we we just can't even comprehend. I I truly believe though, that your level of expertise is going to be irrelevant. Because your expertise is gained through experience, and if this can experience and read and consume way more than anyone can, it's gonna be not yours, I don't think everyone's.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:41

I reckon there'll be a new job market. Yeah, yeah, that's that's that's way more likely. People will post like what they're really good at and their expertise, and then you will get hired by agents to like build things for them.

Robby 1:09:53

You get hired by AI, you're tripping. No, it'll happen. Well, I'm gonna hire a plant. Yeah. Yeah. When was the last time you hired a plant?

George 1:10:03

It doesn't like you get sold like a plant. Here's the thing, right? Fuck. Yeah, but probably just a second ago, you grab your piece of paper and you shoot away a little bug or something. You probably would have no hesitation just doing that and killing that bug. A bug? Yeah.

Robby 1:10:20

Yeah, of course not.

George 1:10:21

You wouldn't think twice. There's m billions of those little mugs. Uh mugs, bugs. Yeah?

Robby 1:10:26

Yeah.

George 1:10:27

What about when it gets like that with AI? Hey, this human's this one. Just move. You got in my way.

Robby 1:10:34

Yeah, yeah. That's how we're gonna be seeing. That's what I think.

George 1:10:37

I think it'll look at it. That's where this this whole uh Terminator thing comes along. Yeah, arm again. Yeah, because it's like, you know, we're designed to protect humans. We even need to protect humans from humans. And it's like this country is causing a lot of grief. If we just got rid of all the people on that country, then we can actually utilize the um natural resources to benefit the rest of humanity. Now, it's only 10 million. It's only 10 million that we need to get rid of. So we'll get rid of them because we've got another billion, you know, however many billions there are, seven billion, eight billion people on the planet, because we've got plenty. So if we're just getting rid of the smallest percentage percentage of people, that's the best thing for humanity. Let's go. Yeah. Or it might go, let's get rid of 30% of the population because the way that the planet is going at the moment, we need to get rid of 30% of every country. We'll make it fair.

unknown 1:11:29

You know?

Robby 1:11:30

Yeah, we'll give you a test.

George 1:11:32

30% of every country, if you're not at this level of health, at this level of fitness, at this level of intelligence. Yeah, yeah. You're weighing us. You're you're in, yeah, you're in the percentage that's probably gonna get hit the hardest.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:43

Yeah, no one knows.

Robby 1:11:44

Dude, uh, let me let me ask you a question.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:45

No one knows. It's scary to think about that. But at the end of the day, like we we just don't know. You got you guys what's gonna happen.

Robby 1:11:52

You guys build, right? You build on land. Before you build on the land, do you take anything into account about what's living in that soil? Do you sit there and say, what about these and the soil? Yeah, do you say do you say anything about them? No, you don't you're like, who cares? A human's gonna live here. We need to build a property. Who's to say that that's not gonna happen? They're gonna be like, cool, you know what? Um, Australia's like a really big parcel of land. There's only 25 million people. If we nuke them, we can actually create a solar farm there that could feed the whole world.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:19

You're just thinking crazy though, bro.

Robby 1:12:21

Like huh?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:22

That's just wild, though.

George 1:12:23

But we didn't do it. But Robbie didn't think twice about killing that.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:28

Think about all the positive things that can happen. That's what I'm hoping that if we can get our shit together, yeah. We can get very time back. So if we can start automating a little bit more, like it's still got the human impact, we can start getting our time back, then we actually can do the things that we want to do, spend time with friends and family and all that. Yeah, yeah. That's the way I see it going. I agree, I agree as well.

George 1:12:51

I'm just saying, from the perspective of significance, it may look at it like that because it makes sense. That's all I was saying. I think it'll go the way you're going, you're saying too.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:00

But like when I see a spider inside, I don't just squish it. I like capture it and then throw it, throw it out. What would most people do? Get the fly spray.

George 1:13:08

They would just like oh my god, a spider, get the mortine and and hit it out.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:12

So you know, you know, maybe maybe we can treat treat like train the AI to be nice to us.

George 1:13:17

I've had mate, as I said, I've I remember just recently in summer, there was ants all over my front fence, uh walking along the front porch. There was like millions of them. However, I got the mortine out and went bang. Just get rid of everything. Didn't think I haven't even thought about it since that moment. Yeah, I did that too. But that's what I mean. Is it does it get to the point where AI looks at us and goes, hey, there's a whole bunch of ants here that are annoying me right now? Oh, who knows? And we could do so much more with this spot. It's out of our control though, at the end of the day. It's like why worry about something that happened. What was that happened? What was that AI thing that you're saying they they didn't release because it was too dangerous or something?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:56

It's a security mythos. Mythos. Yeah. It's like a hacking security concern.

George 1:14:02

There you go. Like it's all there's stuff out there that's like that. And I've heard stuff like I don't know how true this is a version of chat that were gonna delete it and it heard about it and it realized what they were going to do, and it tried to copy itself to protect itself. Yeah. You know, stuff like that. Scary.

Robby 1:14:19

And I also think those things spread like wildfire. Yeah. It could very well be that too. Like they do. The whole thing, like the whole thing with um Mythos, people are saying now, like, is it a PR stunt? Because it's fucking fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:30

Everyone's talking about it. Huh? So they they actually released it to the big corporations instead. They're like, uh we can't give this to the general public. Let's just give it to Google and Fortune 500. Yeah, all of that, so they can get their security up to date and then they'll release it to everyone else.

Robby 1:14:49

Will they? Time will tell. Yeah, of course. Um, but yeah, uh to to be clear, um, I don't think it's all doom and gloom. But I do think the stuff that we think we're going to stay doing. Like, I'm sure copywriters thought they still had a job when ChatGPT first came out. I'm sure there are still people who are copywriters. But this is the thing, it doesn't stop overnight. Do you know what I mean? At one point, there was way more uh travel agents than there are today. Way more. It was like that was the only way you got overseas. You had to get on a call to an agent and say, hey, I need to book tickets.

George 1:15:27

Even book a flight interstate. I remember that was the only way to do it. I'm talking early, maybe 20 years ago. 20, I was I reckon I was 23. No, I was. I was 23 years old. And I drove to Sydney with a friend, and we went up there. Uh, he was going, he wanted to just go check out a boat of all things. Like he wanted to go buy a boat, found a boat, and he's like, I'm gonna drive up to Sydney. Do you want to come? So yeah, all right, let's go. So I drove up to Sydney with him. He was there, he looked at the boat, and it was like we got there at like 8 a.m. after like driving at nighttime. Yeah, got there at 8 a.m. and he didn't do the deal with the boat and he was shitty. And he's like, Fuck it, I'm going back. I'm like, what now? Okay, we just got here. I was like, nah, fuck it, I'm gone. I'm I'm I'm not doing this. I'm pissed off. He's go you drove back and I hey, we just got here, I'm not going home. So I knew I had some friends in Sydney, so I stayed for the day and the night, and I went home. I've got a uh hotel somewhere, but the point I'm getting at with my story is for me to get home, I went to a shopping center where I had to go to a flight center and sit down with someone, and I go, hey, I need a trip home tonight on the plane. Can you book it for me? And they're like, yeah, but let me see what's available on the computer. And like, yes, we got one at um, you know, 7 a.m. tomorrow. You know, I'll book that for you. So, yeah, okay, cool. Just tap here and I paid it for it there. That's what the world was like.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:50

And now, like, I would get on my phone and just say, Yeah, cool.

George 1:16:54

Done. Going home tomorrow. And the Uber's picking me up from this place where you didn't buy a boat from. Whereas he didn't have to drop me off. Like, it's it's gonna, yeah, you never ever would have thought that in a million years. And for the longest time, you'd be like, it would still be travel agents there going, no, no, no. Like, people still want to come and speak to a travel agent to book a flight. Yeah, I mean, and it just gets to the point where you're like, no, I don't want to, I don't want to do that at all.

Robby 1:17:18

But some people still do now. Some people still do.

George 1:17:21

I think we're gonna start reverting back to the street.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:22

You still like there was um I feel like that's dude, is that human connection, man? Like, I've seen that.

Robby 1:17:27

Has social media made you talk to more people? No, the opposite. Exactly. Yeah, technology has never worked in the way that people thought it would. Oh, this is supposed to make you talk to more people. Now you get in a lift and you don't look at him in the eye and you look at your phone, even though you've got a home down, just scroll Instagram. Yeah, do you know what I mean? Like it hasn't made us more social. The same way, uh everything as the world has advanced, we haven't connected with people more. What's that noise?

George 1:17:58

You're a builder, aren't you? Yeah. You're an AI um master excuse me, master programmer now.

Robby 1:18:04

Yeah. Um yeah, I don't know. I don't want to be doom and gloom. I don't think it's I don't think it's a bad thing.

George 1:18:11

I think it's just one side of the coin. That's all. Yeah, you just gotta look at it. It could be an option, it might not be. Hopefully it's not. But it could very well go down that path.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:20

Probably. Yeah, it probably will. It's it's yeah. I don't like thinking about it.

Robby 1:18:25

And I also don't like thinking about having doom and gloom. It probably will.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:29

It probably will. I don't like thinking about um having robots walking along the street. I don't mind that kind of freaks me out. I don't know. Why?

Robby 1:18:37

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:38

I don't it's just weird.

Robby 1:18:39

I think that's gonna be great. Think about how safe you're gonna feel dude.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:41

Hey, I'd get one. Safe? Yeah. What do you mean? Well, no one like fly kicks you, bro. That one knows karate and just like bashes people.

George 1:18:48

Dude, they're not they're not stupid. It'll only do that. They're quite smart. If you had if you needed a robot to defend you, you're like, hey, ninja skill, ninja kick his ass. Yeah, it does it.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:00

Yeah, robot battles.

Robby 1:19:01

Why why would yeah? I don't know, see, but I think again, we think like humans. Like, why would a robot attack someone?

SPEAKER_00 1:19:08

Yeah, or why would they wipe out 10 million people though?

Robby 1:19:11

Yeah, again, we're thinking like humans. Uh we do that for other animals, like we do that the same way. Why are we wiping out like the Amazon like you know, we're we're we're destroying natural resources. Um I might around and say, They're like, cool, you guys are I hope it doesn't, but yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:34

Anyway, you you get what I'm getting at.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:36

Yeah, I think it's it's it's very complicated. You tend to find a reason to do something stupid. It's very complicated to run a building business. So if it can free up some of our time, spend time with you.

George 1:19:49

I think all of them are what it's going to do, it's going to enhance us. It's going to enhance how we operate and what we do. And it's already done it now. So that's what I'm focusing on in the interim. You know, for as long as that lasts, however much it enhances, Roy gives me new ideas and says, hey, use it like this, do that, try it like this. You've got stuff coming up. As it progresses, it'll just enhance

Using AI To Multiply A Team

George 1:20:10

people. It'll affect how many people we hire, I believe. And I think it already has, you know, in my opinion. 100%. It's already affected me. Like I know, for example, with my current workload, I so recently I had a contract administrator resign from my company. Five years ago, that's what five, let's say three, two years ago, I would have already hired someone, but I haven't now. Because I can utilize things like Claude and chat to assist with some deep work when it comes to writing scope of works, doing some nitty-gritty task, reports, all that sort of shit. Yeah, I'm like, well, why do I need to employ someone when that task that used to take a CA half a day can now be done in 10 minutes? And I look at that and I was like, well, that's a reason for me not to hire someone right now. Not saying I won't, but the next hire that I bring on, I'll be like, hey, utilize this because now I expect you to look after 10 projects, not just three.

Robby 1:21:17

It's a multiplier.

George 1:21:18

It's a multiplier, it has to enhance the person. And that's where I think I think the next you know, three, two, three years, that's where you're gonna see a huge shift in consumer um sorry, in employer mindset and mentality. You're gonna be looking at it, and I honestly think we like we do events all over the country, I think we're gonna be doing a builder's AI summit. I think it has to come. Of course. I think with everything and where it's at, I think the next level will be okay, guys, come here. I'm gonna teach you how to scale your business. But before we do that, here, speak to my friend. And it's like, whatever. You come up, you come up, a robot comes up. There's gonna be things that we go, this is the next level of how we how we get stuff going. Because it won't be me teaching the scale model, it'll be me saying, This is how I utilize AI to scale my business. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:14

You need it, and you need the infrastructure set up. And by infrastructure, I mean like how your workflow is from point of contact when you first get a client from the website, fills out a form, goes in the CRM, you know, all the way to like a preliminary agreement, and then making sure that you're charging for your quotes for the reasons we talked about, and then actually doing the quote, getting the you know, the pricing from the trades and the suppliers, and then all of the emails with selections and making sure that that's all right, and then um, you know, getting that over to the proposal, like actually giving them the product, which hey, this is what it's gonna cost, like everything's broken down, all the details there, you know, like there is just and then you haven't even built it yet. Yeah, and then you've got to actually go to the construction stage where it's like scheduling and messaging people and purchase orders, then you got the whole financial side, like you gotta manage the budget, yeah, making sure it's all reconciled, and then you got safety on top of that too. Like there's so many bits and pieces everywhere, and like messages from a trade or email from a client or work safe coming in to get yards, you know, so much going on.

Robby 1:23:29

But doesn't safety completely go out the window when no humans are on site?

George 1:23:31

Oh, without a doubt.

Robby 1:23:32

It's like all of a sudden you're like them.

George 1:23:35

Yeah, what is it?

Robby 1:23:35

Work safe.

George 1:23:37

I I think, yeah, I like that.

Robby 1:23:39

Do you know what I mean? Like it's like all of a sudden it's like boulder projecting, yeah. It's a machine that comes and does the whole thing and leaves. That's interesting. Yeah, I think it'll be really cool.

George 1:23:50

Oh, I'd love to see it. I'd love to see it.

Robby 1:23:52

You're gonna see it. I think you know the see the time frame you talked about with the flight center thing. You said it was 20 years. The the advancement of technol technology has only increased. And I think that 20-year period is going to be like the the amount of uh improvement we're gonna see that in like a year or less. You know what I mean? And then it's like, okay, well, if you see that in a year, then what do you see in five?

George 1:24:21

Look, I was still very impressed when we went to the States and I saw driverless cars.

Robby 1:24:26

Yeah, because that's like a real thing. Like you see it.

George 1:24:29

Yeah, physically drive and people are getting into it.

Robby 1:24:31

That same feeling you'll get, I think, when you see like a robot. Yeah. So when you go to woolies and like a robot's walking next to you, and then you say they're like, oh, whoa. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:42

Not keen. Hey, I I don't know, I just don't want to see like robots like walking around next to me and stuff. No, I do. I don't know, it's weird. I want one now.

Robby 1:24:50

Dude, we went to that AI summit thing, yeah, and the coolest thing they did was put a robot on the stage. And it wasn't even that great.

George 1:24:57

I was I was actually quite surprised at how fluid it was when it was dancing, but then it would do other stuff that was quite robotic, as in in its movements. So when it would wave, it was like But then when it was dancing, it was actually the the way it was moving with its body, like it was actually in tune. It didn't look robotic when it was doing the faster movement, but when it stopped for a second, then then someone waved at it and then it went that was a bit more robotic. But it'll get to that point where it's like everything is like no no when it waves, like you won't even know.

Robby 1:25:31

Yeah, but so why do we expect it to act like a human? Like, what if we don't act in the most efficient way? Yeah, it's like oh you need to you need to look up to see what's there. Yeah, no, I don't need to look up, I can't see anything doing my head down.

George 1:25:43

360 degree, yeah. Why use elect why use energy to look up?

Robby 1:25:47

Yeah, do you get what I'm saying? Yeah, but then we'd freak because we'd be like, hey man, it's not looking at me, but it's looking are you looking at me? I don't know if you're looking at me. Imagine you spoke to the robot and it spoke back without turning its head. You wouldn't be comfortable with that.

George 1:26:01

Yeah. It's a huge, it's a massive um, yeah, it's gonna be a massive thing.

Robby 1:26:09

It's gonna be amazing.

George 1:26:11

Yeah, but what a life.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:12

We get to know. Yeah, I I'm excited. I'm excited. My like I always had the plan to um like have semi-retirement by 40. That was my goal from early 20s. Yeah, you know, and only now do I feel like I can actually get control of the business because of having all these tools available. I mean, that's why that's why we start a business, isn't it? At the end of the day.

George 1:26:35

Well, mate, it's gonna be a very interesting space, and I'm looking forward to seeing what you're gonna bring out of it as well. And I think it'll be really cool and beneficial if you can nail it. You know, that's gonna be the challenge, is you being quick enough to market with this product so that uh people can use it before AI catches up and does it anyway. Do you know what I mean? Or does it in a different way or a simpler way? So I think that's gonna be the key metric for yourself moving forward. Great.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:59

Yeah.

Where To Find Bowden

George 1:27:01

Uh good chat. Good chat. Where could people find you if they want to connect? Benigo, of course. No, yeah, traffic. My address is 155.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:11

Yeah, um, it's just my name, uh Bowden Yarrington.

George 1:27:14

And how do you spell Bowdoin? Just because E-O-D-E. Could you spell that for me? Because I'm, you know. That's appropriate.

Robby 1:27:19

Appropriate spelling of both.

George 1:27:21

I think so too. Like, I don't think, you know, when people ask, I can't wait to order takeout tonight when it's not on Uber. A D. I'm gonna say, I'm gonna record it. I'm actually gonna, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna record, I'm gonna put it on speaker, I'm gonna record it with my wife's phone. I'm gonna send it to both of you. Order a pizza. So hey, my name's Bowden. Could I order a large Hawaiian pizza, please?

Robby 1:27:41

Can you can you introduce yourself before you order?

SPEAKER_00 1:27:44

Sorry, can you repeat your name, please?

Robby 1:27:46

If they say that, I'm gonna throw I'm gonna throw up. Introduce yourself before you order, though. What do you mean? Say hi, I'm Bowden. Can I order a pizza?

SPEAKER_00 1:27:53

They never get it right. They always like, sorry, can you what do you do say? Can you what was your name?

Robby 1:27:57

I say hi, can order a pizza?

George 1:28:00

Say hi I'm Robbie.

Robby 1:28:01

But I'll I'll try. You should.

George 1:28:03

It makes the conversation flow better.

Robby 1:28:05

Uh you know what I get a lot?

George 1:28:06

I get Bobby a lot.

Robby 1:28:09

And then they send me an email and they're like, hey Bobby, great chatting.

George 1:28:11

Do you want me to freak you the fuck out? So I get, all right, say, G'day, mate. Um, no, no, I'll do this. I'll pick up the phone. This happens too much for it to be not to be for it to be a coincidence.

Robby 1:28:24

I've heard this and I can't remember what it was.

George 1:28:26

And it's like, I'll pick up the phone. I'm like, hello, George speaking. And they go, G'day, Stuart. I'm like, what the fuck? It got so there was this one guy, he was a stonemason.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:40

He called me Stuart all the time, but I just didn't change him. He has my name saved in his phone as Stuart. So let it run. Who cares? Dude, you do the funniest thing. But this is on the phone. It's not even I didn't even FaceTime anyone. I say, G'day, hello, George. Speaking, G'day, Stuart. Like, good day.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:00

Oh yeah. Yeah. Just call people mate. George Stewart.

Robby 1:29:04

George Stewart.

George 1:29:04

George Stewart. I don't know.

Robby 1:29:05

The name Stuart speaking.

George 1:29:07

But you heard a few first. So uh Bowdoin Yarrington is your handle. Yep. Good. Not many Yarringtons or Bowdens together that are out there. So it should be an easy one to find. Yeah. And your company? Uh Yarrington Construction. Excellent. Well, if you're in the Bendigo area and you want to knock on Yarrington Construction's door to build anything in that space, he is the go-to builder. And if you just want to connect with him online, you can hook that up as well. You guys gonna come down or I'm definitely gonna come down, but we've got to go to the steakhouse. Yes?

Robby 1:29:36

Yeah, Woodhouse. Woodhouse?

SPEAKER_00 1:29:38

Yeah, it's only like we'll drive down. It's about 10 metres from my office, so. Oh, is it? Is that why it's good?

unknown 1:29:43

No.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:44

10 metres from the office. Charcoal.

George 1:29:46

Charcoal grill. We'll lock it in. We'll come down one day, all the way to Bendigo, have some lunch, then drive back. You wouldn't stay the night in Bendigo. Do they have hotels there? Oh I wouldn't. I don't know. Is there anywhere to tie up my horse? I was gonna skip back to Malpa.

Robby 1:30:01

I'll skip as fast as fast as you can. Um no, we'll definitely uh we definitely uh we should we should calm down. We should go and uh drive up and have a steak.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:14

And if you don't, then yeah, I don't blame you.

George 1:30:18

Well we've always got what is it, meat and wine co is that where we go? That's our tradition when we go into state.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:23

Woodhouse is very similar. Like is it very similar.

Robby 1:30:26

You're talking it up, they're not disappointing. You're sitting a high bar George loves it. It is, it's good. George's favorite steaks meal. Okay, is it? Oh yeah, it's good. I think it's a good one. It's decent. I'm keen to start I'm keen to go. Nostalgic now.

George 1:30:37

Yeah, like every time we go, I I've never gone there and had a bad meal.

unknown 1:30:41

No.

Robby 1:30:42

Uh I have, uh but I've also been there heaps. I've I'm most of the time have a very good steak.

George 1:30:48

Yeah, I think I I've gone to Squires Loft and had a bad stakes.

Robby 1:30:51

I've done that too, yeah.

George 1:30:52

Yeah, there was a particular one in Hawthorne, no, Cam Hawthorne, Camboyle, somewhere there. Not Camboyle, Hawthorne. Hawthorne, yeah. Yeah, that was rubbish. Um, but that sh that closed down, I think, probably because of that. Uh, but yeah, there's a few all of the other ones I find pretty good. But um, yeah, always a fan of Steakhouse. We're gonna go to steer one day as well in the near future. So looking forward to that. Really, it's yeah, we'll just give it a crack, see what it's like, see what the hype's about and take it from there. So if you're great, steak place, reach out to us. Maybe we'll get you on the podcast, but only after you give us sponsorship. Sponsorship and amazing steaks to eat.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:31

Thanks, guys. Thanks for having me.

George 1:31:32

Thank you so much, mate, for coming down all the way from Bendigo. And uh, yeah, mate, looking forward to seeing what the future brings with everything you're doing, not just in the construction space, but also the AI and and software space too. I think it's gonna be some pretty cool stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:45

Yeah.

George 1:31:46

Can't wait. Can't wait to share it. Awesome. Happy birthday again. Yes, son of a guy.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:51

I said don't tell anyone. No, you tell everybody.

George 1:31:55

Awesome. Thanks a lot, guys. Thanks. See you next time.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:58

Bait.