Episode 10 Podcast Transcript
Speaker 1 (00:00):
When you master this skillset, that’s what’s going to stop people hijacking your time, and it’s also what’s going to cut your phone calls in half at least because now you’ve got a team that works for the business, not you working for the team. Hi everyone. Rob Kropp here. Welcome back to the Trade Den podcast. Great to be here, Dan.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hey everyone. Yeah, great to be here. Rob, really looking forward to today.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Yeah, how was the weekend?
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Weekend was great. It was great fun. We had our client weekend just gone, so graduated a whole new group of people in what we call our leverage programme and I really enjoyed it. It’s always a great weekend. I know you love it too.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Yeah, absolutely. This was group 30 of our graduating class, of our leverage coaching programme that we’ve run over the last number of of years now. And what an absolute cracker of a group. For those who don’t know leverage goes for four months and it’s our phase two of our coaching programme. And for this whole group, it was a whole group of clients who had graduated from launch into leverage and now they’re getting ready to take that step into our lifestyle mastermind. Wasn’t there some absolute transformations in that group, even in a shorter period of time? Wasn’t there?
Speaker 2 (01:21):
There is, it’s probably, I mean, pulled back the curtain a little bit that session we do at the very beginning around sharing wins and what people have learned and the biggest things they’ve taken out of it always throws things up, but this group was amazing in their ability to step into their roles as leaders and managers and really let go of some of the things that have not so much held them back in the past, but the things that they needed to get done in order to be ready for this next step in the growth of their journey. So no, it was really great to hear some of those stories
Speaker 1 (01:50):
And what I love about this programme is it really helped these guys really structure their business to be able to now take that step forward and grow it into a true lifestyle business. And what they’ve done over the last couple of days is, as you said, they shared their wins. We taught principles around visioneering, we shared some stories to expand their minds as to what’s really possible. We had fun at dinner, we had a great night just getting together as coaches and clients having dinner together, celebrating the time it’s been. And then for the rest of the weekend we spoke leadership mindset, financial management systems, and they did some really deep work around engineering their vision over the next one to two years ahead, which then becomes the basis of their growth plan, not only in business and life as they transition into the mastermind programme, but gee, they walked away with a tonne of energy behind them feeling inspired. I think they’re ready to go and find another gear arn’t they?
Speaker 2 (02:44):
They did. And so it always leaves us feeling good too when we walk out of there. It’s a fun time. So no, I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Yeah, nice. Awesome. Well, let’s get stuck into today, and this is a really big topic because for most business owners they understand that people and systems absolutely is what sets them free from the day-to-day grind, but what often happens is that they get to the point where more people create more problems and they’ve got more opinions, more responsibilities, bigger payrolls and comes with that. There’s a lot of problems. It often helps ’em feeling trapped with less control than ever before. What they’ve got is they’ve got this team around them but they don’t have any time and time becomes a massive issue. What often happens is then they become a bit of a slave to their team. They have this mindset going into it thinking, well, if I just build my team then I’m going to get time back. But actually the opposite often occurs where they become a bit of a slave to their team and they get to the point where they’re just getting lots and lots and lots of phone calls and it’s not uncommon when we talk to clients at the beginning of their journey, they’re getting anywhere from 50 to 100 calls a day.
(04:01):
And so what often happens is they’re, instead of the owner getting time, having the ability to grow their business and enjoy time outside of the business, they spend all their time running around after their team.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Yeah, absolutely. They created a new day of the week called Should Day, it’s all the stuff they should have got done, all the stuff that they didn’t get done, all the stuff they should get done tomorrow. They just end up chasing their tailors as the team sort of builds out and people are looking for answers and all those sort of things, and it’s not far from it. When we find guys that are really stuck in this, and we’ve got some great stories today that we’re going to share with you guys around our experience with this and how guys have been able to break that dependency. So when they do that though, they’re at that point where it’s like, what’s the point? Why am I doing this? I’m stuck now. I can’t do anything that I know I should do. I can’t do the things that should be getting done. Everything feels urgent. It’s just spot fire after spot fire after spot fire. And guys, this is what adds to that burnout. This is what adds to that sense of absolute stress and just feeling like you’re on the back foot.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Because when do business owners in this position, when do they often find themselves doing these tasks? When are those times?
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Yeah, they’re at night. It’s always at night. We always hear it. It’s at the kitchen table and it’s at the expense of something else. There’s always something that has to suffer as a result, and typically it comes out in conversations like, well, I never get to go to the kid’s practise. I can’t pick ’em up from school. Their struggles with the wife at home. She’s not happy because I’m struggling to get quotes out the door. I’m now chasing work because I haven’t had time to go out and sell. So all of these sort of compromises and trade offs are happening and when life becomes a trade off, that’s when our mind really becomes unsettled because you’re constantly going between things that should have happened either in the past or in the future. You’re never really present with where you are. There’s always that next moment that you’re either trying to chase or catch up on.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
And I think that’s when that state of mind from a state of mind of being in conflict comes in because they get into business, someone gets into business because they want to be able to make more money and have more free time, but the conflict happens is because all of a sudden areas of life are in conflict, their health, their wealth, their business and their connections, what we call the four primary legacies here at Pravar Group, those areas of life are in conflict because everything that a business owner should get done during the day isn’t getting done like you said before, because they’re too busy fighting fires, running around, solving everyone else’s problems. Then they get to the end of the day and they’re like, I’ve still got eight hours of work of my own that I’ve got to get done. That’s the conflict that appears.
(06:44):
It’s nights, weekends and that type of thing. And then when they want to go on holidays, that’s the worst one is someone wants to be able to go away on their holidays, they might have a young family and they’re like, great, let’s go away for a week or two and enjoy time. But off comes, the laptop gets packed in the bag and they’re sitting by the pool answering the phone, sending invoices, running around after their ground crew, and then that just creates more problems because instead of being there on holidays, enjoying time with your family, you’re spending the whole time not being present with them because you’re caught fighting fires with your team. That’s why so many business owners in the trades and construction space, the only time they take off is over the Christmas period when the whole industry shuts down.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
And it’s no wonder, and there’s nothing worse is there when you’ve got guys that are stressed before they go on holidays, they know what’s coming and they shouldn’t be going. They know there’s going to be problems, they’re going to have to work. And as a coach it’s always, it’s sad and it’s sort of frustrating that these guys are doing this stuff and it’s just something that they’re cramming in rather than really being able to get away and enjoy it. It just creates even more headaches. So everywhere they turn, they just feel like they’re getting slammed for not being where they should be.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Yeah, absolutely. So if you feel like your ground crew is not capable for making decisions for themselves and you want to be able to reduce the amount of phone calls that you get in your day by at least half, and I know that’s a pretty bullish statement by at least by half, then this episode is absolutely for you and what we’ve got for you today is three key strategies that we want to be able to talk through to be able to how to help you prevent people from hijacking your time.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Yeah, absolutely. So when we go through these, I think just making the point that when we talk about cutting those phone calls in half, it doesn’t mean that you do this automatically and tomorrow they go by half. If you want to do that, just throw your phone in the bin, don’t talk to anyone that’ll achieve the same result. But when we talk through these things, what we want you to do is look at these key points and where they’re relevant for you and start the journey, start to work on this stuff over time and start to peel it back. So the very first key point we’re going to talk to is you’ve created a culture of dependence on you.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
So where do you think, Dan, that the three main reasons are that your ground crew often become reliant on the business owner?
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Yeah, in terms of the context of culture, I think the first one is there’s a sense of laziness.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Laziness. It’s not like they’re being lazy in their ground crew, but what do you mean by laziness in your mind?
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Yeah, not by activity. If you look at it, everyone’s running around like crazy doing what they can to close our jobs and start jobs and there’s a lot of activity, but laziness in the sense of decision-making. So what happens is that we call it their decision muscle atrophies or it just weakens to the point it’s not being used. So if you’ve got a ground crew and they’re coming to you for decisions all the time and you’ve got this sort of pattern of behaviour and why your phone’s ringing a hundred times a day, typically it’s because people are offloading the decision making to you still. So what we talk about by being lazy is it’s your ground crew’s got a decision making muscle that’s not being used and you are doing all the heavy lifting.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
How do you think that’s also contributed? Because the owner’s also often the one with the most experience, they’re the boss, they’re the most authority on site and they often then build a team around them initially. How do you think that contributes to laziness also within the team?
Speaker 2 (10:18):
It sort of plays into our second reason, which is fear. So what happens is as those decisions are getting made and as people start to become reliant on decisions, there’s also sort of a sense of fear. I don’t want to do it wrong. So again, best intentions. So just as you’ve created that culture of dependence on you, people then out of best intentions don’t want to muck up. No one sets out to have a shit day, no one sets out to ruin a job or cost the business money deliberately, but what they then are, they’re scared. So they’re scared of being wrong or making a mistake. So I’ll just check in with the boss, I’ll just make sure, I’ll just give ’em a quick phone call.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
So when they become scared, what often happens then they get to the point where they become fearful of making decisions. What often then shows up amongst in the mind of their ground crew.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
In the ground crew, it is that sort of sense of, well, hang on a sec, everything needs to be run past someone. There’s no ownership taken or responsibility and everything sort of still falls on the owner and that ground crew just becomes an extension of what I call arms and legs. So best judgement isn’t being developed, the team doesn’t elevate as you go over time. In fact, they get worse because they’re not exercising those muscles. They need to become a really effective high performing ground crew where they’re making good decisions, they’re thinking ahead, they’re being proactive, all those things that you want as an owner, you’re not seeing that because guys, they’re, they’re not being either given the opportunity to do that, which could be your contribution towards the culture of dependence or they’re just way too scared to even try. And then that shows up in terms of avoidance. So they’re trying to avoid anything that puts ’em under the spotlight. So you get guys flying under the radar and you end up just getting surprise phone calls, urgent phone calls, spot fire. You won’t believe what’s happened next and 9 times out of 10 you’re probably sitting there going, you could probably solve this.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Isn’t it amazing that, and I’m sure if you’re listening today, I no doubt that you absolutely experiencing this on a day-to-day basis, whether it’s absolute just laziness of them making decision, they’re fearful of making decision or they’re just avoiding making a decision. No doubt. I want you to think about over the last number of days how often this has showed up in their world and isn’t it interesting for the owner they make that decision where it’s like, I want to be able to get off the tools to be able to focus on growing my business, but isn’t it interesting that they get off the tools, but all these phone calls then appear is they may as well be on the tools they’re on site because they’re doing all the thinking just remotely, aren’t they?
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Yeah, you might not have the tools in your hand, but it’s your brain that’s being used and your brain is on site because that’s all you’re dealing with all day. And we see this all the time, a client that we’ll talk about today. Frank. Frank’s a painter and he’s got a crew with painters and maintenance and all those sort of things, and he got to a point with his guys where he was literally handcuffed to his phone and as he built out his ground crew, I remember he was telling me the story as I was coaching him and his daughter was in hospital and he was on the phone. He couldn’t even be present for that because jobs still had to be done. He was the brains, he was the guy. Everyone knew it and everything was still going through him and it was absolutely soul destroying for him because he couldn’t take holidays, he couldn’t even look after his family in the way that he wanted to because that phone would keep ringing.
(13:43):
And when we unpacked it, and I really sort of challenged Frank on it, this culture of dependence on you was the thing that unlocked it. So once you recognise this and start to understand where this laziness, fear and avoidance is happening, you can start to see it and you’ll respond way different when those phone calls come in, it’s about how do I get rid of these or how do I get my team to start making more decisions? How do I get them to not be so fearful of making a decision that becomes the goal rather than the resentment of I can’t believe you’re ringing me again, what do you want?
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Yeah, how often do we hear stories like that? And if you’re listening today, we’d love to be able to hear your Frank story into the trade down, but how many times do we hear that where someone’s going through that most amazing time, they’re either getting married, they’re about to have their first, second or third child, and the moment they have their baby bang, they’re straight back into onto site either the next day or the next week and they don’t get to be able to enjoy their rural quality family time purely because the whole business is just solely reliant on them. We’d love to hear your Frank story, so if you’ve got one, share it with us in the Trade Den.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Yeah, absolutely. And as a future episode, I think if you’re sitting there going, great, what do I do? Being able to understand how you can transfer ownership and drive productivity without being on site or in person or having to take phone calls. A big episode that we’re working through at the moment, we’ll be bringing that to you guys really soon. So once we get past that or that key point number one, maybe that culture of dependence on you that you’ve created, the next thing is that guys could be ringing you just because they don’t have the right information.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Yeah, I think we see this a lot in coaching where the owner goes from being the guy on site, they’re the one that has priced the work, won the job, then they’re the one often heading up the delivery of that job and then all of a sudden as they wind themselves back off the tools because they don’t often have the systems in place to be able to do a really good handover to their team, I think this is where the gap starts to appear, which creates all the phone calls because more often than not, the information is sitting in your head as the owner because you’ve priced it, you’ve won it, how many hours are included, all the materials, the scope, inclusion, exclusions, you’ve poured over that job for hours and hours and hours and hours and on end and then it’s all of a sudden it’s like, right, we’ve won it. Let’s give it to my team, and off you go guys, and they kind of have that expectation that they know the job as well as you do, and I think that’s where the problems often appear.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
It is. And I think also then it’s that ability to structure and you spread so thin already that any thinner, it sort of just gets to breaking point and there’s nowhere else to go. So you really have got stuck on that point. So things like clarity as well around what is there that needs to be done in preparation, all of those sort of things start to suffer.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Yeah, I think a really good example around this is when we’re still working with Chris and Andrew based in Sydney, and I think they went through a really good process of, even though there’s two owners, they went and through coaching, we created this process there where there was a really good handover process from sales to operations, and then there was a really good operations from operations down into site into the ground crew. And it is a bit of a two step process, but what was often happening is there was problems appearing on site where there was either blowout of labour, blowout of timeframes, things getting done where variations weren’t being charged for because they just didn’t have all the key information. And so the first part of the process was that step from sales to operations, and that was a really clear handover including scope, inclusions exclusions, a really clear handover in terms of the amount of hours, the allowances for hours, materials, quantity, a really great handover process that does work when you’re a little bit bigger when you might have two people in that role, but even if you are that person who’s still doing the estimation and also the operation, you’re in charge of that.
(18:11):
Having that information documented that then you can then still put down into your ground crew and have all that information on site is so valuable for your guys and girls on the ground and your ground crew because they then know what they’ve got to get done, how it’s got to get done and what you’ve allowed for or not allowed for when you’ve priced and won the job.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Thinking as a client. There’s also a fear around this, and I’d be really keen to hear your take on it in terms of guys that are scared to give over information and maybe where that comes from. I’m talking more around budgets and things like that, what they’ve allowed for on a job, and some guys are adamant, it’s like, no, I never tell my guys that. And I’m always taken aback when I hear guys say that they don’t want to share that information, but it comes from a point of fear.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Yeah, I think people, business owners are scared of what the job is worth and they’re scared that their team might think that they’re selling a $50k, $100k, $200k job and that their team think that they’re making $25k, $50k, $100k job out of it, much money out of it. In reality, your team don’t understand the real true costs of what it takes to run a business. And so when we are working with clients, I think you have to be able to give enough information to the team to be able to then hold them accountable to deliver that job, right? Because if they don’t know what they’re being held accountable to, you actually can’t hold your team accountable to deliver the right job. And so the best way of thinking of this is putting together really good job packs and the job packs includes things like plans or your safety side of things, compliance, inclusions, exclusions, and those inclusions and exclusions are really important because then they know what’s included in a job or what might need to be a variation on the job if it’s been actually excluded.
(20:10):
Then when we talk about budgets, you don’t have to talk about the sales price price of the job or how much margin, dollar value or percentage necessarily is built into that job. I think the most important thing in the end of the day is hours and materials, and if you can share that information with your team, then they’ve got the ability to be armed with this information so that then when they are on site, they’re actually not then picking up the phone going, what do I do here? What do I do here? What’s next? Have you included this? Have you not? That’s what cuts a lot of the conversations in half because they know where to get the information either in a physical job pack or an electronic job pack in your job management system that being empowered with that information is what cuts your phone calls in half because they don’t have to keep coming to you with all the questions every day.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
And when it’s like that, like you said, that you’ve got no choice but to have to answer because you are the one holding the information. So if you are frustrated by laziness like we spoke about and guys just aren’t making decisions on site, really come to this second point and go, well, have they got the information to be able to make an informed decision? Without that, it’s always going to land on you.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
And I think with Chris and Andrew, there was actually multiple benefits out of just doing, setting up this job pack process, there was clear lines of communication between estimation and operations that then set up operations for success. How many times do you hear that sales and operations are in conflict in businesses, but if you can set clear lines of communication there, that’s a big tick. And then there was clear lines of communication from operations down to site, another big tick. But then what happened is not only did the phone calls cut significantly, but the profitability went through the roof because all of a sudden they said, Hey guys, here’s the job. We’ve allowed 50 hours for it. Here’s the materials we’ve got to be in and out and this date, boom, they got on with it, productivity went through the roof, and as a result, profitability followed. So they actually achieved multiple things just by arming their team with the right information. And as well as that, the team were happy because they actually knew and were empowered around what they needed to get done on a day-to-day basis.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Yeah, it’s funny, we talk about cutting your phone calls in half and everyone goes, I’d love that. And you see people’s eyes light up, but really it’s a symptom or it’s even an indicator of profitability if you are taking multiple phone calls from your ground crew all day, guaranteed they’re not producing on site what they need to hit the dates. So it’s a really big profitability driver, this whole topic.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
And they’re robbing you of the opportunity to be able to keep growing the business by doing business development, working on your business, on projects and improving various areas of your business. It’s a double-edged sword. You’re eroding margin on site, but you’re eroding the owner’s time to be able to focus on what matters. So it’s a double-edged sword.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
So setting your team up for success on site and how you do that, another big future topic we can get right into, but what are those key information points? All of those sort of things, and these aren’t difficult to do, but again, it takes focus and setting it up the right way.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
So even though that we might be able to arm our team with information, there’s no doubt that the team are going to come up against challenges and roadblocks all day long, are they?
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Yeah, absolutely they are. And that’s key point number three, you need to or you haven’t trained your team to problem solve and deal with roadblocks effectively.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
And what do you mean by helping them deal with it effectively?
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Yeah, dealing with roadblocks effectively means how long does it take these phone calls if you’re still going to get some, right? It’s not saying you’re not going to get any phone calls, but when your team communicates, there’s a way of communicating and there’s nothing that’ll rob time from you more than having eight different dialects of language if you like, around how people explain problems when they have an issue that you’ve got people that’ll dance around the issue. You’ll have people that’ll be straight on it, there’ll be people just throw it in your face and go, oh, you need to deal with this and you’ve got to get all the information and gather it. So if you don’t effectively deal with roadblocks or you don’t have a way of communicating in your business, you run the risk of just it exacerbates or it compounds the problem because it takes so much longer to navigate the issues when they do come up.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
So what do you reckon are the common roadblocks that people on site come up against?
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Yeah, whenever anyone has a roadblock, I think there is three distinct roadblocks that come up. There’s other things that happen that are way come out sideways and we’re always going to get those things. I think back to we’ve had clients tell us that they’ve had car accidents out of the blue with guys when we’ve been at events and stuff like that. Those things will still happen, but the ones that come up often, these sort of roadblocks that we talk about, there’s probably three things that people look for and when we talk about the three types of roadblocks, if you can start to think in these terms or at least filter the information, it’s going to make you so much more effective in being able to deal with them. But if you can train your team in how to explain them and get them to understand what they’re really asking for, that’s when it’s a game changer. So the first one, people are either going to be asking, they’re going to ask for a resource and typically it’s a resource they don’t have. Can they have more time? Can they get more budget? Can they get a piece of equipment? Is there any labour that’s available? So they’re looking for a resource they don’t have. That’s really the sort of first roadblock. I don’t have enough resource.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
And number two,
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Number two is a solution. So they might not know, so really they’re stuck and legitimately they will be stuck. If you are sitting there as the owner of your business and you know it inside out and you’ve seen everything a million times, obviously you are going to know a lot more and have a body of knowledge that’s deeper than what your fourth year apprentice has, or your supervisor’s looking at a job that you’ve done for the first time in five years. So being able to understand they’re looking for a solution to a problem is the other thing. Now, when that happens and they’re looking for a solution, most people have this idea, and this is a bit of a bug bear in mind, there’s that sort of thing, don’t come to me with a problem, come to me with three different types of solutions. And I always say, well, what’s the point of that? And one of those solutions is probably going to work. Just go and do the solution. I don’t need the three solutions. That’s crazy. What people have to be really good at though is defining the problem that they’re trying to solve. So if you can train your staff and go, if you’re looking for a solution from me, I need you to be really clear on what the problem is and be succinct when you tell me because then I can come back to you with a solution and we can move forward.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
And how often do we hear it? When business owners, they often say that, oh, my first apprentice has become my best tradesman. And that’s because when they’re on site, they invested so much time that apprentice almost sat on their hip for the whole time they trained them and developed them and invested time and energy and money into making them a really, really, really good tradesmen. One of the biggest traps is when you start to wind yourself back off the tools and you start to hire tradesmen and you are not the one there physically on site with your tradesmen and apprentices, there becomes this skill gap and an experience gap. And so if you’re in this position now where you are off the tools or are whining yourself off the tools, you’ve got to be able to remember that still an important part of your role is to still be that supervisor or project manager where you are not just on site to be able to talk to customers or whatever it is, you’re actually on site managing the job and investing time and energy into the training and development of your people. Otherwise, they’re never going to learn how to problem solve and become solution orientated in their world because they just miss that as an experience gap.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
And that’s the third thing. The third type of roadblock is a decision that needs to be made. Now when this happens, you’ve got to be really on this because this is an opportunity for you to train. It’s an opportunity for you to take the approach to say, right, I’m going to help this person learn to make this decision so they can make it in the future. Now, some decisions are going to be way outside of people’s pay grade if you like. It is a decision that you’re not comfortable with the making. You want them to come to you with that and saying, Hey, how do you want to approach this? That’s fine. But when it’s a decision that they need because they’re either unsure, maybe they’re fearful like we talked about before, maybe they’re avoiding it, maybe they’re being lazy, your ability to recognise, hey, this person wants a decision made.
(28:55):
It’s not about how quick can I get them off the phone by giving them the answer. It’s literally checking in and saying, Hey, this is a decision that you can make, and giving them the confidence that this is in their wheelhouse or this is within their scope of responsibility. So you can say to them, Hey, this is a decision you need to make. How would you make that decision? If it was up to you, what would you do? And that’s getting ’em to do that first little light lift, that first little bit of getting that decision-making muscle going. So we sometimes gloss over that really quickly and just goes straight into solution mode.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Yeah, I think problem solving is an absolute skill that has to be developed, and I think the more that you in the beginning, the more that you start to push back on your team around this to be able to go, well, what do you think we should do? How do you think we should handle this decision? If you’re in my position, what decision do you think we can make? It’s the ability to push back on your team. Now, be careful around this. You don’t want to just drop the hammer today and then go, right, I’m not going to answer. I’m going to turn my phone on silent. I’m not going to be there for my team. This is something you’ve got to wind back over a period of time. We’ll come back to the Frank story in a minute because Frank did this really well over a period of time, but I think this whole problem solving muscle is really important that we have to develop within our team.
(30:10):
Now when it comes to decision making, I think the other thing that’s really important to remember is setting boundaries of what your team can and can’t make decisions in. And so if those boundaries aren’t set, then they’re going to come to you for every single decision. Now on your side of the fence, you’re going to be like, gee, I wish they would just make a decision and get on with the job. And then the other side of the equation is, well, how come they made that decision that just cost us $10k? And so the other side of the equation is that you get shitty when they do make decisions, when there’s mistakes that do happen. So I think the antidote to that or the way around that is to be able to make really clear boundaries around authority of decision making to be able to go, well, this is what you can make decisions around.
(30:57):
If it kind of falls in this bucket, let’s definitely come to me. And if there’s anything around compliance, safety or whatever it is, absolutely, let’s come to me. So you don’t want to be in that position where you don’t make yourself available to your team. You’ve got to be able to clearly define what acceptable decision and what isn’t. And the more that you can educate your team around that, the far more empowered they’re going to be to make more decisions, which they’re going to be feeling more fulfilled in their roles because they’re going to feel like they’ve got autonomy in what they get to do on a day-to-day basis.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
100% it is. It’s a training thing. These phone calls are training and coaching moments that you need to take that approach with. If you take it as a got to get ’em off the phone, you’re just going to ramp up the anxiety about them even trying to make a decision or come to you for an answer. So really important that you take that approach. And I think the other benefit of this, when we go through these roadblocks and let’s talk through quickly the communication style. Imagine you still get these phone calls, but now it’s like, Hey, what do you need? Oh, I’m looking for a resource, or Hey, I need a solution to a problem. Here’s what it is, or can you help me with this decision? I don’t think it’s one that I need to make. So if you can do that, then the communication becomes really snappy. It becomes something that you’ve got a way of talking that’s almost shorthanding the business, and it’s not that you’re being abrupt or short, it’s just being really succinct and really cutting to the chase in terms of what needs to get done so everyone can move forward. And it becomes this real proactive approach to getting through a call if one does come through.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
And I think this is a skill that needs to be practised over a period of time because it’s very easy for someone who’s growing their business where they might have one or two job sites going for example, and then all of a sudden they grow and concurrently they’ve got three to four to five to six jobs more. They’ve got multiple jobs going in the same amount of time. This is where the feeling of feeling trapped becomes because when you’ve got one or two jobs, it, well, you’ve got the key guys on there and it’s running well, but all of a sudden all these jobs, all these people asking for advice, questions, that’s where the phone calls blow out in multiple times a day. So what we want to be able to do is practise this skill to be able to manage our team and manage without being in person.
(33:19):
That’s what we’re trying to get to here is how do we manage our people and manage our job sites without physically being in there in person? Because that’s where you get the leverage so that you can set your team up for success. You’ve given them the right information, you’ve empowered them to do what they need to get done. If they’ve got questions, encourage it. But that’s where we see people eliminating the phone calls and people not hijacking your time because people just get on with getting the job done. Productivity increases on site because people are aware of what they need to get done. And then you as the owner get to go, ah, now I’ve got the time on my hands. Let’s get on with the important things, which is actually going to keep driving this business forward.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
And you’re transferring from that culture of dependence on you into a culture of responsibility and empowerment where guys are confident to make those decisions and grow in their roles moving forward.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
Yeah. Let’s tie a bow around these three key principles and maybe we’ll link it back to the Frank story because it’s an absolute ripper. I know we’ve touched on a few points so far as we’ve been talking through the key three keys, but this Frank story is a ripper. When I first met Frank, he is a painter based in Sydney, and I clearly remember the first call that I had with him. He was working 70 hour weeks, he was working full-time on the tools like paintbrush in hand. I think he had two guys in around him doing maintenance work and painting work, and he was running his business from the kitchen table. He already had two young daughters and twins on the way. And I remember him coming to me going, Rob, I have to change. Something has to change because my world world is already chaotic as it is, but it’s going to be even more so with twins along the way.
(35:09):
In that early phase of that journey for Frank, it was really going through that process where he built out his ground crew over a period of time. It was a real transition over probably about a 12 month period. I think he focused on winning more work, which then gave him the confidence to hire another painter. He won a bit more work, hired another painter, won a bit more work, hired another painter, and as he won more, recruited more, one more built out, more his team, he went transitioned from being full-time off on the tools to full-time off the tools. Now we always talk a lot in coaching around you’ve got to transition that, but this is where the problems began for Frank, he got off the tools and he’s like, how goes this? I’m going to be able to have all this time on my hands to be able to do all these great things in business, but lo and behold, the phone calls started and he just became trapped and stuck, didn’t he?
Speaker 2 (36:05):
Yeah, it was a real bottleneck. I mean, in those early days, even doing Q&As with him, it was always that sort of thing, how do I break this? I’ve got the team now, but I can’t get to where I need to even still, and I thought it was going to change because I’ve got the guys around me to get me off the tools. So again, that initial step for him from where he was and what did he do? He created that culture of dependence on him, probably not unconsciously, it was just a phase of that journey. So building the team initially is always going to come with more calls when they come on board because you’ve got to train them. You’ve got to take that time to educate and have them sort of feed into your business and what it needs to be.
(36:42):
But for Frank, that was sort of a link that he struggled to make, but we always came back to that thing, well, what’s going on with the phone? I dunno how I’ve heard you have numerous conversations with him. I did. It was always, what’s the phone doing? It was almost like that was our gauge of where he was at in that journey, and this is where it links up to the profitability and the business development and all those sort of things. So the first thing he had to do was go through these three teaching points and really start to unlock the fear of asking questions or that dependence was really the first thing and have him comfortable that these guys are going to be okay. You’ve just got to give them time space and challenge them a bit to step up, which is something that’s really scary when you feel like you’re handing over the baby or the reins to everything and it’s just going to turn into a disaster, which was sort of Frank wasn’t thinking it was going to be a disaster, but he just had so much invested in his clients and the clients knew him so well.
(37:36):
Everyone had his phone number and it was always just ring Frank. Frank was the guy, and it wasn’t Frank running RFV. It was literally, I’m just going to ring Frank and Frank will get his ass around here and he’ll get the job done, which is great reputationally, but to run a business that way and grow it, it’s just not sustainable.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
And this is why a business owner gets caught in the bottleneck because it’s not that there’s a lack of opportunities out there in the marketplace. The bottleneck appears because the owner, you become the bottleneck. Everything then has to filter through you to be able to get done, and that’s where the bottleneck appears. And so for Frank, the symptoms were he became stagnant, his business plateaued. It started showing up in frustration and stress for him, he didn’t have the time to be able to work on the things that mattered at his business on the family front. It started creating problems between and fractures on the family front because he was having phone calls after hours instead of being present with these kids reading books, doing bed and bath time, his bloody phone was ringing off the hook. He was trying to text these guys around where they need to be tomorrow.
(38:44):
And so if you’re experiencing these symptoms like Frank was, this is fundamentally, it’s because your team have a dependency on you, and it’s not necessarily that you may have done something wrong. It’s just a symptom of where you’re at in your journey in growing your business, where you’ve come from being the guy who started this business to growing it, and you are the most experienced person in the business to now you’re starting the journey of creating leverage, but you’ve also probably never learned the skill of delegation and management and communication. And so what we’re trying to do today is educate you around these key areas of what it takes to manage a really good team. Because when you master this skillset, that’s what’s going to stop people hijacking your time, and it’s also what’s going to cut your phone calls in half at least because now you’ve got a team that works for the business, not you working for the team.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
Yeah, absolutely. And this comes into point number two. We talked about it, right? Was giving them the information they needed. So a lot of Frank’s time had to be spent on building in some of these processes and getting job packs together, and what sort of information do I need to tell these guys? And it was so liberating for him to go through that process and the results were huge, but it was so foreign when he first did it because it would always been just in his head and was on recall, and it was like, well, how are you going to tell guys this? Have you got anything that, is it written down anywhere? No, it’s in my head. It’s like, well, no wonder the phone keeps ringing. So getting it out of your head is that sort of second step that we talked about and getting that right information into their hands to allow them to start the transition to making decisions for themselves. So Frank did that.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
So what does business and life look like for Frank? Now? Let’s give those listening some hope of what is possible.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
Yeah. Well, the next step is you start to build that office crew around you. You start to get admin support in, you start to get guys in supervisors and project managers and things like that. So Frank’s been able to turn that into. Now he is working, he’s 40 hours a week, probably less if I’m being honest, but Frank has been able to cut those hours down and the phone calls have now pretty much stopped. So what we ended up doing was going an educational piece, not just with his team but with his clients as well. So in time Frank was able to transition and get a new phone, he handed over the mobile number and in fact he got rid of that and started doing a mainline, but he didn’t just turn it all off and go, well, that’s it. Like I said at the start of the call, you don’t just throw your phone in the bin and go no calls.
(41:19):
He went and educated every customer and said, Hey, we’re committed to giving you the value you need. We’re always going to do that, but you need to understand you’re going to get more value by going through this process than just picking up the hotline to me because I can’t take this number of calls, ring my number, they’ll support you. They’ll get you scheduled in anything that goes wrong. He had key contacts that could still contact him, but that was really the step that he took to unchain himself from that was getting rid of that phone physically in time, but he needed the structure, he needed the systems, he needed the communication so that people were able to work through processes and problem solve and do all of that sort of stuff, which is why it takes, it took another probably six to eight months for him to get that really betted in so that the customers fit into that process. He’s new supervisor fitted into that process and everyone had the confidence that the business could run even better without Frank being the bottleneck in the business at that time.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
What I love about this story is that this has happened over a fairly quick period of time. It’s probably been two years, and it’s an incredible story where Frank’s gone from working 70 plus hours a week with a couple of people in around him at the kitchen table to now running a crew of paint painters and maintenance guys, a supervisor operationally administration support in an office, running a really good ground crew managing, starting to build out his operational crew, running a great crew of people and around him. And I think you’re being generous on 40 hours a week. I think it’s more like 30 because Frank does love his family time and he’s fishing. He loves his fishing. He does. It’s a real story of success for Frank, and I love telling this story because he’s done so much in such a short amount of time that he just went on that journey to be able to go, I’ve got to make change here. And part of making that change was he built the right team, the right at the right time, but the key here is he’s learned how to manage his team well. That’s what set him free from the day-to-day grind. Most business owners build team and it keeps them more trapped than ever. Whereas the opposite of this is Frank has built team and it set himself free because he manages them the right way.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
Yeah, he’s learned to train them and he’s really invested into that journey of everything we spoke about with those three points. I think the other thing to stress, and this is probably the best thing about the whole Frank story, is his family life that is now better than ever. And there was some really rocky times, we had some pretty big moments in coaching with Frank in those sort of mid points going through. We talked about the leverage programme, but going through that, getting that right and really facing some facts in terms of what he’d set up and how it was impacting the family and his relationship with Raquel, his wife, and with the kids and being able to be there for them, that level of joy and enjoyment and presence is all there now. And if you ask Frank and you get to talk to him, he’s happy than ever with where family life is at. And that six short months ago probably wasn’t the case, but that payoff’s definitely been there and he’s a different guy. His health improved almost on every pillar that we talk about. He’s been able to transform that all the way through, which has been great.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
Yeah, we’re bloody proud of you, Frank. You’ve done an awesome job, mate. It’s really great to see your journey. If you can resonate with Frank’s story and you’re in this position and you’d love some help with this, then make sure you jump into the show notes and click the link there to be able to book a discovery call with myself and let’s unpack your situation. Let’s talk through where you’re at, what’s causing the constraints in your world. Let’s get a strategy call booked in and let’s really map out where you need to take things over the next 6 to 12 months to really release these constraints in your world so that you can build a good team in around you that does empower them, but also gives you the time to focus on the things that matter. So if you’re in that position, let’s get a call booked in and really looking forward to talking to you soon. Let’s wrap it up today. Hey Dan, should we hit the punchline from today’s episode?
Speaker 2 (45:39):
Yeah, I think so. The three key takeaways for the listener is share the right information, get comfortable about sharing that information, work through it and start to hand over the right information to allow people to be informed and ready to make some decisions. The second thing is train your team to problem, solve, solve and deal with roadblocks. Have that way of speaking about roadblocks that’s succinct so that when they do come up, you’re not wasting time just cycling through information that’s probably redundant and sifting through for what the true message is. So training your team to problem solve, absolutely critical. And that last one is you’ve got to move from having a culture of dependency, which has made up of that laziness, fear and avoidance and changing that and creating a culture of responsibility where people are taking responsibility for making decisions or asking for the help they need, be it a decision, a resource, or a solution. And that solution thing is being able to frame a problem. So all of those things are in there, but if you can do those three things guaranteed, you’re going to cut down the amount of phone calls that you’re taking.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
Yeah, I love that. And at the end of the day, the bigger the time and financial freedom that you desire from your business, the bigger the team that you require, you cannot get around that in the trades and construction space. But with that, you must learn how to manage and communicate effectively as a leader. And so what’s made you a really good tradesman doesn’t mean that you’re going to be able to run a great trades business. And so with that comes, you’ve got to have to go on that journey to be able to develop your skills in management, in communication and in leadership. And so we can’t deny the fact that if you want to be able to have great time freedom from your business and you want to be able to achieve some level of financial freedom using your business as a vehicle, you have to be able to build that team out.
(47:25):
And with that comes great management, great communication, and great accountability in the end of the day. Let’s wrap it up by, we’re keen to hear from you. If you’ve really enjoyed today’s episode, come and join us in the Trade Den Facebook community and come and share your Frank story. Come and share it. I know that you’ve got one in there. Come and join us in the community, share your story, and let’s get the conversation started in terms of what was your story, what was your biggest takeaway from today, and let’s get some rubber meeting in the road, and what are you going to be able to take on board from today from one of the three key points, and what can you start to integrate into your world going forward? Thanks for listening today and looking forward to being in your ears again next week.
Speaker 2 (48:11):
See you soon.