Builders Business Blackbelt Members Conference Darwin 2023

Another incredible experience with our amazing group of Builders Business Blackbelt members was had this month in Darwin, of all places. It was 30+ degrees every day and a welcome change sitting at alfresco dining areas every night in shorts and T-shirts instead of the puffer jackets and beanies I've been sporting in Tassie of late.

Every year our members come together in person from all over the country to connect with each other and learn and share ideas to progress the success of their building businesses. There's nothing quite like sharing a few days with like-minded success-focused people to get you to break away from your routine and daily cadence, hit the reset button and zero in on the high-leverage objective for the next quarter.

Bringing quality builders and people together

Many years ago, when we transitioned from your standard garden variety 1:1 business coaching model to a community coaching model, we noticed the pace at which our members progressed went through the roof by a factor of 4.

This meant what used to take 12 months was now happening in 12 weeks! Since then, by focusing on increasing the quality of the people in the group, it's increased progress by a factor of 10 from where we started.

Yes, we've learned how to do things better and introduced better resources and processes, and I'm a better construction business coach now than I was back then, but I'm not ten times better. The improvement has come from the community.

Our conference was about focussing on builders mindset

The focus of this Builders Conference (We call them "Intensives") was to change our thinking to a whole other level. We focused on this because we know that everything is created twice, first in your mind and then in your world.

This means your results are limited to where your mind can go. It was amazing to see this group of builders (and some of them bought along some of their team) supporting and encouraging each other to smash their limiting beliefs and begin to plan incredible futures without being embarrassed or laughed at for being "Unrealistic". What is unrealistic anyway? It's just a label that someone puts on an objective because the limits in their thinking are winning the war.

Profitable mindset

It wasn't that long ago that discussions in the Blackbelt group were around the dream of having $250K cash in the profit account. Because of this process of challenging limited thinking, the reality is last year, we had our first member hit the $1,000,000 cash in the profit account, and multiple other members hit the half million and quarter million mark.

What was not long ago a dream is now a reality for many. The power the group has on each other's belief systems and the ability to expand what they genuinely think can be accomplished is inspiring, to say the least.

Connection is the key to success

Connection is really the key! When we first began running out our Intensives, I'd plan, in fact, over-plan content that I thought would deliver value to our members to make sure they felt investing the best part of a week of their time plus many thousands of dollars in travel and accommodation was worth it.

What I've learned over the years and the lesson I hope you take away from reading this is the real value comes from being part of a community and what they teach each other, how they inspire each other and the ideas and even physical resources they share with each other. 

I've often felt the training I deliver at the Intensives definitely plays second fiddle to what happens during the breaks, the lunches, the dinners at night, and having breakfast in their groups, not to mention the Crazy fun and incredible ideas that hatch when they get a tad lubricated at the bar!

Sharing success stories the key to a successful business mindset

The sharing and caring is the thing that consistently blows me away. I never thought I'd see this with a group of builders. I always thought they saw each other as opposition and would keep their cards close to their chest. I didn't like it, and I hoped it would change, but I never dreamed.

It would be so common to see one builder hand over a process, software for builders they've built or a system they created to another builder in a heartbeat. And that process or system may have taken them years to build and potentially thousands of dollars, and they share it willingly and without hesitation. It never gets old, and I never get tired of the feeling I get when I see it happening.

Key takeaways from our builders conference in Darwin

We're nearly a month after our fantastic get-together in Darwin, and the vibe is still there. The Blackbelt members have changed their priorities, their behaviours and are benefiting from these shifts in a big way already. Something we launched in Darwin to improve the culture and results our members get is a concept called E.P.I.C. If you want to experience EPIC results you need to DO EPIC. This is an acronym for Engage Participate Inspire Contribute.

Business Momentum

We found that members who showed up to our three momentum calls we have every week, who do a journal entry regularly, in other words, engage and participate, had a greater rate of progress in improving their businesses than the members who got caught up in the whirlwind and prioritised working in their business over working on themselves and ON their business.

Unite as one community 

We also noticed that some members' examples inspired others to do better. And finally, we wanted to introduce the concept of contribution to the community. This simply means if everyone shows up to learn what they can to improve their business, and me being the coach, give them an idea, everyone walks away with one idea. But if the number one objective when showing up is to "Contribute" one idea, everyone walks away with many ideas.

We've been doing this in an ad hoch manner for a while, but now we've formalised it. We've created a language around it. We're even introducing a viewable scoreboard to measure it (What gets measured gets managed!), and everyone can see everyone else's scores. It's not there to make people feel bad. It's there to give our members a goal, a target. Without a target, nothing happens. As they say in the classics (And I think this is from Alice in Wonderland), "If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there."

Join the Tool Shed and become a member today

The message I hope you take away from this is if you want to have a successful business, you need to be part of a thriving community. You'll get there faster and easier in a community than trying to do it yourself. That's why the Peleton in a race bicycle race is faster than an individual rider. It's why Geese fly in a V formation. When Geese fly In a V formation they can travel 70% further than a single bird.

I hope this makes sense to you and I invite you to come and join our community in the ToolShed - https://info.buildersbusinessblackbelt.com.au/join-the-toolshed all in one builders app