The Construction Business Blueprint #012 - Day In The Life of a Construction Mentor

This week we’re giving you something different

A full behind-the-scenes look at what a day actually looks like inside this work. No keynote, no deep dive training.

Just the real rhythm of the day around last week’s event at Galgorm.

From early prep to final conversations, this episode captures the moments you never normally hear:

the questions business owners ask off-mic, the common problems that show up again and again, and the raw reality of running a construction or electrical business while trying to build something better.

Across the day you’ll hear:

• What owners worry about before the cameras are on
• Why late payments, scheduling chaos, and unclear pricing come up in every room
• How simple systems—not motivation—calm the noise
• The identity shift owners talk about privately after events
• The honest conversations about burnout, boundaries, and growing smarter
• What it’s like behind the curtain of building and delivering these events

There’s no polished teaching in this one, just the real context and the real conversations behind the work we do every week.

If you want to see the human side of building a business, listen in.

Then subscribe, share with a mate who needs it, and leave a quick review with your biggest takeaway from this BTS episode.

Transcript

Setting The Scene At Galgorm

SPEAKER_01 0:00

So just heading down here to Galgorm. A lovely sunny day, as always, here in Northern Ireland. So yeah, going down to speak to 150 business owners, electrical business owners, hosted by ETT and I. So really excited to be invited down by those guys and to talk all things business and construction.

The Three Pillars: Time Profit Control

SPEAKER_01 0:21

So the theme of the talk today is what the three pillars of what I do in my whole model and how I approach business, which is time, profit, and control. And the whole theme behind it is smarter business, stronger results. So how we're going to achieve that smarter business and get those stronger results. So we've got a 30-minute 30-minute CPD session, but I've never never been to this event before, but I hear it is one of the leading events in the country, in the calendar for not only electrical, but also in the construction industry here in Northern Ireland. So I'm excited to get delivered down or have to come down. Something new in a great venue, as always, down at the Galligorm. And it'll be a nice chance to go to the Galligorm and not be spending a fortune. So yeah. Looking forth. Excited to meet some new people, get some new plans, see how things land, and have some good conversation, which is always good all around business. Because that's what I that's what I love to do. I love to talk business. I love the main business owners, I love to help people. And hopefully, yeah, hopefully that's what we'll do today. Hopefully we got a couple people off the back of it who will want to make the change and make the transition into changing their business and their life. So smarter business, stronger results. And it's sort of just more of an introduction as to who I am, what I do, what my beliefs are in the industry and what needs to happen. More of a discovery thing for people, but still kind of unknown to some people. So it's just that more discovery, get to know me, get to know what I'm about, get to know what I can do for people. Um and yeah, just kind of more of a discovery than a than a lesson piece, you know. I feel like today as well, that a lot of people

Story First Not Technical Slides

SPEAKER_01 2:20

are going to be getting a lot of information. There's a lot of technical stuff being talked about today. And I kind of want to deliver more of like a storytelling pace, rather than a light back pace, something that's just set a lesson half an hour listen to what I'm doing if you're interested and come and have a chat.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

And market estimates. And specialized in training construction businesses. What about yourself? Yeah. Oh, very good. As if for obviously all construction related businesses, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

That's my background my background is mechanical, like me and I say I say I quietly unhierate, but yeah. Mostly mechanical.

SPEAKER_04 3:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

Well, seriously, a little bit

From Tradesman To Business Owner

SPEAKER_01 3:16

more than that. Not always, not always the companies want to grow. It's like some guys just their business completely controls them and consumes them. And they want to know how to almost take a step back, get them off the tools, get a bit of fresh air, have a life again. Do you know what I mean? So taking it's more about control, taking control of the business, putting system and process in place. Go from that a tradesman to business owner, you know, whether that's like I have clients that are from 100k right up to five, six million, so that's a sort of good sweet spot. Anything bigger than that needs a lot more one-to-one, full time, like a lot of, you know, a lot more time. So the smaller, smaller sort of sector is where people need help the most. Everybody else has in-house staff or things like that, business development and all those things where it's the smaller guys that need the need the help, in my opinion. Most guys, like the attitude in the game as well, is like, okay, so in order to grow my business, I didn't take on more work, and you're like, what are you gonna do? What are you doing there is growing your problems? Like, I know more I know more people who have you know failed at growing than anything else. Like they're just they or else the conversation is always that I'll try to do that before and take on more men, but it didn't work out. Yeah. And they think it's because of the industry or the staff, but it's not, it's the fact that they just you know didn't know how to run a business, they didn't know how to manage the staff, they don't know how to build a team, they didn't know how procedures or anything in place, you know. So network is smart, but it's well that's that's exactly what the talk's on today, yep. Do you want to talk at half lamb? Yeah. Yeah. So I'll be asking you questions then. Put you on the spot. And who are they it's all private stuff? Well, you know what I mean? It's all

Pricing Partnerships And Subcontracting

SPEAKER_01 4:59

yeah, like even office village and stuff, but it was still private directly to client. Yeah. Well, all I would advise is to price it extremely well. And then the other thing is if you could try and if you could try and build a sort of partnership with somebody who would come in and do that type of work for you, but somebody who's very close to you, so that like they're they're they're your like install team. Do you know what I mean? Jump feed them wee bits and pieces and see what their quality is like, and then of course you know you have the systems of feedback and stuff for you know how you're managing projects, how they're meant to set report view and things like that, and then you can go in and test it all at the end anyway. Check it all, you know. So I would do that, I would use it as maybe like a subcontract thing. Um, this is actually a good change of the game. It's a nice change to be able to leave here, but still got the money in my pocket. Um you come here you get a fleetable.

Talk Cut Short And Initial Reactions

SPEAKER_01 6:18

Good, good apart from being fucking cut short. I was raising. But um yeah, I think it went well. I think it was received well too, and it was pretty relaxed, it was a kind of good room to be in, so and seemed to be a good bit of interest and feedback, so it kinda I was raising because the whole end bit that she cut me off at was kind of the pitch. So about how how you get involved working together and what I can do and how I can do it and what way it works and all. So ah well, but it's done. I'm relieved. More reps and other one in the bank.

Live Q&A With Owners

SPEAKER_01 6:59

Hopefully a couple of clients are so what's the crack? Anybody tell me about the business? What's your name, sir? Andrew, sorry.

SPEAKER_03 7:08

Andrew, how are you met?

SPEAKER_01 7:11

So, what's the crack? What's how long you've been in business? What's the story?

SPEAKER_03 7:18

Yeah? You were about two years before me by yourself and then. Domestic or commercial or getting commercial stuff or something.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

How are you saying it?

SPEAKER_03 7:32

What's the what's the struggles or what's uh like coasting away? Like we're saying or like getting just trying to keep on having everything, you know. Yeah. Like the workload and such, but then we're having uh jobs or clients and all that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

Yeah, and like that, like was it one of your sales that said about the payments as well? Yeah, like that like I noticed that always came down to not having the time to review. Like I would always say that any one of my clients comes in, especially the commercial space, it's like, you know, do you have a chance to review the contract, or do you have a chance to, or even even sometimes if you're domestic, you're directly a client, is that what you usually are like directly and you so it's like even even at that, it's like having setting up milestone payments or stage payments like the commercial guys do, but for domestic? Do you just wait till the end of the job?

SPEAKER_03 8:24

Well, sort of for expectations like that, or like if you're just doing meaningful.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

You ask for deposits, no?

SPEAKER_03 8:31

No, no, not yet.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

I have guys even now charging for quotes. Yeah, I swear to god. Yeah, that's that's the way it's going. It's definitely the way it's going.

SPEAKER_03 8:42

It's more like a red phone, we're like scurry things sort of things with anything we like.

SPEAKER_01 8:46

Well, my my clients, that all the guys I'm referencing are autodomestic guys. Yeah. So the commercial guy, commercial space I find it not not to sound like like it's easier, but the commercial space that I find is is more difficult because there are so many red tapes and they are you are tied down to a contract. Whereas if you're in high demand,

Deposits Contracts And Cash Flow

SPEAKER_01 9:03

right, like if you're if you're busy and we can get you busy, like getting being busy and getting their work isn't usually the problem. It's it's again it's getting work with the right clients, getting rid of the right customers and things like that. But it's about it's about your so if you're busy, then you can sort of dictate a bit more. These are our standards, not like, oh, I need the positive for you because you know we've got you know, this job is so it's like if that's your company procedure, by the way, when you're quoting a job, we're 20% deposit from blah blah blah. That's that's the way all our guys are going, that's the way the industry seems to be going and never have any issues because like when you go to price a job for somebody, you know, are you are usually the cheapest?

SPEAKER_03 9:39

A couple of jobs that price was sort of in the middle. Yeah. That's what I mean. So, ourselves short of any sweats there, like sort of.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

That's what I mean. So people aren't ban you because you're like most of the clients you're working with aren't banning you because of the cheapest. They're banning you. Yeah, that's true. The clients buy off you guys, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 9:57

Well that's it. Very, very little.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

I don't work with anybody who I don't work with anybody who's not successful or L. So if you were to come in and say, I'm only starting off or I can't get any work, I'd be going. Why? Why can't you get any work? You know what I mean where you only work with guys who are like successful or set up and uh and they're getting work and everything else, because that to me says that you at least can do your job. That's one thing that's what it gets to do with one thing I won't do is I won't give you electrical advice, especially because I'm a fucking plumber, but you know, but like my my background was the mechanic, I'll end up doing the ME stuff, but it was at a very, very high level where I had a lot of people underneath me being able to do in the technical side of things, so but I'll show you like the business side of things, all about the business side of things and that whole approach, um, and setting yourself up and protecting against those things. Like you could have terms and conditions on coats to protect against payments and loads of different things, so there's lots of things you can do.

SPEAKER_03 10:47

We need to figure something out, like to organize better, like know we're all the problem about that, like taking what you can do to sort the business anyway better, like we're an actress, but we'll probably business men at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_01 10:58

So none of it that's insane, none of it. That's why that's why I went down that route that I did. Like, I like not we're all tradesmen. So I mean, like that's why I said you take it seriously, you're not you're not your business owners,

Standards Systems And Saying No

SPEAKER_01 11:08

but you don't ever think about it that way. So someone who are I'm Spark. They're like, fucking that, you run the business, you employ staff. Do you know what I mean? Like, but you like no idea how to like or to even start with run the business? You know what it like I always say to everybody if you're growing your business and you've got sort of problems now, or things are not quite right, when you grow, it just fucking amplifies. Do you know what I mean? It just explodes, and then you end up like how many times have you have you heard somebody like an old voice saying, Oh, I used to have fucking 20 men or I used to have this now? But why do you not have it now? Because it all went to shit. It all went pop, and it's like I I most of my guys came to me, they've been in business for quite a while, but I'm always eager to get younger businesses in because it's easier to do it at the start before you're at that stage.

SPEAKER_05 11:50

I've said you there, yes. What did you think?

SPEAKER_01 11:53

Hello? I was raised, so I wasn't honest because I was actually in a bit of a flow, and then I got off, you know. It's never good, like, but well, what'd you think? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You have your own business yourself, yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, how is that one?

SPEAKER_05 12:08

Well, just what you said there and I I'm the second generation, but my father started the business in 1948.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

And what sort of what you're domestic or commercial?

SPEAKER_05 12:20

Uh mostly domestic, we but uh commercial now.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

Yeah. And what is what do you prefer to do? What's the what's the what's like obviously your son's coming main eye? What's the goal for the business? What is it you want to try to

Building A Business That Runs Itself

SPEAKER_01 12:33

achieve?

SPEAKER_04 12:33

Do you want to get back to sort of where it was when your dad owned it or or I would like to be you talked about earlier on there more of a businessman as well as one business model? Yep. I'm 55 now.

SPEAKER_01 12:44

I want to uh you want to have the business not be the business?

SPEAKER_04 12:48

I don't want to call them about these bases and I know no, definitely not.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

100%. 100%. I guess what I always say, like what I always try and help my guys do is build a business that works and operates without them, you know, without you having to be there to stand over everything, and that's exactly what we show the guys to do. Like so um obviously that that got cut quite short. So I was gonna get into the whole what happens when you work together and all this here, but like essentially in a nutshell, it's it is all one-to-one, it's all bespoke mentorship. So it's like when you come in with us, meaning you'll sit down and do like a whole whether however long it takes, a couple of hours or not, even a day as long as it takes, and I'll sort of dissect everything that's going on in your mind, your brain of where you want the business to go, what you want it to do, how we're gonna do it, and then what you currently sort of have in place already, or when you don't have in place already, and what you need, and we sort of build up then that plan. So once we do that first initial one-to-one, after 48 hours, I'll issue you the plan and you have a look at it, review it and see what you think, whether you agree or disagree, or change this or change that, and then that's when the time starts to work together and we sort of work through it from then. Again, it's all one-to-one. Um so you've got me 100% of the time, not anybody else, not any other coaches or trainee or trainer or whatever else. It's as me and you go through it. Uh, same as any of your staff. So, if any of your staff they train in certain things, like everything we spoke about in the model, the project management. You know, if you wanted to show your son more into that side of things over time

The Mentorship Process And Plan

SPEAKER_01 14:07

or bring somebody in, we train all them as well, as part of the program as well, like included with the you know the fee. So, yeah, look, that that's that's pretty much it. It's about putting a plan on place and making sure it's getting executed because most of the things that we all do together, like I said in there, is all stuff you probably already know. But it's just finding the right way to do it or getting the right approach or you know, the right plan piece to actually achieve. So I always say, like, use that end goal, you coming off of tourists being a business owner, it's kind of like you want to live how many days a week do you want does that look like on site or in or in the office or whatever else, and then we reverse engineer that and sort of find well, who do we need then? What do we need? What do we need to put in place? How that what that looks like. Every person I speak to, it's all all the same problems. Do you know what I mean? All the same problems. And like I'm sure you've seen up in the up on the slide in the model, it's all that's all part of it. Like you're building the team, and it all has to work in synergy, you know what I mean? I would always promote sort of the subway, but not in terms of like only when you need them. It's like having a good relationship with somebody there, you've got enough fucking feeding them constantly. But without that, it's sort of overhead or risk of massive liability pain on the cards. Do you know what I mean? There's ways of doing it. But again, we would what we could do is when we're when we're looking at that, we could see what does the business need to be generated in order to take that in. What does the workload? What does that look like? So it's easy, it's always like the question or the this thing you'll always say to yourself is I'll do it when, but it's it's known exactly when that like what is that lane, what is that date, what is that number that you need to get to before then that you're ready to do it. Because often when you say I'll do it when, I'll do it when, but you're not really putting that in black and white or having that sat in stone. You often go over that, and then you you never when is there a time? It's never it just never seems to come. Do you know what I mean? So you're kind of going around in circles. So that's what we would do. We would make everything definitive, laying in the stand, targets in place, break them down into months

Targets Accountability And Sustained Growth

SPEAKER_01 15:45

or weeks or quarters or whatever. So every the commitment I asked from any client coming to me is six months minimum. Minimum six months relationship, that's what it has to be. None anyone that's committed, maybe 20 clients are now at the minute. None of them have, after the six months left, have all continued on, stayed on for the foreseeable. No one's no one's left yet. Um, because it constantly evolves and constantly changes. So as the business develops, then there's more more challenges or more things to overcome, or more targets, or more goals, or you know, more things to do, and even just having that somebody there to say, like, you know, right, we're at that stage now, so let's let's make let's take that action. Whereas if you wouldn't maybe hold yourself that accountability yourself. Do you know what I mean? That's maybe what we're missing with those guys, you know, saying that, like, right, this is what we say we're gonna do, let's do it, you know. The accountability and the support they're supposed to. Just finished up there um at the Galgorm at the ETT and I event. Uh great event, went really well. Um busy room, busy room to be honest. Um it's great to be in a room of people who have chose to be there, people who all share a similar problem, people like-minded people in the industry. So today was obviously all agreed to business owners. And one thing that really stood out is the same thing I see every time with business owners in the construction industry, and is that they all have those same problems and those pillars that I talk about in business time, profit control really resonated with everybody. Um what I enjoy the most

Closing Reflections And Subscribe CTA

SPEAKER_01 17:13

is not really delivering the value on the day to people and you know, giving them an idea, giving them a bit of insight, whether they become clients or not. Hopefully I just pick something up in what I'm saying and giving them value. That's that's my goal anytime I deliver any talk or any training. But afterwards, as always, getting to meet the people behind the business, hearing their struggles, hearing their problems, hearing their goals or ambitions um is what gives me the most enjoyment. And we had a couple of great contacts there, numbers exchanged, and hopefully more people who can come on board and I can help change their business in life. So if you enjoyed this episode, a bit different from our usual, but uh if you enjoyed this, be sure to like and subscribe. Uh we are dropping weekly videos with loads of value as I spoke about there, so yeah, be sure to like and subscribe and follow for more.