The "Level Up" with Duayne Pearce Podcast
I take on the role of an authoritative voice that fearlessly communicates truths drawn directly from my lived experiences. With a genuine sense of ownership, my insights are free from any hidden agendas – they truly belong to the audience. My stories and journey add remarkable value, the key now lies in harnessing its power effectively to help others.
My purpose is to create a new residential building industry. My mission is to inspire unshakable self-confidence in my colleagues in the industry, empowering them to orchestrate prosperous, enduring, and lucrative businesses that bring exceptional projects to fruition for our clients.
My goal is to foster a deeper comprehension among clients about the identity and functions of builders, redefining their perceptions.
The "Level Up" with Duayne Pearce Podcast
6 Steps to Structuring Your Building Business.
#144 Discover how to structure your construction business to maximize success and personal fulfillment by intentionally designing every aspect from the ground up. We explore why breaking away from traditional industry models allows you to create a business that truly serves your goals and lifestyle.
Check out Duayne's other projects here...
Live Life Build
livelifebuild.com
D Pearce Constructions
dpearceconstructions.com.au
QuoteEaze
quoteeaze.com/Free-Offer.html
Check out the Duayne Pearce website here...
https://duaynepearce.com/
who is your ideal client? Who do I want to be working for every single day? It will make a massive difference to your life and your business when you identify what your ideal types of projects are. How you structure your team is really, really important. Identifying the type of work that suits you and your team best again is going to help your business thrive. I'm a massive fan of visualizing. I write in my journal all the time. I can visualize it in my head G'day guys.
Speaker 1:Welcome back to another episode of Level Up. We are back in the shed this afternoon for another episode by myself to give you guys some insights and information about things that have got me to where I am in my life. And yeah, look, this is going to be another cracking episode because today we're going to be talking about setting up your business structure and figuring out what it is you want to do. I see now from everything I do that so many people in the construction industry are just following the old-fashioned way that everything has been done and they don't realize that it's their business. You can set your business up and structure it however you want to. So we're going to cover quite a bit today. It shouldn't be a real long one, but I want to start right at the beginning, and that is the name of your business and the reason I want to talk to at the beginning. And that is the name of your business and the reason I want to talk to you about this is because I had a very like if you've heard my story, like you know that I basically jumped in the deep end, went out, started subbing, and so I was in a position where, basically I went from just invoicing the guy that I was working for like I had one of those duplicate books that you buy in the bloody newsagent and I would literally just write my hours on there, write down the tasks that I'd been doing, and, yeah, give him a handwritten invoice and it would just have my name on it.
Speaker 1:And when it got to the point that I had to to, like he asked me to start subbing to him, um, I had to change structure. So, like I reached out to my bookkeeper at the time and they're like oh, you bet you probably should do this. And um, like I can't remember how old I was I think at this point I was only like 21 or 22 or something and like no one had given me any real advice on this and, to be honest, I wasn't interested in any advice in this um. I'd never even thought about the business side of my job and I remember it clear as day like I literally got to a point where I rung um. I think I actually rung my finance broker at the time, who I've had for a very long time. We've actually done a podcast with him and his wife was an accountant and she's like, oh yeah, no, you're going to have to set up a company. And I was like, well, I don't know. And she's like, well, what do you want to call it? And I'm like, fuck, I wouldn't have a clue. And like, literally, d Pierce Constructions was spoken about within 10 minutes. And that is what we still call my business today.
Speaker 1:And look, if I had my time again, I would probably put a lot more thought and effort into the name, but because I think your name is so valuable. But the one thing that I've learned is, if you tie your personal name to things and you build successful businesses, it can be very hard to sell those businesses if everything is built around your name and your personality and and and you so having a name that um turns into a um, I guess that starts to add to value and people know what that name reflects and means. Gives you more options possibly in the future with your business. But look, there's definitely people that are sole businesses and we've been approached for our business. Even though it's my personal name doesn't stop you from doing it, but I just think your name is the first real important step and so many people, including myself, um, don't take it seriously enough and I sort of have a little giggle to myself now when I um, like you go to a, if you're out, or you go to a pub where you're out of hardware and concrete has seemed to have the best ones like um.
Speaker 1:There's all these names around that when you're young you think are just awesome. I'm not going to mention some of the names because people might crack the shits. But oh, fuck it. I probably should. But like, get hard concreting and I saw one when I was on that rally recently up at Airlie Beach and look, no offence against concreters, but I just see so many trades that have these names and, like I said, when you're young and you're just getting in the business and you're out on the piss all the time with your mates and like it's funny and it sounds cool and it's. But if you want to be in business for a long time, yeah, you've got to get more creative with your name, and your name has to be more about what you want to achieve with your business and your lifestyle, instead of just a name that is funny when you're on the piss with your mates and having a joke around. So, because your name will also have a lot to do with the type of clients that you attract, with the type of work that you attract, how you get paid, the amount you can charge, like all of those things can be affected by the name that you call your business. So, um, yeah, and then, yeah, like I said, I've seen some, some funny ones around, so that would be.
Speaker 1:My first thing is is to have a think about your name. Don't rush into it and, yeah, just take the time. Look, you might not. I think a lot of people put too much time into things. Um, don't waste time trying to come up with a name that you'll hang on to it forever, cause the reality is you can change your name if you want to, but I'm knowing what I know now from having multiple businesses and being very successful. Um, I think your name should reflect like you. For me, you need to think about like, why do you do what you do? Like, what gets you out of bed every day? What drives you? Where's your passion come from? Why are you doing what you're doing? And if you can come up with a name that can reflect that, then it will be very powerful for you and your business.
Speaker 1:The next thing, on from that, is your structure.
Speaker 1:Like, are you a sole trader?
Speaker 1:Are you a trust?
Speaker 1:Are you a company? Like? There is so many different ways you can set yourself up and obviously, depending on the way you set yourself up, depends on the amount of tax you pay. It can change insurance structures. It can change um, like lots and lots of things, gst, um, like. There's so much around the structure and that's probably one area where I again I went wrong in the early days. I like for a while there I was um, I was actually trading as d pierce, building trust and as we grew, it created a few issues for me along the way and we actually still have that name and like, right now as it sits, camille and I have I can't even tell you. Off the top of my head, I think it's like 12 or 13 different business structures across all the investments and businesses that we have. So so just because I set that one up very, very early in my early 20s and it got to a point where that trust wasn't working for my carpentry business, I didn't shut it down. We kept it and it's ended up turning into quite a valuable asset because we've been able to use that in the future, turning into quite a valuable asset because we've been able to use that in the future.
Speaker 1:But if I knew what I knew now that probably one of the biggest or most valuable pieces of advice that I can give to a younger person starting out in this industry and I would I would suggest I tell my apprentices to do this. When our apprentices are getting to a point where they're about to finish their time and they're going to be starting to be on salary or wages or possibly subcontracting, the advice that I give to them is go and spend the money and get advice from a good accountant. You don't want to be just going like paying an accountant that charges whatever it is 330 bucks or 660 bucks and just does your tax once a year. Like, go and spend the money and look, it could cost you a couple of grand, but spend the money. Go and talk to someone and talk them through.
Speaker 1:Like you want to go and work with someone that is interested in where you want to go. What do you want to be? What size business do you want to have? What's your goals? And like across the board, like, do you want to have? What do you want to be? What size business do you want to have? What's your goals? And like across the board, like, do you want to have investment properties? Do you want to invest in shares? Like, how do you want to grow your business? What is your ideal position? Like you really want someone that's going to sit with you and go righto, right now, what's your 12-month goal? What's your 3-year goal? What's your three-year goal? What's your five-year goal? What's your 10-year goal? And look, we all know goals change constantly and that is something that you should be reviewing all the time. But that's the type of people that you want to be dealing with.
Speaker 1:So the best advice I can give to a young person that is just coming out of their trade, or possibly young contractors, if you've just sort of gone with the flow, ticked and flicked, some boxes come up with a random name and just gone with a structure because that's what your mate or your dad or another person in the industry told you. I would recommend going and spending their money investing in, in yourself and getting good quality advice about your structure and um, because, like I said, depending on whether you're a sole trader, a, a trust, a company, all those types of things. It affects how your business operates. It affects insurances and work covers and all those types of things that you have to pay. It affects the tax, it affects gst, all those types of things. So, um, and look, as usual, with all my podcasts like this, these are all all these stories and all this information I give is all from my personal experience, um, and it's definitely up to you to get your own financial and legal advice on all these types of things. So, all right, so that's um, we've talked about your company name. We We've talked about the financial structure, um, of your business.
Speaker 1:Um, I guess, to just wrap up on that, when it comes to the structure, like your financial, whether you set yourself up as a trust, a company, sole trader, and those types of things, the most, the reason it's so important to get someone that wants to know your future goals is because it can. If you set yourself up as one thing and then you have a goal to get to somewhere else it could be investing in property or shares or whatever the way that you structure yourself could affect your borrowing capacity. It could affect how your income gets structured like this. There's a lot more to this and I didn't know any of this when I first started and I it took me a long time, like I've been in this game now since I was 15, so whatever.
Speaker 1:That is 29 years now so, and I've always had a passion for investing in property, a little bit in shares, all those types of things, and in the early days, the way that I structured myself did cause me to a little bit of trouble over the time, and there's been situations where I've had to spend money to get a property out of a structure and put it into a different structure because the different structure was going to get me to the next level and where I wanted to be. So, yeah, really, really, really important that you spend the money you invest in a good quality accountant or financial advisor or both, even if you're young and you haven't put a lot of thought into these things. Try and put some thought into your goals and, yeah, set your structures up as early as you can to help you achieve those goals. The next thing is like again going back to like it's your business. So as your business grows, you can structure it however you like, and I have these conversations a lot with members in my live life build business now because to have a successful business and look, these are my personal opinions, but I know my business have all been very successful because I'm the face of them.
Speaker 1:I'm the real deal. I've been through shit that other people shouldn't have to go through and I've learned a lot of lessons and I still run a very successful building business and I'm in the trenches and everything that I speak and that I talk about people in our industry relate to. So it's really really important that you learn to do like, structure your business the way you want to. And so for me, why I why I think it's important for the business owner to be the face is I know that my clients get a huge amount of value and and come to our company because my face is all over social media. I'm sitting here doing these podcasts and they get so much value out of me doing the site meetings, me doing all the initial quoting and estimating and all the design meetings, me being the one that meets them to sign all the contracts and me doing the handover.
Speaker 1:And look, obviously this um, if you like, I've got some mates that run really large, very successful volume building businesses and look it's. It's impossible for them to have that sort of personal relationship with every single client when you're talking 150, 200, 300 homes a year. But like one of my mates in particular, chris from CMA homes man like he, he's going close to building 300 homes a year now and he still makes it very, very personal and I believe that's a big reason why he, why his business is so successful. So there's a lot of stuff going on in our industry at the moment and like a lot of younger generation coming in and a lot of them are going down the path of like they all want to have these successful businesses and earn the money, but they want to sit back behind the scenes and they want to just live the high life and have people in their business doing a lot of these tasks, like the handing over and the signing of contracts and helping out with selections and doing the site meetings and those types of things, and personally, I think your business won't be successful long term. Doing that because that's what attracts people like especially in the custom residential building market, like and, and it's the same.
Speaker 1:It's not just this, isn't just about builders, it's about trades as well. Like when you you have a plumbing or electrical business or a carpentry business, like every, every single level of my business is based on relationships. It's it's very few times is to do with the price, it the reps that I deal with for hardware stores and plumbing supplies and landscaping yards. It is completely based on a personal relationship. Um, my relationships with my trades like I will not work with a trade if they're a dickhead, if I, if I can't shake their hand, have a beer with them and just sit down and have a, have a chat if I could, like I guess, to put it this way like I couldn't work with anyone that I couldn't run into at a concert or an event or camping and sit down around a fire at a bar and hold a conversation with. So for me, relationships across the board are super, super important. So, um, and the reason I'm talking about all this is when I talk about structuring your um business. Like we've talked about name, we've talked about all the legal, financial sort of structures.
Speaker 1:A lot of builders feel that to grow their business they need to step back off the site and tradies, and nine times out of 10, that is our passion. The passion is being outdoors. Outdoors, being on the tools, physically doing the work, having the banter with the team and cranking the tunes, having a sing-along and then and like because it doesn't feel like work, like it feels like you're on site with a bunch of mates and you're having fun and they lose their passion when the business grows and they step back from the site and they get stuck in the weeds doing all the administration and phone calls and all the other shit that goes with running a business. And like I use my business as a perfect example I have structured my business to operate around what I love doing, what I enjoy doing, and I firmly believe that it doesn't matter what business you have, whether it's trades, architectures, designers, like builders, like you name it, anybody in the construction industry. If you structure your business so that you're always doing the tasks that you love doing your business will be successful. So you can structure your business however you like. If you like the administration side of things, then build your team to allow you to do that. If you like being on the tools, then build your team to allow you to do that. So to give you a couple of examples, like, if you like doing like in my business, I'll talk about that first.
Speaker 1:But I love the client, I love meeting the clients. I really love design. Um, like, if I hadn't been a builder, I probably would have been a designer or an architect. I wouldn't have been an architect because I wasn't smart enough at school but, um, I would never have got into uni, but, um, I probably would have got some sort of design job. And so now in my business, having the ability to do the pack process and go to all the design meetings, interact with the clients, interact with the designer and the architect and understand, like, why things happen the way they happen, why things go where they go.
Speaker 1:I do the quoting and estimating. I like numbers, I like working things out, I like seeing things come together. So my business is completely structured around me, doing all the preliminary process through the PAC process, all the quoting and estimating, meeting new clients, and then, once we start, the jobs get handed over to my team. My wife runs the office, does all the administration. We've got an incredible supervisor. He keeps the jobs get handed over to my team. My wife runs the office, does all the administration. We've got an incredible supervisor. He keeps the jobs running. We've got incredible teams with lead carpenters and and site crews and apprentices, so they take over and things run like clockwork most of the time. But then I still do the weekly site meeting. So at our weekly site meetings I'm still the one there liaising with the client, doing the meeting minutes. My supervisor or a lead carpenter or sometimes both is always at that meeting. Then we walk around as a team so everyone knows what's going on. But I know the data in my business, I know my numbers, I know my overheads and I've structured my business and I price my jobs for me to allow me to have the staff to run my business like that.
Speaker 1:So then, if you go the other way, if you're a builder that wants to be on the tools, there will be a period that, as a business grows, you do need to step back a little bit to spend some time. You're possibly going to hire a VA or you're going to hire some admin staff or a bookkeeper, and you will have to step back a little bit from site to spend time with them in the office to make sure things are getting quoted correctly, to make sure everyone knows the numbers, to make sure contracts are getting done correctly all those types of things. And then, once you're confident that that's all working, there's absolutely no reason that you can't go back and be on the site and smashing the workout with the boys and all the females on site these days and and getting shit done and um, that might mean that one day a week you're you're not on site. You're doing like you structure that. One day a week you do all your client meetings, you do all your design meetings and you do all your reviews with your administration's tasks, and then the other four days you go up to site and you do all the work on site. So don't believe that you have to structure your business the old-fashioned way and as the business grows, you need to get tied into admin roles or project management or being the face of business all those types of things. Like you have the ability to structure your business however you want and it all comes back to understanding your numbers and allowing the business to cover the cost of employing the people in the roles that you need to structure the business the way you want to allow you to do the tasks that you enjoy doing the most and, like I said, that actually flows right through your business. Like, the key to a successful business is having every member of your business doing tasks that they're good at, that they enjoy doing and they like turning up to work every day to do that. And if you can do that, including yourself, you will have a very successful business.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, that's the third one Structure your business. Write down, write it on paper, visualize it. I'm a massive fan of visualizing, like I write in my journal all the time. I can visualize it in my head what I'm doing, what my goals are, what it's going to look like when I achieve them. So write it down your ideal structure for your team, what you want to achieve, and, yeah, it will happen. So, um, we touched on a little bit then, but the next one is team. So, like I just touched on a little bit, like it's I hear so many builders and and myself for a very long time. In my business, the team and look to be honest, even today, like team is the hardest thing.
Speaker 1:I don't care what anyone says, anyone that hasn't run a building business or a trades-based business Um, I don't care if you're. You're an admin type business, you're an office type business that's got hundreds of staff. I don't believe that there is any business that's that is as hard as managing teams in a building business or a contracting business or a trades-based business because I talk about this all the time there's so many different personalities, your religions, values, opinions, all these types of things and it's not like you're sitting in cubicles or you can walk away from people, like you're physically working together, you're leaning over each other, you're sweating on each other. Your work and your outcome is dependent on the people you're working with. Um, if they, if they're not cutting shit and getting it back to you in time, then then it makes you look bad. If, if you're a plumber and you there's multiple plumbers laying a drain, like and you're in, you're in the trench laying the drain and the person that's cutting the pipes and giving you the glue isn't keeping up with you, like it's, it's hard, like, and if you haven't worked in our industry. You, you honestly, you won't, you'll never understand it. But, um, yeah, you can structure your team. Like, how you structure your team is really, really important and I like something that's really accelerated.
Speaker 1:My business is like not just hiring what I thought I needed. So, like you have a plumbing business, you're going to put ads out there and you're going to advertise that you need a plumber. If you're electric, like electrical business, you can advertise that you want electricians and look, I do it all the time. If, like we're a building business, we advertise for carpenters, you need to find people that are good at specific things, because there's always going to be people that just love their trade and they love showing up every day and just doing their trade. Then there's going to be people that are really really good at their trade but they want the next level, they want to, they want a little bit more authority, they want to, they want to run things, they want to be a supervisor or a leading hand, or that. They crave that little bit higher um, I guess position in the business and then it just keeps growing up there. Then you're going to get people that want to run the business. You're going to get people that want to manage the business like.
Speaker 1:There's all different levels, and one thing that I've learned is that we are all so different. We all have different strengths and weaknesses. We all have different things that set us off, whether it's anxiety, whether it's worrying about things. So building your team and allowing your team to thrive in environments that allow them to be comfortable is really, really important, and over the past few months, I've spoken about this on a few podcasts, but our building business is absolutely booming at the moment. We've got enormous amounts of work on incredible clients, great jobs, and so we've really been pushing hard to build our team again. And so we've really been pushing hard to build our team again and like at the moment, I think we're sitting around 14 odd people and so there was a period there where we I think we bought four or five new carpenters, apprentices and lead carpenters in like within a couple of weeks. Within a couple of weeks.
Speaker 1:And one thing that I've always been very proud of with my building business, especially over like, there was this two or three year period that we've just come out of through COVID, where we got an incredible amount of work done with a very small, efficient team and everything was just running like clockwork. And then all of a sudden, we're ramping things up, we're growing, we're bringing all these new staff in, and it was just like the wheels fell off. And there was there was a two or three months period there where, like I would just leave, so pissed off, I'd be so frustrated, I'd come back to the office, I'd talk to the supervisor, I'd be whinging about everybody and I'd be like what the fuck are they doing? Like honestly, like they've done, like there's seven people on site and they've done less work than like I could do with an apprentice. Like what is happening and it was because everyone was trying to like fight for authority and they're all trying to find, like the new guys that come in with like without physically fighting or doing anything, but that it was. They're all battling for authority and trying to find their positions in the team.
Speaker 1:And this ties in so much with what I believe in now, like my. One of my biggest beliefs now is we. We have to understand that we are nature, we are no different to animals. Like we, we have tribes, we like we thrive with different groups. Like it's no different to groups of animals and and those types of things and I saw it in my team how they were operating with each other and it wasn't until I had a chat with um helen rogerson. So helen rogerson is our leadership expert in my um live life, build business. Um, she's also been on this podcast. She's an incredible human being, a really great friend, and I just value her, her professionalism, her um experience, her knowledge, so so much.
Speaker 1:So through this period I was I was um doing a lot with Helen. With Helen, we got her in to do a couple of workshops with our team. I was personally talking to her a lot, getting a lot of advice, and it's incredible how, when she got me to sort of stand back and see what was going on and realize that, yeah, they're all sort of fighting for their positions in the team, they're all sort of fighting for their positions in the team and go to site and have one-on-one meetings and figure out where each person sort of wanted to be and then sort of split them up into different groups and give them different roles. And, honestly, within a four-week period it was chalk and cheese, like they went from six, seven, eight guys on a job doing very little work to having three and four guys on each job and just absolutely killing it and turning up the site. The sites are all immaculate. The lead carpenter knows what's going on, like it's chalk and cheese.
Speaker 1:So yeah, structuring your team is huge, figuring out your team's strengths and weaknesses. Structuring your team is huge, figuring out your team's strengths and weaknesses and, like I said, if everyone in your team is able to do, or work towards doing, what they are passionate about, what they get out of bed every day to do, your business will be very successful. All right, but moving on a little bit, I thought this was going to be a short podcast, but that's all right. We're getting some good information out here. So the next one is structuring your business around the types of clients that you want.
Speaker 1:So I see so many trades, builders and actually like even architects and building designers, like so many people just taking on work because they're chasing. They got no cash flow, they don't understand the running of the business and they take on every single job that comes across their desk, whether they're a shit client, a good client, a client that's got the money, a client that hasn't got the money, and at the end of the day, they're creating all their own problems. They're dealing with people that they really shouldn't be dealing with and then they whinge about the outcomes. So a really, really important thing to understand is, again, like we said at the beginning, it's your business. So the saying I say all the time, like your business is only as good as what you accept, your life is only as good as what you accept, ties in perfectly with this one, because if you just accept any client that comes your way, if you're running a business that is struggling with cash flow, you struggle to pay bills, you spend more like you live beyond your means, you spend more money than you're physically making because you don't understand your numbers, you don't understand how tax works, you don't understand how GST works all of those things. That gets you in a position where you're taking on clients that you shouldn't be taking on.
Speaker 1:And learning this has been incredibly valuable for my business, and again, I talk about woo-woo shit all the time, but it works, like for every client that you knock back, it empowers you and it says something to the universe that opens doors and allows the next client to be a dream client, and so I encourage every single business in the building industry to find your ideal client Like, sit down, do some journaling, scribble some notes down and think to yourself like, who is your ideal client? Who do I want to be working for every single day? And it can be anything Like you can be working with. Like if you really refined it, you could build your business to. This is going to be a bit of an out there exaggeration, but this is how refined you can get it. Like you could be running a business that only works for professionals, whether it be doctors, lawyers and architects. Like if you get that nitty-gritty on it and you market yourself and you talk about it all the time and you like you will attract those types of clients and that type of work because that's how, that's how it works.
Speaker 1:And like we I know this because we've done it so many different ways in our building business and we we know it works so well because we just keep improving on it now and um to a point where, like, we're attracting clients that are exactly like us they love camping, they love family time, they love to go to the beach, they love chilling out, they love having a few beers, they like the environment. So our clients are becoming really good friends Like we can actually go out to dinner. We can go on like I've talked about this a few times and people don't believe me Like we've been on overseas holidays with multiple clients. We've been on camping trips with multiple clients. We've been on camping trips with multiple clients. We've got clients that have become really, really close friends that we catch up with regularly, and that is because I figured out the type of people that I want my businesses dealing with and that it's so, it's so important.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, the next part of structuring your business is identifying the perfect client that you want to be working with and, like I said before, it's it's not woo-woo like for every client that you dismiss, like, I guess, to touch on this a little bit like it's okay for you to say no to a client like I think this is a really, really powerful message and I know from all our live life build members, when they do this for the first time, like they, they get on our friday wins on our, in our facebook group and they they talk about it and they feel energized and empowered. Businesses in the construction industry, just because a client has been referred to you, has reached out to you, has followed you on Instagram, has sent you messages does not mean that you have to take them on as a client and look, it's a whole other podcast. But figure out your ideal client. The best way to manage that is to set up an inquiry form that has questions that are focused on finding your ideal client and knock back the clients that don't fill out your inquiry form, that don't answer all your questions, that don't sit well with you. If you go to a meeting and your guts is telling you this isn't an ideal client. If they're asking questions that are annoying you and pissing you off, they're not your ideal client. If you're doing jobs for clients that are questioning what you charge, they're not your ideal client. If you're taking on work for clients and they're questioning your payment terms, they're not your ideal ideal client. If you're taking on jobs and or you're doing jobs and the client's arguing with you about, um, the amount that you've or how quickly you've done the job and it shouldn't be like they shouldn't be paying you that much and all those types of things, they are not your ideal clients. So you need to reflect back on every single one of those situations and figure out like where did that go wrong? Why did I take that client on, and nine times out of 10, I guarantee you that you'll be able to reflect on that and you'll be able to go back to a situation where your gut said to you that they were going to be a bad client and you might have even had conversations with someone about it, but you took them on because of the financial situation you're in and needing the cash flow. And so, again, like my Grant Cadone's my favorite saying, nothing happens to you. Every single thing happens because of you. So to move on, the next part of structuring your business so we've talked about name. We've talked about the financial setup. We've talked about ideal team. We've talked about your ideal role. We've now talked about your ideal clients. The next one is the ideal job. So, just like the ideal client, you don't have to accept every single job.
Speaker 1:This is another really, really um thing to knuckle down on and figure out whether you're um, whether you're any type of tradie, whether you're a designer, whether you're an architect, an engineer, town planner, builder, like whatever you are. You need to figure out the types of jobs that you want to be involved with and, again, knuckled like, get right down into the nitty-gritty of it like, do you want to only do um healthier homes? Do you only want to do energy efficient homes? Do you only want to do sustainably built homes? Do you only want to do a certain size home? Do you only want to do architectural homes like, um like, do you want to be prefab, like there is like dozens and dozens and dozens of types of jobs out there.
Speaker 1:If you're a tradie, like you're a plumber, do you want to work for builders, um, doing the underslab, the rough ends, the fit offs and everything that goes with building work, or do you just want to do maintenance or do you only want to work for mum and dad's like? Do you not want to work for any builders? So you only want to do, like, maintenance and and random plumbing work for existing structures and those types of things? If you're electrician, again, do you want to do work for builders or do you want to do work for just mum and dads or companies doing maintenance or refits and those types of things? So you can like, when you again, when you knuckle down on this and you figure out your ideal uh, work or job and a lot of this will come like if you work on all these things we've talked about today.
Speaker 1:Um, it all comes together because when you, when you're trying to find your ideal projects or the work you want to do, it's quite involved, because you need to figure out the type of work that your team are at and that could change over time as your team grows. And maybe right at the moment, if you're an electrician, your team is only suited to smashing out rough ends and fit-offs and working on new builds. But as your team grows, you might get some guys that are a lot better at dealing with clients doing work on their own, and so maybe over time, your ideal work might, you might expand and you might actually be able to do some maintenance work or expand into solar installs or something like that. So your ideal work is like we've talked about with everything today. It will change as your business grows and goes to the next level, and it will change based on the team members that you bring into your business. So, yeah, figuring out the ideal work and the team members that you bring into your business.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, figuring out the ideal work and the type of job you want to do, like I know, I know builders that will only work on old, like here in brisbane. Like they will only work on old queenslanders, like their work is lift and build renovation refurbs on queenslanders. That's that's their niche and and they are flat out all the time because they're specialists at it. Um, I know other builders that just will not go near a renovation. Like their specialty is, um, new homes on flat blocks of land in new housing estates. I know other builders that um only do work on more difficult sites. Like their specialty is works with bulk earthworks and off-form concrete and all those types of things. So it's yeah, it's huge. It will make a massive difference to your life and your business when you identify what your ideal types of projects are or the type of work and, like I said it, it works for any trade it works for, like it can work for a tree lopper, like you might be. Like we have really good friends that um have a tree lopping business and like it's called all tree, uh, all tree and palm removal. So like they're specialists in coming in and like clearing sites and removing all the trees and doing stump grinding, like they don't do trimming hedges and all little little work. So they've identified the type of work that their business thrives on. So it doesn't matter what type of trade or what type of designer or architect or builder you are. Identifying the type of work that suits you and your team best again is going to help your business thrive.
Speaker 1:So the last one I want to talk about, with structuring your business, because I believe if you do all the things that we're talking about today, you will see massive, massive differences in your business, in your cash flow, in your profitability and all those types of things. But the last one profitability and all those types of things but the last one which I think is very, very important is structuring your cashflow. And again, I bang into bed all the time knowing your numbers. But we have Katie from Profit First Australia. She's our Profit First. She's our accounting expert in my Live Life Build business. She's our, our mentor. Then there's obviously sean van dyke profit first for contractors in the states. But the reason I mentioned them is I believe the profit first structure is the best way to start understanding how your the cash that your business needs. So look, I'm not going to bang on about this one for a long time because you can go and read. Like Katie's got a book Profit First. Go and listen to that book. Sean Van Dyke's got the Profit First book as well.
Speaker 1:Once you get your head around Profit First and structuring your bank accounts, it's an absolute game changer. And look you, you're going to get kicked back from your accountants or your bookkeepers because they're going to have to reconcile multiple accounts and like it's like like I find it funny all the time like I um, the more, the better you want to become and the better you want to do, the more people you've got to argue with and butt heads with, because everyone wants to just fucking go along the same straight road. They don't want any whines and bends and they just want to fucking do what they've always done, they've always been told and they've always been taught. And so, yeah, you'll get kickback from people that will whinge about having to reconcile too many bank accounts or whinge about having to transfer money around to too many bank accounts, all those types of things. But if you want to get ahead, you've got to push back on those people that push back on you. And so, profit first. Having those bank accounts too, when the money comes in, putting the money aside shows you so quickly and easily what's left and it really, really helps you identify that you need to charge more and so setting up your bank accounts for your GST, for your tax, for your salaries, for your supplies, for your outgoing, like all those things and your profit, yeah, it just. It is so simple and you see it so quickly and easily why you don't have good cash flow and why you're not making money. So that's my last tip Check out Profit First.
Speaker 1:Katie's is Profit First for tradies. Sean Endox's is Profit First for contractors. Highly recommend you listen to those guys and take their advice on board. And look, reach out to Katie from Profit First. She does a really really good job here in Australia. But, yeah, look, reach out to katie from profit first. She does a really really good job here in australia. But yeah, look just to recap on them. Um, so you'll have to pull me up if I forget any of these, but it was, uh, spending some time to figure out the name of your business.
Speaker 1:Don't be afraid to change it. If you've been operating for 10 years, it is what it is. If you've got to change it, you got to change it. Um, your financial structure massive, whether you're just starting out or whether you've been in business for 10, 20 years. Massively important that you go and spend the money with someone that's going to get you to the next level and set your structures up correctly, and I cannot recommend highly enough. You need to go to someone that wants to know your goals. Where do you want to go? What do you want to invest in? What do you want to do? What sort of money do you want forecasting? You want to make. What do you want to invest in? What do you want to do? What sort of money do you want to forecast and you want to make? Because that makes a big difference to how you set your structures up.
Speaker 1:The next one was structuring your role, like identifying what you do best in your business and structuring your business the way you want to structure it. Next one was team identifying your team structure and employing the people that are going to get your business where it needs to go. Next one was clients. Identifying your perfect client will absolutely change the way your business operates. Next one was types of projects.
Speaker 1:Again, spend the time and identify this. It will change your cash flow, it will change your profitability, it will change your team, it'll change your profitability. It will change your, your team, your life, everything. And the last one is the profit first. But, um, I highly recommend you sit down with a journal and you do these one at a time and you just go nuts and you write down as much shit as you can and you get as clear as you can on all those things and you will have an incredible life and incredible business.
Speaker 1:So, um, look, guys, as usual, I hope you've loved this podcast. Um, reach out. If you've got questions, keep them coming. Um, please like subscribe. Make sure you go and check out the new website. Seriously, our merch is absolutely fantastic and, look, if we want to keep changing this industry, we've all got to be walking around with the keep smashing it on the backs of our on our backs, because that's going to show people that we are on a mission to create a new building industry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, as always, thanks very much for listening and watching. We'll see you on the next one. Cheers, guys. Are you ready to build smarter, live better and enjoy life? Then head on to livelikebuildcom forward slash elevate to get started. Everything discussed during the Level Up podcast with me, dwayne Pearce, is based solely on my own personal experiences and those experiences of my guests. The information, opinions and recommendations presented in this podcast are for general information only, and any reliance on the information provided in this podcast is done at your own risk. We recommend that you obtain your own professional advice in respect to the topics discussed during this podcast.