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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. I am super duper excited for this one today because I got to spend about half an hour with these two just in the back. I know about them both.
There is one on the couch that I've wanted to talk to forever, and they are a builder, and we'll talk about that a bit later. We've also got another gentleman here. But what we're going to talk about today is where I probably see one of the biggest opportunities in building to improve your client experience and also your operations and the efficiency with how you're getting a a build to market, really. You think about it, site feasibility.
Planning, siting a home, all that sort of stuff can take a lot of time and can take a lot of manual checks. And a lot of builders are doing it in various different ways with site visits and all this sort of stuff. And it tends to lead to a lot of back and forth. Well, today we're going to sort that all out for you because I have Mark Garner sitting over there from canibuild who we've had on the podcast before and and I vouch for it. I've I've used it in previous building businesses. And I have the wonderful Megan.
Burraston I hope I've said it right. she is the sales manager of StyleMaster Homes, who are from Southeast Queensland. They're a builder here in Southeast Queensland. But I mentioned to Megan that I went around and asked a few suppliers and over the last decade, really, who's your favorite builder in Australia? The question was. And interestingly enough, StyleMaster popped up the majority of the time. So I've always wanted to talk to someone from StyleMaster.
I am so pumped to have it the sales manager here. And today we're gonna talk about all that stuff I just talked about, what the old process looked like for siding a home and getting it on a block and making sure the customer understands what's about to happen and how that actually costs builders in more ways than one. So welcome to the couch, you two. How are you? Good. Thank you for having us. Well, it's a bit of a harder pod because we generally don't have three on the couch, but it's kinda like who's gonna talk and who's gonna take turns. But
First of all, I might quickly start with you, Megan. So would you mind telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do at StyleMaster, the most amazing builder that everyone's saying out there? Thank you for having no. That's amazing. yeah, so I'm sales manager at StyleMaster Homes. Yeah. Been with Sharon Piconi being the general manager. So I've been with StyleMaster now and Sharon for about eighteen months. Yeah. And it's absolutely been amazing.
Yep. been in the industry for about twenty five years, had a bit of a break in between that, yeah, for children. But I absolutely love the industry and couldn't think of anything else that I'd want to do. Yeah. But yeah, style master is amazing. Yeah. definitely. And and like I said, we're gonna probably have another episode with
Myself or somebody and Megan because I think we've got to celebrate more women in construction too. So it is such a pleasure to have you here and you are a legend and everyone talks about you and Sharon as well. And over to you, Mark. How are you, mate? What do you and and so Mark, what do you do at canibuild mate? How are you So can I build? I'm the enterprise account manager for National Brands, for Australia and New Zealand, canibuild been there for nearly six years now. so yeah.
been in the property in the construction industry for single sort of times to me around 25 years. So yeah. Yeah. And canibuild I mean, in terms of a platform, the coverage that you have across Australian builders, there's a vast majority that use it, don't they? I I don't want to talk about my little building company, which I'm not involved with anymore, but very I said to Mark when he first came in, I'm like, you know the first thing I did, mate, I got canibuild And I we really did. We built a website, ran some Google ads, got can I build?
'Cause we're trying to show how we're gonna site these homes and things like that. So what's it looking like out there at the moment, Mark? Yeah, can I mean I mean if we if we're looking at the across the country, obviously we cater for different building types. obviously got residential construction, we do homes.
granny flights so to use. we do pools, sheds, farm buildings, things like that. so obviously Australia New Zealand is is is my focus, but we've also got the platform in the US and Canada as well. Yeah. And and we've written an article with Tim previously and we'll we'll get into the pod, but I might put the link below because the stuff you're doing in the US is amazing and I think it could be helped you know, for
devastation and stuff here as well. I think what your what your platform applies to is kind of endless for building. Yeah. And the the stuff that we've done in in Palisades and with D County for That's wild. Yeah. Wildfires for elect and the wildfire sort of rebuild. It's obviously potentially have you know a similar sort of process here for for any of our bushfires that it you know, God forbid doesn't happen. But you know every year. And floods correct is what I'm thinking. But we don't want to talk about that. That's all the negative stuff.
We're talking about the good stuff today. So today I'm going to talk with we're gonna sort of we've got Megan here and Mark to talk about how Megan at StyleMaster one of the best builders in Australia, I'm gonna say that again, how Megan implements it in the business and things like that. So Megan, could you kind of tell us what did the old way kind of look like when you were
working with a customer, you know, just trying to site their home and things like that. What did what did that sort of look like for you previous to Can I Build? well StyleMaster are leaders in the residential construction industry, as you've mentioned. A couple of times now. Yeah thank you. We welcome everyone knows it. Thank you. We welcome proven technology into our business to make our processes more streamlined and giving the client a better experience and
And yeah, all of that equals you know cost savings to the client as well. you know, thank goodness the old ways are gone. You know, using tracing paper over plans to manually draw them up. Yeah, that was yeah, very time consuming. So thank goodness that they're gone now and that we have a platform like can I build that we can use to quickly set a home for a client and look at any possible, you know.
issues that may be on the block to identify them straight away. Yeah, I I remember, and because you build big, beautiful homes. Like I I said to you before the pod that I have to make a little bit more money in the good builder. But when my wife, when we're going to build, we're going to build the StyleMaster home, which was in Aura, which was a display home on a big acreage block. But I I remember in my in my previous business, Sue, when you're building on these big acreage blocks, just for example, and you've got a huge driveway and where are you going to put all the the sewer
and water and everything like the mains and everything with the power and everything like that. I remember it was just
Something we couldn't do otherwise, really. Is that what you sort of find as well in in your team there? Yeah, yeah. Definitely. Yeah. CanIbuild You can jump on there and straight away you can see all where the services are and yeah, what you need to do. Talking about acreage, you know, if you're setting that home back quite a distance from the road, you can instantly calculate how much extra running you're going to need for for that home and calculate the costs, you know, straight away from the client. Yeah. And I love when you're talking about how
You
can just sort of place a home. I we'll put up a few videos and things like that. I think a lot of people have seen them, but we'll put up a few too. But I actually still know of a few relatively, I'd say, mid-tier builds, and the general manager sits there and cuts out the home like a grid paper. Puts it on a bit of grid paper and moves it around. And they're building like maybe 300 homes, 200, and I might give you.
Do that for every home. How do you actually do it? So, Mark, what do you see out there in a resident space? Are more people sort of navigating to this new way of doing things or what do you typically see? Obviously the uptake of technology across the construction industry is, you know, being a little slow at times, but you do have sort of market leaders and and they're the ones that drive the industry, to be honest. Yeah. and you know
that siding aspect of of you know just making it easier for a consumer and and making it easier for the sales consultants. You know, it's the the instant ability to search an address, place a design, you know, move around. you know the biggest
I suppose thrill for us is you know, we hear stories from sales consultants, I go, you know, the customer comes in and as soon as I type their address in and I and I spin the monitor around and they go, that's there's my block. Yeah. You know, that's that's what it's gonna look like on my house. You know. So you know, for us that's the it's a it's a good reward to to hear sort of those sort of stories come back to us. That the consumers in particular sort of embrace that that process and you know, saves them a lot of time. Yeah, that's it too, isn't it? You get to visualize the home on your block and where it's gonna face and I remember
when we've done a previous podcast with can I build and we had Tim on and I said what do you do and he's like can I build? Can you actually build that home there?
So even that in itself is pretty essential for knowing whether you can build the home. Yeah, as Megan sort of touched on you know, having the overlays, having contours, you know, having the restrictions or setbacks instantly come up, you know, you can see it's it's flood effective or it's bushfire affected or you know, koala protection zones and things like that, which are quite prevalent here Southeast Queensland. So, you know, the instantly to be able to flag those and see those, you know, previously that would take a long time.
To get to. You know, you can spend two or three weeks on that and go, we can't do that because of this. So you've done all this work over a period of time. Well, now you can see that instantly. Yeah. And that's the other thing, like the feasibility of it all. Like the old way of doing it must have been fairly costly. What does it sort of look like as a cost? If maybe I might point this question to Mark or Megan if you're okay with what are the quite a costs do you see typically across builders what they're they're spending to implement this sort of technology?
Well, I mean the cost is is fairly limp, like fairly fairly small com compared to to what it would have cost previously. if I take a if I take a modular builder or a or a builder that that, you know, is based, you know, it might be in Sunny Coast or in in Brisbane, you know, if they're building in Roma or, you know, a regional area, they would have to drive out there. Yeah. They would have to do a site inspection. Yeah. You know.
And that cost is huge and time is is is obviously costly. so now they can do that instantly. You know, there's there's no thousand dollars. Even from a you know, getting a survey to go out there to get to get, you know, levels and things like that. That
From an instant feasibility, we can get that. Yeah. Down to two hundred fifty mil. Yes, you're still gonna get a survey later, but from that instant aspect, you can get that straight away. Yeah. So, you know, as they say, time is money, but yeah, there's builders out there we'd be saving potentially thousands of dollars on yeah on a on a site. Yeah, and and this is about style master, not me. But I remember and and we talked about it previous when we're sitting there when I was previously involved in a building business, we were wanted to go to
Gympie and Toowoomba very easily with can I build? I tell you that. we were able to cite the homes and sell the homes a lot quicker than what we would have otherwise. So that's really interesting. Megan, what about for you? Like for your internal team not having to do that, what does it sort of mean for you and your internal team in terms of you're able to maybe get on to outside
Of traveling around and jumping to all these sites and doing all this stuff. Does it really impact the way you operate? Definitely. Like we were talking about before, it's not only my new home consultants that are sitting in the display homes, you know, talking face to face with the clients, it's my team internally, so my drafting team and the estimating team, because we need to be able to interpret what's on the screen that can I build's giving us.
And the drafting team or estimating team can jump into the program as well and have a look and then give us the information that we need to pass on to the client, which that you know, beforehand they may have had to, you know, go to a certifier and pay extra money to a certifier or
Yeah, there's yeah, a lot of you know benefits for can I build throughout our whole business. Yeah. What about your salespeople? Do they enjoy using it and and and and and showing the client their home? I th that used to be quite exciting for me. And like I think Mark talked about being able to go, That's a design you like, that's what it's gonna look like. Does the does it blow the customers' minds when you do it? It does. Yeah. They love it. And the cluster the customer also loves to get involved. so they're like, what if
We just turn the house a little bit this way, or you know, yeah, instead of that design, what about that one? And we swap it around, and it's it's instant. You can just pick another design and pop that on there, and yeah, clients actually love the you know back and forth with the sales consultant to get the you know best design for their book. Yeah, and this might be a stupid question, so I apologize for this. But if you're building a pool or your pool builders are building a pool, do you include that to me?
When you're kind of siding the home with the pool as well, and they can see the pool and the home together. We do. So we do build pools, which as part of our business. I'd love it. Which is fantastic. And yeah, we've got pools on Canabuil that our shapes, because we've got certain shapes of our
pools that the clients can pick from and they're all in can I build and the client can select which one we pop it on their plan and they can see exactly how their plan's going to work. Their home's going to work with the pool. You were going to excite my wife like so much because she is like, we're building that style master home and we're having a pool. And she's like, I want the kitchen overlooking the pool and have a servery and stuff like that. So that's going to work with can I build? I'll I'm loving that. That's so cool. So I didn't yeah didn't know you built pools and
and all of that and but wouldn't that make it easier? You know, just all of that stuff. what other things can you kind of add into can I build as well for for the home builders out there? Are there other elements that you add in there, sheds?
If you're doing that, like what else to builders sort of use it for? Yeah, you can definitely add in sheds. We haven't got that into ours yet, but my Mark and the team have showed me so many different things that can I build, can do, and what is coming, working out when you've got fall across the block, working out how much retaining you're going to need on the on the lot. So there's there's it's endless really. Yeah. I think as you said, I mean the visual aspect is is one. I mean you can visual visually see the
side 3D now. So as we said about retaining walls, we can visualize the batter, the cut, the fill, all that. we've got peering costs and things now through the system. but from the pool and the and the other build types, I mean we've got a lot of companies that do you know family accommodation. Yeah so so secondary secondary dwellings so we can put a granny flat and another bits and pieces over at the main house and then when they may put a secondary dwelling or something like that on. The the beauty of the system
is it isolates the two build types as well. So you've got the main house, which has got its own rule sets and and setbacks and things. And then obviously he talks about a pool. Obviously pools have got different compliance. Yeah. So that obviously works that out for it as well. And that's all inbuilt in the platform. Correct. Yeah.
Yeah, this is I don't know why you wouldn't actually use it. As I said, you know, when I did my thing I was like, can I build? But you know, as one of the most revered builders in Australia, let alone Queensland, and you've got such a great reputation for how you deliver, you know, do you find that this is part of that experience in delivery to Megan, that this is a a good part of the experience when you're first talking to a client? Most definitely. The experience has to start from the moment that you
engage with the client. That sets a tone for the entire journey. So they've got to have that good experience up at the front of it so that they it continues all the way through their journey right to handover. Yeah. And that's what I hear like in the just talking about you, Megan and StyleMaster, that's what we hear in the industry. You guys deliver such good experience from start to finish. I know you do other things outside of can I build and I'm not, you know, being disrespectful to can I build.
But your thinking at StyleMaster always seems to be how do we make this as as good a and smooth as possible for our clients and obviously why you've been around so long. The client is the number one
part of the business. Without the client we don't have a business. Yeah. So the client is, you know, always first we need to put them beyond anything else so that yeah they have a great experience. And then tell their friends and then yeah jump on Facebook and tell everybody on Facebook how amazing their experience has been. Yeah. Well we even talked about it back there. I think you're the only ones that don't get mentioned on Facebook in a negative manner really. So you must be doing something
very right. But Megan, another one for you. The moment it clicked, when did you kind of go, wow, this platform's pretty cool, it's it's working for us. When was that for you at at StyleMaster
There's one thing that does come to mind when you ask that question. there was a gentleman that had called up, he hadn't purchased the block of land yet. It was for a knockdown rebuild, and he hadn't purchased it yet. And we jumped on straight away onto Can I Build, had a look at the block for him, and instantly we were able to identify that there was quite a few issues on the block that were going to contribute to the cost, the site costs of the build. So when you've got more.
site costs when you're under budget that can't go into your build the the part of the the journey that you you know you're going to enjoy living in that house so we then had a look around for other blocks of land for him we were able to use can I build as well to look around the neighboring you know what was else was was for sale we found a block it was a lot better to build on so the client then purchased that was able to redirect his funds from those sites
cost into the build. Wow. Yeah. That that's the that's the best part of can I build? Going back to the old days, I mean that would have been the clients purchase that block and then come to you later and you know you're left without any options. Yeah. And you're trying to do it for them. Yeah. You know, a and and as you said, Megan, and this is why I want to do a pod with you not outside of Can I Build, but I think you've got a lot of great experience. You know, you were talking out the back
before now around you know the current market for example. You look at the current market, everyone's on a budget. Yeah. You know? So you've got to make sure that
You want to deliver the the best absolute product and result for them. so yeah, and that's the way you go about it. That's that's really cool. That's so cool. Mark, one for you, mate. The features of can I build? I think we've talked a little bit about it and you did talk a little bit about it, but how does it actually work? Like I I kinda know, so I'm acting a bit dumb here. But how does it actually l work when you when you do you do you put an address in or how does the platform if I if I go from a a a very
Sales focused perspective and a consumer perspective. I want every builder to be using can I build? Like I'm sorry, but StyleMaster is sitting here and they're wonderful and and like this is how good a builder they are. They've come on the Good Builder Podcast to talk to thirty thousand builders about using a platform that they use. Like this is the type of builder they are. So yeah. I mean, yeah. So simplistically, you know.
A consumer will walk into a builder or or a display or sit with a salesperson or a builder and you know ultimately they've either got a plan a subdivision or they've got a a knockdown rebuild or their own house that they're looking to to build with. The consultant or the builder can just easily type in their address. Geospatially, that address will come up with a mapping feature. they can see the dimensions of the block, as we can said before, you can see the overlays and anything on the lot that's affecting it. So whether that be bushfire, flood, you know, gold protection, mine subsidence, whatever it
be that that those will all flag and and give the builder the early warning to say that there might be something we need to do here. from there the consultant can select a design off obviously off the design catalog. They can place the design they can move it around find them find the best location on the on that lot you can get contours on the site which is down to 250 mil. You can see obviously the fall across the lot in that dispense so across the build area so you can turn elevations on
we've now got the feature, as I said before, to to visualize that in 3D as well. so you will see the house in in 3D, the lot, the way it slopes, and then you know, your batter, drop edges, retaining walls, and and things through. From there, you can do a site plan, you can put additional features in, additional dwellings, pools, granny flats, whatever it may be. you know, we've got compliance reports. How good is this? So yeah.
From a one for you, Megan, from a customer's perspective, when do you see less this is probably a off on a tangent, but do you see less variation in home design when they can see the home in 3D on a block?
Do you see I don't know if you measure it, but do people kind of go, Yep, that's cool. I like it, like the way it looks. Does it help any of that sort of stuff? Or do you think it it does it does a little? Yeah. Like we were talking about earlier. I'm drawing a bit of a bow, but I'm just interested. It does a little, but yeah, like we're talking about earlier, clients, customers like to put their own little spin on the home. Yeah. Because everybody lives differently and everybody needs something different in
their home. Yeah. And that's where I believe that we differ. we listen to our clients and we want to give them that experience that they can, you know, change some things in the home to suit their lifestyle. Yeah. So yes, where they can see it on Can I Build and they can see how it's going to work on their block, but they might still want to tweak a little thing in the home. Yeah. So that they get the best out of the the block of land and their home.
and
and how it's gonna work for them and their family. Yeah, yeah, cool. And I know it's very different. Where I was sort of going with that was I I remember talking to a builder and they've got and this is off on attention, but they've got three D walkthroughs of their home and they're like you're able to see the flow of the home as those people kind of making variations from that. So I was wondering if the same applied more to the external of the home when you're using Can I Build? But yeah, that's really interesting. But I know it's even from previous experience it was a
always a wow moment whenever we used it and we typically didn't get too many complaints or yeah that's where it fits that's the best way to build it build it there. Yeah especially I think when you're on the phone with somebody so if you're if a client has called up and we're answering an inquiry yeah straight away you're on the phone and the client say where are you looking to do your knockdown rebuild they give you the address in real time you're typing it in the block comes up and you're like great I can see your block here
You've got a 20 meter frontage. I can see, and you tell them things about it and they're blown away. Wow. How do you know that? You know, yeah. So getting that information straight up and you're just building that rapport with that client straight away because you can talk to them about their block of land. That is so cool. Instead of having, like you said, the old way go to site. Yeah. It's still there are still clients out there that you know love that, you know, going to their site and actually physically.
Standing on their site and talking about it to them, that's not going to change. Yeah. But the first, you know, conversation, being able to see it and talk to them about it is amazing. Do you know what? You just answered my next question, which was awesome, Egan. No, no, no. It was awesome. Like I wanted to know how does it go from lead to a site? And how does it how does it happen? You just explained that really well. And I think for me, what it did was.
It it really clarified that canibuild helps build a bit of trust for builders because like you said, you're able to talk to a block over the phone and they're going, my God, how is this wonderful woman talking about this? How does she know about my block? So you've built that trust. It's almost like you've done research prior to them coming to you. And then the second thing about the site, visit.
Maybe that turns into more of a celebration than a where we're gonna do this. You know, you're out on site popping the champagne going, Hey, that's where your house is gonna be. Your bedroom's remember that your bedroom's gonna be there. Here it is on Can I Build? We're walking through the lounge room right now. Exactly. Like that's cool. You know, that kind of visit. It changes the dynamic of the visit. It does.
Yeah, that was really cool, Megan. Thank you for answering that question and yeah, going through how it goes from from Ali through to site. Like that was such a good explanation and and you explained, as I said, the two things about trust and then cyph is wonderful. One for you, Mark.
We know StyleMaster are you know, they're probably a bit more experienced, bit more advanced Who's the platform actually for? Is it for builders just like Megan and Sharon and StyleMaster? Or is it for smaller guys, bigger guys? Who do who does the platform sort of cater for, mate? Yeah, I mean the platform in in general cater everyone. I think as you mentioned before, I mean, you're involved in a in a smaller building company. we have builders ranging from, you know, build that build 10 homes.
year through to building thousands of homes a year. Some of the US builders, you know, are 45,000 homes a year. wow. You know, so it's it it it caters for all of those ranges. I mean ultimately, you know what it does is makes the builder, the subject matter expert very quickly in front of a customer. You know, and I think as you said before, can I build, right? That's ultimately in its name is is what it is. So whether you're building one home a year or you're building you know 40,000 homes a year. It it does the same job as
Yeah. So forty five thousand homes. So it can it can cater to that level of stuff coming through the platform as well. Yep. Wow. Because I did a little bit of work in the US and there are some monsters of builders over there doing some enormous numbers. So that's really cool to hear. And I look at the size of some of the communities that they build. Yeah, yeah, they're yeah, they're huge.
Yeah, because when we were using it, I was a builder that we were probably doing twelve homes a year. And and we found it outstandingly good for our twelve clients each year, one a month basically, that we were kind of plugging through. yeah, that's very cool. that you can do it for that many, you know, homes and builds. Megan, how many builds do you actually do at StyleMaster and put through Can I Build a Year if you don't mind me asking? Last year I only did some numbers not long ago for Sharon, and I think it was something like
140 builds like they're the deposits that we yeah wow that we took. But using can I build, you know, we're probably put through, I think we have about 250
actual lookups that we can use every single month on Can I Build in our subscription that we have. So we pretty much use those yeah for people walking in. Someone might come in and they might be looking at doing their knockdown rebuild in two years time. But we still sit down and we'll, you know, go through Can I Build with them and show them and give them the information to take home. Because yeah, doing that
Yeah, with them, even though they're two years away, they're going to remember that and remember the service that we gave them and they'll come back. So that's why we have so many lookups that that is in, you know, for our subscription. It's not just what we the deposits that we take. Yeah. That's so cool, Megan. And I think you brought up another point, you know, because of the efficiency of the way you can do it, I know, you know, time's money and we've you know, it's for it's true. Well in any business time's money. But when you're wasting less time,
You can kind of give more service almost to a client that maybe two years down the track and you kind of like I think you're a brilliant sales manager and you can obviously see that, but
You're already almost pulling them out of the market two years before they're ready because of the great service you provide and you're not worried about the time that it's going to take to service them. So I think that's pretty pretty wonderful part of it, Yeah, definitely. what about being your sales team and and your team, right? Mm-hmm. You put in can I build? Nobody likes change. I love salespeople, but they can be different at times. How was it rolling it out amongst the team?
It was actually pleasantly surprising that everybody was so you know they were all on board. Wow. They were excited to see the platform because a lot of the my team had heard of the platform. so yeah, so us introducing it, they were excited to use it. Yeah. We're at Starmaster we always want to, you know, investigate in new technology and how it's going to
assist business. Yeah. So can I build I had known Mark obviously from a previous company I worked for and I love the product so I'm a big advocate for the product and yeah bring it across to StyleMaster. Yeah my team love using it. Absolutely love using it. That's cool. I remember working in a building company trying to roll out platforms and they never did. Yep. You know what I mean? Like and and that's where my head was at. What about the the training mark and onboarding?
What do you guys do to support people like Megan and things like that? I mean we have you know lots of different options from the training side. You know some companies prefer that really hands-on sort of level of of implementation and training, and and we cater for that in regards to overhead trainer that that will do one on one sessions with subconsultants, and you know, we'll do team sessions. you also have on the flip side that someone that you know is happy to sit and watch a
a YouTube tutorial or a video on on how to do something. We've got a library of how to videos and documents and stuff through the system. So we we cater for all those different aspects of different business sizes through to from as you said so smaller builders through to the corporate environments and enterprise level sort of customers across from a national basis. Yeah. Yeah and you'll say Mark, you know the bigger the builder there could be more complexities and things like that. But I remember in in my little small building company I I watched
Few other YouTube videos and was off and running and didn't want to bother you guys because we built 12 homes a year and probably weren't worth the time at the time. But we didn't need it, you know. I mean it's the simplicity aspect of the app. it it is fairly visual. you know, from a visual application that generally makes it a little easier to use. Yeah. and you know.
It's it's a lot of follow the bouncing ball, you know, type the address in, place a design, choose a plan option, choose a facade, you know, move it around, do a site plan. So, you know, the process is fairly well driven to to the sales consultants or you know, each company will have their own internal sales processes that can be implemented through the system. Yeah, yeah. So is that how you've implemented it, Megan? It's part of the sales process. And where does it fall? Does it fall just right at the beginning, as soon as you get them in? Most definitely part of our process.
is they will our consultants must provide a sighting on Can I Build when they take a deposit with a client. So that forms part of our process to go into head office. So it must be yeah part of their onboarding documentation when we take that deposit from the client. Yeah. Very cool. Yeah, definitely part of our process. Yeah, yeah. No, very cool. And it's it's actually great to hear you've got a sales process.
There's a lot of builders out there that don't I remember I remember we didn't have a sales process in two thousand and thirteen and we'd been around for that long and we built one around two thousand and seventeen. So it's so important. but yeah, then to have a tool that can help that sales process and it be it it's truly part of the process. It's part of the paperwork, it's part of what gets given to the estimating team, what's going on so they know what to cost up. I think it's pretty phenomenal. Do you find
Megan that since you using it you've had less mistakes in terms of the siding of homes and and what the cost of of getting the land right and everything.
kind of comes to when you're when you're using can I build? Definitely. The consultants still need to have that level of expertise in what they're looking at. So they've got to be able to interpret what they're seeing in front of them. So if the setbacks are coming up on Can I Build at you know 1.5 from the wall or they've got to know whether they're looking at a at a most
Of the setback. They've got to know that if there's a vacant block next door, we're talking about you know QDC, you can you know change those setbacks. So the yes, it's cut down any little errors that might happen, but also the consultant still needs to rely on their knowledge and not just what's on in front of them. So they've got to interpret what's what is in Can I Build? Yeah, yeah. You can't just really.
What's there, you've gotta have the knowledge. It's I talked to a lot of people about this, our industry. Yeah. It's not just you know, being a new home consultant and selling a beautiful home. There's so much knowledge that you need in the background to yeah, be able to do that job. Yeah. No, that's really cool. I I love how you've spoken about it and and are so open about it, Megan, and what you need. It's a great tool, but you still need
the all the knowledge behind you to make sure it's making the right decisions and you're making the right decisions for the builder. Very interesting. for you Mark, what about tech and AI? So what have you got coming up with Can I Build? Is there anything you can announce or or where do you think tech and I AI are going? I I think this that was a bit of a curly question that probably wasn't on the questions and I'm trying to get an exclusive so you so you can tell me to shut up, mate. Just like shut up Az But do is there where do you see tech and AI going?
Yeah, where do you see AI? I'll say construction and AI, rather than just tech and AI. Thank you. Construction and AI in particular obviously is you know I'm gonna say property and construction historically has been a bit of a a slow moving sort of sort of industry and it's a very slow moving boulder. But I think now that we're in the phase that we're in now, I think that boulder will soon to soon roll fairly quickly.
you know, I again we've been in the industry a long time, but it's it's always been fairly slow to move. And yeah, you talked about making change and and getting sales consultants to to make change, but AI in particular is obviously driving that driving that change. we've got a lot of AI sort of stuff in the pipeline in regards to you know compliance, permitting
That space is probably the the the next key. we spoke about sort of the the digital landscape of Newland Estates and and aspects of that. So we've got some AI stuff coming from from the the land space and and Newland Estates. and you know probably in the next two months or so we'll probably see some some some announcements in regards to some other new features and stuff on on the application on
probably leave that one for for Tim or no for someone one of the other guys to sort of go through. But definitely watch your space. You can be damn sure when you do announce it we'll be singing it from the rooftops. Like I I really think like I love the tool, used it myself and and know plenty of builders and obviously with StyleMaster, we've got the greatest respect for you know, I can't thank you enough, Mark, for bringing Megan on actually because I'd I'd I'd kind of wanted to talk to someone from StyleMaster for so long, but to see a a revered builder in
the industry and a and a great lady that has been in the industry for with great builders by the way. I mentioned them because it's a style master one, but you've worked with some great builders too. you know it's really cool to hear from your perspective as well, Megan, how it makes your your job and your team's job easier. that's really cool but I can't wait for those announcements you're not giving me much mate but that's okay. Promise to be personal. No well you've got enough tech in the platform already. Like really again there's lots of IO in the platform I know I know I shouldn't have gone there.
There's more coming. So I know. And like for most builders, from what I can see, and Megan would know this better than me, so please correct me, don't be afraid to correct me, but there's enough in there already to do the job that it's meant to do. Like what else? You know, unless you you know, go build it for the councils to permit you guys a bit quicker. Maybe you're working in the space, I don't know. Anyway, what about what about you, Megan? Where where would you like Tech to take a bit of work off?
your team's plate going forward. it doesn't necessarily have to be with Can I Build? because I think they do a pretty good job, but where would you like to see some tech out there in in the sales job? Is there anywhere that you've kind of gone this could be done better, a bit easier?
Helping us. It's not really what we would remove. It's more of what tech is viable for our business to make our processes more streamlined. Okay. You know, like any responsible enterprise, new home construction company. yeah, we value streamlining our processes because that means a better experience for the client, which is when processes are streamlined.
It's more cost effective for the client as well. So it's not I can't think of something that I would remove, but we welcome technology. Yeah. To make things more efficient and smoother, like can I build. I love it. That's a great way to look at it though. Because that's what it's there for. I think
I think the biggest problem with tech, and I think Mark, you can comment on this one if you like, if I'm totally wrong, mate. But I think people are looking at tech as answers to remove things, but they're tools to enhance things. And I think that's the way we've got to look at tech. Like like actually exactly like you said, Megan. You're like, can I build like I know you love it, it's fantastic, but the it's like any use of AI or or and I know that can I build is not all AI, but
You still got to use your own knowledge to kind of do things as well. But if you can make the job easier and more efficient, then that's where tech falls in. Do you sort of agree there, Mark? Is that what you guys is that the ethos of I I think the philosophy is is you know is making it simpler, right? Yeah. And and whether that's our platform or you know, a sales process.
process or something or a or an internal process for the builders after kind of build from a from engineering or a drafting or whatever it is later on estimating you know how can we simplify that process from from start to end. Yeah. So from a
construction sector, that's that's the the end game I suppose. Yeah. and I think you mentioned before, I mean, you know, permitting through councils, how do we make that faster? Mm, how do we bring new land estates to to market quicker? Yeah. So from a government perspective, you know, there's there's so many different factors there that we can be bringing it from a property perspective rather than construction. So Yeah. No, there's there's lots of stuff out there happening. Yeah. And I think to both your points and especially yours Megan, things that need to be removed, they just need to be quickened. When you talked about council permitting that
straight in my head I'm like come on guys let's yeah do this a bit quicker if we can but we'll see what happens there. Well my couple of questions left still doing feasibility manually do you think what's the first thing that you would look at?
Probably implementing can I build up probably answered my own question then I Do you think it's still a thing? Do you think it's Well I think as you said th there are still builders out there that that will still be drawing on grid paper and and cutting it out. I mean, I built I built ten years ago and the builder I was building with was still doing it. And and I remember that process and I saw a guy doing it last year and I was surprised. I was like, my god, and I'm sitting in this big builder's office and he was the general manager and I love the bloke but I was like, What are you doing dude? So
So I I saw it ten years ago and if there's still builders doing it now, you're like, you know, is there a a quicker and simpler way? You know, are they running their businesses effectively or efficiency efficiently, you know, to get the best possible outcome? I mean, yes, it works, don't get me wrong, but there's a lot of manual process, a lot of time to get to that end result, which you could do within a couple of minutes. Yeah, well I think this bloke, especially Mark, and sorry to cut you, mate, but I I I asked him, I said, How much do you want? And he said, I'm on half a million.
And I'm like, that's a good wicket, mate. How long does that take you? Three or four hours? Ooh. Probably a grand or two. Just sitting there cutting shapes out. I was like, that's a bit like preschool. Wish I was painting that in preschool. I shouldn't say that, but that's where I was kind of at. I like, Are we in preschool? Are we building homes and and setting them out properly? So yeah. Very interesting. You don't have to comment on that that both of you. I know this gentleman very well and he'll know who I'm talking about. But I I was dumbfounded. I was a bit like
still doing this in 2026. I don't think it's just about sighting the home either. I our team uses can I build to scan around the local streets. So you want to look at traffic control if you're on a major road so we want to look around you want to look where trees are. So it's not just about sighting the home. There's so much more that we do with can I build I'm sorry you brought that up. Well I was a lot of pool builders will will have to
do
the same thing with you know whether that's transporting in a shell or cranes or you know the modular and transportable homes in the same boat you know they've got a they've got to look at streets and and stuff for for trucks to get the to get the stuff in. and that's what you're using it for as well? I am so glad you said what else are you using it for? Is there anything else that you're using it for? So you site streets, making sure you can traffic management, all that sort of thing. bushwire zones. yeah all those they're all probably they're they're all
on the on the actual platform. Yeah. They are on the platform. You can see them. You can see the flooding there. So you you still use the cancel platforms as well because you want to go read the code and know exactly what that flood overlay means. But it's triggered some kind I built it's there, we know it's there and then we can go back and have a look what that actually means through the cancel portal. Yeah, yeah. Wow.
Well, you've already been so generous with your time and experience, both of you, Megan and and Mark. But I've got a question for you, Megan and then it's I feel a bit awkward actually asking it because it's like you guys are such good builders. You know we're called the good builder and we love educating people, but you know, this is a bit of your IP, but what would you sort of say to a builder that's still doing it the old way? you know, would you
recommend can I build? Would you tell to go across to it? I know that they're competitors of yours and I know the type of person you are and this is quite a pointed question. But
What would you sort of say, Megan? I think that if you're not using Can I Build now you're a little bit behind the times. Yeah. You really should be using some kind of platform. And I there've been others in the industry that you know and they're still around. But and I've used a couple of them and yeah, we just yeah, love the functionality of can I build. So I yeah, if you're not using it,
Definitely cold mu col muck.
This is what we love about what we do here and what we love about builders like yourself, Megan, to, you know, provide that sort of information and experience to other builders. Yeah. Says a lot for yourself, for Sharon, for the entire team. Like that is so cool of you. I've only got one question for you left, but and it's our signature question. Who wants I don't know who wants to go first. You want you you want to go first, Mark? I reckon your turn, mate.
Sometimes we we've only done this once or or twice with two people on the couch. And I think when I asked it, one person said that was my answer. So I hope this doesn't happen. But Mark, mate, you know we're called the good builder. Yep. What do you think makes a good builder, mate? So to me, I mean, a good builder is someone you can trust. I mean, i it's it's someone that's you know got a good name in the industry, that as a customer, you can walk in, you feel comfortable.
Ultimately building a house is the biggest investment you're making. Yeah. So for for me and I mean I've been through the process. So you know you've got to feel comfortable with that consultant, with the process, with the product. so yeah, for for me it's just that initial trust
aspect of, you know, walk in and feel comfortable. Great answer. I love it. I think you hear me talk a bit about trust. I think it's very important. And and Megan talked about it in the podcast. That's what I got from Megan when she was talking about how, you know, a when a customer calls up and you can go, you've got a twenty meter thing here and you got that there and you've got a bit of a bushfire zone at the back. Everyone's like,
There's a bit of trust there. So I love your answer. Megan? I could probably answer this one for you 'cause I think style master are an exceptional builder and a good builder. So your answer could just be StyleMaster. Thank you. But what do you think makes a good builder?
Well, Mark really hit the nail in the head. It's it is trust. Yeah. One hundred percent trust. we are HIA's most awarded builder in Queensland. if you'd enjoy that, Alex. Yes, we are. I I vaguely remember it, but I I didn't have it at the top of my mind. So I think that's a great thing to put out there. Definitely. it's our reputation as well. Wow. So yeah, you need trust because it's the biggest
Mostly it's the biggest investment that a client is ever going to make financial investment, not just financial, it's an emotional investment as well. And they need to know that they are in great hands. Our new home consultants are fantastic, we've got an amazing team. And then when they come into head office, I would say most clients will get to meet Sharon Biconi. She will always be in head office, she will pop down into the mid.
Meetings and introduce herself. It's it's just that trust that the clients just experience every time that they talk to anybody at Stellmaster. Yeah. Right through, like I said, to the consultants, to the drafting team, to our administration team, to our building approvals team. It yeah, everybody has so much knowledge, and the client just feels that they're in great hands. I love it. You know, I got a little bit of response when you talked about that, actually. I I really did. I I think that's so.
cool and he said it with so much kind of conviction which I love and and the good thing is not the good thing the the real thing is you know off the podcast everyone we had a little chat out the back you spoke about exactly the same way mean you spoke about the family you spoke about how they're they're proud of what they're built reputation means everything to them and then obviously the trust so I I think that was one of the one of the coolest answers and again
sure anyone's just put it down to trust. But it comes down to that in everything.
That was a very cool podcast. Everybody, we're gonna put all the links below and we're gonna put the links to Star Master's new website below as well. That's a little one for you. That's exciting. If you don't mind. Yes. Have you been working on that vegan? We were you part of or you were part of the team that worked on it. it's gonna be a good one. There was quite a few people involved in that one. And we're super proud of our new website. It went live on Tuesday, I think. Yeah, wow. So this week. Yeah.
Very, very cool. Fantastic. Well, we'll put a few links below. Star Master website, and of course, can I build? I know you know Megan's sitting right here, but every builder jump on can I build. You see how the best do it, you might as well copy. Like it's that kind of easy. I've used it before. my previous business that I'd worked for uses it. They're quite a big franchise. There's a lot of good.
Builders using it and I think it's just gonna make your team much more efficient, your customers much more happy. And you've you've heard it from one of the best in the business, right sitting right here, Megan here from Startmaster Homes, who's the sales manager who says it helps build trust. So yeah, very cool. Thank you so much for your time. Megan, number one, for being so open and talking about your your building company and experience and and Sharon's building company and style master, and of course, Mark.
Mate, you're a legend. Any last words, mate, that you want to say? No, again, thanks for obviously allowing us on and thank you again for for spending the time and and jumping on with us. Yeah. All right. Well I'll end it there. That was one of the coolest podcasts. And again, to have builders on here like me and that'll share knowledge with all you guys out there when you basically are competitors shows the kind of builder they are. So listen to them. Most awarded builder in Queensland. Thank you.