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This week in home building news! Catch up with Az and a colourful array of guests, to hear about who's killing it, who's innovating, and who's getting into strife in the world of new home construction.
Az (00:17)
Good morning and welcome to the Good Builder Podcast. There are plenty of people that talk about growth in the industry and they've come from the outside of our industry. The gentleman I've got on today is Cheyne Hall, and he's seen it from both inside and outside. With 20 years experience in the game, he's run his own national business called Hall Group and Co., which operated in Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland.
Cheyne has now gone on to create a business called Build Launch and he's seen how businesses, when they get bigger, what they actually need, what they don't need, and what the best way to actually fulfill the staff and team member requirements of that business.
I think this is a really important conversation to have because there's a lot of builders out there, a lot of our community that talk to us about this and how they scale their businesses. And I think this is one of the best ways.
Rather than having a conversation just about outsourcing, because it's essentially what Cheyne does and his team at Build Launch, we're going to have a chat about what needs to sit within a business, what needs to sit outside of a business. And in my opinion, I'm actually not even going to call it outsourcing because they become part of your team. And I think that's the most important thing, Cheyne. Like I don't see this whole outsourcing word as a as a thing anymore. I think you made a really good point, and I'm sure we're going to talk about it.
later on around where we already buy our products from right now. Exactly.
The aim of this conversation is to give you something really practical out there for all the builders. Something that you can latch on to, someone that you can go and talk to when you need someone for your team. And we trust these guys immensely. So it is my absolute pleasure to welcome Cheyne to the podcast. Hey, how are you, mate? Good. Yeah, I'm not too bad, mate. I was sweating that one because that first one I didn't get through, but I got through it. I think everyone out there, I had a lot to say about this one, Cheyne. I think that's where my head just went blah, blah, blah, blah.
And I'll tell you why. It's because we had a really good chat out the back Cheyne and I And the and the thing was like there's
I I really think this is one of the people are everything in the business. Yes. Everyone talks about people are everything and you've got to hire good people, you've got to find good people. And I think recruitment is actually one of the hardest skills to actually do for any business. And if you get it right, it can really positively impact your business. And when you get it wrong, it does it it you know, it it it can really impact it in a negatively way. And that's where I think Cheyne, where I was I was just in my head I had so many thoughts around what you do and the impact that it has. I could
even be out the freaking introduction. But anyway, mate, no, like your experience is is amazing. Yeah. Twenty years in the game, you scaled a business nationally, it was your own one. Yeah. you're now doing this. you know could you tell us a little bit about your journey into construction and and how you ended up
You know, launching, build launch. Yeah, awesome. And why? Yeah, I'm join our Shopfitter by trade. Yeah. so worked out of a little sh workshop in the Central Coast, did my time. and then from there gr developed into more of a carpentry role over the years, moving to the UK, further my skills there, moving back to Sydney, and jumping into more commercial fit out land.
So from there I was a commercial joiner, working on mostly fit outs across the city. And then we we started myself, the the guy I was working for, good mate of mine from Intermane, he said, you gotta start your own company. I was like, What the fuck's that? He goes, Well, you just gotta sign up some paperwork. I was like, beauty.
And then after that, yeah, we build a team within the space of two years from myself to like 15 guys. Wow. So this was, you know, nearly 10 years ago now. far out And then I come from a residential background, my old man being in the industry, my brother being a builder. And we long story short.
The guy that I met on site doing the fit outs, he was a site manager. His best mate ran an elevator company. Okay. And he goes, Do you wanna jump in board, do some elevator work? I'm like, what on earth is that?
So basically you've got to build a box inside someone's home. Wow. I said, okay, great. So got my builder's license sorted, come from a resie background. So, you know, that was all sweet. Got my brother on board. And essentially we had this fit out team that continued on for the years. And then yeah, we did we started B Spoke custom sort of renovations, alterations, D and C.
in people's homes. Wow. Or or adding them on for building elevator shafts or lift shafts. Wow. so we took that blueprint nationally and went from obviously myself and my brother to a team of, you know, sixty, seventy staff in the space of four years. Holy cra
Yeah. Wow. And what was that like with all that staff, all that team? You scaled pretty quickly. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I've plenty of grey hair. So as you can tell, and as many builders would know, it's it's so stressful. Yeah. yeah, it's so stressful. And to do it across multiple states and have c control on it, I think that's the the hard part. You can absolutely you can grow quick, but having that quality control, people control, that's that's the hard part.
Yeah. And and then how did you how did the build launch thing come about? How did how did did that evolve from, you know, managing, training, working with sixty seventy staff? How did it all evolve from that? Yeah, a hundred percent. Well, we in twenty three we closed down some of the businesses and sold some off for multiple reasons. but the biggest takeaway I learned from that is that overheads just cripple big businesses and also they are essential to grow a business.
If you're a single builder, you don't want to be doing everything yourself because you know you want to have time with your family. Yeah. But you also want to do more builds and you don't want to be working all night. The other side is growing and scaling business, which we did, takes a massive amount of manpower, costs a lot. So cash flow, it can cripple a business. So we grew a team, massive team. We grew an offshore team at the same time.
problem was they were good, they weren't great, the offshore staff members. And then so the concept of build launch came about about a year after I'd exited the businesses and we wanted to, you know, give back to the construction industry. Yeah. We wanted to make an improvement. We didn't know how, but it was something to do with offshore staff members and how we can integrate them into businesses to be, if not better, than local you know, construction back of house staff members. Yeah. so that's how
come about and so the journey started with an idea and over the last two years it's gone from an idea to now you know where it is today. I think it's really interesting, Cheyne, because we were talking out the back and I was talking about a a builder up here on the Sunshine Coast, one of Sunshine Coast biggest builders and I remember the pain they used to talk to me about over the COVID period of having to scale up their business. Yeah get people within it they went from something like 30 something staff to 89 staff then back down to 30 something staff. They had team members that didn't
work out. They had all this stuff, team members that weren't trained. And the overheads. Yeah. As well. I think they called it the and I think you said this out the back actually too. They called it profitless boom for a reason, didn't they? Like you know part of it. Everyone was part of it. Absolutely. Like I think it affected a lot of people. And I remember this is a builder I greatly respect and we're good friends. They made no money over that period. And I reckon they should have thrived. If if if
I couldn't have done it. I'm not saying I could have. But if I could have done it and looked at it retrospectively, I think that's where I would have made my retirement money if you set yourself up right. Correct. And I think that's where it it comes down to. And that's why I was so kind of infatuated and interested in in what you guys do and and doing it right. Because I think the other thing is that
Some people in the industry that I've spoken to about this type of you know, creating a team in this particular way have talked about, you know, certain well, number one, I'm I wanna say first.
Majority of them have a have a really great experience. Yeah. No, they don't have a that too bad experience. Yeah. But the other side of it is the ones that don't, the problem is the management of them. Yeah. And all of that stuff. Correct. So is is that what you take away, Cheyne? Like definitely. The training, the management, the education, keeping up the speed? Yeah, 100%. But the two parts that you addressed at the start. It's the bad experience, which people push back and they've heard about it and said, that's not for us. It doesn't work.
And let me make this clear for everyone. Yeah. If you hire a marketing person to do project management, it's not gonna work. Yeah. I love it. If you hire someone that does general admin to do estimating, it's not gonna work. You don't go down to Woolworths and find someone that pushes trolleys to do your estimating, do you? Yeah. Same principles. Yeah. So that's the first part. That's why you have bad experience. Yeah. And I don't think it's actually shown necessarily just lockdown.
To this type of team arrangement, either. No. Like I look around the industry all the time, and and everyone, I've said this a few times on the pod, and for people who actually know me and see me in display villages, you'll see I actually say this. I always say to everyone that I see as a bit of a joke, and it's probably a dark joke, but I'm see it next builder. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you know why? Because they all leave. Yeah. And a lot of it, and and we talk about apprentices, we talk about all this stuff, and we've done a bit of research at a good builder around that, and we were trying to find out why people leave. Number one, not
Supported, not educated, not trained. Exactly. So I don't think it matters whether you're a local employee or you're not local.
It doesn't matter. It's how you execute it. But there are benefits to the way I think you do it. Definitely. Definitely. Yeah. So part A we talked about, part B is then obviously the upskilling. Yeah. So providing actual training. So when we hide our first office admin in house in b in Hall Group and Co. Yeah. I didn't train her how to know exactly what GST was, what ABNs were, how to run invoices, what a program looks like. None of that.
She didn't come from construction background. So we had to do all that hands on for a long time. Love it. At
$80,000 a year plus GST plus insurance plus super, whatever. So for us, the the bridging the gap is the was the biggest fundamental because I knew exactly what it looked like. So it's like we built a high performance education center where they learnt all business fundamentals, all finance fundamentals, or construction fundament fundamentals, how to find bunnings. Where's the portal look like? What does the eye care portal look like?
Like how do you do a home warranty? Where to find it? Where to find vendors across the country? Where do they look like? What do they what do they do? Understanding that stuff. So we'd build education around that. So once they get trained in that, that bridges the gap of knowledge. I love it. Once they get to that stage, they've already got the core skills, estimating whatever it may be.
project management, then they've got the local skills now to back it up. So like, yeah, I know where to find this stuff, how to do it. We then obviously go to the next stage of technical training, which is like how to use a professional system like Wunderbuild or SIMPro, whatever it may be. Love it. Train them in that. So then they've got clear understanding of that project management software or or you know finance, zero, whatever that may look like.
They're good to go now. Next part is HR management. So mentor, we provide a mentor who's highly skilled in their area of expertise in the clients, obviously, industry. They provide one-on-one support. Along with obviously then long-term, obviously HR assistance. So we manage to monitor a lot, you know, clock in, clock outs, reporting, how they're performing, you know, monthly. you know, we provide that much assistance and that much support.
that basically you gotta do as a builder is just plug them into your system and then show them how you do your workflow. Yeah. And they're good to go. Love it. I I I as I said, I think it it's such an important conversation to have and such an important, I think, solution for builders to consider.
Now, when you scaled your business, Cheyne, and and you grew all that stuff, what were some of the biggest surprises with the team member and the team growing? What were some of the things? Did you think it was going to get easier with the headcount, but you learnt something else? Or what were some of the struggles that you're In my old in my old control. Yeah, in your old one. Great questions, mate. Yeah, open up a few wounds, I'm sorry. If there's any but there is a few. No, it's fine. Look, I suppose it's it's
The hardest part I found was managing one, egos and then two, where do people sit and how do you reward them correctly for what
output they do or what they give back to the business versus what the industry is saying. So when we go back to the the profitless boom, people were just charging more money for the sake of it because there was that much work, right? Contractors, etc. Right. Then staff members start saying, hey hey, I can go get money down here for this. I'm like, but you're no different to yesterday. And so managing those things was probably the hardest part when you just have people just tapping on your shoulder wanting this. And then you've got Johnny who's actually
sitting
there well working his arse off doing a good job and he's not getting rewarded. That's probably the most difficult one because you're trying to keep a team together and you're trying to build because if you lose a few guys, you know, who's gonna do the work then? Yeah. so trying to keep all that
working smoothly, that's that's not that's not being a builder, that's being a people manager and like you were saying, people run businesses and you are the key person that's gotta hold them all together. Yeah, and I think that you just said something that kind of stood hairs on the back of my neck. Every builder that we've had in here, they go you know, they talk about the heartaches of building a business and building a building business particularly.
And they said, I never thought I'd be a people manager and I don't want to be. Yeah. And and like the more I do the good builder, the more I see builders are very good at building. Technically. And I think technically that's what you know they should do. Definitely, yeah. And I think they should leave their ego at the door and go, Maybe I'm not the best people manager, maybe I'm not that. I need to get experts in to help. And this is again why my conversation with you really excites me, Cheyne.
Do you see a bit of that? Like I one of my questions that I've got for you was around a builder's too quick to hire. And I remember the particular builder I was talking about, and they were just bringing people in, bringing people because they just needed heads, head counts, bodies, bodies, bodies, bodies. what do you say? Throw a body at a problem. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it'll fix itself. Well it didn't. No. Because of all the things we've felt about. Hindsight's a a good word to use. But when you're in the thick of it in construction, it's fast moving, it's high pressure, it's high stakes.
It's hard to kind of
It is hard to step back and and have have that visibility. It's not until you're in the you've ever done it and you out the other side and you're like, yeah, I'll do that differently now. I'll take the time. Or is the bottleneck somewhere else within the line, not that you need a person, you just need to fine-tune a system or or a process or a workflow. So hindsight, yes, but when you think of it and you don't know any different, it's hard to to do anything different. Love it. Yeah. so yeah, you know, looking back on that, there is yeah, different ways to approach it for sure.
Yeah.
You talked about systems and and kind of setting things up properly. Is that something else you do with build launch? Like so you will help them with their systems and processes and getting that right and you'll I'm To a degree. To a degree, yeah. Yeah. So we know fundamentally that when a staff member steps into a business, a new staff member, fifty percent of our clients are just new not newly established businesses, but new to scale and new to hire internal staff members. So they have a bit of a struggle with what what are they gonna do, what task.
Am I going to delegate them? And what do workflows look like? And so what we do is we provide like 150 tasks that an estimator or project assistant should be working on. And where did I get them from? Or come from my existing construction company. It's why I love it mate. We just detailed end-to-end what would I do from the sales process through to pre-con, in construction, handover, post-construction? There's your list.
These are all the tasks. This is how you do it. Yeah. Go out and delegate each one. So we we provide that. From there we have the next step, which is an operating system, which every business should have. Ninety percent of businesses don't have it.
And then it's like, okay, well, what do we do at each stage of the business of the workflow from from inception to food to delivery? And then how do those tasks align to each stage? So in the sales process, you've got estimating in the sales process, you've got how they go through the gates, yeah, how they do the tenders, what parts.
And then the task aligns that. So then we train them into tasks and then we say this is your sales workflow. Yeah. And this is how those tasks align. So that's a recurring tasks. So then each week you meet and you discuss how am I progressing with that estimate? And the sales workflow is just gone. Then you move to pre-con. Okay, we need to get all your purchase orders sorted. We need to do this. So again, it's just templates, it's just a system. We implemented the business. It's not what I'm focused on. We're focused on the talent side of things, but we train the talent out as well. Yep. But it gives every business a blueprint on on how
how to scale with someone and then we just provide additional support at no extra cost, just advisory work I do at all our team and that's the construction support we provide. Yeah wow you know what I forgot in the introduction because I fucked it up so badly Cheyne why's that I'm gonna say this mate the number one other thing that I want to say is while I'm so excited about talking to you and the penny just dropped as you just talked about you're from the game.
Yeah, but builder. This is the other thing. Like one of the other things that, you know, we've we've like, I'm really passionate about this. like the service you offer. I think the service you offer can help so many builders out there. I wish I just hope that listen to this podcast and take some action and and talk to Cheyne. I think there's some wild benefits. You won't know yourself, like if you've got some extra bodies that can do the work and do the right work. But
We've talked to a few suppliers and not many of them come from the industry. No. And so they just don't have the understanding that you have. Like the way you talked about the stages of construction, how they work. Yeah. A hundred and fifty checklists. Everything that they do. Yeah. I think that is a really clearly defining
moment for me anyway and also reason for for you know talking to build launch like I know I'm giving you a big plug but yeah I'm happy to because I also put up a post and and not that this is going off on a wild tangent Cheyne so I'm sorry mate but but one of our most successful social media posts was you know it it
It was pretty brutal, but it was something along the lines of if you're not from the industry, then you shouldn't be telling us how to do stuff. No, I fully agree with that. A hundred percent. And that's where you come from. Yeah. Look, you you can copy and paste any template, any task list, anything you want. That's that's good and and but if you don't know what it means, yeah, you can't do anything with it. I'm we're gonna give it to someone. It's like, what am I giving them? Yep. And it's like, hey, train this. And then I see other offshore companies saying we we provide this, we provide that. I'm like
Yeah, but when there's an actual issue, how do you how do you go about mitigating it because you don't understand the construction workflow or the ins and outs of it? What's in front of you, what's behind you. It takes it's taken me 20 years to get to this stage. And I still have questions. Yeah. You know what I mean? But And you've done it all. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I, you know, to
The next level of service that we're providing is not only a staff, it's it's the construction advice. It is. And we provide not only the our staff members that advice, we provide the client that advice as well. Yeah. And then how we can work it together. And it could be a matter of obviously let's set up a water workflow. What would you do here? What should my next hire be? Yeah. It might not even be an offshore person. Yeah. And I say, Well, why don't you h why don't you pull these tasks from from that person and hire a better construction manager that can run around and and oversee jobs and then they just delegate to the VA the VA or the offshore.
Staff member. Yeah. wow, that's you know, I didn't think of that. Yeah, whatever it may be, because it ultimately we want to provide the best service and the best outcome for the builder. Yeah, I love it. I love it, Cheyne. This is it got me. I'm just thank you. I was always here, but I'm freaking back, man. Like I really loved why it did that. What about
What about we talk about, if you don't mind, what a builder should hire internally and what a builder shouldn't not shouldn't hire, or could consider to do outside. What what are some of those things, Cheyne, that you're seeing? You told me if you don't mind me saying and I hope you're okay with this, but you're dealing with about seventy builders now. Yeah. That's a lot of builders, mate. And and y I don't wanna name names because we shouldn't. Yep. But you're dealing with some good builders. And then the ones that you builders, yeah. Yeah, the ones that you you know, I've got a lot of respect for.
What are they doing or what what are they or what are you advising them in terms of internal versus external and and things like that?
Az (20:15)
Great question. Anything from the project administration side, estimating side, contracts administration, through to finance.
All remotely. Yeah, cool. obviously our focus is to build high performing teams that are at back of house, just like anyone sitting behind a commuter computer. Communication is the same, phone calls, emails, video calls, yeah, they're different than COVID era. They can run everything.
The only people who would say focus onshore, and this is what we obviously really want builders to focus on, is build a high performing onshore team, which is construction manager, your project manager, site supervisors, lead chippies. Because ultimately, if you can save the costs in the back end and still have those people who would, if not better than local staff members, but then you've saving yourself 70% costs compared to a local hire.
Use that money to push the front end. I love it. And that why would you do that? Is because number one, you want to provide the best product possible. Yeah. And two, you don't want you don't want headaches. Yeah. You want guys that are producing good work and you can just l you know, let them be. I love it, Cheyne. I reckon that was one of the coolest things that you've said. And and you actually mentioned it quickly to me out the back. Yeah. We were talking about every everyone and and just like you said then, Cheyne, I was like, you know, you save money in the back end, there's all this, and you're like, Yeah, but
should invest it in the front end. Absolutely. And I love that philosophy because you get yourself a good supervisor, a good lead shippy, good construction manager, whatever.
That's where it all sort of happens. And that back end stuff can certainly be taken away from the business. Yeah, your product product delivery is the number one thing. So like I think you see a lot of conversations lately that the bar, the the NCC is the bar to meet, right? Now if you've got guys out there that you're hiring that can't meet that level, yeah. You know, we need to get eradicate them or upskill them, one of the two. Whatever that may be look like, right? And so our goal is like bringing people who are you know, they've got the best standards, not NCC standards.
The best standards higher than everyone else to deliver the best product for the consumer. Love it. For long-term, obviously, prosperities to make sure the quality is high standard. And then for the builder to to be able to get paid what he's deserved. Yeah, I love it. Mate, what about what about AI? Yeah. What's your thoughts on AI? Because
I'm seeing a lot of it. We we hear a lot about it. I'm seeing a lot about it. I'm seeing a lot of builders create their own little widgets and websites and processors and automated bots and all this sort of thing. And I'm actually worried. Love it. I love it. I'll be honest with you. I'm worried. And I think what it's done is it actually hasn't I mean, use it as a tool. I don't think it's actually helped. I think it's actually lowered the bar using too much AI. I think what's gonna happen, this is my thoughts, not your Cheyne, and and I'm going off on a bit of a tangent, but I've been wanting to
for a while actually. So this is a great opportunity. but I I think that there's the access to make whatever you want you can do now.
But that doesn't necessarily mean you should be. Absolutely. It's like an orchestra guy that is conducting the orchestra. Not everyone should be doing it. Not everyone should be conducting AI and creating these things when they don't know what it's about. Yeah. What are you seeing out there with AI and staffing and automation and and what are your thoughts on it, too, Cheyne, considering what you do? I'm a hundred percent on board with what you just said. One hundred and ten percent. Why? Because I'm a builder.
I'm a joiner I'm not an AI specialist. Yeah. There are
From my perspective, I've got team members in my team who are computer engineers. Yeah. And they know the ins and outs of AI and how to do it. What am I good at? I'm good at project management. Yeah. I get them to run the projects, execute, and I just like building a you know, producing a build. Love it. Go through the stages, iterations, reviews, quality control checks. That's what I'm good at. I'm not gonna try and waste like it's good to
To know about it and how it fundamentally works because I think, like any principle of anything, you should have some fundamental knowledge of it. Yeah. But outside of that, get the expert to do it. Yeah. Don't you know your expertise is in building and running a team and running a site and being on the ground pushing the guys, not worrying about how to automate some emails back and get someone to do that who's skilled in that. I love it. And do you offer people like that? Do you build so Build Launch have people like that that can help with all those processes? And people, if if Building.
would like to do that. You could have your own, sorry to put word, I'm not going to put words in your mouth, but almost you could have your own internal engineer to a degree or developer. Yes. So we do have those?
But we all our talent also come with a baseline of those skills. Yeah. How to use Claude, how to use chat, whatever it may be. So even upskilling them on that. Absolutely. Because it's it's fundamental of how to do a job better these days. And so one of our one of our biggest ones is the the one-to-build MCP integration with Claude. And so we train them how to do all the skills, how to in integrate it into the system. It's highly beneficial. Wow. But it's only as good as the data and information that's already in there.
So two way street.
We train them how to use it, how to do it better. but again, it all comes back to the quality of the product and the information in there. So yeah, it's a two-way street, it's it's an accelerator, but it depends on what you're accelerating. Yeah, yeah. And it sounds like who's also conducting the accelerating as well. And who understands it and does it well. Yeah, really. So yeah, we we train everyone in that. and then we do have the AI and automation specialists as well who do that. Like Alfred, he's our tech manager who's a computer scientist. He provides, you know, ongoing seminars and how to do use the latest
Grok or whatever it may be in chatbots and above my pay grade. I just love it and watch it and I let them go for it because that's what they're they're good at. And yeah our core skills are you know good at building and I love it. I love it. What about for
When do you usually see a builder approach you, Cheyne? Like, is it at the point of overwhelm? I'm just curious. Like, when do people, when do the builders you typically see a builder knock on your door going, how I need somebody? When does that happen? Well And does it happen too late? yeah. Typically, yes. Okay. I had a discovery call 10 minutes before I walked into here, just sitting in the car. Love it. Volume builder.
He goes, I need an estimator, slash C A. I said, Yeah, what are you doing? Like, are you busy? He goes, Yeah. I'm the director. I'm the estimator. I've got sixteen tenders currently coming through. One due tonight. said, okay, so you you think you need an estimator? He's like, Yeah, the team is starting to tap me on the shoulder to say, you know, we're we're getting, you know, just too much, too much to come through. Shooter hide. Six, twelve months ago.
To to cater for the volume. Far out. Yeah. you know, naturally. And then it the pr problem with that is that puts a lot of pressure on the upskilling and and trying to get them moving faster because what people don't realize with any staff member coming into the business.
It takes resourcing to get them upskilled. Absolutely. Not only from our end, which we provide, but also from the builder or the client. They've got it. You've got to invest into them. And that takes additional hours. So if you're already at capacity and you can't get to those tenders and then you think you add someone in, doesn't matter if they're onshore or offshore, you have to invest time in them. So you've gone from a 60-hour week to now 70-hour week.
Obviously that dips down with the value curve. Yeah. Well it truly. So try and get it when you can foresee the volume coming through and you want it. And then that way you can train them, upskill them, get them ready. And then they'll pull the volume in for you rather than you trying to do that. That's awesome. That's great advice. And I think it's
Probably a good time right now. Just having a look. Like there's probably not a better time to look at your pipelines. Look at what's coming up and how how you're gonna handle it. Like my example of the builder that on the coast here who's a well respected builder and then overnight going from like thirty to eighty nine staff. I I remember talking to him and
On both sides of hiring and unfortunately having to fire the people eventually, he was in tears. Yeah, but he was not in a good way. No. Because he was so stressed with the work he had coming up on him and trying to recruit the right people. And and you know, again, I think I'm not having a shot at builders, but builders aren't recruiters. It's a real there's a real art to it. I think you need professionals like you. Yeah. And then you get the wrong people, then all the stress and then the you know, the boom dies.
down the profit was boom dies down and you're like boom you know it can be emotional roller coaster people are an emotional roller coaster when you're hiring them too Cheyne My other question for you was around the process of hiring.
Yeah. Or or the process of working with build launch more so. Yeah. How does that all work, Cheyne? Like how how do you work with a builder and and what does that sort of look like when they first approach you through the actual the hire? The delivery. Yeah, perfect. Great question. Well, we're focused on obviously understanding the business and not just giving you someone just because we can sell you someone. Absolutely not. We want to know
How you what who your business is, what your business is, who you are, what your goal is to be. Do you want to be on site with the boys? Love it. Do you want to be the project manager? Do you want to be stepping away to spend time with your family? And what does the best roles look like? Yeah. from there, once we get through that, we understand you. Are you a good fit for build launch too? So we don't just work with anyone. you know, like we profile builders just as much as we profile our staff. Love it. From there.
We walk you through our digital talent pool. So then we've got obviously 50 plus pre-vetted staff members who have met our four year recruitment requirements or four year experience requirements, past all our education requirements, technically meet the standards that are required in this industry as a bare minimum.
From there, they're in our digital talent pool. We categorize them by their skills, expertise. You can check all of them out. Do they suit suit your business? So we naturally give that to the client or the prospect to to have a look at. can be a bit overwhelming because there are so many in there and so many to choose from. So we then obviously profile based off that conversation to suit, you know, down to four people
that's aligned to your industry, the role you want, how it's going to plug the gaps and their level of expertise as well. So obviously there's, you know, just like anyone locally, you're going to have high performing staff members or high experience and lower. and then once we get through that process, you like who you like. We go through interview processes between us. We facilitate all that to make sure you are hiring who you want to hire. So it's not us pushing them onto you. So you're going make sure you sit down with at least two to interview to compare apples with apples.
Once we get through that
you like who you like, we then obviously negotiate contracts and then we go through the pre-onboarding setup, which is obviously like I said, what are the tasks, what are your goals, how it all functions. We set up their digital workstation for them, get through all that the tech team does that. And then from there we do the onboarding, which includes the HR perspective, contract perspective, and then obviously the the mentors who support the talent throughout the journey as well. So you know that's where we provide that additional
support service from a technical perspective. it could be systems, could be construction specific, whatever it may be. It's so comprehensive. And that was one of the things I think again, I'll reiterate what I said earlier in the pod, but I think that's why you need to deal with professionals like you. There's great benefits to
you know, finding team members from overseas and and whatever. But I think the key to it all is having a partner there that can help manage train and find the right one for you. Yeah. I remember back in my GJ days and I'm gonna make an introduction to GJ Gardener actually, Cheyne. Trent Conrad, you'll be hearing from myself and and Cheyne very shortly, which is very cool. But like that like I I think will be great for their business, great for their franchisees. Absolutely.
But one of the things that I I found, and it's with anyone, it's the training, isn't it? And it's the absolutely the mentoring, all those things you're talking about. and I think it's more critical even when they may be a little bit more detached from the team. Definitely, definitely, yeah. You can't do it without a partner, I I believe. No, no, that it when it's all on you, it's hard to manage. It's hard enough on boarding an onshore staff member, true, training them, providing that right assistance, mentorship, all those things.
Let alone someone sitting behind a computer screen in another country. Yeah.
Exactly the same principles. Yeah. But I'd say 90% of builders or or any companies here lack that training and mentorship and onboarding. And so that's where we know it it obviously means a lot. And so we do that and other providers do do it, but they don't know construction. That's right. Again. They don't know workflows. They don't know issue mitigation when it actually means something because you know, you get stuck on a big tender and and it needs to be due. Yeah. You know, you need to knock on someone's door, they're knocking on ours, and we go, hey, this is what we would do here. Yeah.
You do that someone else, I I don't know anything about residential construction and how to do you know, some type of pit, whatever it may be. We can all that. Yeah, that and that is phenomenal. That is the bit that I think creates the success for everybody involved in the team. And and I think again, I'm I'm not gonna harp on too much about this point, but
It happens locally as well. As we've said, we've done all the research here at The Good Builder and we we asked or we found research on why people leaving the industry. Yeah. Number one, support and training. Yeah, absolutely. And we're talking local ABS statistics, Aussies, you know, leaving the industry. I think it's it's important for anybody. But
What would be your advice then for a builder that's sitting there on a Monday morning thinking, hey, this is getting pretty tough? What would you sort of say? I know what I would say, Cheyne. Get him involved with build launch. You probably don't want to say that, but I'm gonna say that. I wasn't gonna say that. What what what what would you say for them to do on a Monday morning? Or let's let me give you a more
I'm gonna give you a less set up question because I really like what you do and I'm happy to plug you out. But yeah, I know you you're a very humble bloke. You don't wanna pump plug yourself. All right, you're a builder, like you you were, and you still are really. Yeah. Sitting on a Monday, you think, God damn, this is hard. How would you methodically work through your next decision?
What's my long-term goal? What am I trying to achieve? I love this. This is cool. Keep going. I love it, man. From there, what do I need to lay out to to get to the next stage? And that could be grow, exit, or plateau. If you're plateauing and you don't want to do any more, but you're stressed out, you've got to look at what you're doing wrong because you should be happy. If you want to grow, it's like what are your goals?
How you're gonna get to those, how you're gonna achieve those goals, and who's gonna do those, achieve those goals for you, those tasks, those projects. If you want to grow your business health in a healthy way, with structure and with as minimal risk as possible, a business like ours can provide that because you're not adding additional overheads to your business that are gonna obviously.
chew up your cash flow. Yeah. And you're getting the support where you can go out and hire someone straight away. It might be, you know, it eats into your margin immediately. Yeah. And it's just you're on that ham steel wheel all the time. So assess the goals, where do you want to go? If you want to scale back, maybe you need to cut some staff to build your margin back up or your profit levels. And then add on our digital service that we've got.
So then you can scale back, you know, in a way that's obviously not gonna hurt staff members. It's not gonna be risky. And you can just it's a plug-in-play model. You can just literally say in six months' time I'm exiting, we're gonna cut the contract six months, walk out. And we just repurpose that staff member to a new builder. Yeah. And everyone's everyone's happy. Yeah. I bet you they don't. You know, I bet you they don't, gun, mate. I bet you they hang on. But I love that was really I love the way you approached that question and that you were
I wouldn't say hesitant. You just didn't want me to ask a stupid question. It was a stupid question. I was trying to set I was trying to set you up to say build launch because I really believe in what you do and and I shouldn't do that. But what I did love, like, you just gave some really good advice. And as simple as you may have thought it was, I think we don't talk enough about it at the good builder either. And I don't think we think enough about it as human beings doing what we do daily. Yeah. Like why are we doing what we're doing? Yeah.
And if you think about that.
You know, for a builder, like I remember when I had my building company and I was working through it. If I actually sat back and thought about why am I doing what I'm doing, I was so blinded by trying to get the jobs done and then the revenue and the cash flow and the money. My my heads were all figures. Correct. Yeah. But if I sat back and I asked myself that question, I can actually picture myself asking myself that question four years ago. The reason I did it was because I loved the industry, I wanted to be a builder, I want to be in it, and I want to give my family a good life and I want to spend more time with my family. Yeah, absolutely. Do you know all my decisions?
Because I didn't ask myself that question, didn't do any of that shit. Yeah. But if I sat back and asked it, I would have gone, I want to spend more time with my family. Okay, we need to resource. All right, we might not have the cash flow, but how do we do it? There's a solution. There you go. Build more. Do you know what I mean? Bang. Like what you just said. Yeah.
And you've got to ask those questions. You have to. And I think it's such a great lesson, man. And as a builder, and you're in the thick of it, like we're talking about earlier, and there's a million things happening, you don't ask those questions. And you just think I'm rolling with the punches because that's what we've always done. And it's easy for me to say this because I come out of a very tough scenario in 23. Excuse me. And I've had excuse me. I've had three years to reflect on how I could have done it better.
And getting a mission of where we want this business to go and how we want to help the entire
construction industry across across the globe, not just here in Australia, here locally. That obviously determines our goals and how we push forward rather than just getting a phone call off a family member complaining about the same thing he's complained about for the last six months. And I say, Are you going to change what you're complaining about? Yeah. If not, stop complaining about it. Yeah. And that's what you want to do. So yeah, that's a fair point. So have a goal. It's either going forward or going back. It doesn't matter. It's just like you need to go somewhere.
And you needed to have a plan to get to it. And it's either like you said, in construction, it's either getting more profit or looking at different ways to scale rather than just doing what we've always done. Yeah, I love it, man. I that was that was one of the actually it was one of the most refreshing parts of any podcast I've ever done. You talking about that. I know that's I know that's wild. It was a question that but it was one of the most refreshing concepts. And you know what? It made I think it defined you, man. I think that's what you did.
Yeah. You had your business, a national construction business. Who at the age that you would have, because you still look young and great, mate. Thank you. I don't know how young you were, and we don't need to go into that. But like who would have done that at such a young age? Yeah. And then you've come out the other side and you've had a good thing and you've had to think about, like, what do I want to do?
Yeah, like I think that shaped build launch. Yeah. And I'll tell you what, that's fucking powerful. That that's really powerful because you said it when you first walk in, you're like, I want to help the industry. I want to find them, get them a way to scale, to grow safely, to grow efficiently, and provide them with people that they would probably never hire.
Ever, like in terms of I'm not talking about the people, I'm talking about the level of talent. Yeah, correct. Because they don't know how to recruit and they don't know how to train and they don't know how to educate. I'm not being a fuckwit you, but it's the truth. Yeah, where do you go to find well classic? Where do you go to find that stuff? Why did we bring you on the Good Builder Podcast? Because we don't know, because the community don't know. That's why we put them in touch with partners like you. I think what you said there, and if everyone that ever listens to a sat back.
And takes fifteen minutes. Ask yourself that question and take fifteen minutes to write and think. I reckon that will shape your business plan. Absolutely. Because the goals could be personal, like I said, I want to spend more time with my girls and all that. But I was so caught up in the rough that I kept going on flogging myself and flogging the team and everyone got flogged to the point where I had I had to get out. We all do it. That's that we've all been at, but you gotta go through those lessons and learn from it. The problem is you've got to learn from it. That's what you yeah. You know, that's what I think what we've all done. We've all done. Yeah.
Phenomenal mate. This has been real freaking cool, Cheyne. Like I love what you do. yeah, I I'm a big advocate for I think we were always just looking for the right partner, good builder to promote and get out there. Appreciate it. not promote, but to put in connection with our community. Yeah and and mate, I think build launch of cool, mate. You guys are it. one more question for you, and and you have been there as well and you are working with a few right now.
You know we call it the good builder. What do you reckon makes a good builder, Cheyne? what makes a good builder? That's a tough that's not a tough. It it kind of isn't it is. It is, but it isn't. I've had some really interesting ones, Cheyne, where people have said one word. I've gone, shit, that's cool. People have explained it, I've gone, shit, that's cool. Like there's all different elements. Yeah, there's so many layers to that question. Yeah, yeah. I being a good builder, I think it's number one.
giving it your absolute everything ends in your absolute best. That's all you can do, right? You're not you're human, mistakes happen. It's not about when the mistake happens, it's about how you fix the mistake or you go about getting around that hurdle to to make a better outcome for your client.
Or whatever it may be. And I think that's just always gonna happen and as any industry. but a good builder is someone that finds, you know, the solution to the problem, goes the right way about finding that solution, and is upfront and honest about it to get to the best outcome for everyone involved. and is if that's that's all you can do, and it it is what it will be, and then you you can walk away from being a good builder saying, I'll put my best foot forward, produce the best product possible, and that's a good builder. You know what? I freaking love it. I've never
I've never said this on the podcast, but I live my life by three rules, which everyone's gonna find me crazy now, because I have three rules in my life. Yeah. One of them is you know, don't talk negatively. Everything, everything you say, like you know, within reason, everything that you say has consequences. What you say about yourself, what you say about other people, all those other things.
That shouldn't be number one, that should be number two. But my number one, well my next one was always do your best. Yeah, absolutely. I love that lesson. Like as much as like it feels so simple and stuff like that Cheyne yeah. If people just thought about doing their best, yeah. Then and that's all you can do when you leave it on the table and you go, that's great. And it and it and I love the way you said it because it it touches everything, doesn't it? You talked about doing your best in construction, the way you treat people. Yeah, yeah. Everything.
It's all encompassing. So you can you can you can only try your best with the product you're delivering or the the staff you're working with and you know talking negatively about your staff members is not the right thing to do. You might have a thought about it or they're not performing, but you don't talk about them negatively. And it's again like you you've got to learn from it. Obviously, yeah, I might have done that once or twice in my career over 20 years, of course. Yeah, but you know, when maybe when I have said something, I pull myself up and say, that's not the right thing to say, you shouldn't say that. Yeah, and you've got to
learn from that but that's what that's all you can do. Yeah. Yeah. My last one yeah is control what you can control. Don't worry about the outside forces. Yes. And I know that's quite stoic and a lot of people have that, you know, they think about it. I tr really try and implement it in my life. And when I think about it in relation to you, I'm like
You can like when you have a think about it, you can't control the taxes. You can't control all the problems that are happening in construction and all the red tape and stuff like that. But what you can control is what happens within your business, how you run it, how you think about it, what you can do about it. And you don't have to follow what everyone else is doing. I think the brave ones take a leap and have a look at things from another angle and and and the things that you can control in that area and and when you make improvements will make big ones for you. So mate, I I love your answer
So I think we again after 350 episodes, we've never had anyone say that. wow. How crazy. Appreciate it. I mean, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say how crazy. But it's it's like there is like you said, there's so many ways to to look at it. Yeah. But I do think sometimes the simplest way to look at things is also the best. Yeah, definitely. You don't have to applicate it. So
Cheyne, that was phenomenal, man. Like really cool meeting you. we're gonna put all the links below. Conrad and Trent will send you an email so you'll see it from Cheyne and I. No spam, probably. It won't go to spam filter. I know I don't go to spam. I know. We've been chatting, I've had you on the pod. but no, we're gonna put all the links below and and for everyone out there, honestly, if you're looking
Or just even curious about scaling your business, how you can do stuff a little bit differently, how you can do stuff a little bit better.
You've never tried it, but you're wondering how. Yeah. Don't go anywhere else but to build launch. And I'm saying that because you can go down rabbit holes where you can go and try and find people for yourself and and and you may go down a rabbit hole after this podcast, start looking at different things, but I would just have to build launch and go through the process and and and do it properly because I've I've done that before. I've talked openly with Cheyne before the Good Builder. I had a business where I I had
Went and got my own team members and they were great, they were as good as any local team members, but I reckon they could have been a damn bit better if I had someone there that was able to educate, train them, manage them better than I could. And I I think I fall into the the bucket of of most builders out there where we're not the best people managers, but we're very good at what we do. Yeah. And when we have the right partners by our side, we can do anything. Yeah. So appreciate it. Thank you very much, Cheyne. Absolute legend, mate.