Welcome to another episode of Builder’s Business Success Podcast!

The purpose of the podcast, if this is your first time listening is to get rid of as many of the pain causing issues in running a building business

The majority are caused by just those building industry norms. And so they’re not that difficult to change apart from everybody does them

So some of these things are gonna be quite challenging

To most people when they’re listening to it, because that’s what they’ve been doing for a long, long time. We’re sort of pushing the envelope with thinking about things in a different way, but that’s how we create change

The Interview

Our special guest is none other than old mate Glenn Bull. Have had quite a few conversations with Glenn. He’s a really good mate of mine, known him for a long, long time

He’s a very, very successful property developer builder and it’s one of those rare builders that makes a good business doing that sort of thing

It’s not as easy as you think. A big chunk of it is to do with your philosophy and what you put into your mind. That’s what I’m going to talk to him about because he does an absolute exceptional job of standing guard at the entrance of his mind and it’s had a profound effect on his business

The Regular Segments

• We’ve got the “What did I say?”, had the camera’s rolling just in case I said something useful.
• I’ve got a really kick arse tech review. You’ve got to hang around for the tech review. I hope you’re gonna be watching this version ’cause it’s gonna to be a bit of a visual tech review, but I’ll do my very best to explain it so it makes sense for those listening just on the audio only.
• We’re doing our Q and A, so I’m going to be covering a very, very common question that the answer will make a big difference to any building business.

*Transcription of the show*

Hear my conversation with Glenn Bull!

As I said, he talks a lot about philosophy and one of the things I’ve learned along the way, and it’s a really interesting thing to think about is that we think every day we’re going along and we’re making these decisions, like these problems come our way and we make decisions and we solve them and all of that sort of stuff

The reality of the situation is around 95% of the decisions that we make each day are preordained

They’re programmed into us by what we’ve been putting into our mind over the days, weeks, years and decades

So I asked about this process with Glenn and he was telling me a bit of a story about someone who’s been telling him about this of late

– Well, there’s one guy in particular, Dr. Joe Dispenza, and he’s quite a unique human being and I’ve listened to this one, I reckon 20, 25 times in the last three weeks. And what he talks about is how we are, and he talks about habits. And this chap was saying that about 95% of us is made up the first 35 years of our life. And he also says that have about 60 to 70,000 thoughts every day and a lot of those are repetitive

So we can end up with all those structures in place going along in life, living with our body and controlling. He calls our body our unconscious mind. So you got your conscious mind we actually stop and actually take control, or you just go along with the flow. And then he talks about the mood, which was quite interesting

He said the mood is an emotion

When you have such a high emotion your mind takes an actual snapshot of it and that emotion then sticks. And you keep living over and over and over with that same thought process, with that same picture. And that will create the mood

Now your body will actually doesn’t know if it was living in the past or in the future. If it keeps living on that constant memory that’s flashing along in your head

So on a building site, I guess we’ve got to always be thinking into the future, not always walking around and thinking about a builder or carpenter or a plasterer or electrician or a plumber that’s been behaving the same way

We’re going to change all those thought processes now by being consciously alert about it. And I guess that comes into when we have people on a site and we keep being critical about someone saying, “Oh, every day he does this” or, “Every day does that”. Be aware of it and take control of it

– So we all have challenges and problems and things that we don’t like in our building businesses. Changing them isn’t always as easy as we like. So I asked Glenn what do we need to do if we wanna make changes in our business, in our behavior, in our decisions to positively impact our businesses?

– If we read enough of these books and listen to enough of these great speakers and keep doing the studies it’ll all come down to virtually the same thing. And I think Jim Rohn put it the best, Mick. And that was on his thought process of “What is Philosophy?”. Do you remember that?

– Philosophy

– “What is Philosophy?” And his philosophy is what you know and what you decide from what you know is valuable. And that comes from all walks of life. It can come from your parents, the radio, all media, news, people on the site and all the rest

And once you take all this in that creates your own thought process of what is valuable to you. And then he said the other way is how we work and where we ended up in different situations. He said we all have circumstances and they’re all virtually the same circumstance

We all have day time, we all have night time, we all have winter, we all have summer, he said

But your philosophy is the set of the sail, and all circumstances are like the winds

– The old sailing analogy

– Yeah. So it’s how you think is how you get a different result

So if you continue on the same way, there’s an opportunity that the next day it’s going to be similar and the next day, it’s going to be similar. You’re gotta start changing your thought processes

You’ve gotta get some valuable information, so when the circumstances hits us again, the winds hits us, we can end up in a different place. It’s no good just continuing on on their same old veins and blaming the outside influences. We all have the circumstances

We’ve all got to start changing the way we think

– Ah, absolutely, but I do want to quote Mr. Rohn that you just started to talk about where he says, I’ll see if I can do this well

– I’d nearly be able to. I’ve listened to it for 20 years

– “The winds of circumstance blows on us all”

– That’s it, and then he said, “So why does someone end up over here “and someone end up over here?”. Well it’s the way you think, the set of the sail

So your philosophy is the set of the sail. The circumstances blows on us all, but it’s how you think. That’s why in crisis some people take advantage of it. Other people lay in the gutter and cry

It’s the same as that other saying. In the winter time some people freeze to death, others go skiing. There’s always an opportunity when things are a bit hard. So even with this latest entity we’ve had, which is the Covid virus

Most people are going to be freaked out, a bit concerned, hold back, not be as creative as they possibly could do. Is it five or 10% and people and not, I just made that number up, by the way , it could be more, could be less, but I would suggest it would only be five to 10% of people would take advantage of this opportunity

– [Mick] Yeah, I’d say less

– You’d say less, yeah, you’re probably right. But it’s interesting, isn’t it? Because let’s just look at another thing. I mean, we’re talking about mindsets right now

– The unemployment in Australia has always been about 5%, roughly, just roughly. And they say now it’s going to be 10%. That means its suddenly gone up 5% in the unemployment

– That means the other 90% are still employed, but the media is going to enhance that. And so the people will think the same way ’cause they’ve always read a newspaper or listen to news and taken all this negative stuff on board and they chew that over all day, will live in that fear

– So your mindset is an incredibly powerful thing when you think the opposite. That there’s still 90% going out there and probably 80% of the people who were going to have a crack at the title because of all this bad news have now slowed right down

So I’m sure you’ve heard that old chestnut that doing the same thing day after day and expecting things to be different is the definition of insanity

So I asked Glenn how important is it to grow and change and put different things in your mind? Because it is a real challenge and it can be really, really frustrating if we want things to change, but they’re not changing. And it basically comes down to us. So here’s what Glenn said

– I finished school grade 10. I wasn’t the smartest kid on the block, but always had a little bit of enthusiasm. Once I finished school, I thought, well, that’s it, done

– My learnings a’ done

– Don’t need to do any more learning here. I’ll do some training, I’ll play indoor cricket and do some running and do swimming and all for the rest of the body, but I don’t need anymore here. And I was of those guys that sat around the fire pot and if someone said something critical I’d jump in like you wouldn’t believe

So for the first 10 or 12 years of my working life I worked in an environment where I didn’t alter, change, grow in any way, shape or form. I might’ve had some skills, but I didn’t alter or change. Now, what it comes down to is when you actually want to grow

Now, this is about you, Mick. You set up that positive change center and I actually, my thoughts were when I was approaching, that was positive change were, “Alright, Dean, I’ll go.” That sounds really keen, doesn’t it?

But that was what I was thinking. “Ah, alright we’ll go and have a look at it”

When I walked out of there, the information you’ve given me about absolute taking pure responsibility for your actions. There’s no other person out there

And one of your key things with your mind is like a parachute, only it works when it opens. And I had that written down on a piece of paper

When I walked out of there. And then we did that again. and again, I think I went to five of your same, it was the same thing, positive change. And I did it five times. And then you did a time management course and all of a sudden I could control and manage my days better

Where everyday at the end of the day I’d achieved my goals

I was saying this to my partner tonight, Vanessa, she was getting confused with a few bits and pieces

She’s brilliant at what she does. And we gave her a list of stuff to do

And at the end of the day she’d done it and she felt very pumped about it like she’d achieved. ‘Cause as you said back in that time management course, we can get more money, but we can’t get more time. So that was another thing. And then you lent me to those Jim Rohn tapes. So what it comes down to–

– Did you ever give them back?

– Where I changed and all the rest of it was–

– Have you still got them? Did you ever give them back?

– I did. And I very naughtily put them on to CDs for you, I went to a shop in Launceston and put them all onto CDs and then I forwarded them on to you. So yes I did. And I burned another set the other day for my own car, ’cause I was getting a bit mucky and that’s 20 something years ago

So please understand when we talk about giving heaps of praise, you’re the guy up until that day, I was still doing the same old, same old

After listening to what you gave me and then put it all into place

And if I went downstairs and showed you all the books I’ve got down there, it’s all about self-improvement and I still do it every single day

I read a little bits and more and I go to my building sites and yes, it has absolutely enhanced my business to the max

It’s enhanced my relationships. It’s enhanced my relationships, not just my partner but my children and all the people around me. I’ve got a good communication with all my people on the site

I’ve learned a lot more in communication with the selling. It grows everywhere. It’s not just about being successful on the building site. It’s about being successful in your life

– So, there are good times in the building industry and there are bad times in the building industry and in most industries like real estate, investing, building, whatever it is, they always seem to be some people who still do very well

And in fact do better in the down times than what most people do in the up times. So I asked Glenn what were his thoughts about this and how important is it to have the right mindset to be able to move forward in the down times?

– It’s quite interesting. Now it is all about mindsets and I might be slightly off subject here, but it goes back to a long time ago in Launceston when there was a big building downtown, okay. Big building downtown, I guess, due to that 80 or 90% of the specs builders decided not to go ahead because they’d read so much negativity

So they didn’t create any new developments. I went and built four units and we sold those four units in one day with up to a hundred and something people come, it was the biggest downturn ever in the Launceston market

And on the same night, it was a Friday night, about 5:30 and the Examiner rang me, the local newspaper saying, “Hey, can we come and have an interview “of you about how terrible the downtown is “in the building business in Tasmania?” I said, “Yeah, sure, what time”. And she said, “I know it’s late and it’s a Friday night” I said, “That’s okay. I’m here. “I can still be at the development”

And she said, “Okay, I’m on my way”. “Just before I get there” she said, “How have you found it?” I said, “Absolutely sensational”. “So we just built these four units. “We sold them in a day” and she said, “Oh, well, I won’t be able “to do that interview Glenn, “because I want to do an interview “about how bad things are.”

So she found an old chap out the back end of the May with an old Holden One Tonner with three mag wheels and one normal wheel with a white and green Ute. That photo got put on page two of the Examiner. It’s like leaning up against it saying how bad things were

So that there represents an opportunity of what everyone else could read in the paper the next day and give them that mindset. Isn’t that an amazing thing?

– It’s kind of natural when things go wrong, we tend to look around and figure out who or what we can blame. Very rarely do we point fingers at ourselves, but it is so important that we start to learn to do that. So I asked Glenn, how important is this? And how do we do it?

– It is quite unique out there. It is quite unique. And as you said, a long, long time ago, don’t read the newspapers. Just stop it

– Just tell it–

– I think we might’ve said a while ago on one of these podcasts that we don’t need everyone’s opinion telling us what to do. I know right here, right now that if we go to a supermarket or Bunnings there’s all these little x on the ground and perhaps I’ll just stand in those spots, even though there’s no Corona in Tasmania

But I don’t need to be told that on a news bulletin every three seconds. But we don’t need it flogged in our brains constantly. You’re better off getting the better information. Listening to some other stuff

And then with your own mind think what’s one good thing I can do on this building site today? What’s one good thing I could say to this plasterer to get a better result? How can I communicate with electrician to make sure he does turn up tomorrow? Use all that sort of emphasis on your business. Not the rest of it. It’s irrelevant

– Thanks for being back on the show. I know you’re going to be back

– Absolute pleasure. You’re a regular, you’re a repeat offender. You’ve always got something really valuable to say

– Thank you, well–

– You’re a great example of standing guard at the entrance to your mind and how, just what you put on your mind on a regular basis can make a profound effect on your building business

You don’t need to go and get the best builders software and you don’t need all of the best tradesmen and all of that sort of stuff. Standing out at the entrance of your own mind and being a great example and learning how to communicate better, you can get great results with pretty much whoever you’ve got there

Anything further to say while I’ve got the camera on you?

– Thank you very much and thank you, Mick. Like I said, you’re the leader. You’re the one that did put me on this track. And thank you once again. I know I thank you a lot, but thank you once again

– It’s all right, before we go, are those fish? Are they they’re very expensive to keep behind you? Do they eat a lot? Do they die very often?

– Well, it’s an interesting question. I mean, obviously it’s a YouTube video. I can’t afford the fish

What’d I Say?

One of the conversations that we had in the blueprint session this morning was also talking about variations and the process for variations. If you can build this into your process

So we’re now into that pricing space and throwing ideas around

But if you can have them understand, like we really need to do our very best at this point, make decisions, have a cutoff about what we want and what we can’t afford and all that sort of stuff, because we need to get to this point where after we’ve made all of these changes, any future changes has to go through this process

And as I explained to the guys this morning, that process really needs to be one which they understand there is a fee to consider a variation, not to do the variation

So it’s like a new mini project where you go, okay, well we need, there’s a proposal fee for that variation

So they pay X amount of hundreds of dollars, whatever it might be for the builder to stop building, go and have a look at this change, estimate the cost of the change, how it will impact the overall budget

Go back to the customer and say, “That’s going to add another $17,000 to the project. “Do you want to go ahead with it?” And that’s going to save everybody down the track because it’s those variations that give them all of these nasty surprises at the end, because they’ve forgotten about it

Those three or four variations, and it’s added up to another bloody 60 grand and they go, “Whoa, what’s that for?” And there’s no point doing this afterwards. “Well, you signed the variation.” “Well, I didn’t know,” and all of that. It just turns to custard

Whereas I think the preventative approach is, sure we are open to make changes, but be aware after this point there is a fee just to consider changes

Now, other builders will just do the change for you and bill you for it at the end

But that’s the whole thing that takes the icing off the cake

Like it licks all of the bloody toffee off the toffee apple. It destroys the experience of the project and we don’t want that to happen

We certainly want you to have what you want, but you need to know that it needs to contribute to the quality of your experience as well

The Review

Okay, so it’s time for the tech review. I’ve promised you this is going to be a kick arse tech review. It’s going to be something that can make a profound difference

So just give me one second. I’m going to show you what it is

It’s a very heavy whiteboard and it’s a whiteboard that’s basically got four columns on it

It’s got the hopper, to do next week, doing now and done

And it’s really heavy so I’m gonna to put it down and explain what they’re all for

So, here’s the thing. You don’t even need a whiteboard. You could use a window or a wall or a piece of MDF or anything like that

You just need the four columns and yeah, you can do this in software. And I’m the gadget man. Like I love gadgets and all that sort of stuff, but I haven’t found anything better than this to get shit done

The reason that it’s really cool is that it is physical and it’s in your face. And it gives you both an idea of how much there is to be done, but also how much you have done and most other tools, if you like, to manage projects don’t do that

So when you’re managing a project all you simply do, and I used to hate these things

I thought Post-it Notes for the enemy, but grab the Post-it Notes and just write down all of the actions for a particular project

You might have multiple projects

So you could use different colors and you put those actions in that first left-hand column. This thing by the way, is called a Scrum Board. So you can look it up on the interwebs

There are pictures of Scrum Boards everywhere, but it’s just basically four columns and you put Post-it Notes on ’em, very simple. And so all of the things to do for a project end up in that left-hand column and it’s called the hopper. That’s where everything lives

At the beginning of the week without going stupid you decide what are the things that we want to get done this week. And you look down in your hopper and you literally transfer the Post-it Note over to the next column, which is to do this week

Don’t set it up so you get overwhelmed and put too much in there so you feel like a loser at the end of each day

Make sure that you really feel that you can get this done. And that goes into the this week or doing this week column

The next column over is the doing column

On a daily basis you’ll move the things you’re going to do each day across into the doing column. And then obviously, you know what the last column is. That’s the done column

So after you’ve done that activity, you bang it across on the right-hand column

Now you can do this with to do lists. You can do it with Trello on a computer

There’s a ton of ways you can do this. And I’ve always been a proponent of the gadgets as I’ve said, but I can’t tell you the value in having something in front of you so you can see exactly what needs to be done and having this physical action of moving things and seeing the actions progress along to the right hand-side

But here’s the best bit about it is on the right-hand column, the done column, you get a real sense of accomplishment as you start to see that done column being filled up

The problem with everything else, the others systems that you use, if you’ve got it to do list and what have you, you tick it off and then that to do list’s gone

So you are presented with another to do list the next day. And it’s like, God, again, God, again

Whereas if you’ve got your Scrum Board for the projects you can see that you’re making progress

And the good thing about that is adults are really crap at giving themselves any sort of appreciation for the effort they’ve put in and the work that they’ve done

They just simply move on to the next problem, solving the next problem

The Scrum Board gives you a sense that you are moving forward. Now, I don’t know who it was that says, if you want to be successful just keep blue looking forward, just keep moving forward. Don’t ever look back. Well, I think that’s bullshit because if you look forward and look forward only all you can see is how far you’ve got to go

And if it’s a long way it can do your head in. And you never ever get any sort of appreciation for how far you’ve come and what sort of effort you’ve put in

So the Scrum Board gives you an opportunity to look back by that right-hand column you can see how much you’ve done or in other words, how far you’ve come and that gives you the juice, the energy, the motivation, the inspiration to keep going and complete your project

So that’s it. That’s the tech review. It’s a whiteboard, it’s a window, it’s a wall, it’s a piece of MDF. It’s whatever you want to use for columns. It’s your Scrum Board. I’d love you to use it. I’d love you to give me some feedback and tell me how it works for you

Q & A

A question I get asked all of the time is what’s the best platform to put ads on? Which works the best? And it’s such a broad answer or a broad question. And the answer to it really is it depends on, on the prospects that you’re trying to attract

So one of the most important things you got to do, if you want to make your content, your advertising more valuable and get more traction is you’ve got to find out as much detail about your, what we call avatar

And that is the ideal client for your business

And whenever I ask builders what’s the ideal client for your business. They’ll say someone who’s got money and someone who knows what they want and all of these sorts of things. Yeah, I get that

Of course, that’s the ideal client for your business, but imagine an ad that you’d put together if that’s what your idea of an avatar is. If you’re someone who’s got money and you’re someone who knows what you want call me, I’ll build your house. Like I don’t know that that’s going to be all that successful

The key to it is getting super, super specific with the ideal client that you want in your business, even down to the age and even the gender

Because if you’re going to be posting your posts need to resonate with the ideal client that you’re trying to attract

And understand that if you’re trying to attract a, let’s say a 40 year old female, and I say that because if you’re using social media to attract leads into your business, and mostly you’re working with couples, your ideal prospect, your ideal client might be a couple. And let’s say they’re nearing retirement or something like that

But your ideal prospect won’t be a couple, because that is two people

The secret to this is figuring out who the one person is. Who is that one particular person?

And so, have a figure out about who out of the couple is more likely to take the first action, make the first move, reach out to you because that’s who your content needs to resonate with

So you need to figure out who that one is, what their age is and understand that a 35 year old female has very, very different priorities and problems and concerns than even a 40, like the five year difference is massive. But then when you start to get to 10 years or 20 years, it’s night and day

So you’ve got to get very, very specific with who you are putting your messages out to, learn as much as you possibly can about their fears, their frustrations, their wants, their aspirations and speak to that

That’s the thing that you’ve gotta be talking about in your posts

Get away from just posting about yourself and your projects and your progress on projects and things like that

They’re not looking for that. They are looking for a builder who understands their problems, their fears, their frustrations, their concerns, their desires from their point of view

They’re not interested in you, the builder. How long you’ve been around, how skilled you are. Any of that stuff. They want to know how much you know about their problems

In answer to the question, whichever platform you will find those people on is the best platform to put your content on

So obviously, if they’re older they’re probably going to be more on your Facebook than your Instagram, so you’re going to get a younger demographic in Instagram. And if they’re more professionals, you’ll probably find them on LinkedIn

So you need to do testing and measuring obviously, but learn more about your prospect and you’ll get clearer on what platforms you need to put your messages on

Takeaway & Summary

So as always, it’s important to have an actionable take away from the podcast. And I think the take away I’d like you to take away from this episode is standing guard at the entrance to your mind

I quite often ask who is the most important human component in the success of a building business? Is it the client? Is it the team? Is it the building owner?

I believe it’s 100% is the owner of the building business

A lot of other people say it’s the client or some smarter people say it’s the team

The reality of it is it’s you. It’s the owner of the building business. And so your mindset is absolutely critical to the success of the team and then the success of the business

So you have to stand guard at the entrance of your mind. You’ve got to determine what goes in. Your input determines your output. That’s what Glenn was saying

And so what I would encourage you to do is hang around with people who are going to be challenging you to change your thought process and holding you to account and expecting more of you than the average bear

To that end, we’ve got a Facebook group. It’s called Builders Business Success Forum. Easy to remember. This is the Builders Business Success Podcast. It’s the Builders Business Success Forum

Just jump on Facebook and ask to join, jump in there

Because at least then you’re hanging around with people who are looking to improve

They’re sharing ideas, they’re raising the bar and that’s what you need. You need to be in a place where people are looking to improve and encouraging everyone else around them to improve rather than hanging around in groups where we all support each other in our misery and really just talk about how bad things are

You need to be in the right group

You’ve got to stand guard at your mind

So jump across and join us in Builders Business Success Forum

So that’s it for another episode of Builders Business Success Podcast

As always, I want you to know I’m here to support you. If you own a building business, if you’re an experienced builder, if you’ve got a small team, if you’re doing too many quotes, if you’re not getting enough quotes accepted, if you’re still doing quotes for free I want to help you

There is a process that I can show you that can change all of those things

Get paid for all of your quotes, get rid of all of the tire kickers and the time wasters

So if you’re overwhelmed with doing quotes for projects, you’re not happy with the amount of projects that you end up getting accepted after doing the quote

If you’ve got challenges with your team, if you’ve got challenges with the financial measurement and management of your business I’m more than happy to help

So all you need to do is jump on a call. That’s it

We just have a chat and find out what is the best direction for you

There’s a ton of resources we can point you at. We just need to have that conversation to find out where to point you first

So all you need to do is hit the button underneath this video, fill out a form, it goes to the calendar and you’ll get on a call

If you’re just listening to the audio only, all you need to do is navigate to buildersbusinessblackbelt.com.au and you’ll find buttons all over the page there to jump on a call with us. I really look forward to hearing from you

Stick around in the next week and we’ll get another episode of the Builders Business Success Podcast. And I hope you really enjoyed this episode.

I’m Mick Hawes, Builders Business Blackbelt.

That is it. Bye for now.