%2001%20Artboard%201.jpg)
The SiteVisit
Leadership in construction with perspective from the job site. A podcast dedicated to the Construction industry. Construction professionals, General Contractors, Sub trade Contractors, and Specialty Contractors audiences will be engaged by the discussions between the hosts and their guests on topics and stories. Hosted James Faulkner ( CEO/Founder - SiteMax Systems ).
The SiteVisit
Entrepreneurial Strategies and Culture in Construction with Brandon Fuchs, Founder at Elite Builder Society
Discover the transformative journey of Brandon Fuchs, a seasoned expert in the construction industry, as we unpack the delicate balance between technical expertise and entrepreneurial savvy. Brandon, the visionary behind the Elite Builder Society, shares his captivating evolution from carpentry to mentorship. His personal anecdotes shed light on the trials and triumphs of small-scale contractors, revealing essential strategies needed to conquer the industry's hurdles.
Unlock the secrets to strategic business growth with insights from the Builder Accelerator Program's robust three-pillar framework. Elite Builder Society helps crafting a business that's not only successful today but also primed for a lucrative exit tomorrow. Brandon’s examples illustrate the power of streamlined processes and branding to elevate enterprise value. This episode offers an in-depth roadmap for constructing a business with future transitions in mind, ensuring long-term success and sustainability.
Immerse yourself in the art of building a thriving company culture, where employees are more than mere team members—they're part of a united tribe. Explore how understanding personal strengths, alongside effective hiring practices, shapes a robust brand identity. Through engaging discussions, we inspire business owners to cultivate leadership styles that resonate with their workforce, fostering a sense of belonging and purpose that drives collective success.
PODCAST INFO:
the Site Visit Website: https://www.sitemaxsystems.com/podcast
the Site Visit on Buzzsprout: https://thesitevisit.buzzsprout.com/269424
the Site Visit on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-site-visit/id1456494446
the Site Visit on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5cp4qJE5ExZmO3EwldN1HH
FOLLOW ALONG:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/thesitevisit
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesitevisit
Where are you calling him from?
Speaker 2:I am from Saskatchewan.
Speaker 1:Saskatchewan Rough Riders. All right, is it called Rough?
Speaker 2:Riders still. Yeah, it is still called the Rough Riders. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I don't really follow CFL football though. No.
Speaker 2:No, not, really Not for me.
Speaker 1:You like the American football?
Speaker 2:though, when I had time, so in another life, when I had all kinds of free time and I could keep up with everything. Yeah, I like the american football league. It's uh, it's a show in itself, it is a show.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's a completely different deal than there and than it is in uh, canada. Here, yeah, I've got a friend of mine who's a uh a punter on the b Lions. Okay, yeah, that's pretty interesting. So we're going to talk today about coaching and what you have built here with the Elite Builders Society and sort of you know. I'm very interested in your subject matter here because we're seeing the contracting business or the intelligence around it, best practices around it on the smaller scale, evolving very quickly. The big guys have been doing pro-D and all that stuff for years, but when you're talking smaller contractors, commercial contractors, sub-trades, there's a love for building and a talent for what they do. But then there's the entire business side, which is another whole thing that is not always, doesn't always come naturally to everyone, or they don't have the time or haven't been showed a certain way, or, you know, self-education perhaps um has taken a back seat. So, yeah, it's pretty important what you're doing, I think yeah, like when.
Speaker 2:So I I got into this industry, um, almost two decades ago, primarily into residential, small commercial. I started in industrial as a carpenter and I wasn't really being fulfilled in that space and then decided one time to just, you know, end up going on my own. And when I went on my own, like a smaller contractor, would you jump into a lot of things with big ideas but no direction, no true strategy, no plan, and it's because you don't actually know what you need to plan for. You know you can possess the skills to do X, y and Z, but if you don't know how to execute them, you're just sitting there blind.
Speaker 2:It's like I always explain it very similar to traveling through a maze trying to get to the finish line. You've seen the finish line for other people that have gotten there and you have no idea how to get there. And so you struggle going through this navigational journey on your own and ultimately hit roadblocks throughout the entire process and a lot of people just give up. Quite often, more than not, most people fail in this industry primarily because they just don't have the right direction and they just don't have the right understanding of what that journey looks like. So that's why I've stepped into this space is to help them through that journey. I've gone through it on my hands and knees, through blood, sweat and tears. I've been through so much in my life that I can provide them with so many obstacles to avoid and directions to focus on.
Speaker 1:That's pretty awesome. Has anybody ever called you the Brandon Tony Robbins Fuchs?
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Are you the Tony Robbins of the construction world?
Speaker 2:I mean, let's check back in 10 years, we'll see where we are. I'll fight to get there, 100% I'll fight to get there.
Speaker 1:Personal power with Brandon Fuchs. Yeah, you bet I love it.
Speaker 2:You know what? I'm not trying to label myself. Really, you know I've identified myself as a contractor coach, but I'm not trying to label myself or anything. I just I've gone through some shit in my life and if you're a contractor that is going through some shit or you've gone through some, you know some struggle, there is another way. It doesn't need to be that way. So I'm trying to label myself, but that's the direction.
Speaker 1:Well, you know what they say these days, whatever you identify as you are. So there you go.
Speaker 2:Oh goodness, let's not start with the political side of this.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Site. Visit Podcast. Leadership and perspective from construction with your host, James Falkner.
Speaker 2:Business as usual as it has been for so long now that it goes back to what we were talking about before and hitting the reset button, you know you read all the books. You read the evening, you read scaling up, you read good to great.
Speaker 1:You know, I could go on. We've got to a place where we found the secret serum. We found the secret potion. We can get the workers in. We know where to get them.
Speaker 1:One time I was on a job sale for a while and actually we had a semester concrete and I ordered like a Korean-Finnish patio out front of the site show upstairs. I was down at Dallas and a guy just hit me up on LinkedIn out of the blue and said he was driving from Oklahoma to Dallas to meet with me because he heard the Faber Connect platform on your guys' podcast. I'm a crusher and we celebrate these values every single day. Let's get down to it. Brandon Fuchs, you do realize your last name is the name of the Porsche wheel, the original 911 wheel.
Speaker 2:No way, I did not know that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're called Fuchs. No way, yeah, with the black-orange segment, the original 911, that's what those are called, the forged alloy with the steel rim.
Speaker 2:Oh cool, good to know. Oh cool, good to know. Yeah, it's uh, it's german for um and it's, I think, it relates to fox, um, in some way shape or form. I know that the bank, the bank people, um use the profound version of it quite often just by mistake, because they can't pronounce it, so they just use it as the swear word version. So it's a, it's a hidden, hidden trick.
Speaker 1:There I got the little hidden trick yeah, better to be the porsche wheel than the uh expletive yeah, yeah, I like that. I'm gonna use that yeah I'm named after a porsche wheel yeah, exactly, actually the most iconic wheel ever in history I love that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, good label and I'll take that and they'll go.
Speaker 1:Oh wow, so is it German. Yes, it is there, we go, there, we go. That's cool, all right, so you're always learning.
Speaker 2:The cool part about what you just taught me is that you're always learning.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Always learning.
Speaker 2:You know some people like learning and some people like learning only some things is what I find, yeah, because you know what's interesting about and just tell me.
Speaker 1:We can just chat about the coaching thing a little bit. I mean, throughout my career I've obviously, like you know, mentored some people and also coached. I didn't have like a you know, a coach designation, but I've had coaches, been involved in coaching, um, my clients in my old day, you know. We sort of lead them through a number of things, helping with business processes, et cetera, um, but uh, there definitely needs to be that mirror sometimes you know when you're when you're really peeling back the onion and I say this on many podcasts about really getting to the core of what people are doing right, what they're doing wrong, um, it is really a mirror. Sometimes they're a little bit reluctant to look at that clarity that's staring them in the face, um, of what really needs to be done.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Do you find that?
Speaker 2:I actually just was on a call so I deal with a lot of the closing calls with contractors that are entering into our community and I was just on a call with a gentleman in Ontario and he is a newer cabinet contractor and so he's trying to justify all of his positions on how he can successfully navigate X, y and Z. And as we're talking I'm trying to explain to him that his plan is not going to work and I've explained to him.
Speaker 2:I've already done what you're trying to do, and that's the that's. The reality here is that I can take you where you're trying to do, and that's the that's the reality here is that I can take you where you're trying to go, but if you continue to try to get somewhere that you don't understand how to get to, you know you're going to continue to do the same thing that you're doing, which is failing. And so sometimes the struggle that I find really is getting them to understand that. You know, lower your ego for a minute and understand that, um, I'm here to help you. You know, um, and I'm not guaranteeing that I can help you if you're not willing to learn. That's the biggest problem right now with contractors is that they feel, like what they're doing and I was there too Like I didn't realize that I needed a coach.
Speaker 2:You know, two decades ago I I definitely did. I had a few mentors along the way, but I didn't understand the value of having that person throughout the entire process. And I think, like, if you can have that mirrored type search scenario where you're you're bouncing those ideas off of yourself it's like your future self, right yeah when it's like, oh, this is what I can do. This is what it could look like. Oh, maybe you should go in this direction. You know, having somebody along the way to help bounce those ideas off of is really the fastest way to get to where you want to get to.
Speaker 1:So can we chat a little bit about your company, the Elite Builder Society.
Speaker 2:So what's with this society part well, to make this affordable and accessible to people, we needed to build a community, we needed to build a culture and we needed to do it with volume. So the society is a volume position where you know we bring in people into a space where we actually we also inside the society or inside the community we also have educators. So some of the educators that are in our space are specifically niched down into construction-specific accounting, construction-specific videography, construction-specific web development and marketing strategies and SEO. And so we've built this society where people are going, where they're currently empowering each other to move the needle forward. A lot of times you just need a little bit of support along the way to help get from point A to point B, and within our community we have this space or this culture that we're building where we're elevating our mindset so that we can dominate in the industry that we're in.
Speaker 1:Cool, okay, so currently do you have a number of coaches or is it just you? At this point, are you bringing people in to sort of sniper some specific needs?
Speaker 2:So within the community, we have myself as the primary, and so our program that we have is called the Builder Accelerator Program, and the program is a three-pillared program that basically identifies who you are as a person. What are your skills? Are you good at sales? Are you good at communication? Are you not good at communication? We want to identify who they are and then we filter them into a strategy process, and then we filter them into a strategy process and then we filter them into an implementation process. The implementation is filled inside of our community with educators, and so each one of these educators are, in a sense, coaches, our cpa. So we have a gentleman his name joshua, is also from vancouver as well, and he is a cpa and a cepa, so he's a certified exit strategist for construction companies, so joshua hosts calls inside of our community to help educate people on how to position their business. We also have individuals that are sales masters, that are web developers, so each one of those individuals are also coaches inside of our community and are all accessible to everyone.
Speaker 1:That's pretty cool. Can we just zoom in on that for a sec, because that's pretty intriguing? So the exit strategy for a company so typically what I've seen anyway is, if you are going to in the construction space of like doing a trade, buy real estate, get other assets, investments along the way Because typically, unless you create a huge organization and you have a succession plan of somebody else taking on some shares or buying into the company and then you having that succession of you being paid out for the time that you've spent to create the company that you've created, typically there's no widget for sale. There's no like enterprise value of a thing because it's a service business. I mean, you're good as your last projects, you've got a portfolio.
Speaker 1:Your people coming in and out of the company like the majority of the people anyway are going to be. It's going to be a revolving door for 20 years. You're not going to year one very seldom you're going to have the same people as year 20. So the in terms of the advice that's being given there is that kind of that paradigm or is it more of? You can create something that's being given. There Is that kind of that paradigm or is it more of? You can create something that's worth something.
Speaker 2:I think everyone. Well, when you build your business, you're not thinking exit and that's the reality. Right? Like a lot of times, business owners or contractors are thinking um, I have, I have possessed skills and abilities that I can now utilize to go on my own. I go on my own and I don't think exit. And when you're building your business, what we teach contractors is that you have to build with exit in mind right from the day one. Right, if you build with exit in your strategy, then you can ultimately push that needle forward, if you like. Like you said, you know people are in service. I've sold a service based business for quite a bit, primarily because we had we had clients and we had a resourceful brand. But at that point I didn't think exit. Even when I built that business, it was not still with exit. I found a way to get it sold. But if I would have built my business with exit, I would have got 10x what I sold it for, but were those service contracts that you had?
Speaker 2:No, there was no contracts. It was just a brand and a service product that was enrooted into a community. That's it. And so if I was a builder? But what is that?
Speaker 1:product. I'm curious about this because the product could be that widget that I'm talking about, because there's enterprise value around it. It could be a process, it could be a widget, it could be something that someone sees value in attaining yeah, the business that I sold was a garage customization company so we did resonance coatings.
Speaker 2:So alongside my construction I also did a resonance coating company. I had a few different companies right alongside garage floors yeah yeah, that's, yeah, we can we completed three point? Uh, well, over three million square feet of residential and commercial spaces, right. Okay, we had a bit of a widget, but it was very accessible to other people to also, let's say, you had.
Speaker 1:if someone would just buy that company, you could have a month's training for people who've never done it before. Probably you could have all of your processes down your equipment, how to use all your equipment, what you need to do for permitting, what you need to if there is that at all I don't know if there probably isn't but what there is to do for any regulatory things, what it is for MSDS sheets, all these kinds of stuff you could have had in a process, because the actual and correct me if I'm wrong, but the actual service was not that complicated to do. Whereas just to give you an example whereas if you had a specialty trade that was really, really technical, like what?
Speaker 2:Because I think that you can do this with a lot of companies.
Speaker 1:Well, cabinetry is very technical, high-end, high-end cabinetry.
Speaker 2:Right, but you're selling the real estate of the business. So a cabinetry company has a shop, they have equipment, they have assets, they're building a machine, so you're selling the machine. That's building the end result and a lot of times it's still yeah, it's connected to the business owner. But if you built that business excluding the business owner and there was a sales machine and there was a work machine and there was a do work machine and the business owner was the um, you know the, the motivational person, that's the one element.
Speaker 2:Like I was reading an article and if you check out my social at some point further down, there's an article about a company in miami that sold their hvac company technical company h HVAC, plumbing and HVAC. It was publicly sold and this was just a guy out of his garage that started a plumbing company and then grew his business to the market share. Right, you know Florida, miami, big space, lots of people. He grew his business to the market share and it was publicly sold because he had this machine that was running without him. And I think a lot of construction companies devalue their position in the industry and don't understand how to actually position their business to be attractive to somebody else to buy and take over.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good point. So. So I guess, when you, the more specialty things become like, I always look at it in a similar way, as as a uh, a restaurant business. Like if you, if you're gonna be a, if you're a chef and you and, and you love cooking and you've wanted to make amazing things, you've been impressing people all your life with your skills and then you're going to take the risk, rent that space, borrow that money from your friends and family and open that restaurant. Now you're running the business.
Speaker 1:However, if you want to walk away from that, you're going to have to train somebody to make that with that passion. So that's situation number a. Number b is I got some money, I want to start a restaurant because I want my friends to come and I don't want to work there. I'm just going to hire a chef. It's going to suck. It's going to suck. We've seen it over and over and over again they don't work.
Speaker 1:So but then you have I don't know if you've got the like in Canada here in Vancouver specifically, we have Earl's and the Cactus Club, rob Feeney, who was like used to be, he was on the Food Network, et cetera, and he is able to create processes around these pretty elevated dishes for casual dining. I got to say I mean some of the stuff they have. It's quite shocking how good it is and the consistency to be able to open store after store after store and it's consistent and works well. That is the enterprise value. That is that X factor I think of, where you're trying to get companies to think like yeah, and that was my small resonance coding company.
Speaker 2:Optically it looked like it was something like that. And when you position yourself in the marketplace like that looked like it was something like that. And when you position yourself in the marketplace like that, you establish a foothold A lot of businesses. I was chatting with another guy out of Ontario and he had suggested and this is a little bit in a different direction, but I hope that can explain my point he was considering joining our community and and so he didn't have enough capital he had claimed to invest in himself. And I said you know what, that's fine. This isn't for people that don't want to, you know, take action and don't understand the value of what we can provide. And he and I said, like, what do you have right now for workflow? And he said, well, I've got this. What do you have right now for workflow? And he said, well, I've got this. You know this $300,000 project that we're working on. I was like, oh, that's great. Like how did you get that job? And he's like, oh, it's my uncle's project.
Speaker 2:Or my uncle gave me the you know my I'm working with necessary to get in front of the client to lower their objections to hiring you.
Speaker 2:They just hired you because you were family, and so the roots of your business are weak, right.
Speaker 2:And so if the roots of your business are strong and they're integrated into your community and into your client and into the products that you deliver, you blow barriers, you blow objections out of the way and you can resolve a lot of problems very quickly.
Speaker 2:And so what a lot of people struggle with in business, I think, is understanding their position in the market and building off of deep-rooted connections. When you talked about those restaurants that were successful because the cook was in there and that was the head chef, he's building roots into the community. People understand the value of this chef that is invested in his business and when they come to eat the meal it's like an energy, it's emotion, and so that's how businesses become successful in construction when they have this route that they implant into the community. A lot of people think I just need an ad strategy, I need to pay for some kind of X, y and Z type scenario to solve my problem, and it's like that's just a weak lead. That's a shitty weak lead that's not going to help build success at the end of the day yeah, that's a really good point.
Speaker 1:I, I really like the roots analogy you have there. Uh, and do you, do you knit that narrative into your training and your coaching? Yeah, it's really good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I like, I like the roots, um, yeah, like like my whole program ultimately is for you to understand that you need to do ads. Secondary or even third An ad strategy is later. If your business isn't sustaining itself on its own by organic word of mouth, that is, not friends and family, that's outside of that external group, then you can't sustain other work that's coming through coal right, because those leads are coal. So you need to be able to understand how to warm leads up before they get to you.
Speaker 2:I use this analogy quite a bit. Where it's like a lead or an opportunity is just like throwing an egg off a building. You have to find a way to catch the egg before it hits the ground and then you need to find a way to flourish the egg into a bird, whatever it might be. A lot of people just throw the egg and fumble it and allow it to break because they don't have a catching mechanism or a system to kind of position those leads. So we teach them how to position your business first and foremost versus, you know, running some kind of ad campaign.
Speaker 1:So so, in terms of the, you said the word brand a few times and obviously that's a word that I know deeply. Yeah, I mean, these days it's in construction as far as I'm concerned, and it's probably like this with any industry but the execution, the quality of execution of everything, of how you do things, creates a mindset in a cultural fabric of anyone who knew who comes in the organization. You can point to the execution level of something and say this is how we do things around here. Yeah, um, and that is where, in construction, it's about how professional your execution is what's?
Speaker 2:it's also about the pride that you take with the work that you're doing right. Like if you don't take pride in whatever it is that you're performing and you aren't integral to that execution, then there's gaps for infiltration or for you know, cancer, so to speak. And if, if you don't understand that you can't necessarily just go golfing and allow your clients project to crumble or fall apart because you've got a, you know a date with golfing or whatever. What we teach people in our group is like your clients exceeded expectation has to be number one. Doesn't matter what your product is, doesn't matter what your brand is. If those chefs that were in the in the kitchen I like how we're using this as kind of a bit of an analogy all the time but like if they were in there producing shitty food, they'll have no clients in the restaurant. Like you have to take pride in the work that you're doing first and foremost and understand what quality really looks like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've defined this over the years of the brand is the net sentiment that your audience feels about you and it's the net over the entire course or population of your possible market.
Speaker 2:So everything counts. It's not just about the extension of the yeah, it's an extension of the energy that you're putting into the to the. Whatever you're performing right, like like. If you're performing shit, your brand is shit. If you're performing greatness and you take pride in the work and it's like my delivery will be great, like I'm a warrior in this space. We have these three words that I talk about on kind of my closing call with our contractors elevate, dominate and thrive. They work together. I've recognized the value of investing in podcasts and being a part of masterminds and listening to audiobooks and elevating my mind and hiring coaches. I've understood the value of being in an elevated mindset at all times, and what this allows you to do is it allows you to dominate in your space, and those two things together will allow you to dominate in your space, and it will. Those two things together will allow you to thrive in business. If contractors um show up weak and, you know, unconfident and unprepared, their brand is a representation of that and it ultimately will end in failure.
Speaker 2:You can have bad days, but you need to understand that tomorrow is a new day, so let's just take one day at a time, let's take one bite of the elephant at a time and let's focus on the end goal, which is delivering value.
Speaker 1:So with your accelerator program, just like, what is the step-by-step thing? Like, what do you, what are you providing people? And and also kind of like, how expensive is this or how cheap is it? I mean, obviously what you're doing is creating lasting value. So you know, I believe in in your kind of a, but is it hundreds of thousands of dollars, tens of thousands of dollars?
Speaker 2:No, our, our, our offer is currently at 6,500 bucks US, and so we also have accessible discounts that are throughout October. So, depending on when this is posted, we have different discounts and we also have weekly like. I'm making this very accessible to people that want to change their business.
Speaker 1:And is that? Is that? Is that monthly or yearly, or what is that?
Speaker 2:That's a one-time payment to get you six months of access into the community, and then there's a monthly subscription cost. Okay, um, but what we're, what we're really doing is, uh is, a few years ago, I was a part of a very significant nonprofit in my community, but prior to COVID, and what this journey taught me was my superpower, and so I believe that everybody possesses a unique superpower or skill and ability. If we bring this back to that younger mindset where you're thinking that you're like Superman, that's not the superpower that I'm talking about. I'm talking about a skill, like a specific skill and ability, and what we do within the Builder Accelerator in the first month is truly identify what your superpower is. What is your true skill and ability? My superpower is people. I am incredibly conscious of people and their surroundings and their situations and how I can solve their problem, and so when you apply that to your client in that transaction, it really helps you understand the psychology of the client, and so what? I've been very successful in is understanding my client's pulse.
Speaker 2:I can do everything else that others can't right In my little bubble, and what we teach people in our program is recognize what you're not good at so that you can offload that to somebody else that's good at it, because the result will be exponentially greater if you are focusing on what you're good at and what makes you happy. If you're happy and you go to work every day of the week, it's easy. If that chef sucked at cooking right and he um was in there trying to force people to believe that he was a good cook, well, it's not going to work. What if we'll see that?
Speaker 1:What if that person is is very talented at their craft, yeah, but yet not great at motivating people, not great about might be a little bit abrasive, might not be able to communicate the opportunity later on for people. So he has a revolving door of people who come in and out of the company. I've seen that happen a lot, where it's just sort of can't get out of their own way.
Speaker 2:Right. They need to get somebody, that is, they need to first drop their ego for a day. Right, they need to understand that they might be part of the problem and then they need to surround themselves with people that are going to help lift them up. Because if you run into anything with negativity, you'll continue to fail. So if you are a negative, toxic kind of person who approaches people from an argumentative perspective, you aren't inspirational, you're not motivational, you're not positive. Your business will struggle. It'll be like pushing a jagged rock uphill. People are trying to be motivated by the leader. If I was doing a job there was one time I was doing a job for a client.
Speaker 2:It was a we were doing a basement renovation I believe this was several years ago and it was a basement renovation. It had a voided crawl space under the floor, so there was no concrete floor in the basement, and so there's this air cavity where dirt and all the plumbing and hvac were, and there's this perma liner on the floor that kept the moisture from traveling through the house. Well, that was all wrecked and trashed and the dirt had lifted up, and whoever built the house just threw all the shit down there, and so this basement space couldn't get a true seal. And my guys were like, oh, my goodness, like we actually have to like dig this whole 2 000 square foot like space. Like it was only three feet, not even. In some cases it was only like 12 inches. And I was like, yeah, like we have to go down here and dig this area out.
Speaker 2:And sometimes you, you're faced with huge obstacles and as a business owner, you need to be willing to. I went in there, I just went into it and I said you know what, I'll show you like we'll get it done. Like I know that it's shitty, but if it's not us, it's going to be somebody else that's going to solve our client's problem, right? So let's just, let's just band up. Let's let's do the uncomfortable. That's typically what construction ends up being at times. It's always pretty and let's just get it done.
Speaker 2:And so I led by example and I went in there and got the shit done and a lot of people would have, would have tried to, to authoritate the solution. You go down there and do this, right. You get down there and and and jump into this uncomfortable situation and all these twists and turns and weird angles. That's just not a way to lead and ultimately, I think, like what a lot of people are those types of people that you're speaking about struggle with is understanding what the other person's life might look like, you know, and what they're trying to deal with with the tasks that you're putting in front of them. You're not trying to make this like peaches and rainbows, but you need to be supportive, motivational and encouraging.
Speaker 1:So that scenario could be put into a metaphor of that Place that couldn't get the proper seal, terrible job to be done. That could, from a metaphor basis, could be the job that the number two has to do with the owner. The owner is that stinky, moisture-ridden underbelly of the process. That's the problem, and what I find interesting about that is is that in order for somebody to take on that task and be constantly locking horns with the owner or the talent, let's say, because talent can always inspire other talent, I think you know, because people love to learn how to do things, especially in construction, when you can learn from the best. The best might not be able to be best at the business, but they may be best at the craft, and you see that all the time. You know they just can't. They can't sort of break through that couple hundred thousand dollars of a year of salary. There's never anything net to take a dividend at the end of the time and they're constantly chasing next client, next client, but they never get anywhere. Um, and typically that is because of that person not being able to get out of their own way, because everyone in the industry knows those people. Over time they're like oh, yeah, yeah, that company, yeah, great guy, but, you know, talented, but it's always the talented but, um, so I think what? What I like about what? What you're doing with your organization? You're helping people understand that.
Speaker 1:You know, put your ego down for a minute. A lot of it is ego, honestly, and a little bit of narcissism too. Right, I mean, you're probably dealing with that and that's not a construction thing, that's a thing with anything, because you need. Narcissism can often be conflated with confidence, and confidence and courage and you need to be confident and courageous. In order to even start anything like, you have to be a, you're a certain type of person who's like nope, I don't want to work from someone else, I'm going to do my own thing and I'm going to carve my own path, blah, blah, blah. Okay, but you're going to need people, otherwise you're going to be weed whacking your whole life right so yeah.
Speaker 2:So if you can't, if you can't encourage the people around you to help you like that's part of the rooted thing that we were speaking about earlier like word of mouth is the most powerful form of marketing, right? And if you can find a way to militarize your client and the word of mouth scenario, everything just kind of continues to push itself. It's the same thing on site. If you can find a way to organically motivate your contractors or your subs or your employees, you don't have to be there. You don't have to be there worrying about stuff. The only time you are more involved is when you have, let's not say, shitty people.
Speaker 2:But when you have people that aren't at that same level, when you have people that are on site that are trying to execute the task and they aren't at that level with you to help you resolve this objection or this problem, then it is your force to have to figure out a way to solve it. So it becomes clunky. It's like, oh, we're moving forward, ah, boom challenge that we have to deal with. That could have been avoided because said person could have resolved it a different way, but they didn't have that positive mindset, so they just stopped it and and I think a lot of contractors find themselves surrounding themselves with people that maybe aren't the right people, and they're trying to force things in a direction with the wrong army, so to speak, behind you. Yeah, I mean, you're going to attract the wrong army, so to speak, behind you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean you're going to attract the right army from the right people by displaying a very obvious value in the exchange of time. Yeah, and I think these days everything is so transparent and people are way more shrewd, brand shrewd, very tribal. And when I say tribal, I mean that companies are tribal. They are, it's a tribe of people, and you wear your war colors and you do your thing. That's your outfit, it's your brand on your truck. You know you're wearing the colors. It's like an NFL team, like we were talking about earlier, right? People show up with a painted face or not. Like an NFL team, like we were talking about earlier. Right, people show up with a painted face or not. So, in order to have that tribe, there needs to be a very clear distinction between your tribe and another tribe, and they don't want to look at another tribe and go well, how come they do all of these things and we don't do any of those things, like you know. Like, are we a DeWalt, a Milwaukee or a Makita shop? Like, what do we do? Are we all blue? Are we all red? Are we all yellow? Like, what's the deal? Do we all wear Carhartt stuff? Like day one? What do I get. Am I part of this motion? Am I part of this thing?
Speaker 1:This execution side of things is what people are looking for. They're looking for meaning and being able to be part of something and belonging to a thing, because everything else is pretty much a transaction. It's not that much different than going to 7-Eleven $1.99 for a milk. You buy the milk. They got the $1.99. Done Transaction finished. It's like you went out to site, paid you X amount of dollars per hour. You buy the milk. They got the $1.99. Done Transaction finished.
Speaker 1:It's like you went out to site, paid you X amount of dollars per hour. You came home. Done, okay, great. But what is the time? Because the time is everything. Was it worth working there? Did I just burn time? So what I think companies really need to do is they need to create a really obvious value of while you're here, you will be better off. I know we're not going to work together for the rest of our lives. That's clearly a metric that will is very rare, so I will. As this is me speaking as a business owner, I would say I can guarantee you that the time you will spend here will be worth it for you, even if you got paid the same somewhere else right.
Speaker 2:I think, like if you have people in your I always have always looked at um, the people that are running with me If they aren't leeched on, if they aren't, you know, wearing those colors or that brand outside of when they're being paid to, they're not. They're not a believer of what we're doing, and trying to force somebody to believe something that they don't believe is impossible. You know, like, as petty as it might be, if you don't follow the business that you're working with, if you don't engage with their content, if you don't support them, if you don't share it, you're not, you're not. You're. You're not doing the business justice, like you're not doing your employment with that that business any justice. You're not adding any value because you don't support it, and so now you're actually just pulling them down. And as a business owner, you need to be really conscious of the people that you're working with or that are working for you. If they don't support your mission, then I mean there's a hundred other people that definitely would.
Speaker 2:So like employ the right people and so you have a movement of direction, instead of like trying to beg people to come along with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know Um and and, as it depends on what type of business owner you are like with our program, you know when we talk about what your superpower is like. If you're the the business owners, that that's a sales generated person. If that's your industry, or if you're the guy who does the work. If that's your industry or if you're just kind of a mix of all those, but you're not necessarily good or great at one or the other. You have to really identify who you are and still find a way for people to look up to you. You still have to find a way to be the guy for people to look up to you. You still have to find a way to be the guy. It's your business.
Speaker 2:And when you're trying to exit out of this company, you need to have forward progression even without you. In some cases, a lot of people don't understand that the business still needs to find a way to run when you're not there. So there's a lot of things to consider. But it's like you've got this huge elephant right. You don't need to eat the whole elephant. You can have one bite at a time. Just one bite every day will progress you forward.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you mentioned website and I don't want to get too in the weeds of website design, blah, blah blah, because it's obviously just one piece of a larger conversation. But I think we find that when you're recruiting, there needs to be a very attractive representation of what are the people going to be like there. What is? You know what's the connection to the Instagram look like, if there's any at all kind of events, or you know, because I find that with people when they're working somewhere, when there's you know that whole um adage of you know, you're the, you're the net of the net, of the closest 10 people you hang out with, you're going to be like. Well, those are the people that work often, and if those people don't look like the kind of people that you think are going to elevate you in your life, then you're like eh, I don't know, don't know if I want to do that.
Speaker 1:I don't know, don't know if I want to do that. So, in order to attract the best, so that that tribe of people looks like something that you think would be a good use of your time, the website itself. I would say you know, I've seen this over the. I used to be a web developer when I was younger and made hundreds of websites and also done brand strategy for construction companies, many of them. What I would say today is don't look like another construction company, do not Go and look at some other things. Look at some other websites, look at some great things. Look at some other websites, look at some great things.
Speaker 1:And one other thing I would say is and maybe you would pass this on is um, hiring a web developer and hiring a designer is kind of like trying to hire a fashion consultant, because one thing I can say is most people do not have the. That's just almost. I think taste is almost. Is it like what good food tastes like? Some people will never know what it, what it actually tastes like. Some people actually blind to know what is good and you need somebody. It's almost like being able to hire a good fashion designer. You almost have to have taste in order to know that that fashion designer has good taste themselves. It's very hard to do. You'll have web developers that you'll hire or marketing people and you go. Well, you know they've done this and this and this, and then you know you sort of sell yourself on the fact that they're going to be good for you, but you might not even know whether or not the end result that they did that you paid tens of thousands of dollars for, if it's good or not.
Speaker 1:Like I see, a lot of marketing for construction companies is terrible. It's absolutely awful and there's some that's fantastic. And I think to myself and some of them actually like that, like I've seen swag made with terrible identities and terrible typefaces. I'm like geez, like did you actually? You put that on a hundred dollar hoodie, like that crazy. And so you know.
Speaker 1:I think what the thing is is we're going and I see this mostly on the smaller contractor side of things. You know that that badge, it's like there's a reason why sports teams, you know, logos are awesome, the colors are thought out, everything's kind of dialed in. It's because you want people to rally around and come to these events. You want there to be a tribal representation of something everyone's proud of. So design, and knowing what good design is, I would really have that as part of your stack to train people. The golden ratio does anybody know about that? Does anybody know of that calculation of design from design elements, that golden ratio? The best brands in the world, everything, all of their communication, is around the golden ratio and we trust it because the golden ratio is that of nature it is.
Speaker 2:Right. Well, I think like if you apply that same thought process to how you build a home, it's very similar to what we've built within our community. When I was going through the process of identifying my superpower, I identified that I wasn't the best tiler. I identified that I wasn't the best drywaller. I identified that I wasn't the best painter. I identified that I wasn't the best finishing carpenter. But I was okay at a lot of those things and okay would be okay to get me by. But to be great, I needed to have people that worked great at what they did. And so what a lot of people need to understand is that when you're building a home, a high quality home, it is filled with great people under each facet of service required on that home, and that's how you get to success on the project. It's the same thing with business. If you try to skirt by with okay web development, okay, brand development okay. Okay, web development, okay, brand development, okay, marketing okay, you know, whatever else, you will just have an okay business.
Speaker 2:You know and a lot of people actually also try to implement the wrong people to help with one of those services, and that's's more common than not that a contracting company will be looking for a website, for example, and he'll be out there and he'll be like, okay, I need a website. Okay, go to Google you know the Google monster and they'll find a web company and they'll reach into this web company and the web company is boasting about all these different things that they've done. I've done this, I've done that. All these different things that they've done, I've done this, I've done that.
Speaker 2:All these different elements probably most of them don't pertain to construction, and so this person that you're conversing with about potentially owning a portion of your business, of the service, about building your business, doesn't actually have a a, you know, qualified perspective on servicing you, but you're assuming that they're great, right, and so what we've done in this community is really tried to focus on finding people that are that are niched down to service the construction contractor with that specific service. It's very different. If you ask an accountant, for example, I know that accounting is fairly basic, but if you're working with an accountant that specializes in construction, they understand things differently than the accountant that also does restaurants and barbershops and furniture stores. It's very different, the experience is very different, and so my point is is like a website is critical, but also the person that's doing it needs to have the tools and resources to be the best at it so they can help you.
Speaker 1:Can I challenge you on that? Sure, okay, yeah, the best designers who can build the best websites are not going to know. You need to bifurcate those. You need a marketing person who understands construction to put the basis for what the website's going to be, and it needs to be on a content document first. If you're expecting your web developer to have good messaging, good copy, don't do that.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying that the web developer should know your business specifically. I'm just saying that they should have an understanding of how they can help you extract that information out of you Because, like, the business owner is the one that possesses the tools right. Like if I came to you and said I am a glass company, for example, I do residential and commercial glass and this is the services I provide, I don't necessarily know what I need to say to expose myself in a way that the website will represent who I am as a business Right, and so leaning on those people so they can ask you the appropriate questions and they understand your industry is really where I'm I'm saying it comes from. It's like the guy who understands construction and understands you know, like last company potentially can really ask the appropriate questions to help build um a web profile or or whatever kind of profile that helps best represent that person, I believe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I guess what I'm trying to do is not make it 50 grand, because if you go to an agency, they're going to do that. They're going to have a marketing person who's going to look at your value. Proposition make sure your message is I mean, but that's the dollars you're talking about. Proposition make sure your message I mean, but that's the dollars you're talking about. You know so, but if you want to be able to pay $2,000 for a WordPress site or a or a you know um Webflow site or something like that, you need a document that has these are the pages we have, this is our portfolio, here's the images, and have that ready for a web developer to make. And the further you go down market, the more you have somebody saying yeah, I understand your business and I'm a website developer.
Speaker 1:Well, they're not a very good one Because the good ones are busy. The good ones are busy making great product and they don't get into the weeds on making marketing plans. So it's definitely the best practice is to have either a Google doc or a Word doc that has the entire website already organized. I mean, a perfect example is the person that's doing your flooring at your house was not the architect who made the plans. This is totally the same thing. You want somebody who can just build. That's it, yeah.
Speaker 2:And they're not going to know a lot about construction.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, the also.
Speaker 2:The other part to it is like you know, um, not that this is relevant to web development or anything like that, but a lot of people in construction, when they're starting their company out, they have this grand vision that they see.
Speaker 2:When we talked about the maze, for example, right getting through the maze, you see the end. You've seen other people that are at the end of the maze and you see their, their fancy. You know business. They got the nice car, they got the nice vehicles, they got the fancy house and all this kind of shit that exists that you know, in some cases that's all that people really care about is like I want to get to the end, but they don't understand that the process is not a straight line and it's not a, a direct position from point a to point B. There are things that you have to experience along the way that allow you to gain the confidence and the knowledge that holding that position. Let's call it now. Let's consider the end of the maze being on a. It's like a I don't know what those are called when you're at the Olympics and people are on the pedestal and it's like the podium.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, not part of my life, but it's fine, this knowledge of your life and you stand there in first place, for example, you know, and it's it's. It takes a while to hold that now you have to hold that. You have to continue to educate yourself and surround yourself with more people to help and, you know, create more ammunition to to hold your position. And I think, like you have to appreciate that journey from start to finish. A lot, I think a lot of people just want to get to the podium and stand up there and think that that's how it is.
Speaker 2:But the process from when you first started to getting to that position where you've gotten even an opportunity to get there, required a lot of small people along the way to get there, because you can't afford the $50,000 web developer. You might want him at some point, but you can't necessarily assume that you need to take all these great things along the way. So you really need to be mindful of the things that you're attaching to your business as you're going, because sometimes you'll grab the wrong people that are at a higher caliber and they're too high for you to grab right now. You know you got to look at them later, to grab them a little bit later, and so sometimes a lot of people just grab the wrong people, I guess is what I'm getting at along the way. They don't grab the appropriate person to their journey.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's fair. So there's that. Uh, you know we have notes going backwards and forwards, you know, in a chat about this podcast and actually I've enjoyed this because it's sort of been free flow and I think we've talked about some important things Um, you know, there was one thing or it's about results, not products. You maybe expand on that a little bit in on that a little bit.
Speaker 2:um, well, I mean I want, like I had one gentleman. So when I first got into this coaching space, um, I mean, I can talk a lot about the results the products are are critical they, they help create results, obviously. But when I first got into this coaching space, I had a few people reach out asking me for some help. So this was a very organic transition of life and I said you know what, sure, I can help you with some direction, and gave them a little bit of guidance. They had some small wins right, some little victories, and that was a different, unique feeling for me. The result of that action that I was as a different, unique feeling for me, the result of that action that I progressed created a different reaction, and so it it created a solution for them and a weird connection for me. It was like, oh, I really like I, I helped them. And so then when I dove into this um, results type scenario where it's like I, I just want to see people win, you know, I want to help people win within their business. And there was one gentleman out of Ontario and he came to me and he's like hey, man, like you know my goal and he's in our program and my goal is, you know, when we're running through this thing, my goal is to win these 300 K projects. You know, I've had a couple opportunities and I've fumbled them over the years and I just don't know what I'm doing wrong. And so I'm like, okay, man, that sounds great. And so we continue to work through the project and work through the products, so to speak. And then an opportunity comes up where there's 300K projects in front of them. And so now it's like, okay, let's go, that's your goal. I'm here to help you. I'm the tool in your toolbox to kind of help you resourcefully navigate what this transaction could look like. You're trying to organize the client, prep them, get them ready for this.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of things that go into winning projects that a lot of people fail to understand. It's not an estimate price, get the job. There's a lot of other things that go into it. It's an emotional, trust breaking scenario, like you know, situation where you need the client needs to believe that you're the guy to do with whatever it is that you're trying to do, um. And so I helped, we got, we went through it and he won the job.
Speaker 2:And so he messaged me before. He said hey, I'm going to submit this price. You know I'm looking forward to. I know this is a small job, like I've helped people with million dollar projects as well Um, but the small jobs are just as big as the big jobs. And so he messaged me before and I was. I was excited and emotional about that process. But when he messaged me after and said, hey, man, I just got the job secure, I've got my $10,000 booking deposit, I was like that's the result. That gave me the energy to keep fighting, to keep doing this. And every day now we get these types of scenarios where our contractors win. And every day now we get these types of scenarios where our contractors win and they use the products and the education that we try to provide to them to win.
Speaker 1:And those are the results that I'm mostly motivated by is seeing people you know conquer their their, their struggles that they were experiencing prior. Gotcha, that makes contextual sense. Now I was like, okay, I wasn't quite sure what I meant. Well, that's really cool. Okay, Brandon, I've really enjoyed this conversation and I'd like to have another one and follow up with you and see how you're doing. If you're ever in Vancouver, yeah, come on by the Sitemax office. We can also chat about what Sitemax can do for your customers as well. Obviously more on the larger commercial side, but yeah, it's been awesome, man.
Speaker 2:I love it. I appreciate that and yeah, we are. I actually am looking at running some in-person kind of masterminds throughout Canada. We're just kind of planning a strategy for 2025. So when we are in Vancouver, I'll definitely hit you up, we'll connect and uh and we'll go from there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that sounds great. Okay, so people can find you at um. The elite building society Is itcacom.
Speaker 2:Uh, best place to find me honestly is on Instagram. Um, if you go to my Instagram profile at the underscore contractor coach, drop me a DM and uh, we'll start the conversation there.
Speaker 1:Perfect. Look at you. Go with the modern approach. I like it All. Right, that's cool. Okay, brandon, that's awesome, thank you.
Speaker 2:All right man, I appreciate, I appreciate the conversation.
Speaker 1:Well, that does it for another episode of the Site Visit. Thank you for listening. Be sure to stay connected with us by following our social accounts on Instagram and YouTube. You can also sign up for our monthly newsletter at sitemaxsystemscom slash the site visit, where you'll get industry insights, pro tips and everything you need to know about the site visit podcast and sitemax, the job site and construction management tool of choice for thousands of contractors in North America and beyond. Sitemax is also the engine that powers this podcast. All right, let's get back to building.