Hey folks and welcome to another episode of Builders Business Success Podcast!

And in this episode of Builders Business Success Podcast, we'll be talking about building and growing a team as opposed to hiring people.

If you've never listened to the Builders Business Success Podcast in the past, basically the Builders Business Success Podcast is the Construction Business Podcast.

If you've never met me before my name's Mick Hawes and I'm your Construction Business Coach or your Builders Coach, whatever you prefer.

And the purpose of the podcast is to address all of the common and costly problems that almost all builders find in their building business and offer you solutions that are tested. That's not just theory.

They're tested through the Builders Business Blackbelt group of builders all over the country and some peeps in New Zealand as well.

And so as I mentioned, we're gonna be talking about growing a team, developing a team within your business and the value, the cost savings, the benefits of doing that versus I guess how most do and try and find experienced people and so forth.

We are gonna do Q&A and then I've got a fantastic idea of the week and we have idea of the week so we can get a shot of our floating light bulb. cause that's very important, very proud of that floating light bulb. But the agenda, the topic of this podcast is all about what I've I guess coined the team growth matrix. And it's all about growing a team rather than I suppose hiring one.

*Transcription of the show”

So the problem that we're addressing is you'll often hear people say, "Good help is hard to find." And the truth of the matter is, the fact of the matter is you've probably got great help already within your business, but the way that most people run their businesses, the way that most owners of building businesses lead their business, they don't generally get the best from the team that they've already got. And what they decide to do is go outside of that and try and find somebody who's already established already skilled, already got the right experience and so on and so forth. Whereas we really should be looking at the people that have the right attitude that are already in the business. And then having a formal measurable process to be able to grow them. There's a story that we've talked about a few times on the podcast in the past and it's a book it's called Acres of Diamonds. And the pricey of the idea of the book is that a fella goes sells his land to travel the world to find his fortune looking for diamonds and whoever he sold the land to found that there was a diamond mine on his property. You don't need to read the book, but the purpose of that analogy is that there are diamonds already in your business. All you need to do is mine them. And it's a good analogy diamonds because all diamonds are is a lump of coal put under pressure. And so there are a bunch of lumps of coal already in your business. We need to just put them under pressure but under the right type of pressure because we don't want to break them. We don't want to burst them. We don't want them to leave. We want them to turn into a diamond eventually. So the why we need to do this is, as I've said in the description it doesn't matter how good you are, but to be able to get the freedom that you wanted when you started a business to genuinely get that freedom, you need to have a high performance team. It doesn't matter how good you are how skilled you are how brilliant you are. If it's just you and I know you'll have a team you'll have other people in the business but if the business won't function without you, then you won't get that freedom. You'll always be trapped. You'll always be a prisoner to that business. So it doesn't matter how good you are. The other thing we need to understand and why this is important is leadership isn't a gift, leaders aren't born they're made. And leadership is a skill and skills are simply created by getting a proven process and practicing it, performing it, refining it, drilling it, rehearsing it. That's the secret to this. The other thing why this is important. The other reason why this is important is it is far far far cheaper to grow a high performance team within your business than it is to try and hire one. And I'll go back to that same mistake I see builders making in fact most small business owners make is that they try and hire the Rainmaker. They try and hire the rockstar, and you've probably already got them. You just need to have a process to nurture and grow them. Give them the confidence. Give them the experience. Give them the trust to be able to do what you dream you could find people to do. So let's go to the what. And the what is the matrix? Okay. Now I've prepared... Well, I didn't prepare it. Brian prepared it. It's a very complicated thing. As you can see it's four squares, but that is the team growth matrix. And basically each quadrant represents a type of person. And so if we look at a quadrant one team member, they're probably fairly new. They're probably fairly inexperienced. They don't have a lot of confidence because they don't have the experience and so forth. So the way that you need to manage that person is you say, "Hey John, can you see those boxes under the stairs or those boxes out in front there, can you go on and put them under the cupboard under the stairs so they're out the way? When you've done that come back and I'll tell you what to do next." That's called micro management folks. It's not ideal but it is sometimes necessary just in the beginning. The next quadrant is quadrant two where they've got a little more confidence. You've got a little more trust in them and they've got a little more autonomy. So in that case you'd say, "Hey John, see those boxes that are in the way out there in the front, would you find a better place to put them?" And John goes and finds the cupboard under the stairs or wherever they need to go. So there's a little less involvement from you a little more confidence in the quadrant two person. And they're a more valuable member of the team because they can figure a few things out themselves. So quadrant three team member is someone where they will see that the boxes aren't in the right place and they'll figure out a place better to put them. But they'll probably check in with you, "Should I do this or should I do that?" So then they might be knocking on your door just checking on themselves. They've got the ability. They just haven't quite got that confidence to make those decisions on their own but there's a high level of trust. They're really good quality team members. And of course the quadrant four person team member is someone who just does stuff. It's generally the right thing and then potentially they'll tell you later after it's done and that your business can be left in their hands. You can go away. You can have no contact with the business and the business is better than what it was when you left upon your return because somebody some very very capable person probably more capable than yourself at getting stuff done is in charge of the ranch. So what are the problems with this? Is well, if we don't understand that this is in play and we don't consciously create activities for ourselves to find out where people are and then grow them, you sort of... It's like driving with the dashboard of your car blacked out. You're not really sure what's going on. And so the problems or the errors that can be made with this is we all want quadrant fours. But if we've got a bunch of quadrant ones or quadrant twos in the team, and we just expect them to be quadrant four because we would prefer them be a quadrant four person, you'll get bitterly disappointed and frustrated and they will potentially leave because you are expecting them to perform like someone who has the confidence and the certainty and the skill and the experience of a quadrant four but they're really only a quadrant one or two. And it's a little bit like walking them over to the deep end of the pool and going, "I've got a challenge for you." And just pushing them in. Now before you did that, a good question to ask is, "Can you swim?” That would be a good question to ask but I've seen this happen many many times where the management just pushes people in to that deep end of the pool and they struggle for a bit they try for a bit but eventually they give up and their lifeless body floats to the bottom of the pool and the management stand around talking to each other going "Well, he didn't do a very good job, did he or she?" And so they get somebody else and push them into the deep end of the pool. After a little while there's this sort of sea of lifeless bodies on the bottom of the pool and the management go, "Good help is hard to find." It's a problem. Good help is hard to find. Wouldn't it have been a better idea to ask the dude if they could swim. And if they couldn't swim go, "No trouble, come around to the shallow end of the pool and here's some floaties. Am I gonna give you some swimming lessons and build up your confidence? And what have you before we take you down to the deep end of the pool." Wouldn't that be a better process? But we don't often do that. And so we expect quadrant ones and twos to behave and achieve like quadrant fours and you will burn them, and they'll be lifeless bodies at the bottom of your pool. The other issue is you might have some threes. You may even be lucky enough to have a four in your business but if you're one of these leaders that keeps a choke hold around the neck of your business and want everything to come through you and you find it really difficult to let go, you end up treating the threes and potentially your four like a one, what's gonna happen there? Your threes and fours have got the confidence. They want to be trusted. They want to have the responsibility, believe it or not they want to take on more responsibility and you're treating them like a one or a two. What are they gonna do? They're gonna bile, they're going to leave. So it's super important to understand whether or where each of your team members are. Are they a one a two a three or a four? So we've got to make sure that each of the... You know where each of your people currently are. So this is where the leadership comes out. This is the why leadership and the quality of leadership is so important, which you've got to know where they are. And then you need to create opportunity for growth and you don't go, "Okay, what do we need to do to well quadrant one man over there to get him to quadrant four?" That's a bridge too far. What we need to do is if they're a one we need to get them to a two. And if there are two, we need to get them to a three. And if there are three, we need to get them to a four. And so it is essential for you to know where they are and then create opportunity for them to grow into the next quadrant. And you will find that they love it. So I hope this is making sense. Now, the key with this if you're really going to benefit this is to prioritize it. I hope this makes sense that if you prioritize your time doing your office work or your on-site work and you don't give this activity a priority guess what's going to be happening in six months from now or even six years from now? You're still gonna be stuck in doing the office work and on-site work. And you're not going to gain the freedom because you don't have the team that you have trust in and they feel that you have trust in. And if you can build that that's when the magic happens and you will get freedom from your business. And we were talking in one of our Builders Business Blackbelt sessions yesterday we have a momentum call every day with our members. And we were talking about the difference between doing an activity when you have to do it and doing an activity because you choose to do it. And you know that you don't have to do it but you're just doing it because you want to do it. You want to contribute, but if you didn't want to do it it didn't matter it would get done and it would get done at a high quality also. And so that is what I want for you but you've got to work hard to do this. You've got to prioritize this activity and stop do some planning. Do some assessment. Do some analysis. Do some measurement to be able to grow your ones to twos your twos to threes, your threes to four. And if you think about it, having someone go through that evolution and becoming a three or a four in your business they're gonna be a very very loyal team member versus somebody who you employ that's a three or a four and you bring them across because they already know that they're a three or four. You've got to pay them a lot of money and they're not necessarily going to be loyal to you if you're not managing them all right. They'll still jump ship because they know how skillful they are. They know how valuable they are and they will continue to go from place to place to place until they find a home where they are absolutely appreciated and allowed to contribute and grow even more. So this is absolutely essential for you as a leader of your business if you want to get any sort of freedom.

Q & A

Now we've got a Q&A, and it kind of relates to this. So the question kind of almost inspired the topic that we just covered then and it was a question being asked by somebody about what are the best questions to ask when you're hiring when you're recruiting? And I remember many many moons ago when we were doing a previous podcast it was called Small Business Smart Solutions. I'm sure there's still episodes out there in the interwebs if you ever look for it. And I interviewed a guy and I feel terrible that I can't remember his name because he was a super super nice guy. And I interviewed him because he owned the most amount of budget... Sorry, Hertz rental car franchises around the United States. Like he had... I don't remember how many he had but it was in the triple figures of Hertz rental cars. And so obviously they do a lot of hiring and so forth. And we were talking about that with him. And he said... There's a couple of things. The first thing he said is "There's no point asking about the person's previous job because they're gonna bullshit to you, they have to." Why would they have left their last job? It's either because they didn't like the boss or they didn't like the environment or something like that or the boss didn't like them. It's gonna be one of those two reasons as to why they left. But anyway it doesn't make a good story for your new prospective employer. So you won't get the truth and the whole truth and nothing but the truth if you ask questions about their previous employment. And so my man who I forget his name and I feel terrible because of that said, "The key to it is ask them about their first job." "Can you tell me about your very first job? What was it? Did you like it? Why did you like it? What did you learn from it? What are the lessons that you took away from that that you still remember now?" And so you're not asking why they left or anything like that, but you're asking about what they thought and how they felt about their first job. It was an amazing question I felt particularly the way it was explained to me about how much you're getting and actually learn by asking about their first job because they're talking about their beliefs and so forth currently that stemmed from their initial experience. And they're more than happy and comfortable to tell you about that initial experience because it was so long ago. And as I said there's no point in talking about the most recent one because you're not going to get the truth but talking about all the way back then you will find you will get the truth. And it's a very very valuable question. So ask them what they learned, what they liked, what they didn't like, and all of those sorts of questions. "Who did you become because of what you learn?" Things like that but about jobs way way back when. They're the best questions. So you can start to get a sense for whether this person is the right fit for your team. There's a whole lot of stuff that goes into CVs and that sort of stuff that... They're mostly fiction. They're not really worthwhile and most of the questions that people ask, aren't going to get the truth. Whereas if you give them the freedom to be able to speak freely about something way back when where they don't feel that this is going to have any relevance on right now because it was way back then you'll start to get an insight. And I'm not gonna say sneaky. I was about to say sneaky but it's a very wise bit of advice that I got from my very good friend whose name I can't remember who had lots and lots of Hertz rental car franchises in the United States. So I'll find his name and let you know. But they're the sorts of questions you need to ask.

Idea Of The Week

Now, our idea of the week shot at the light bulb, let's get into it. The idea of the week isn't an idea of the week from the traditional sense of what we normally talk about. The idea of the week is an idea that we had that we're acting on and I want to let you in on it. And that is that we are embarking on creating a builders only platform in a standalone app on your phone or on your computer. And the reason that we're doing that is because Facebook sucks. Basically having Facebook groups suck trying to communicate and get valuable content out to you via Facebook is getting harder and harder and harder because Facebook algorithm decides based on your interaction as to whether you get information or not. And let's be honest, there are many people that I've been speaking to absolutely hate Facebook, so they won't go on it. So they're missing out on the information. They want our information but they don't wanna join a Facebook group. They don't wanna get look on the Facebook pages and all of that sort of stuff for many many reasons. And one of which is that there are just massive distractions and that's Facebook's go. That's what they're trying to do is to distract you and keep you on Facebook and go to this then look at this then look at this. It's a massive massive time-waster, plus of the distractions of notifications. So even with our Builders Business Blackbelt members, they miss out on important notifications cause we're currently using a Facebook group to do some of their communications through and Facebook decide whether they're gonna show the different people notifications about content that's being put up there. Plus a lot of people turn their notifications off and hide it it because there's a notification about aunt Jenny who's just taken a photo of what she's eating for lunch and somebody else your sister-in-law's taking a photo of the kids and how proud they are and all of this. There's just all of this stuff going on and we get fatigued and we just end up not paying any attention so we'll miss out on the important stuff. And as I said that it's time-wasters plus in Facebook groups there's a lot of lookers and there's a lot of what you call freeple people who just they're looking for the solutions but they want everything for free. And I don't have anything against freeple apart from very few of them actually implement. They're always looking for the golden bullet and all of that sort of stuff. And these free Facebook groups tend to attract them which means that there's people in the group doing nothing because they look and that means that the algorithm isn't gonna show the people who want to get the stuff, the stuff. So there's lots of reasons. The new platform that we're currently creating and we're hoping that it will be out around Christmas or just a little after Christmas definitely be ready to roll by the new year for sure. It's going to be of super excite. I'm just so pumped about this cause it's gonna be an environment where just builders who are focused on success, focused on learning how to do things better genuinely want to contribute and help each other and share and get in a group like a Peloton and basically share their experience and help others by asking questions by answering questions and by getting engaged in the content. So it's gonna be a group of contributing type people. So there'll be a lot less. So I think we've got over 700 people in the Facebook group now. They'll be less in here but they will be super high quality. We are gonna make sure that we're gonna be consistently and constantly putting top class content into this area into this space into this hub, whatever you want to call it. Think of it like a building and we can all get access to this building. And we can go around the building and get what we need to help build our business. The most important thing to me is that there won't be any distractions. Everything in this environment is going to be focused on helping you build a better building business and you won't get Facebook ads and sponsored posts and all of that sort of stuff to distract you. Once you're in there, all you will see is other things that will help you build a better business and give you more time more money and more meaning, which is the three main things that people start their business for. So we're gonna create this environment that is going to deliver that without all of the distractions and the negativity that you get on the other platforms like Facebook. You will have an app on your phone and it's going to be basically Builders Business Blackbelt. We haven't got the name for it yet. I've got an idea but I don't want to tell you yet just in case we change it but you'll have the app. And if there's a notification it'll put a little red number there as to how many notifications you've got, but you can be guaranteed that that notification is going to be worth looking at unlike if you've got your Facebook app on your phone and there's 45 notifications and you open them up and it's all crap and it's just a distraction which is why you never open it up and you never look at it. But you can know for sure and certain that when there's a notification for you in this environment it is gonna be worthwhile and you're not going to get your time wasted or be distracted by other bullshit. You'll be able to go into this room and see all of the content that is available for you all in this forum in this hub in this environment in this space, and you'll be able to go and access what you need. There'll be courses in there and all sorts of things. Now, there is a link in the chat and there's a link in YouTube in the description there. And if you click that link and fill out the form, what that does is just put you on a list so you will be notified when the door's open to this app. And so the initial group of people that want to go into this app they will be going in there for free and they will get access for free. And that will never change for those people. After a little while, we're going to put a fee on coming into that main area to keep the freeple out because all of the freeple do is they just look and want everything for free and they'll disturb you. They'll ask you questions and want questions and that they're not contributors. They're just freeple. They just want to get stuff for free. They don't contribute. They just want, want, want, and they don't want to pay. Whereas this group is gonna be full of people that are genuinely understanding the benefit of helping each other flying in a V formation like geese. So we can go 70% further in with the same amount of energy or like a Peloton in a pushbike race, they can go further and faster than a single rider. People in this group are gonna understand that and they're gonna be engaged. They're gonna be involved. And if you're gonna be one of those people what I'd love you to do is hit that link and register your interest so you can be one of the people that can get free forever access to this environment because it is something that we are super super pumped about. We are gonna be putting some amazing stuff in there. And we finally gonna be able to get rid of all of the negativity from the distractions and interruptions that all of the other social media platforms bring. So this will only be for builders who are focused on success, focused on improvement, focused on contribution, and know that we can do much better as a team. So hit the link in the comment section, and that's all I want you to do. Just hit the link register your interest. So that's it for this episode of Builders Business Success Podcast.

Jump On A Call

If you want to book a call and have a chat with us about something, you can do that. There is a... You've just go to buildersbusinessblackbelt.com.au hit schedule a call. We'd love to talk to you find out where you are, where you want to go what's in the way. And we can give you a pathway forward to get you on the fast track to overcome many of those common and costly problems that you're probably experiencing now and most builders are as well. So we shall be back again next week with another episode of Builders Business Success Podcast. Please hit the link to register your interest for this new space. You are not gonna regret it. It's gonna be one of the best decisions you've made in a long while. It's gonna be awesome. It's gonna be fun. It's gonna be powerful. It's gonna be exciting. So register your interest and we'll talk to you again next week I'm Mick Hawes Builders Business Blackbelt. That is it. Bye for now.