Most Builders Expand Too Soon...And Pay For It! (Ep 294)

Is your rapid business growth actually ruining your company?

Today, Max talks about the importance of consolidating your business so you can continue to grow sustainably.

Remember, you want your business to be built by design, not by default!

Watch today's episode on the whiteboard --> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL76rc3DrCOMb7VM9icAOQmLodNCSZTfKf

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Guys and gals, forget about growing or expanding your business. On today's episode, I'm going to chat with you real quick about how I use the power of consolidation to grow my business. Check it out. How old are you going to be before you start to experience life like you want it? I want to tell you right now, whether you like it or not, there is a better way to do business. Hi everyone, welcome to the Business for Builders Podcast. Thanks for stopping by. Welcome to you if you're in YouTube land or if you're in podcast land. Just in case all you do is podcast land. We are on the whiteboard as usual. And so maybe be sure to get across there and check us out on YouTube. Okay, my name's Max, I'm your host, and I'm gonna run through some stuff today, as usual, that hopefully brings you some value. So, you know, I think every time that I step up here to do this, you know, uh, yes, I guess I am a business coach. It's what we do with Elite Business Advisory. Um, but I've got to tell you, you know, since being involved at a pretty high level uh as a builder and a general contractor in my own right with my business partner, um, a lot of what I talk about now is real grassroots stuff that's going on every day. And so uh you and me have very similar goals in the fact that we want to create more profit and develop a better lifestyle for us and our family, and I think that's worth fighting for, and it's something I've been doing for quite a while, having got in gotten involved in the building game for about uh or at uh I think it was June 1989 or thereabouts. So I guess I'm coming up now to 30 something years. So uh, you know, what I really want to talk to you today, and behind me I've just written it all up because I can't be bothered writing as I talk because I can't do two things at once, usually, I don't do them particularly well. And you've heard me say before, um, you know, that uh you know, you've got to develop technique first before you want to get, you know, go and sort of grow your business. And I, you know, it's just as I talk to a lot of my coaching clients, builders that I work with in, you know, in uh all over the place, that there's there is the human aspect of what it is that we do, which does limit some of our ability to develop the business as fast or faster than maybe we we want we're currently doing. And so, guys and gals, I need you to really always be auditing yourself. You know, I don't want to limit your growth capacity or your growth trajectory, how you want to grow your business, but you know, I really want to ram home today how that, you know, you know, can there is don't underestimate the power of technique development or consolidation. And so, you know, we hear about, you know, there's a guy, or there was a guy in Sydney uh who passed away recently, a couple of years back, and he had a he'll run a seminar or a function called nail it then scale it. And uh, you know, it was all about, and I think that was I think that was good because it wasn't just hey, let's grow a business, let's develop, let's make more money, etc. You know, he he really focused on the nail it part, like get it down, get the technique solid, and then start thinking about scaling the business. And so really I I'm I'm kind of I find myself talking to more guys about consolidation than I do about expansion because expansion is almost a natural byproduct of good quality consolidation. So the word consolidation means to make strong that which is in your hands or that you have already, and then off the back of that, we sort of develop. So the first one up there is uh, you know, a bigger business isn't always best. And and I've seen guys come in and they've been a small business, let's say, and I've you know, especially in the franchising world, we've we've supported them with the the branding and the marketing and the systemization and everything like that, the software, and we've seen them build big businesses um, you know, close to the two million dollar mark, and then then what happens is the pressure of the business starts to bear upon their shoulders, and it's not sustainable because the the person that's leading it hasn't kept up with the growth trajectory of the business. So, you know, having a bigger business is not always better, okay. Growth can expose weaknesses that already exist in the business. Okay, so not only is it a personal challenge to develop yourself at the same rate or quicker than the business is developing, um, but you've also got to make sure that the business systems and everything around it uh that supports that, the infrastructure of the business is in place and it doesn't uh implode because a higher-paced business will expose massive cracks in your operation. So more revenue doesn't automatically mean uh more profit, okay, or more lifestyle. Even though we would expect it to, it does not necessarily guarantee that. Matter of fact, when you start juggling bigger financials, the losses can become a lot harder to find because it gets air cover from cash flow. So net profit can be uh sliding negatively, and you don't notice it because you've got cash flow coming in. And so this is where we start, you know, wanting to focus on. And this is the this is when you when you hear me say I've seen businesses go from quarter of a million to 1.7, 5 million or what have you, and then they it hasn't worked out and they've they've done they've got they've experienced what we call dieback. Um, it's a lot of the time is because there's there's no personal responsibility taken as it relates to self-education. See, I can talk to you all day long until I'm blue in the face about calculating fixed expense, and then calculating using that and your profit margin percentage to calculate your break-even point, and then what sort of net profit are we running, and if we're not achieving that, what are we got to change? But most guys don't know what their net profit is until the end of the year when it's too late, and so you know, there's this ongoing assessment and auditing process that must take place, and at the same time, you've got to be forecasting in advance because forecasting will help you avoid the pitfalls because you'll know what's coming through, and I talked about that on the last episode, I think. Um sometimes the smartest move is to strengthen the foundation before going up or before expanding, you know. And I you know, I I I don't know why I've got to I feel a certain way today because I I think this is the reality of why builders never really graduate. And I always make the reference that us builders are either in a very elementary or primary school situation or we're in secondary, and in some cases, rare, we're in tertiary. You know, and a lot of those um that system has been developed in the education world because of the level of maturity. Well, and it's very much determined by age, of course. But when we get out into the open world and we're doing business as a builder, it's not determined by age, it's harder to find because I don't know how mature you are. You know, I don't know where your level of understanding is, I don't know how well you embrace educating yourself, I don't know how well you even discipline yourself. You know, like having you know almost got to the back end of raising six kids, my wife and I, you know, there is a point where that you you no longer have the influence to discipline them as an 18-year-old like you would if they were an eight-year-old. You don't carry that weight anymore. And so for me as a business coach, I am an advisor, but I I'm not a disciplinary. Now, do I like to bring awareness? Yes. Do I like to layer over the top of that awareness some education to help improve things? The third thing I do is bring accountability, but I can't enforce that. I can make suggestions and I can set benchmarks and I can set expectations around what I think needs to be achieved. But if the execution is not there, the ideas were not worth anything. Okay? So, you know, we need to be uh understanding that we've got to uh I think we've got to really apply some self-discipline in all areas of our business life as well as patience to be able to build something. And I think I've often said, you know, that we overestimate what we can achieve in 12 months and we underestimate what we're gonna achieve in 10 years. Okay. So, number two, technique before speed. So having a little bit of a motorsport background, um, you can drive a cart around the track fairly easily if you don't want to go at pace. But the minute that you want to start, you know, getting some really good personal bests and you want to get up to the lap speed that you need to, um, if you have got bad habits at a slow speed, they don't necessarily become obvious or detrimental. Okay, but if you increase the speed of that go-kart and your steering inputs are too jagged, and your brake modulation is too abrupt, and your acceleration is uh too spasmodic, it's not smooth, what that's gonna do is essentially it's gonna upset the flow of that go-kart and your lap times are gonna stay low. You're gonna be a slow carter. Okay, systems, communication, and leadership, as well as financial controls, must come first. So if you're saying, okay, Max, well, if I'm gonna work on technique before speed, what do I need to work on? Systems, communication, leadership, financial control. See, they're some of the base or the the the baseline things that you need to start thinking about. I'm telling you, they are just the they're they're just the tip of the iceberg. When you start talking about systems, I mean all of my EBA clients have got access to um have got access to over 400 SOPs or standard operating so standard operating procedures. Does that guarantee them that their business is successful? No, it does not. I myself printed out my own SOPs uh yesterday or the day before because we're coming to an end, and I want to make sure I get all the manufacturer's warranties and you know what is going to happen post-construction in the warranty phase in a file for the client. And I rather than me sitting there going, okay, what do I need to uh include there? I'm like, Max, you don't need to do that, mate. You just got to print out the SOP and follow that. See, and that's why if we go to the trouble of putting together systems and they just get put on a shelf and we never we never use those, we never deploy those across our organization, systems don't do anything, right? And that's why, then if I was saying going to bring in somebody that was going to do my job, I would say to them, when I go to the end of a project and we're gonna start focusing on post-construction in the warranty phase, this is what I do. I go to my library, I print this out, this is how I put a binder together, this is the cover sheet, these are the different you know, categories with inside that binder, this is how I'll present this to the client, etc. etc. So, you know, everything that we do has got to be systemized. But if you're not thinking that way, um, and you're not thinking about, okay, how do I develop uh techniques around systems, communication, leadership, and financial controls, guys and gals, forget about scaling up the business. Crikey. It's just you've got to just be realistic with yourself. So when the student is ready, you, me, right, the teacher will appear. I only said to uh I only said to my wife maybe yesterday, um, you know, we were talking about one of the kids, and it was interesting because as a father, you don't want your kids to be bad students. But, you know, and I know that kids aren't naturally disciplined, they'll kind of do whatever they want. But, you know, I guess what I've done with my life is, you know, I got pushed into a carpentry apprenticeship because my old man pulled me out of school and said, You're not a really good academic, you need to go and maybe, you know, do something with your hands. And I think he was 100% right. And and yet, you know, every time that I've been forced to learn something, I didn't necessarily want to be there. Someone else maybe made a call and said, Max, you need to do this or you need to learn this. And I'm like, Yeah, I don't really want to. And then I never enjoyed the process. Like my mum is uh is a piano player. Well, she thought it was good that I'd get piano lessons from somebody else, you know, a piano teacher, at 3:30 in the afternoon after school when all my mates are out kicking the footy and playing cricket. Like the worst, it's just the worst thing. And I, you know, and and actually that's what we're talking about with the wife. She sort of said, Well, did it teach you things? And I said, Yeah, it taught me scales and it could meet give me a good musical understanding, but it just wasn't something that I wanted to learn, period. However, when it went to the guitar side of things and I went, Yeah, I want to, I'm musical, but I don't want to learn piano, but I want to learn that. Well, that's when I got my own book of you know songs and chords and disciplined myself and self-taught on a nylon string classic guitar. See, that's the difference. So you as a builder, Max is like episode 294. This is, you know, beating it down, like giving it to you, right? It will mean absolutely jack diddly until you, the student, come to the table and go, you've had a realistic sort of experience that says I need to learn this. I want to grow a business, and I know that there's these things in front of me, but you, the student, need to want to go and get into that. And this is why why they say that leaders are readers, is because leaders they like to self-educate, they enjoy the learning process. And I'm not saying you've got to go and read 50 books, right? But you do have to not just get the information but find out the reason why you're getting the information. If I just said to you, read books, you'd be like, How about not? But if I said read this book, because it's going to help you understand the importance of back costing, then all of a sudden you go, Well, that back costing is going to have a positive impact in my business life, so I'm hungry for that information. I'll grab that, I'll have a listen to that, I'll I'll go and listen to that audiobook. See, so I think what I'm really dealing with today is the psychology of the builders, and I know I've been talking a bit about mindset lately, but you know, I I just I'm quietly fed up with guys making excuses why their business doesn't succeed when if I ordered them in their business, I will guarantee you the problem is staring at them in the freaking mirror every morning. And so I just I'm I'm just done trying to sort of say that any other way because I know that when I decided that I want to be a better business owner, that's when my business future changed. I had to embrace the change. Okay. Slow down long enough to improve the way you operate. So it's about, you know, if we're gonna deck, you know, if you're a golfer, I'm not a golfer, I think golf ruins are perfectly great walk around a beautiful golf course, to be honest. Um, but if you're a golfer, you know, I think you want to work on that swing before you start thinking about how many yards you're hitting. You know, I really, it's that's the same when I think that just requires a level of patience, and I think it takes us a while to get the technique right. If you're a golfer, if you're a good golfer, you can probably look back and go, well, I was once a bad golfer. And through consistency and persistence and nailing the technique first rather than trying to knock the skin off the ball, all of a sudden you became a you know a better uh long game type golfer. Feel free to audit me and correct me if you wish, because I'm not a golfer. Right, number three, audit before you expand. So this is really self-reflection, and I do this pretty naturally now because I understand the power of it, um, and it's around this intentional analysis. Okay, so on the fly all the time, we have got projects going, and there is always opportunity for us to learn and get better. Now, there's three phases. First phase is there's an issue. Oh, we forgot two light fixtures. And do you remember we had that conversation? We talked about da-da-da-da-da. And so, what we're trying to do is trying to analyze something that actually has zero impact on the here and now solution, right? Um, and the second thing we we could do is then we can then shout at each other and point fingers, which doesn't achieve anything, or we just go straight to the the solution and go, okay, with all that being said, knowing that in a perfect world, what we want to do is we want to see two light fittings on the wall, what are we got to do to get the job done, right? And then, of course, the the post part of that is definitely you know a situation whereby you can sort of do the analysis and go, well, how do we avoid that next time? You know, what is the way that we we reconcile light fixture selections against you know what it is that's that's required or the numbers of? Okay, so audit before you expend. So this intentional analysis. Um, review your this is what now if you said to me, well, what am I auditing? If I'm going to be intentional about my analysis, what is it that I'm ordering? Uh auditing. Review, review your sales process. When I ask a lot of guys that you know come in for the 30-minute um strategy session, now the free consultation that I offer, I just ask them, what's your sales process? And I've not had one guy tell me, like, there's no two the same. Everyone's got their own opinion on how it should be done. And I'm not sure that there's actually a wrong way. I just know that there's definitely a least effective way to do it and a most effective way to do it. And I would like to think that I do it most the most effective way. Okay, that that pre-construction. But you've got to review your sales process, your estimating process, your project delivery process, and your financial control process. Okay, so there just make note of those and go, okay, if I'm going to intentionally audit or review or analyze my processes, what where do I start? So those ones are sales, estimating, project delivery, and financials. Identify the bottlenecks. So then what you're looking for is bottlenecks, you're looking for friction points, and you're looking for recurring mistakes. Okay, and so again, there's probably a massive list of those, you know, potential bottlenecks, mistakes, oversights, and things like that. What you need to do is figure out what are the things that are a thorn in your side, and we want to put them in an orderly fashion as to what needs remedying first and go after those first things first. Expansion should follow competence and confidence, not enthusiasm alone. I love it when people are just so ridiculously optimistic because they think their opinion matters. When it really does not, what we're really trying to figure out is um what are we doing competently and what are we doing confidently that is going to help us grow the business, not just because we're all excited. I think if you're all, and you know, we talk about this, and and uh Alex Ormozy talks about the old, you know, people love getting started in new projects. We get the brand and we get the URL and the email and the logo and the uniforms and the truck wrap and blah blah blah, and that's all easy, and then we go out and we start marketing and we start not getting jobs, and all of a sudden we find ourselves in the valley of despair. And because we're all addicted to the dopamine shop, we'll go and find something else to do, and because we love setting up the logo and the emails and the truck wrap and all of that, and then we've you know, we never ever stick around in the valley to go. How do we get into the valley? What have I got to do whilst I'm in the valley to get me out of the valley? And then we start moving up, and very few people actually venture out the bottom of that valley, they'll either keep doing what they're doing for whatever reason, expecting a different result, or they'll go and bug out and do something and have a complete career change, which is hilarious, right? So, you know, the expansion is almost this natural byproduct. You'll look at it and go, we are comfortably doing five jobs a year. Now we want to do eight jobs a year because I think we can expand. Like it, it there's a natural fluency that you will feel that you go, we can easily accommodate you another job. You know, we can easily do four jobs at a time now, as opposed to doing two. Why? Because our network of trades has grown. The confidence from our suppliers in us has grown. So we might be able to get a big a bigger commercial account there so we can buy more to make sure that we've got, but again, it's you've got to monitor the activity within the business as it grows. It's not just a set and forget going, well, we've really got our technique sorted. It's those same habits that you learn as a small business that will help support your growth to wherever it is that you want to end up, whether it's five million or ten million. Number four, consolidation builds confidence. Okay, so I'm going to drop the word mastery a couple of times, and it's, you know, it's a thing. Okay, I don't see much of it in the building game, to be honest. Repetition creates mastery. Okay, so what is mastery? Mastery is the dela is delegating operations so the business can thrive independently. Delegating operations so the business can operate and thrive independently. Okay, mastery creates predictability. See, and all that means is that you've done it enough times that you've got a very good understanding of what's going to happen in the future based on three to five years of experience doing it at a lower level, and then you just pull a few sticks, push a few buttons, pull a few triggers, and all of a sudden the business starts to grow, but you you remain in control. A business that's growing faster than the business owner themselves or their maturity of their understanding, man, that's just like a freaking thing off the rails. Like it's it's out of control. The business is controlling them, no, it's not them controlling, they're reacting. Okay, they're just that it's reactionary behavior on the business owner just to try and keep the thing afloat. If I feel myself moving into a position of reaction rather than being proactive, may I just pump the brakes massively? I'm like, I know what I'm this, I know what I'm walking into right now. That business is trying to control me. I've got to slow down. Down the game. I've got to intentionally grab it by the neck, okay, and deal with one issue at a time until such point as I regain control. Because it's moving, it's starting to dive off the road, into the weeds, into this world of chaos because of lack of control, and I am not going to have that, not on my watch. Predictability creates the confidence needed to scale responsibly. So what we're actually talking about is consolidation. The goal of consolidation is to master the way that you do business so that expansion will be a natural next step where there's competence and confidence and predictability. So we navigate. So when we say we want to grow the business, we want more profit, we want better lifestyle. Okay, if you get it up to that level, it's because you've been able to navigate through distinct levels of growth. So it's not a case of it's just a fluke or it's an accident. It's very intentional. And so what I'm talking about today in the area of consolidation is that we fully intend to consolidate or make strong the business that we have. And that in that requires auditing of stuff that might need to be cleared, fixed, removed, gotten rid of, you know, things that are toxic in your business, potentially humans. I don't know. Maybe you're in a good partnership, maybe maybe you need to get into a good partnership, maybe you're in a bad partnership, and you've got to go your separate ways. Like, figure your shit out. Yeah, I can't do it for you. And this is why there is no one piece of advice fits everybody. You know, you've got to look at your situation. I've had guys that say to me, I'm happy doing a quarter of a million a year. Like, great, because they know what they want. They've got good margins, they do a relatively small revenue, but they got they know what their fixed expenses are on their business, they know what they need to survive, and they know what they're happy with. You know, for the love of God, stop impressing people who really don't give a shit about you. You know, with you know, buying shit that money with money you haven't got that, you know, doesn't really get their attention anyway because they're busy looking after themselves. So, guys and girls, you know, Gary Vaynerchuk talks a lot about it happiness. What is it that makes you happy? Not what is it that you can impress people with, and if they're impressed, you're happy. Forget that. That's not what we're talking about, right? You know, you've just got to be very, let's say, content, but not complacent. You know, if you're like me and you love the game, you know, like yeah, I play a bit of rock and roll, and yes, you know, we'd race race go-karts and play a bit of Aussie Reels footy, which we did in the weekend, I got myself a sprained ankle, so that was awesome. You know, it's great, but really, mate, when it comes down to it, I'd probably give up all of that just so I can do business, which includes podcasts and business coaching and general contracting, and looking into some spec development. So, you know, all that really that is what makes me happy, and I couldn't give two shits about what people think, it doesn't matter, you know, and so you've got to really dive deep into your psychology, into your heart, and go, what is it that makes me happy? Right, number five, know your next step. And so here we are, don't focus on the next million dollars, right? What we want to do is maybe set some goals or some milestones about what needs improving. Go back to what is it? Is it sales process, is it delivery methods, you know, is it the after sales part of it? You know, is it financial controlling? I need to know better what I'm doing with my money. And guys and girls, for crying out loud, don't try and do this all in one weekend, don't be silly, okay? Because your brain, you haven't got the bandwidth, right? You're busy, you've got family obligations, you've got business obligations, you know, all of these things take up space in your brain. You can only do stuff, um, you can only get stuff done so quickly. You are an you're an organic creature. Okay, you're not a machine. I know some of you think you might be a machine. Focus on the next, uh focus on the next uh converting the the weaknesses in your business to strengths. So don't shy away from go, I'm not a numbers guy. No, no, you just lack the education and the understanding because you're a quitter in that sphere. Now, if you don't like figures, then don't try and build a big business because it's all about numbers. Numbers, numbers, numbers, numbers. So don't sort of say one thing and then your actions map to another direction. It's ridiculous. You'll just drive yourself insane. Okay, you've got to stress test the business, look for the cracks, figure out whether or not you can remedy or cure those issues within the business, or do you need to start looking for the information, whether it's free resources like podcasts or small subscriptions like EBA Contractor Academy, you know, or you know, what I'd call part-time coaching, coaching on demand, or full-time coaching. Every week we get together, we we strategize around what's happening in the business, what have you done good, what have you done not so good, what problems are we solving today? And we keep on moving. Keep the business moving. I keep challenging you to just getting bigger and better over time, right? Mount Everest is eight and a half thousand odds meters high, the elevation. How do you get there? Well, if you're going to be a mountain climber, it's going to be one step at a time. Think about how many steps it takes up that mountain to reach a summit of eight and a half thousand plus meters. This is what I'm saying, guys and girls. You know, like when look, it doesn't matter how long it takes you to get there, because when you get there, the view's the same. Why the impatience? Like something doesn't happen, so you kick it to the curb and go try something else. That's a bad habit. Now I'm not saying don't try stuff and then go, that's not for me. That's different. But if it's just purely out of impatience, if you love what you do, you need to be patient with it. Okay. Growth becomes easier when you continuously improve the business you already have. See, you'll hit a you'll hit a roadblock, a bottleneck, a friction point, whatever, and then you'll blame someone else and you'll go do something else and think that, well, I won't ever come across that problem again. See, there but me I go. That saying is around everywhere I go, my problems follow me. I am always the center of my challenge. Now, is there peripheral things that go on outside that I can't control? Of course there is. But it's my ability to respond to that, which is where I develop and where I grow. Right, so in closing, the fastest way to scale may actually be to stop scaling for a while and get really good at what you're already doing. So if you're at 300,000, I want you to be able to run that sucker in your sleep. If you're at 1.5 million, you're in the weeds, you probably need to start making that business better. Because once you've got that and you're through that one to three million, you know, the the bit of the swamp that Alex Hormozy talks about, um, which is where Jed and I find ourselves right now, and we're both working hard to develop the business and really design the business and make the business better, until we nudge that three million mark, it's going to be a massive challenge. It's probably the most arduous part of the business where you've got to spend the most amount of money with the least amount of profit to get it over that hump, over that three million, and then we start setting sale towards five and ten. So think about what you're doing today, folks. Why do you do what you do? Everything that you do today has got to be moving the business forward, has got to be improving efficiency, has got to be creating more profit. If you're competing on price, it's a race to the bottom, you're not gonna last. So really just think about what you can do today. And you know, I think what you can do today is just have an audit. Let's go to the stress test, let's look at all of the shit that's given you grief in the last six to twelve months. Start there, and then you'll start to figure out, and that's when you're gonna have some questions. See, those those sorts of things you walk a mile, see a mile. So if you walk a mile down the audit my business trail, what's gonna happen is you're gonna find things that are gonna take you off down another rabbit hole that says, right, I need to get my sales process tickety-boo, or I need to get my Google AdWords and my SEO and my website sorted out so I've got a good flow of leads. You know, I've got to get my pricing points better. I've got to know more specifically what my business costs me to run so that my pricing model can reflect that, you know, or in estimating. Do I just do one broad markup, which I used to advocate for? Now I'm more clinical. Now I calculate what my business costs to run per day. I say that I run three jobs at a time, and then I allocate that dollar amount per day split up in a third to a job over a number of days that I think that project's gonna take, and that creates part of my gross profit, and then we mark up stuff by 12% to make sure I get a 10% net. Now, if we overshoot the job, then that's a problem. So this is the auditing process. If that doesn't make sense to you, and you're just like, what did he just say? Rewind it and have another listen. But this is what I'm talking about. It's got to start ringing bells in your head, guys. Stop blaming other people, realize that you've got a lot to do to grow. The more I, you know, have as a 53-year-old right now, it's this time in my life where you go, I just realize how much I don't know. Because there's still some naivete in me as a human, of course there is, but I'm a lot more understanding around how easy it is for me to just get optimistic and go, she'll be right, mate, instead of being clinical and focused and and and apply some some some proper um you know intention around getting better. All right. So I hope that helps, guys. Email me, max at elitebusinessadvisory.com. If you want to have a quick strategy session, go across to elitebusinessadvisory.com. Uh, hit the book a consultation button, I'll throw 30 minutes at you as best in everything that I've got. Um, and uh, of course, if you want to catch up and uh just chat about what the ins and outs of business coaching are all about and how that can help you build a a uh much better business, not necessarily bigger, um, then feel free to jump on. Like and subscribe, all that kind of wonderful stuff. Go build a kick ass business. See you on the next episode. Cheers